Benjamin P. Laird

Summary: A survey of the scholarly discussions about the production, formation, and authority of the New Testament Canon, including the composition and circulation of the books, the role of theological controversies and councils, and the importance of apostolicity.

How did the collection of books that we know as the New Testament come together and why these books and not others? Did they just reflect who had the most political power in the theological controversies of the early centuries of the church’s life? And why should these and not other sources be authoritative for the church? In recent years, scepticism has grown in some quarters about the particular collection of books we call the New Testament.

In this work Benjamin P. Laird offers a helpful introduction to the scholarly discussions concerning the canon that offers answers to many of these questions affirming this collection as it stands, showing that the basis for affirming the canon rests on much wider basis of evidence than church councils, and that the canonical books of the New Testament are not simply authorized but authoritative for the life of the church and the individual believer.

Laird’s book is broken into three parts. First is a discussion of the producfion of the New Testament writings. He shows how many of the documents arose from collaborative efforts including those often mentioned to be with the writer, secretaries who actually wrote (and often made copies of the documents), letter carriers who were often part of the company, eyewitnesses and oral traditions, perhaps written down upon which gospel writers drew. He discusses the difficulties of original autographs, not only their absence but also that there might be multiple autographs, ranging from copies retained by the writer to versions sent to different recipients that may have been edited accordingly. Textual criticism of Romans reveals, for instance, multiple locations for the doxology. What textual criticism does is establish what is likely the most accurate rendering while honestly showing the alternatives. As already suggested, the notion of a singular “intended” audience may be erroneous as well as letters often reflecting concerns of nearby congregations that may also read.

The second part of the book moves to the formation of the canon. Laird begins by surveying the different theological controversies of the second through fourth centuries and argues that the canon neither arose as a response to Marcion nor that any particular council definitively established the canon. The various lists of the time showed the growing consensus of the wider church of the books they recognized as authoritative. He buttresses this contention by considering the eyewitnesses, those who composed lists of canonical books that were prior to the councils, ranging from the Muratorian fragment to Origen, Clement, Eusebius, Cyril, Athanasius, Gregory and others, and of the various early codices. He notes the wide agreement upon all the books except for Hebrews, some of the Catholic letters, and Revelation, and that none of the other books pointed to by those who say the council excluded certain works are mentioned. An important part of this story is the canonical subcollections that began circulating in the early centuries including the thirteen epistles attested to Paul and Hebrews, the four gospels, Acts and the catholic epistles, and Revelation. Laird considers the testimony to each of these. He also notes the awareness of and rejection of pseudonymous writings, including the fact that none of the writings attested to Paul were rejected, though 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were questioned by some. He draws a picture of growing consensus even concerning the contested writings, especially the catholic epistles.

The final part of the book, then, deals with the authority of the canon and the importance of apostolicity, that is, that the canonical books were the product of either apostles or those in the apostolic circle (such as Mark and Luke, making the assumption of this with the anonymous author of Hebrews). He demonstrates the evidence that apostolicity was a major concern, especially when it came to the disputed books, and that those books which were not disputed enjoyed that status because of their evidence of apostolicity. In the final chapter on apostolic authorship and the authority of the canon, he explores the ideas of God’s providential work in the formation of the canon including Brevard Childs’ ideas that focus on the authority of the canon as a whole rather than the status of individual books, which emphasizes the church’s role in the shaping of the canon and the importance of divine inspiration in the authority of the canon. He also notes and briefly engages the challenges to apostolicity and authority in contemporary scholarship, including broader definitions of apostolicity related to the reception of non-canonical works in some parts of the early church and the challenge to the idea of a “closed canon.”

No doubt, some will challenge this account of the production, formation, and authority of the twenty-seven books that were recognized as the canon of the New Testament, whether in the form of challenging the apostolic authorship of books, the recognition of other books circulating and used in some churches or arguing that the councils decided what was in and what was out to buttress their theological and perhaps political concerns. What this book particularly contributes is that such arguments must deal with the early, pre-conciliar evidence (much of it from as early as the second century), both from witnesses and circulating subcanonical texts that reflected the growing consensus of the church about what books were widely recognized as apostolic and authoritative. While the author advances this claim and the corollary of the continuing authority of these works, he recognizes the ongoing scholarly discussions and those who would disagree with his conclusion. For the reader wishing to read a scholarly account of the case for the canon cognizant of dissenting views, this is a clear and helpful account with notes and bibliography for those who wish to dig more deeply.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.… (meer)

Summary: Statements from five different theological perspectives on the history, theology, and hermeneutic related to the formation of the New Testament canon, with responses from each to the others.

Many of us in Christian churches give little thought to how the New Testament became the New Testament–how the 27 books that comprise this part of the Bible, originally written by different people, at different times, and from and to different locations, came together as a collection, and in the order we find them in. More recently, questions have arisen anew about works like the Gospel of Thomas, basically the question of “why these books and not others?” Was it, as many assume, simply a consequence of who won the “doctrine wars” of the early centuries?

This work, while not representing every stream in scholarship around the New Testament canon, does offer a well-articulated survey of the different understandings of canon among different persuasions of Christians. The five views and their authors in this book are:

A Conservative Evangelical Perspective — Darian R. Lockett
A Progressive Evangelical Perspective — David R. Nienhuis
A Liberal Protestant Perspective — Jason David BeDuhn
A Roman Catholic Perspective — Ian Boxall
An Orthodox Perspective — George L. Parsenios
The editors asked each contributor to address three fundamental concerns: 1) the hiatorical factors leading to the formation of the canon, 2) the theological basis of the canon’s authority, and 3) the hermeneutical implications of the canon. The editors also offer an introductory essay on the state of canonical acholarship and a concluding chapter that summarizes common themes and differences among the scholars. Each scholar also responded to the contributions of the other four.

I will not try to outline each of the contributor’s presentations but rather share some of my own observations of the discussion. One thing all the contributors had in common was admitting that the history of the canon’s emergence was both complicated and there is much that is missing in how all this occurred. We learned that at some point the four gospels began to circulate together as well as the Pauline corpus, but we’ve no idea how this came about (Lockett is particularly interesting in this regard). We know that by the fourth century (or perhaps earlier depending on how much credence we give to the Muratorian fragment), the list of books that comprise our present New Testament was being attested to by church leaders by Athanasius.

I was not aware that only at the Council of Trent did the Catholic Church formally codify the canon, mostly in response to the reformed churches rejection of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, and that the Orthodox Church, having broken away before Trent, never specified the canon, although the twenty-seven books did serve as its rule, with other texts treated as helpful to Christian formation.

Another matter all of the writers address is how the formation of the canon shapes interpretation of the texts of the individual books. Matthew’s placement, even though most likely not the first gospel, as first in the collection, links to the Old Testament. The placement of Acts at the head of the Pauline corpus rather than with Luke encourages us to read Paul in light of Acts.

Lockett is the only one who unequivocally articulates the conviction that the authority and inspiration of the texts was intrinsic to the texts that the church recognized, that canon is the “norming norm” rather than the “fixed list” of books that the church subsequently treated as its “normative norm.” Others give more sway to the role of the church in defining canon, and BeDuhn allows that although twenty-seven books were delimited, this should not limit the sources of contemporary Christian nor be normative. George Parsenios, the Orthodox contributor, rightly, I believe, notes this arises from a strong conviction that there was no theological center to the early church, nor ought there to be at present.

I personally most appreciated the clarity of the essays by Lockett and Boxall, even though they articulated different positions. At the same time, especially in the responses to one another, both gracious engagement and clear distinctions came through, and it seemed that several understood their own positions with greater precision through engagement with others. I thought Parsenios clearer in response than in setting forth his own position. Nienhuis seemed to me to be trying to navigate between an evangelical and a more historically nuanced discussion of the church’s role in canon that seemed very much in progress. I not only found BeDuhn’s centerless Christianity unappealing but thought he gave short shrift to the awareness of the writers of scripture that they were writing something authoritative for the church.

This is quite a useful survey of the current state of play in scholarly discussion of the canon. It gives anyone interested a good pictures of the shared challenges all scholars in this field face, as well as the divergent views and the reasons for them. The spirit is irenic rather than polemical without muting disagreements, one that models substantive argument while maintaining respect for one another. The editors, contributors, and the publisher are to be commended for the publication of such an even-handed treatment of this important subject.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.… (meer)