THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE (NEW TESTAMENT)

This subject forms the second part of F.F. Bruce's excellent book with the above title (see other posts titled “The Canon of Scripture”). As to the question of which New Testament writings were included in the present canon – accepted by the Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic churches alike – the situation was quite different from that posed by the Old Testament writings. For one thing, the process for formulating the canon of the OT took place over many centuries with details lost in antiquity. By contrast, the time between the actual writing of the NT books and the full acceptance of today's canon took place over just a few hundred years and was more fully documented.

The NT collection took place in stages, with acceptance of some of the writings on a par with the Hebrew Scriptures beginning during the time of the apostles. Thus, in I Timothy 5:18 a saying of Jesus found in Luke 10:7 is introduced with the words, “For the scripture says.” And, of course, there is Peter's statement regarding the letters of Paul which are sometimes twisted by the ignorant and unstable “as they do the other scriptures.” (II Peter 3:16)

The early Church Fathers also attest to the canonical authority of portions of the NT as being on a par with the OT. These include comments by Clement of Rome (AD 96), Ignatius (ca. 110), Polycarp (AD 110-120), and Dionysius (ca. 170), among others.

The general process was as follows: The books were first copied and distributed individually among the far-flung Christian congregations and then later bound together in different groupings such as the gospels or the letters of Paul. For example, the first collection of all four gospel accounts was put together by Tatian around AD 165. It was widely circulated among the churches in both the Syriac and Greek languages. And the first collection of Paul's letters of which we are actually have a copy is the Chester Beatty manuscript written about AD 200. F.F. Bruce states, “What is important is this: from the early second century onward Paul's letters circulated not singly, but as a collection. It was as a collection that Christians of the second century and later knew them, both orthodox and heterodox.”

Each congregation was free to adopt for reading those writings which they felt to be trustworthy, using general criteria which will be discussed in another post. As a witness to the different decisions made by these early Christians, we have the writings of the various local church leaders as well as actual NT manuscripts as a guide. Below is a sampling of some of the major lists of the NT canon that were compiled at the time. You will note that there is a large amount of agreement even at this early stage of canonization although some of the works in our present NT may be missing while other books not in our accepted canon were included by certain congregations.

Marcion (b. AD 100) gives us the first extant listing of what would be called the New Testament. Unfortunately, Marcion would be called a heretic by early standards and by most of us Christians today since he rejected all of the Old Testament as well as distinguishing between the God of the OT from the God of the NT. As a result, he rejected any Christian writings that appeared in part or whole to be favorable to the Hebrew Scripture. His version of the gospels was an edited form of Luke's Gospel. His edition of Paul's letters contained ten of them and was missing (either purposely or accidentally) the Pastoral Epistles. Bruce quotes von Zahn in regard to Marcion: “Marcion formed his Bible in declared opposition to the holy scriptures of the church from which he had separated; it was in opposition to his criticism that the church in its turn first became rightly conscious of its heritage of apostolic writings.”

Thus we see a process that was played out many times throughout church history by which, paradoxically, it was the beliefs of heretical groups that prompted the church to become more definite concerning what constituted acceptable and non-acceptable beliefs and behavior.

In terms of a more orthodox church leaders and what they had to say on the subject, there is Valentinus who came from Alexandria, Egypt and lived in Rome from approximately AD 135 to 160. In his individual writings he cites from most of our current NT canon in terms which suggest that he considered them equal in authority to the OT writings.

The Muratorian Fragment dating to roughly as early as the end of the second century is the next important document worth discussing since the author goes into detail discussing each of the acceptable NT writings. Every one of the books in our present canon is mentioned with the exception of Hebrews. It is a bit uncertain whether I Peter and all three of Peter's epistles are referred to also since not all of the text of the Fragment have been preserved. The Fragment does also allude to writings not present in our canon such as The Shepherd of Hermas (not to be included) and the Apocalypse of Peter (toward which the author was favorable disposed).

Turning to the prominent leaders of the Greek-speaking church in the post-apostolic generation, Irenaeus was one of the most influential during the second century. Unfortunately, our knowledge of Irenaeus' pronouncements concerning the valid Scriptures only comes to us filtered through the writings of the early church historian Eusebius. However, we do know that Irenaeus appeared to at least accept the four Gospels, John's Revelation, I John, and I Peter. And from scattered uses of NT writings by Irenaeus elsewhere we can deduce that he accepted as canonical all of the books in the Muratorian Fragment as well as I Peter. The only non-canonical writing Irenaeus did accept as scripture was The Shepherd of Hermas.

The noted Greek scholar Hippolytus of Rome (ca. 170—235) did not leave us any sort of canonical list, but he appeared to accept most of the we would call the New Testament, placing them under the categories of “the prophets, the Lord, and the apostles.” He definitely quoted from James, II Peter and Jude and wrote a treatise defending the Revelation of John.

Tertullian of Carthage, writing around AD 196-212, appears to have accepted the fact that there was a recognized group of Christian documents within most congretations. These books included, in his mind, almost all of those in our present canon although he makes no comment one way or another regarding James, II Peter, and II & III John. He expresses the personal opinion that Hebrews should be included in the list of acceptable writings and that Shepherd of Hermas should be excluded.

Clement of Alexandria was a contemporary of Tertullian who referred to the term “New Testament” but did not precisely delineate its contents. However, from his writings we can deduce that it included all of our present NT. He also quoted from a number of books outside that canon, but we do not know if he considered them as canonical.

Much of our information concerning early lists of acceptable books comes from the Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea from about 314 to 339 since he collected as many previous writings and church traditions as he could and used them as sources for his Ecclesiastical History. He categorized the various books accepted to one degree or another during his own time in to three groups: (1) those recognized by all the churches, (2) disputed books, and (3) spurious books.

Even though the second category was called “disputed,” the books listed there were said to be accepted by the majority of the congregations. They included James, Jude, II Peter, and II & III John. The spurious writings included even the highly respected Shepherd of Hermas and Teachings of the Apostles (also know as the Didache).

In AD 330, the first Christian emperor, Constantine, wrote to Eusebius asking him to prepare fifty bound copies of the entire Bible for his use. We do not have any existing copies of those manuscripts today and were not told which books were included in the New Testament of these Bibles. “We are not told, but the answer is not seriously in doubt.” (F.F. Bruce) It appears that the contents were the same as in our present New Testament.

The contents of the three earliest manuscripts that we possess are summarized below:

    Sinaiticus (4^th century) – all of our present NT plus Letter of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas.

    Vaticanus (4^th century) – this manuscript is incomplete and so we are missing all the books after Hebrews

    Alexandrinus (5^th century) – all of our present NT plus 1 and 2 Clement.

As far as official pronouncements concerning this subject, they did not begin until about AD 393 with the Council of Hippo and the Third Council of Carthage (397), well after a general consensus among most individual Christian groups had already been reached. These confirmed the NT canon as we have it today. Of interest is the fact that Pope Innocent in 405 came up with a list which is missing Hebrews. The rulings of these church councils thus tended to ratify the decisions made in a number of different church congregations rather than striking any new ground with their pronouncements.