How the New Testament Canon was Formed

The New Testament Canon, Part 1
This is the most commonly asked question anytime I speak with university students. The church has always believed that the documents found in the NT are "inspired" writings...

and the most important source documents for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (and Christian doctrine).

So...this is not only a good question, but a critical one.

My initial understanding of this issue took place around 45 years ago when I took a New Testament survey course as a freshman in college.

Our text was Merrill Tenney's New Testament Survey.
In this text we were presented with criteria that the early church used in the formation of the canon:
- the author must have either been an apostle or a close associate of an apostle
- the document cannot contradict other "inspired" writings with respect to doctrinal teaching
- the document must share the overall "feel" and "character" of other inspired writings, AND
- it must have been cited by early Christian writers and be accepted by the majority of churches

Although this sounds good, you cannot find a clearly described methodology like this in the early church writings. Many early writings were accepted as inspired by some church fathers, yet failed to meet one or more of these conditions.

I had always heard that the canon was confirmed at a church council.
In fact, the exact list of NT documents WAS confirmed at the third Synod of Carthage in 397 AD...

but this was only a regional council and by this time the 27 NT documents had already been agreed upon by most of the church...but there were some exceptions.

My intention here is NOT to make you suspect of the New Testament...quite the contrary,
BUT...I do not think it serves us to prop up our trust in the NT without an honest view of HOW it happened.

The NT was NOT dropped from heaven.
The NT was NOT delivered by an angel.
The NT was NOT dug up in a farmer's field as golden plates like the Book of Mormon.
The NT was NOT suddenly "discovered" in a clay jar with 27 "books" intact like the Dea Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi texts.

The NT developed, or evolved, over the course of the first 250-300 years of Christian history.

As an historian, IF the NT had been delivered by an angel, or unearthed as a complete unit it would not be as believable.

Part of the historical validity of the NT comes from the fact that we can trace its development, even if it's not as precise and clean as we might like.

Oral Tradition
The first thing to realize is that the world of the first century was basically illiterate.

Estimated vary, but most solid scholars say that only around 5% of the population could read and write.

So in the major cities you would have highly educated men...similar to today, however, the big cities were MAINLY less educated.

The history we have been given says that Jesus was educated.
He regularly read the scriptures in the local synogogue.

But the disciples were blue-collar men:
fishermen...said to be uneducated.

The exception would be Matthew, a tax collector.

So part of the struggle for early Christianity was that it started with fairly uneducated people. Our collective history was birthed in oral tradition...people telling the story.

This concept is given to us through the third century church historian Eusebius.
He relates this thinking from the fragments of Papias,
But I will not hesitate...to set down for your benefit...all that I carefully learned and... recalled from the elders....For I think that things from books did not profit me as much as listening to the voices which live...this remains with me more... -  H.E. III.39,3-4

Papias knew the apostle John and remembered sitting as a youth listening to John and other leaders who had known the apostles.

What about the words of Jesus?
The words of Jesus were recognized as inspired very soon after the resurrection,
yet it was 30 years before His words were circulated in written form.

We have a clear example of this oral tradition in the NT when Paul is addressing the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts:
In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said:
"It is more blessed to give than to receive." -  Acts 20:35

This citation is especially interesting since Luke, the author of Acts,
does not record this saying in his own gospel.

In fact, this agrapha, from the Greek word "unwritten," does not appear in any of the four canonical gospels and is a witness to the sayings of Jesus being transmitted in an oral tradition.
[15 min]


The New Testament Canon, Part 2
Many Christian scholars disagree with the theory that the sayings of Jesus were initially transmitted in an oral tradition.

When I say it was 30 years before we get a written account of the gospel that is specifically talking about one of the gospels we have in the New Testament.

Today is Easter.
The first written record we actually have of the resurrection is contained in what we call Paul's first letter to the Corinthians...
Written around 20 years AFTER the resurrection.

In 1 Cor 15 Paul tells us that Jesus appeared to people in His resurrected body:
- He appeared to Peter...
- to the other disciples...
- then to James [the brother of Jesus who apparently did not accept Jesus until this appearance]
- and finally Paul says that Jesus appeared to over 500 people - all at the same time.

So there were a bunch of people walking around for the first 10-20 years who actually SAW the risen Christ in His new body!

Probably as early as the 40's the oral traditions that carried the words of Jesus began to be put into writing.

Part of how we know this is, in particular, the gospel of Luke.
Luke is a Gentile and is highly educated. His Greek is the best writing in the New Testament with the exception of whoever wrote the letter to the Hebrews.

In Luke we have sections where his Greek becomes...messy...a bit stilted and the grammar is just...not...good.

Scholars have reverse-engineered this language and concluded that Luke had Aramaic documents in front of him - basically Hebrew text - and he has somebody [probably a Jew who speaks decent Greek] translating the Hebrew.

It is amazing because Luke apparently makes no attempt to re-state the content and make it "clean" Greek. He is likely concerned to get it as accurate as possible.

In addition to the writings that began to circulate in the first century...
like the letters of Paul...there were probably notes and collections like these Aramaic documents and some stories and sayings of Jesus that were disputed.

It is likely that the early leaders began to hear "odd" sayings that were...just...not...exactly like what the eyewitnesses recalled.

There were numerous Jewish documents floating around as well...
like Enoch, Jubilees, and The Wisdom of Solomon.

Church leaders guarded what documents could be read on Sunday morning and if somebody showed up with a "new" writing, they would have to look it over prior to giving it any room to be heard.

By the end of the first century all of our NT documents had been written.
John's gospel and the Revelation had not circulated yet, but Paul's letters and Matthew, Mark and Luke were already being circulated.

[21 min]

The New Testament Canon, Part 3
By the beginning of the second century we start getting more Christian writings that are seen as "inspired" in different regions.

Didache, 1 & 2 Clement of Rome, Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas.

Each of these were seen in various regions as divinely "inspired" text.

In the 140's something happened that pushed the early church leaders start thinking seriously about having a "canon," some kind of official list of "orthodox" writings.

That event was a man named Marcion who rose up through the ranks of the church in Rome.

Marcion saw the God of the OT as harsh and evil...while Jesus was the TRUE representation of God.

He rejected the entire OT as "Jewish" and "anti-Christlike."
He constructed his own "canon" of writings which included most [but not all] of Paul's letters, ONLY Luke's gospel.

Marcion was apparently charismatic because he grew a following and was eventually excommunicated.

THIS pushed the early church to clearly state which documents were "inspired."

So we are into the middle of the second century.

Two really important Christian fathers write during this period:
Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons.
There were other writers, but these are the main two.

These two men both quote many times from what we call NT documents.
It is Justin Martyr who first clearly tells us that Christians met on Sunday mornings.
Both of these men claimed that there were ONLY four gospels...

Irenaeus gives us a view of the second BIG influence that pushed the Church to have an official list of documents: Gnosticism.
The main writing of Irenaeus is titled Against the Heresies and his aim is mainly directed at Gnosticism.

As Gnosticism developed a body of writings also appeared...several gospels:
Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, the Secret Gospel of Mark, Gospel to the Egyptians, Gospel to the Hebrews...

Modern Day Critics
There are many modern day scholars (like Bart Ehrman of UNC Chapel Hill) who accuse the early church fathers of "silencing" these other gospels.
It is important to understand that most of these other gospels had too many strange texts and simply did not attract a big following. Modern critics want you to believe that the early church made these decisions based on inherent human prejudices.



Believe me, I could read some Gnostic texts to you and you would quickly realize that they are....just bizarre-O.

So the first documents that kind of found unity in the early church was the four gospels.

Irenaeus quotes from, or alludes to, almost all the documents that become the orthodox NT. These citations are mostly from Paul's letters.

The other general NT letters get little recognition and a few are totally absent
(Philemon, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude).
Irenaeus also cites a few non-NT documents as "inspired:"
(1 Clement and Shepherd of Hermas).

By the time we come to the end of the second century/beginning of the third century
195-220AD - we have hundreds of citations from what we call NT documents by Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian.

Clement of Alexandria also cites 8-10 early Christian writings as "inspired" that do not make it into the NT Canon.

Moving forward church leaders ask the question, "Did Clement, did Tertullian quote from this work?"

Then we get what is called the Muratorian canon, a document dated from the time period of these two men...Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian.

This document contains a listing of writings that are considered "inspired" and worthy to be read on Sunday morning.

- four gospels are named (the beginning of the document has been torn away or disintegrated from exposure - Matthew and Mark were apparently named in the beginning of the fragment)
- Luke and John are named
- the Book of Acts
- all 13 of Paul's letters
- the writer names "the two letters of John"
- Jude ...and
- the Revelation of John

This listing omits Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. It also names a few documents that do NOT appear in the orthodox NT.

So by the beginning of the third century most of the 27 documents in the orthodox NT canon had already gained widespread acceptance. Notice I am saying "most."

I say "most" because there are very few church leaders calling for 2 Peter, 3 John and even Jude are not being mentioned much.

Of course, part of this is due to the fact that these are very short documents.

[32 min]

The New Testament Canon, Part 4
As I stated earlier, Gnosticism was big in the second century, particularly in Egypt.
The development of the New Testament in the third century necessitates some discussion of Gnostic texts.

The proliferation of Gnostic texts forced church leaders to address these texts and explain why the church had to reject them.

We do not have the time to look at Gnosticism to any great degree - I am not an expert in the subject - but I want to give you a few examples of the bizarre nature of the Gnostic texts.

There are a few strange passages in the Bible that cannot be easily explained.
And if you read the early church fathers you will find some strange comment made by them as well.

Some scholars can give some explanation for the strange gnostic passages, but even with the proper historical context...bizarre is...well, bizarre.

The gospel contained in the New Testament is powerful because it is profound - taking the complicated and making it exceedingly simple to understand. These gnostic texts are just not easy to grasp.

This is from the Gospel of Thomas
Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which the man shall eat, and the lion become man; and cursed is the man whom the lion shall eat, and the lion become man."   Gospel of Thomas 7

For those who attack Christianity for being male dominated and somehow think the gnostics were more favorable to women:

Simon Peter said to them: "Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy of the life." Jesus said: "Behold, I shall lead her, that I may make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter into the kingdom of heaven."   Gospel of Thomas 114

These sayings clearly illustrate why Thomas is not accepted in the early church. This gospel has many Gnostic-like sayings.

Many scholars who attack the integrity of the New Testament find it easy to criticize the male-orientation and domination of the early church. These scholars use various passages from Thomas, yet typically they will avoid Saying 114!

The point here is that Gnostic writings contain many bizarre passages. The ratio of "normal" to "bizarre" is far different from the orthodox New Testament writings. In addition, the degree of bizarre is far more acute in these Gnostic writings.

[38 min]

The New Testament Canon, Part 5

The Third and Fourth Centuries
By the third century there is another noticeable increase in citations from the "inspired" writings that eventually become the New Testament documents...

Writers constantly refer to what we call NT documents as "inspired," and the "scriptures," yet rarely mention a canon listing of texts.

The Fourth Century
Another explosive growth of Christian literature comes in the fourth century with Lactantius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandria, and the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus), John Chrysostom, Jerome, Rufinus, and the great Augustine.

All of these writers illustrate how the New Testament had become settled with thousands of citations from the 27 "inspired" writings and very rare citations outside that list.

AND FAR less citations from works that do not ultimately make it into the New Testament.
So while writers like Athanasius and Greggory of Nyssa for example,
are prolific writers...and quote the NT documents ALL...the time...
They rarely even refer to Didache or Shepherd of Hermas and NEVER refer to any documents like this as "inspired."

The Official Canon
Many people think the New Testament writings were agreed upon at the Council of Nicea.

There were 20 church rules voted on at Nicea - none dealt with sacred writings.

The first historical reference listing the exact 27 writings in the orthodox New Testament is in the Easter Letter of Athanasius in 367 AD.

His reference states that these are the only recognized writings to be read in a church service.

The first time a church council ruled on the list of "inspired" writings was at the Synod of Hippo in 393 AD.

No document survived from this council - we only know of this decision because it was referenced at the third Synod of Carthage in 397 AD.

Even this historical reference from Carthage, Canon 24, does not "list" every single document. For example, it reads, "the gospels, four books?"

The only reason for this list is to confirm which writings are "sacred" and should be read in a church service. There is no comment as to why and how this list was agreed upon.

Conclusion
The New Testament developed, or evolved, over the course of the first 250-300 years of Christian history.

No one particular person made the decision.
The decision was not made at a church council.


The particular writings that became those of the New Testament gradually came into focus and became the most trusted and beneficial of all the early Christian writings.







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