by frankiespeakin 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
Leo,
It is not really correct to refer to Judas as a book excluded from the Bible canon; it wasn't the kind of book that would have come up for consideration for inclusion.
What would be the kind books that would come up for inclusion? I find it interesting that many gospels and books and letters were circulated by early christians and that most were excluded.
If anyone reads up on the history of the canon either hebrew or greek as books in the bible, you will find there wasn't much debate people KNEW in those times which were the inspired ones. When the canon came to be officially recognised they just looked at the ones that were accepted as the canon and the ones we have are it, these other appocrypha were NEVER in the running.
There was some debate over revelation if I am correct i'm a little rusty on this subject.
Reniaa
Reniaa,
If I'm not mistaken I don't think it was quite that simple, the Book of Jude had a questionable acceptance by the church hierarchy primarily because it mentioned the book of Enoch and quoted from it. I'm sure it was more political and doctrinal which were the moving forces behind what books got in the cannon.
Ex:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch
The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch [ 1 ] ) is a pseudepigraphic work ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah and son of Jared (Genesis 5:18 ).
While this book today is non-canonical in most Christian Churches, it was explicitly quoted [ 2 ] :8 in the New Testament (Letter of Jude 1:14-15) and by many of the early Church Fathers. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church to this day regards it to be canonical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Jude
References to other books
The Epistle of Jude references at least two other books, one of which is non-canonical in all churches, the other non-canonical in most churches.
Ren,
Here is a wiki article that describes the development of the new testament bible canon you might find interesting, today thanks to finds of many very old manuscripts one as recent 1970s we have quite a collection of books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Christian_Biblical_canon
Main article: Development of the New Testament canon
Although the Early Church used the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX), the apostles did not otherwise leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead the New Testament developed over time. The development of the New Testament canon was, like that of the Old Testament, a gradual process.
The writings attributed to the apostles circulated amongst the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating in collected form by the end of the first century AD. Justin Martyr, in the early second century, mentions the "memoirs of the apostles," which Christians called "gospels" and which were regarded as on par with the Old Testament. [ 2 ] A four gospel canon (the Tetramorph) was in place by the time of Irenaeus, c. 160, who refers to it directly. [ 3 ] He also quotes and cites 21 books that would end up as part of the New Testament, the excluded ones being Philemon, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 3 John and Jude. [ 4 ] By the early 200's, Origen of Alexandria may have been using the same 27 books as in the modern New Testament, though there were still disputes over the canonicity of Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, and Revelation [ 5 ] , see also Antilegomena. Likewise by 200 the Muratorian fragment shows that there existed a set of Christian writings somewhat similar to what is now the New Testament, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them. [ 6 ] Thus, while there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings were accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the second century. [ 7 ]
In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of exactly the same books as what would become the New Testament canon, [ 8 ] and he used the word "canonized" (kanonizomena) in regards to them. [ 9 ] The African Synod of Hippo, in 393, approved the New Testament, as it stands today, together with the Septuagint books, a decision that was confirmed by Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419. These councils were under the authority of St. Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed. [ 10 ] Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome in 382, if the Decretum Gelasianum is correctly associated with it, issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above, [ 11 ] or if not the list is at least a sixth century compilation. [ 12 ] Likewise, Damasus's commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, circa 383, was instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West. [ 13 ] In 405, Pope Innocent I sent a list of the sacred books to a Gallic bishop, Exsuperius of Toulouse. When these bishops and councils spoke on the matter, however, they were not defining something new, but instead "were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church." [ 14 ]
Thus, from the fourth century, there existed unanimity in the West concerning the New Testament canon (as it is today), [ 15 ] and by the fifth century the Eastern Church, with a few exceptions, had come to accept the Book of Revelation and thus had come into harmony on the matter of the canon. [ 16 ] However, the official finalization of the canon was not made until the Council of Trent of 1546 for Roman Catholicism, [ 17 ] the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the Greek Orthodox.
What would be the kind books that would come up for inclusion? I find it interesting that many gospels and books and letters were circulated by early christians and that most were excluded.
I am sure the criteria varied locally but for the proto-orthodox churches that produced our NT, the two most important considerations were whether the book was accepted as genuinely apostolic and whether it was contained reliable teaching. For the churches defining themselves as catholic and orthodox, it means that the teaching had to be construed as orthodox and not heretical (however "heresy" was defined at the time, and naturally this varied widely). And since orthodoxy was popularly defined as apostolic (cf. the title of Irenaeus' apologetic work Proof of the Apostolic Preaching), the two factors were self-reinforcing. So, if we consider a book like 1 Clement or the letter from Polycarp, these were well-esteemed as containing valuable orthodox teaching, but since they were written by disciples of the apostles and thus were not truly apostolic, they ultimately did not make the cut (although 1 Clement was included in some early codices of the Bible). The Shepherd of Hermas was also not apostolic and its teaching, while not heterodox, was later criticized as too lenient of sin (this too was included in some editions of the Bible). Then there were books that were not really apostolic like the Pastorals, the Epistula Apostolorum, the Preaching of Peter (the version that was quoted authoritatively by Clement of Alexandria), the Apocalypse of Peter, 2 Peter, and so forth that made an authorial self-claim of being apostolic and which were also pretty much "orthodox" in teaching -- some were accepted into the NT whereas some were not. The case of 2 Peter is interesting because it was canonized despite doubts on its authenticity (and cf. the Apocalypse of Peter being more popular in some quarters than Revelation), whereas the Gospel of Peter was rejected as spurious on a rather unfair charge of docetic teaching. Some anonymous books were canonized through popular association with apostles. Hebrews is anonymous and even implies in one passage that it is post-apostolic but through popular association with Paul, it was accepted into the NT (interestingly, the church at Rome rejected it for a long time, possibly on account of firsthand knowledge that it wasn't written by Paul, as they were probably the original recipients of the letter), whereas Barnabas was also anonymous and attributed to an apostle but which did not ultimately achieve general acceptance. As far as the gospels were concerned, a four-gospel canon emerged rather early -- as witnessed by the gospel harmonies used by Justin Martyr and the author of 2 Clement, the Diatessaron of Tatian, the Muratonian fragment, and possibly through the testimony of Papias. The many gospels produced by non-orthodox groups, particularly those classed as "gnostic", were written by the time this fourfold canon took shape, they come from a very different religious perspective from the others and were probably not as well circulated. There were some gospels (such as the Egerton Gospel and the fragmented gospel of POxy 840) that look quite synoptic-like and "orthodox" -- unlike the Sethian and Valentinian gospels designed to impart specialized secret teaching -- but these also did not attain general acceptance, possibly because they were not generally circulated or because the emergence of a four-gospel canon discouraged their circulation.
Bear in mind too that there were not two binary categories of canonical and non-canonical; there was a more subtle distinction between homologoumena, antilegomena, and notha.....a book could be non-canonical but also regarded as inspired and scriptural. A book could be accepted for reading but not public teaching, whereas some books were banned outright.
If anyone reads up on the history of the canon either hebrew or greek as books in the bible, you will find there wasn't much debate people KNEW in those times which were the inspired ones. When the canon came to be officially recognised they just looked at the ones that were accepted as the canon and the ones we have are it, these other appocrypha were NEVER in the running.
Oh there was quite a lot of debate about the antilegomena, including many of the books that made it into our NT (particularly among the general epistles). One must be careful not to retroject our current understanding of canon into the early post-apostolic period. But many books classed as notha were certainly rejected outright in churches self-identifying as orthodox.
There was some debate over revelation if I am correct i'm a little rusty on this subject.
Of course. Just as there was debate and doubt over books like Hebrews, James, Jude, 2-3 John, the Apocalypse of Peter, 2 Peter, the Acts of Paul, Barnabas, the Didache, the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the Shepherd of Hermas; all of these were classed together at one time or another as antilegomena with the same disputed-but-not-heretical status. To this day, 2-3 John, 2 Peter, and Revelation are not universally accepted in the Nestorian church.
But yes, books like the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Judas, etc. would not have had any chance of making it into the NT of the orthodox churches, no more than 1-2 Timothy or Titus would have made it into whatever notion of "canon" the Sethian gnostics had.
Leo,
For the churches defining themselves as catholic and orthodox, it means that the teaching had to be construed as orthodox and not heretical (however "heresy" was defined at the time, and naturally this varied widely). And since orthodoxy was popularly defined as apostolic (cf. the title of Irenaeus' apologetic work Proof of the Apostolic Preaching), the two factors were self-reinforcing.
And in that heresy charge we have the polemic that exists between the church and gnostic where Jehovah is a less than the "only true god" I forget how derogatory or less than the greatest god of all.
Isn't the John's gospel about the limit as far as gnosis influence can go with those early church leaders?
