Having completed this series on the canon of the New Testament in 2023, and unfortunately having to start again in 2024 with a new YouTube channel ‚Beroean Search‘ , I would like to take this opportunity to preface the series with a short foreword.
When you watch the 18 episodes of the series, you’re embarking on a journey of discovery with me. You may well feel like you’re in the valley of tears at times, but don’t worry – it doesn’t end hopelessly.
When you realise that you are losing familiar, cherished and seemingly important cornerstones of your faith, it is a difficult time. It was the same for me. But often a cornerstone is there – just not in the way we might have imagined.
The question is whether you want to stick with a belief that feels good but is superficial and based on wishful thinking. This often leads to you isolating yourself from other opinions, being afraid of them or reacting with arrogance.
Or you can face the facts and develop a mature, balanced faith. Sometimes you also have to listen to the ‚other side‘. And learn to deal with uncertainties.
If we do not expect anything from the Bible – and especially the New Testament, which we are discussing here – that has never been promised to us, we will be much more grateful for what we have. Texts of faith for our faith.
„Knowledge is power“ is a common saying that goes back to the English philosopher Francis Bacon. While he related it to science, there was a similar, more general statement as early as Proverbs 24:5 „The wise are mightier than the strong, and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger.“ (NLV) Many Germans may also know a satirized form of this, „Wissen ist Macht, ich weiß nichts, macht nichts.“ („Knowledge is power, I know nothing, do not matter.“) Unfortunately, this statement is still as false as it was when this slogan became common. And it is also false in relation to our knowledge of the New Testament. For in relation to the New Testament, „a person of knowledge increases power“.
For some, the insights we’ve gained over the course of this series may not have been so easy to digest at first. I was no different. Perhaps it even seemed like an attack on faith in the New Testament – when, in fact, we should believe in Jesus and God „Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.“ (John 14:1 NASB). But that’s just in passing. At the very least, it could seem threatening to confidence in the New Testament. One comment expressed something like this and asked if I could do a series setting forth the reasons why we can trust the New Testament.
But this misses the real cause of this apparent conflict: it is not the New Testament itself or the facts we now know that are the problem, but false expectations of and claims about the New Testament.
This part is about showing that all the facts we have considered do not weaken our faith, but on the contrary lead to a more stable faith. A faith that cannot be so easily dismissed by someone as a wishful dream or fallacy just because of a few historical or other facts.
To do this, let’s go back over the previous parts of the series.
Part 1: What do you read when you read ‚the Bible‘?
From the first part, let us recall the diagram that illustrates how many levels there are between God’s thoughts and the biblical text we read. And what we should therefore examine.
It is important to be aware of everything that is involved and to examine this. But not only on the basis of the New Testament but also many other writings of the antiquity it can be shown that this is absolutely possible! With writings of ancient historians or rulers we can check the content by archaeology etc.. With ancient mathematicians or natural philosophers, the content can be checked for consistency. In the New Testament, we have both: does the content agree with historical evidence and are the arguments and theology consistent? Apparently, all this has been confirmed quite well, otherwise hardly anyone would have even come up with the idea that we would have a perfect canon with the New Testament.
Part 2: What does ‚the Bible‘ say about itself?
But how did we ever get the idea that the New Testament Scriptures would be completely and perfectly available and preserved to everyone, at all times?
In the New Testament we read:
and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.
Matthew 28:20; 18:20 NASB
We read that and maybe we do think:
The Holy Scriptures are with us until the completion of the age.
The realization that the writings of the New Testament nowhere say that they would be preserved complete and unaltered, yet helps us to have the right content in faith. „Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.“ (John 14:1 NASB) If the writings of Jesus‘ disciples reflect what we need for such faith, then that is good. And if we find that this is not always the case? Are we then convinced that God nevertheless gives us all that is necessary to believe in Him? If we think of it this way, then we are approaching again the faith of the first followers of Jesus. They held the scriptures in high esteem – first the Old Testament, then the writings of other disciples. But their faith and trust was always directed towards God and Jesus.
Part 3: The letter to the church in Laodicea
This point was also liberating for our faith: There were other writings by the authors of the writings in the New Testament, which are not included in the canon. Are we missing anything because of this? Why did God decide this way? Again, this is an assumption on our part.
So instead of having the thought that it was God’s plan to have just these writings written in the New Testament – and no more and no less and no different – there were more writings. And many good writings have survived to this day. The New Testament is not a textbook that says exactly what constitutes our faith – and there is nothing beyond that. That only narrows us down unnecessarily: Only what is written in it is true, and what is not written in it does not exist or is false. And then reasons are given as to why this is so, and so on. But this cannot be so at all, because the first followers of Jesus had only a part of the oral tradition and in each case only a part of the scriptures at their disposal.
But if Paul wrote a letter to another church and both letters should also be read aloud in the other church, but we only have the one, then points in the letters are probably useful, but not necessarily indispensable.
So the canon of the New Testament does not contain all the good and useful letters. So there are plenty of things that have not been addressed or explained. The Bible cannot contain the answer to all questions. And therefore, in our faith, we don’t have to have an answer to everything. And we can sometimes disagree on how to understand something. Or how one should act. For this everyone has a conscience and his own responsibility.
I am not sure if I have been able to make this point clear yet. Perhaps with something from my own experience: What do Jehovah’s Witnesses do when a ‚biblical‘ question comes up? Quickly search the Watchtowerlibrary! Surely there is something about it in the Watchtower. And if one has found a statement, then this is authoritative. The personal assessment according to the Bible does not count. So the Watchtower replaces the thinking, the conscience and the faith of the individual.
Some tend to do the same with the Bible: The Bible is supposed to be a complete collection of proof texts and rules for living, where you can find an answer to everything. Actually, one prescribes to God how his Bible should be. But the Bible is not the important thing, but the one who had it written. [compare Matthew 23:16-22.]
Part 4: Period, comma, dash – What a difference just one paragraph can make
What discussions have not been held because of certain translations or the placement of a comma. And sometimes punctuation, paragraphs or chapter divisions block our view of the true meaning of the text. After all, this does not make the text less valuable or undermine our faith. The text does not become more arbitrary by this knowledge. On the contrary, the view of the text was sometimes blocked before.
And this realization should prompt us to look into the original languages as well, if possible. Which meaning results from it. Or at least to compare translations. This approach certainly deepens and strengthens our faith.
Part 5: The Comma Johanneum
I can still remember well how I became aware of the implications of this realization: That a falsified text about a central doctrine such as the nature of God (Trinity) was found in the Bibles for almost the entire period of Christianity. How could God have allowed such a thing? That even the most sincere reader of the Bible was so misled? However, it took time for me to become aware of my feelings as well. I felt disappointment and anger. And did this shake my faith? But how! Not so much my faith in God, but my ‚faith‘ in the Bible.
Little by little, I realized that I was angry with the wrong person. God had not promised that at all (see part 2). People had given me this idea and I had internalized it as part of my faith.
After that, my faith was more stable. I am no longer shocked when such errors are discovered in the manuscripts. And I know that thanks to the work of many scholars, the text available to us is better than ever. After all, even those who read from one of the autographs in the 1st century had only a fraction of the New Testament at their disposal. So, through this analysis of the manuscripts, we know quite well where we stand. Even if there is some uncertainty for the early years due to the lack of manuscripts.
Since, according to the scriptures we have, God does not ask for more than we can know, we do not need to go crazy about it. We have what we need. And if one thing is not clearly stated in the scriptures or seems contradictory, we can leave it at that.
In the past, every time I suspected that something might be wrong with the biblical text, I had to get scared. Not anymore. It is somewhat reminiscent of Paul’s words:
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:12 NASB
It is no different with the writings in the New Testament.
Part 6: Discrepancies in the manuscripts
In part 6, we first had to realize that we should not be deceived by the large number of thousands of manuscripts. The oldest manuscripts are 3 tiny fragments from the second century. The earliest complete manuscript is from the fourth century. And up to this time we have only about 50 fragments and manuscripts.
The large number of about 5,800 Greek, 10,000 Latin, and 9,300 manuscripts in other languages first gives us up to 400,000 discrepancies, all of which had to be worked through. And this with less than 140,000 words in the New Testament. Most of these discrepancies can be clarified. Often because they are simple errors. But there also remain a lot of passages where the original wording is still unclear today.
On the other hand, the many surviving manuscripts are a blessing because they allow us to study well the ‚quality‘ of the transmission of the texts. This is in the spirit of Francis Bacon’s „knowledge is power“, who wanted to bring man „to a higher state of being“. And the scientific methods for analyzing the manuscripts contribute to the fact that we have a better level of knowledge and do not have to rely on assumptions or ‚blind faith‘.
Part 7: Intentional changes in the manuscripts
Of course, it is bad that deceivers could falsify the text. And God allowed that too. But they were caught! Even in the first centuries and even more until today.
Sometimes something seems strange to you. If you are of the opinion that there were no deviations in the manuscripts, then you have to find explanations for this – and sometimes adventurous argumentations come out of it.
So it is with the text from John 5:4 „For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.“ (NKJV) Somehow this sounds strange, because something like this does not occur in the New Testament. And it raises many questions. Isn’t this very unfair what God is doing? Only the first one who enters will be healed?
If you argue that the text in the New Testament is free of error and directly inspired by God, then you have to explain that. But you won’t really be able to do that satisfactorily without coming into conflict with other statements in the New Testament. So it will eventually weaken your trust (‚faith‘) in the Bible or God.
But if you realize that this verse was not included in the oldest manuscripts at all, but was inserted as part of the oral tradition – that is, folk or superstition – then the problem dissolves into thin air. So this realization strengthens our faith.
Part 8: The origin of the canon
Were they sincere believers who, to the best of their knowledge, under difficult circumstances and with much effort, endeavored to preserve the scriptures containing the teachings of Jesus and his disciples? Or do we only have the scriptures preserved by the one of the many movements in Christianity that has supplanted and obliterated all others? In order to thereby consolidate their own view?
For many – at least unconsciously – soon after the death of Jesus, the New Testament is there. Given by God for us, almost like the stone tablets with the 10 commandments. But what do the facts show?
The recognition of the canonical status of the various books of the New Testament was the result of a long and gradual process in which certain writings that were considered authoritative were divorced from a much broader corpus of Christian literature. Although this was one of the most significant developments in the thought and practice of the early church, history is essentially silent as to how, when, and by whom it was set in motion. In the annals of the Christian church, nothing is more surprising than the absence of detailed accounts of such a momentous process.
Bruce M. Metzger“The Canon of the New Testament,“ Introduction, p. 11 (German edition, italics not in original).
And it was very important to make us aware that by ‚long‘ centuries are meant and the conclusion is related to important councils and the time when Christianity became the state religion. Just to remind you again the graphic from part 8:
Part 9: Inspiration
Again and again we have seen that the assumption of a literal, faultless inspiration from God cannot explain the facts but is questioned and even refuted by them. Here are just a few examples again:
Why different writing styles and vocabularies even within one writing?
If the text was dictated, the actual writer had to be inspired as well.
Every word must be right, there must be no mistakes in the manuscripts.
Discrepancies and contradictions between writings are a major problem.
A translation can never accurately reflect the source. Or wouldn’t the translator also have to be inspired in his choice of words?
If one does not know these facts, the literal inspiration seems to be so beautiful. But then it becomes difficult, it is argued in a complicated way and sometimes facts are hidden.
With the knowledge of the facts we have a much better, because simpler explanation, which also does not have to be corrected constantly:
God is the ultimate source. Through the Holy Spirit, He has revealed things to people. This is what Jesus told his disciples according to John (John 14:16,17). Paul wrote to the Corinthians that God ‚reveals the depths of God to us through the Spirit‘ (1 Corinthians 2:10). And this happened even when Jesus was a baby: „It had been revealed to him [Simeon] by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Christ of the Lord.“ (Luke 2:27)
Some then wrote down the insights they had gathered. With their own words. Sometimes more than one person wrote on a scripture. Sometimes they also wrote their personal opinion – as well as they knew and understood it: 1 Corinthians 7:12 „But to the rest I [Paul] say, not the Lord: …“ (Elberfelder). There were also subjects that were not so well understood and where the understanding differed. This was not standardized, but preserved for believers of that time and later, so that they could continue to think about it and read up on the status of that time.
Translations are not a problem because we can only approach what was meant when it was written up to a certain point anyway because of the different context.
This is not a lazy excuse to avoid difficult passages. And we should also not conclude too quickly that in this or that text just a man has made mistakes or has written down only his opinion or his understanding. It is not a question of black or white, purely human or purely divine origin. The question is always what are divine thoughts formulated by human beings and what are personal views.
Part 10: Is the Bible ‚the Holy Scriptures‘ or ‚the Word of God‘?
Perhaps especially in part 10, it became clear that the point here is not to denigrate the Bible or the New Testament. Rather, it is about an examination of what desires and ideas we project into the canon. Those who wish can use the terms „The Holy Scriptures“ or „The Word of God“. But we must be aware that these terms are not used in the New Testament – certainly not for the New Testament itself. And whether, on the basis of these terms, we have claims regarding the text that are not assured to us at all in the New Testament. Originally, the Greek βιβλία biblía also meant „scrolls, books.“ A collection of writings. While by ‚the holy scriptures‘ or ‚the word of God‘ we probably also have in mind that God planned the Bible just so and perhaps even literally inspired it, the Greek word rather suggests that people collected these writings because they found them important for their faith.
Part 11: Is There Only One Gospel?
Is there only one gospel? Yes. But four Gospels – and fortunately, I would say. Because even if some try, as in the first centuries, to unify them as the one historical description of Jesus, on closer examination it becomes more and more clear that they are theological works that want to emphasize certain aspects. And already in the Gospel of Luke we can read that there were many such accounts of Jesus. But to work that out is a topic for another series.
Part 12: Apocrypha
On the subject of apocrypha, I will be brief: It is important to know that there were also such in Christian times. Apocryphal apostles‘ stories, letters and apocalypses. And these were also named after apostles and other known disciples. So the disciples could not judge by the title whether a text belonged to the canon or not. It depended on the content. Today, we may consider a text ’sacred‘ simply because it is part of the Bible. But the texts are in the canon only because followers of Jesus took the trouble to judge these texts. To what extent God directed this can unfortunately hardly be proven or substantiated by the historical facts. Why some texts did not become part of the canon, however, is already easier because of the content.
Part 13: Marcion and other disappeared Christians
Engaging with Marcion has been important to our understanding of the New Testament for several reasons. Not only that in a certain sense he consistently developed Paul’s teachings to the end. Even if, in doing so, he overshot the mark by a wide margin for proto-Orthodox Christians of the time, as he does for most today. But some of the ideas are more widespread today than one might suspect. And quite a few have been incorporated into mainstream Christianity. More important for our topic is his contribution to the formation of the canon. Most likely, he created the first canon. Which at least accelerated and influenced the development of the New Testament canon as we know it.
Part 14: Interim results
In Part 14 – Interim Results – we talked about the truth that the facts are the same for everyone. But the assessment of the uncertainties can be different for everyone. And that we do not have to judge the New Testament as a whole and certainly not in black or white. Each passage can be tested for reliability, and we should do so before basing our faith on certain statements.
Problems arise not from the canon of the New Testament per se, but from assertions about it. To stay with the comparison with a work of art, a painting for example, mentioned in part 14. If we claim that the painting is an original, without damage or repair, then this can easily be disproved by even a minor damage. So it is with exaggerated claims about the Bible. As far as the New Testament is concerned, we can now present a detailed expert opinion, so to speak, describing the origin, nature and extent of the damage and repairs, etc. Even if we cannot be sure about details due to restorations, an overall picture emerges on many points.
Part 15: The Textual Witnesses and the Trinity
As we saw in Part 8, those who were involved in the creation of the canon of the New Testament up to the fourth century were in part those who eventually established the Trinity as the authoritative doctrine. In Part 5 (Comma Johanneum) and Part 7 (Intentional Changes in the Manuscripts) we had also seen that intentional changes were made to support this doctrine. However, the fact that we can prove these forgeries today also proves, conversely, that the manuscripts were not completely corrupted. On the contrary, it is precisely the multitude of manuscripts with their deviations that gives us a good basis. For it is precisely the correspondences of the manuscripts that made our analysis possible.
The analysis of the New Testament in part 14 had shown that this doctrine – as adopted at councils in the fourth century – is not contained in the New Testament in this way. On the contrary, a multitude of texts and repeated formulations testify to the opposite. So the New Testament does not contradict the Old Testament here.
Part 16: The Time of the Origin of the Writings
Only in a few cases is it possible to make a fairly concrete statement about the exact time of writing, usually in the case of Paul’s letters. However, we can assume a time of about 10 to 20 years after Jesus‘ death until the end of the 1st century. So at a time when contemporary witnesses were still alive and the oral tradition was rich. Thus a verification was possible. The exact time of a writing is also usually not so important. With the exception of Jesus‘ prophetic statements about the destruction of Jerusalem.
Part 17: The Writers of the New Testament
It is similar with the authors of the writings in the canon of the New Testament. Except for 7 letters, which we can be fairly certain were written by Paul, there are many unanswered questions but not as many certainties about the authors of all the other New Testament writings. The headings were added much later. And if we rely on the texts of the patristic period and the Church Fathers, we should keep in mind that they too have already drawn on information from others. And in the case of Hebrews, they were wrong. Or even they already noticed surprising differences in style and vocabulary.
But why should the authors of the scriptures be so important to us? Perhaps because they have more authority for us if they come from a Peter or Paul? And because Hebrews was written by an unknown disciple of Jesus, is it then of less value, has it less authority? For the first Christians and those who compiled the canon, this was not the main source of authority, but the content and quality. Couldn’t God, through his Holy Spirit, empower everyone? Do we not read in the New Testament that many prophesied through the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is not limited to predicting the future, but usually messages from God? Whoever then wrote down these thoughts is then not so important after all.
Conclusion
Very general and absolute statements about the canon of the New Testament are often easy to refute because all that is needed is one counterexample. That is why we had to delete everything in the statement from part 1 when we thought of it that way:
The Bible is God’s word, the holy scripture, completely inspired by God literally and thus contains exactly what God wanted. It has been preserved for us until today exactly as the Bible itself says, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.
Such an idea therefore only gives our faith a deceptive, apparent stability. A good basis for our faith uses all the facts and does not need to fear them. Our faith then becomes even deeper, because the basis is broader and deeper and the trust in God is greater. And we can let the New Testament be what it is:
A canon of writings by the 1st century disciples of Jesus that helps us re-read the Old Testament writings in the context of Jesus as the Messiah and see them as a continuation of that. Thoughts and insights they had received through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Texts of their faith for our faith.
If you ask a believing Christian about the author of the New Testament, you will probably get the answer ‚God‘. However, the vast majority will agree that it was ultimately human beings who wrote the texts. We already looked at this aspect of inspiration in Part 9 of this series. But what do we know about who the writers of the New Testament were, that is, who wrote down the individual writings therein? [So in what follows, by writers I always mean the person who physically wrote, in order to separate this topic from the topic of inspiration].
As we have seen in the previous part 16, the answer to this question has a partly considerable influence on the chronological classification of the transcript. For this reason alone, it would be good to know the facts well with regard to the authors.
But there is another important reason: Because of the name of a gospel or letter in the New Testament or from its content, it is often concluded that a person wrote the text. These are invariably apostles or other persons very close to them. And from this, many conclude the authenticity and authority of these writings.
But did the Christians of the patristic period and church fathers do the same? What did they know about the New Testament writers and how did they evaluate this? Certainly, Proverbs 14:15 was a warning to them:
The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.
Proverbs 14:15 ESV
And already in 1st John they were warned:
Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.
1 John 4:1 NLV
What do we know today about the authors of the New Testament Scriptures? What do you think: For which parts of the New Testament was there, and still is, the greatest consensus as to who the author was?
Paul’s letters
You may be surprised at this, but in fact the New Testament letters which are attributed with the highest degree of certainty and agreement are the ones of the Apostle Paul.
The so-called Corpus Paulinum – or more simply the Pauline Epistles – comprises 13 epistles of the New Testament. At least 7 of them are considered authentic (see e.g. Wikipedia Pauline Epistles):
1. Thessalonians
1. Corinthians
2. Corinthians
Galatians
Romans
Philippians
Philemon
What about the other 6? It is mainly differences in language and content that have led scholars to assume that they were written by disciples of Paul rather than by Paul himself. Let’s take a closer look at them.
Ephesians
Why is Paul’s authorship doubted here, when the letter begins this way?
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Ephesian 1:1 BSB
When you read it like this, everything seems to be quite clear. Also that the letter was addressed to the believers in Ephesus – that’s why it is called the letter to the Ephesians. Well, what do the manuscripts say?
In the address of the Epistle to the Ephesians, a distinction is made between the heading (Inscriptio), which the text received only when the New Testament epistle collection was laid out, and the address (Adscriptio) at the entrance to the letter (Prescript): The inscriptio Πρὸς Ἐφεσίους Pròs Ephesíous „To the Ephesians“ occurs in all manuscripts.
The adscriptio ἐν Ἐφέσῳ en Ephésō „in Ephesus“ (Eph 1:1 LUT) is offered by most manuscripts, but not by the oldest and best witnesses (among others: P46, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus). Several ancient Christian authors did not read the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ in the prescript in their copy of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Instead of the majority text („to the saints who are in Ephesus and [to] believers in Christ Jesus“), they read, „to the saints who are also believers in Christ Jesus,“ perhaps just, „to the saints and believers in Christ Jesus.“[5]
Vielhauer concluded, „The text 1:1 without a place indication is the best attested, attainable oldest, and certainly the original; for there is no reasonable reason why a place indication … should have been deleted, whereas it is understandable that the absence of a place indication, which was perceived as a deficiency, was remedied.“[6]
Since the prescript without indication of the place is not meaningful and the text offered by Vaticanus and Sinaiticus is grammatically impossible, Ulrich Luz, for example, assumed that the letter was a circular letter and had a gap at this point in which the name of the respective recipient community could be entered. In favor of a circular letter is the fact that we learn nothing from the letter about the situation of the recipients, or the author does not seem to know them more precisely.[7] Against this speaks the fact that no New Testament manuscript is known in which a place name other than Ephesus is written at this point. Peter Stuhlmacher thinks that Paul had given a circular letter to a co-worker, possibly Tychicus (Eph 6,21), to be read in the newly founded Christian churches of Asia Minor; the copy in the „church archives of Ephesus“ had been preserved, revised after the death of the apostle and shaped as a kind of programmatic writing of the Pauline school – the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is available to us. [8]
Against the weight of P46, Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus, Rainer Schwindt, Harold Hoehner, and Clinton E. Arnold argue in recent works that ἐν Ἐφέσῳ „in Ephesus“ belonged to the original text of the prescript; the latter combines this with the circular thesis: the letter circulated in the Pauline churches in the Ephesus area. [9] Andreas Lindemann, who attributes the Epistle to the Ephesians to a student of Paul, also argues for the originality of the location Ephesus; since Paul’s close relationship to this very community had been known, the author had given his work the fictitious address „Ephesus.“[10]
Who would have thought that. Even the ‚harmless‘ reference to Ephesus is not found in the oldest and best textual witnesses. And this provides a lot of uncertainty concerning the addressees of the letter.
But what about the writer?
Luz established a broad[12] and cross-denominational consensus of historical-critical exegesis that the Epistle to the Ephesians was not written by Paul, but by a disciple of the apostle. The minority opinion that the Epistle to the Ephesians is a letter of Paul’s age was held by Heinrich Schlier, but could not prevail in German-language New Testament scholarship against the arguments against Pauline authorship:[13]
Style: The author loves long sentences and wordiness (plerophoria), although the syntactic structure often remains unclear. Argumentation is replaced by association. According to most exegetes, this is not a style of Paul’s age, but it has similarities with the Letter to the Colossians. „If the Epistle to the Colossians were written by Paul himself, the question would have to be revisited in the Epistle to the Ephesians as well.“ [14]
Theology: If one considers the doctrine of justification as presented in the Letter to the Romans to be the center of Pauline theology, the Letter to the Ephesians appears to be un-Pauline. Luz, however, warns here against circular reasoning.[15]
Dependence of the Epistle to the Ephesians on the Epistle to the Colossians. For Hans Conzelmann and Andreas Lindemann, both texts cannot possibly have been written independently of each other. However, the Letter to the Colossians must have priority, because it refers concretely to an individual congregation, whose situation is recognizable from the letter; the Letter to the Ephesians represents the revision and further development of the Letter to the Colossians, raised to a fundamental level.[16] Hans Hübner calls the author of the Letter to the Ephesians „Tritopaulus“ because of his dependence on the „Deuteropaulus“ of the Letter to the Colossians. [17]
According to Luz, literary works written by students in the spirit and under the name of their teachers were quite acceptable in antiquity, in contrast to forgeries in which literary means were used to try to feign authenticity. He points out that the author of the Epistle to the Ephesians did nothing to pretend to be Paul. Thus, it is a typical student work. Bart D. Ehrman rejects such a differentiation of student work and pseudepigraphy: „The author tries several times to make credible that he was Paul. However, he was not Paul. He was a follower of Paul, held non-Pauline views, wrote later.“[19]
Since several scholars point out the dependence of the letter to the Ephesians on the letter to the Colossians, let’s look at that as well.
Colossians
Also with this letter one could think that Paul is to be found here clearly as an author:
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. To God’s holy people in Colossae, …
Colossians 1:1,2 NIV
I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.
Colossians 4:18 Züricher
All right, right? Well. Already verse 1 speaks at least of two authors – Paul and Timothy. And in the further text Epaphras is clearly emphasized, who knew the situation in Colosse – in contrast to Paul:
However, according to some researchers, a secretary other than Timothy would be more likely to be responsible for stylistic peculiarities of the letter: It is more likely that Paul and Timothy let the secretary Epaphras (Lähnemann, Reicke, Berger) speak where he, as a theologian with local knowledge, could better respond to problems and questions in Colossai and the neighboring churches. In any case, Paul knew neither the addressees nor their situation (Col 2:1), but his informant Epaphras did (Col 1:5-8; 4:12-13). Thus, through the letter writer Epaphras, Paul may have tried to become „like a Colossian“ to the Colossians in order to convince them (cf. his principle 1 Cor 9:20-22).
I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.
Colossians 2:1 NIV
For those who want to better understand the result of the analysis of the text of the Epistle to the Colossians, I recommend the Wikipedia article mentioned above as a starting point.
An interesting summary is given in the English Wikipedia on the letter to the Colossians:
As theologian Stephen D. Morrison points out in context, „Biblical scholars are divided over the authorship of Ephesians and Colossians.“[18] He provides as an example the reflection of theologian Karl Barth on the question. While acknowledging the validity of many questions regarding Pauline authorship, Barth was inclined to defend it. Nevertheless, he concluded that it didn’t much matter one way or the other to him. It was more important to focus on „Quid scriptum est“ (What is written) than „Quis scripseris“ (Who wrote it). „It is enough to know that someone, at any rate, wrote Ephesians (why not Paul?), 30 to 60 years after Christ’s death (hardly any later than that, since it is attested by Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin), someone who understood Paul well and developed the apostle’s ideas with conspicuous loyalty as well as originality.”[18]
I think that with these two letters we have already understood the problem quite well. The reference in the text to an author does not weigh very heavily if this author is not attested by others. And this brings us to the next problem and the letter to the Hebrews.
Before that, however, I would like to revisit the idea of verbal inspiration: If God specified every word by inspiration, why does he use a different vocabulary and writing style in the second part of the letter? Was it then the style of Paul, of Timothy, or yet of Epaphras? And why does God change the style in the middle of the letter?
The Letter to the Hebrews
But back to the Letter to the Hebrews. What about the Letter to the Hebrews? That is also from Paul, isn’t it? Unlike the Epistle to the Colossians or Ephesians, Paul’s name is not found in the letter. What do we know then?
Although there is no scholarly consensus on any of the questions of literary history concerning the author, the circle of recipients, the dating, or even the literary genre of the writing titled Πρὸς Έβραίους, historical probabilities can be weighed and reasons given for the various hypotheses.
Because the oldest manuscripts (Papyrus 46, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Sinaiticus) placed the Epistle to the Hebrews among the Pauline Epistles,[1] early Eastern Church tradition attributed the writing to Paul.[2]
Origen assumed because of the unusual style for Paul (such as a vocabulary of 1000 different words at 3000 words in length compared to the rather limited one of Paul) that the content of the letter was Pauline but the author unclear.[3] During the Middle Ages and in the Catholic Church still until 1914[4] it was assumed that the Letter to the Hebrews was the Greek translation of an original Hebrew letter of Paul. Because of the different theology and the different historical situation (for example, Paul insists on his own direct experience of revelation in Gal 1:12, while the author ad Hebraios refers to himself as a hearer of Jesus‘ disciples in Heb 2:3), this is largely rejected today.
As possible authors were suggested alternatively: Apollos,[5] Priscilla,[6] Luke or Clement of Rome,[7] Barnabas,[8] Peter, Philip, Jude, Aristion, Timothy. However, since neither of the above-mentioned (if any of their works have survived at all) nor any other writing comparable to the Letter to the Hebrews has survived, and since it is completely singular in form and content, and since nothing is said about the author in the letter itself, none of these hypotheses can be verified.
Based on the excellent Greek style, extensive vocabulary, and in-depth knowledge of the Old Testament in the form of the Septuagint, the author can be assumed to be a Greek-educated Jewish Christian who belonged to the Hellenistic wing.
The letter is not pseudepigraphy, since no ostensible author is given, even though the naming of Timothy (Heb 13:23) could possibly suggest Paul’s circle as the sender.
In part 8 on the formation of the canon, we have already seen that the Epistle to the Hebrews was late in finding itself on the margins of the canon. Thus Metzger writes:
For example, much of the Church erred when it attributed the anonymous letter to the Hebrews to the apostle Paul.
Bruce M. Metzger „Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments“, S. 268
Other letters
Of the other letters, we will only take a closer look at the 1st Peter letter as a representative, since it is said to have been written by none other than the apostle Peter, a pillar of the assembly.
What do the church fathers say?
The authorship of Peter is confirmed in the early church tradition, namely in the 2nd century by Polycarp, Papias, Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus, in the 3rd century by Tertullian, Origen and Cyprian. In all these authors, the First Epistle of Peter is counted among the generally accepted writings and its inclusion in the canon is never questioned.[1]
However, that was many decades or even well over a hundred years after Peter was dead. The problem here is also: Do we believe a text just because an author is named? Or do we examine the content, as we are repeatedly asked to do in the New Testament? Let us consider arguments against and for Peter as author:
Most historical-critical research doubts that Peter was the author, for the following reasons:
Pseudepigraphy was widespread and widely accepted in antiquity.[2] For the Pastoral Epistles, pseudepigraphic authorship is virtually undisputed.
The style of 1 Peter is Koine Greek; and not only oral, but literary Koine, which suggests Greek as the native language of the author. However, the native language of Peter the fisherman from Galilee (who is described as illiterate in Acts 4:13 EU) was most likely Aramaic. Even if Peter was familiar with the „world language“ of the time, Greek, it is unlikely that he had such a written command of Greek.[3]
The author of 1 Peter quotes the Old Testament mostly according to the Greek translation. Only 1 Pet 4:8 EU apparently draws directly on the Hebrew text of Prov10:12 EU.[4]
The letter sounds too little personal; the Jesus tradition is only referred to in traditional early Christian language (1 Pet 2:22-25 EU). With Petrine authorship, the letter would be expected to convey exclusive knowledge of an eyewitness.[5]
There are connections in content between 1 Peter and the Pauline epistles.[6]
1 Peter 1:1 EU presupposes that Christianity had already taken root in various areas in Asia Minor.[7]
Counter-arguments include:
on pseudepigraphy: This is more or less probable depending on the genre of the text. In the case of a wisdom scripture written under the name of Solomon, it is to be judged differently than in the case of a letter that refers to the current situation of one or more communities.[8]
on Koine Greek: Peter was from Bethsaida, a bilingual Greek-Jewish town (this is further emphasized by the fact that his brother Andrew had a Greek name), and he probably ministered in the Greek-speaking diaspora for decades.[9] Silvanus/Silas, whom he mentions as a co-author, is a Roman citizen and certainly Greek-speaking.[10]
to the theology close to that of Paul: Between Peter and Paul there was mutual esteem and probably no essential theological differences. Their dispute, mentioned in Gal 2:11-21 EU, did not concern contrasts in theology, but their practical implementation – Paul reproached Peter for not acting according to his theology.[11] The early church knew nothing of a sharp theological contrast between the two;[12] only in the 19th century did theology bring up this idea.
the letter contains traditional material (parenesis, confessions, songs). However, there is no clear evidence for this in the text of the letter. Moreover, such traditional material is also found in the letters of Paul, which are regarded as genuine.
the persecution of Christians mentioned in the letter: One does not have to think of the time of Trajan (around 100 AD), because the letter does not speak of a state systematic persecution of Christians. Punctual persecutions of Christians by the pagan environment already existed in several areas of the empire in the first decades after 30 CE (for example, Paul on his missionary journeys or the Neronian persecution of Christians in 64 or 65 CE).[13]
In other words, it is difficult if not almost impossible to make a safe statement here. As far as the content is concerned, there are arguments for and against. If one relies on the statements of the church fathers, then one relies with it on the persons, who promoted the development of the large church and most diverse dogmas. But, of course, there were also people who were willing, at personal sacrifice, sometimes very great, to spread and defend the received doctrine.
The 4 Gospels
In part 11 we have already considered the 4 gospels – from the one gospel – in more detail. And also already mentioned that three of them – the synoptic gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke – are quite similar and the fourth – John – is different. The similarity of the text of the synoptic gospels we should still discuss here.
The writer of the Gospel of Matthew does not give his name in the text. The title was added later. This is also true for the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John. So they are writers of the patristic period and the church fathers or maybe someone who copied copies for other assemblies, who added headings like „Gospel according to Mark“.
The linguistic differences are summarized in Wikipedia like this:
While the Gospel of Mark is written in a vernacular Greek, the author of the Gospel of Matthew chose a more elevated style. He wrote more concisely, more concentrated. He liked to repeat formulas and worked with leading words, chiasms and inclusions. Unlike the Gospel according to Luke, in which formulations from the Septuagint are deliberately used as stylistic devices, Matthew is strongly influenced by biblical Greek, but without deliberately writing Septuagint style.[16]
Thus, the similarities are not about reporting the same events. The analysis of the striking similarities is described as a Synoptic Problem [where ‚problem‘ is used here as a technical term in the sense of question]. This graphic from the Wikipedia article gives an overview:
In detail, the following facts are to be explained:
Wording matches: Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree on parallel passages in about 50% of the words, while they agree on parallel passages in John in only 10% of the words.
Striking similarities in the sequence, but also numerous deviations
Triple common tradition: almost all of Mark’s material is contained in Matthew, about two-thirds of it, moreover, in Luke (so-called Lukan gap).
Twofold common tradition: about 200 verses are included in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark.
The special material: texts or individual sayings handed down from a single Gospel (Luke: 35%, Matthew: 20%, Mark: 3%).
The question around the minor agreements („minor correspondences“), that is, the concordant deviations of Matthew and Luke from the text of Mark, or the objections to Matthew’s and Luke’s use of Mark.
In order to explain these connections and relationships, various hypotheses are discussed; none of the proposed solutions is able to answer all phenomena satisfactorily.
That leaves the Gospel of John. This deviates in many parts strongly from the synoptic gospels. However, these are not only additions, but deviations. Perhaps most important is the description of the Lord’s Supper in John 13, which differs significantly in terms of content and timing. It is not for nothing that only Matthew, Mark, Luke and 1 Corinthians 11 are referred to in the description of the Lord’s Supper. Whereby Luke also deviates, because a second cup is mentioned before the bread, but this could be an error in the manuscripts, as we have already noted in another part of the series. Such deviations, but also the completely different presentation of what and how Jesus teaches, have already led to discussions in antiquity (e.g. in the 3rd century Porphyrios writing Contra Christianos ).
What does this tell us about the reliability of the text?
We dealt with the time of writing in the last part of the series and with the authors in this part. This should not only serve to deepen our knowledge. This knowledge also helps us to better classify some statements about the reliability of the text.
For example, the author of a New Testament writing is first assumed to be certain, perhaps because of the later addition of the heading or the statement of the church fathers or the later arrangement in the New Testament canon. This is then used to infer the time of writing. And then with it the reliability of the contents of the text is concluded. For example, the fulfillment of the prophecies of Jesus in the Gospels.
Or it goes like this: The reliability of the Gospels is shown by the fulfillment of Jesus‘ prophecy about Jerusalem. Because, after all, the Gospels were written before 70 BC. And we know this because the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark and John. But how do we know this? Because of the testimony of the headings, church fathers, or the arrangement in the canon. And in this case, of course, the Gospel according to John does not fit, because it does not contain these statements of Jesus and was probably also written long after 70 AD.
Here, therefore, one must not make the mistake of circular reasoning: On the basis of the assumed author to the time of the writing of the content and because of the credibility of the content to the author stated in it or in the title and thus to the time of writing, etc..
Conclusion
Except for 7 letters, which we can be fairly certain were written by Paul, there are many unanswered questions about all the other New Testament writings, and but not as many certainties as to the authors. The headings were added much later. And if we rely on the texts of the patristic period and the Church Fathers, we should keep in mind that they, too, already relied on information from others. And in the case of Hebrews, they were wrong. Or even they already noticed surprising differences in style and vocabulary.
Is this important to you? Do you think this information weakens your faith? If you belong to a religion that has absolute knowledge and always gives a simple answer, ignoring uncomfortable facts, then yes.
It seems to me that the faith of those who, despite knowing all these facts, continue to believe and grapple with them and examine the content goes deeper.
Am I saying this now just to talk myself and others into something and to reassure ourselves? No. I’ll try another example, and that is this manuscript:
Euklid, Elemente 10, Appendix in der 888 geschriebenen Handschrift Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. D’Orville 301, fol. 268r
This is a manuscript written in 888 of the epoch-making work Elements by the famous Greek mathematician Euclid, who probably lived in the 3rd century BC. What can you read about the author and writer of the original? „Almost nothing is known about Euclid’s life.“ (Wikipedia Euclid). What we know about him and his works comes from the pens of others. Does this make the work worthless to us? „The Elements were the basis of geometry instruction in many places until the 20th century, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries.“ So the content of the work spoke for itself. Nobody used it until the 20th century, because it came from the famous Euclid. Or because the time of its writing was known.
It is the same with the New Testament. The main argument for its importance is its content, the argumentation about doctrines, and so on. Whether a Peter or Paul wrote something, plays a subordinate role in the evaluation, whether they are thoughts of God. Because both were imperfect thinkers and God could just as well help other, less prominent followers of Jesus by his spirit to write down what is important for us. Also the information from patristic times and from the church fathers is helpful, but also these could err and were not omniscient. However, we can say with certainty that they were very conscientious and made personal sacrifices to do their job well.
Finally, with all the questions and uncertainties we have considered in what is now 17 parts of this series, I must emphasize one thing: The facts and evidence have never shown that we are dealing with great fraud and outright mischief.
The problems only arise when one makes false, exaggerated and absolute statements about the New Testament. And these are always easier to refute than to prove the more complex statements. For example, a statement that not even one error ever crept into the copies of the manuscripts of the New Testament is easy to refute. To prove the statement that the text could be reconstructed to a great extent requires a lot of work – but it has been done.
Is it a problem that we have four different Gospels? No, because from the deviations – they are more theological works with certain statements than historical protocols – and the comparison with other writings we can recognize what was understood by most in the same way and where the views diverged. No one, after all, was commissioned to write the sole authoritative textbook on Christian theology. Even Jesus did not do that. Thus, it was only with time that a catechism came into being.
Let us compare the process of transmission of the New Testament scriptures with that of the Quran.:
Before the death of the Prophet Muhammad, various parts of the Qur’an had already been written down, and after consultation with all those who had preserved the Qur’an both orally (Hāfiz) and in writing, the first Qur’anic codex (مصحف muṣḥaf) was produced after Muhammad’s death in 11 CE. H. (632 A.D.), in the time of the first caliph Abū Bakr, the first Qur’anic codex (مصحف muṣḥaf) was written to keep it from being lost or confused with other statements of the Prophet Muhammad.
The third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (644-656), had these first Quranic codices, some of which were written in dialects other than the Quraysh dialect – the dialect of the Prophet Muhammad – collected and burned in order to produce an officially valid Quran. In the process, at least two men had to testify to each verse that they had heard it directly from the Prophet’s mouth. Six verses in the Qur’an, however, have been testified to in this way by only one witness, namely Zaid ibn Thābit, the former servant of the Prophet. The fact that these verses are still in the Qur’an today is due to the fact that the caliph exceptionally accepted Zaid’s sole testimony.
Here, therefore, an adjustment and standardization was carried out long after the death of Muhammad, which cannot be checked at all today. And of course, we only know from tradition whether this is what happened.
This was not done with the writings of the New Testament. As we have seen, Marcion, for example, singled out Luke’s Gospel as the only true one. Others have combined all four. But we have at least four pieces with all their differences and not just one unified version. So we can go into the midst of the followers of Christ in the first centuries and try with them to understand what else God might have wanted to communicate to us after the Old Testament. And this is quite exciting, because the New Testament is not a catechism with sentences of faith to memorize but often argumentation. An invitation to think along and think.
To your knowledge, when did the writings in the New Testament canon originate? Or more specifically: Which part of the New Testament canon was written first and which was it? Now this is not just an academic question or a trivia question. The answer to this question has a greater significance than you might think. It is important for the correct placement in the historical context. And also into the temporal development of the faith and life of the first followers of Jesus, the different currents that came then and important historical developments. Let’s think, for example, of the destruction of Jerusalem, the conversion of the Gentiles or the death of the apostles and the generation that had still known Jesus themselves – and also that the hope of a return of Christ had not been fulfilled in their lifetime.
The scriptures are usually arranged this way in the New Testament canon:
Because of the arrangement in the canon, we may have this chronological sequence in mind:
However, you may also think that the apostle John wrote the Gospel together with the Epistles and Revelation at the end of the first century.
But this representation would still contain an error, because the Acts of the Apostles – that is history of the deeds of the apostles – could have been written only after the apostles had accomplished these deeds. So maybe then rather like this?
But why puzzle around! Let’s just take the data of the transcript and everything is already clear. And there we have the problem: We do not know the data! „Yes, we do! Of course we do!“ I can already hear the dissenting voices. So let’s start – as before – to check the facts.
Let us first consider the four Gospels contained in the New Testament. We can at least narrow down the time of their origin:
The date of composition of the New Testament Gospels is between 30 or 33 CE (the year of Jesus‘ crucifixion) and about 120 CE (early 2nd century evidence: Papyrus 52 (52, a fragment of John’s Gospel from the time of Emperor Hadrian and Church Fathers‘ citations).
As a side note, I use Wikipedia more often here because it’s easily accessible to everyone, free of charge, and is a good starting point for your own studies.
This results in this picture.
Can’t it be a little more precise? Unfortunately, only a little better, because there is simply no reliable, precise information. At that time there was no publication with ISBN number, year, author and entry in national registers or large libraries. Why should the first followers of Jesus do such a thing? They had no order to write anything down and there were still enough eyewitnesses who were alive.
Nevertheless, in Bibles also time indications can be found which agree with this estimation and are quite precise. For example this one from the Schlachter Bible (2000):
This list looks very tidy and precise. This becomes even clearer if you display it graphically. But first, the quiz question again: Which text of the New Testament canon was written first? And when? Maybe you’re thinking of the Gospels now? Sure, what Jesus did was written down first, wasn’t it? And which part was written last and when? Sure, it must be Revelation. Well, let’s see:
Perhaps you were surprised to find the letter of James first in this list. And then the letter of Paul to the Galatians. And then the Gospels of Matthew and Mark – but at the same time? Why is that? Wouldn’t one account have been enough? And then first come the other letters of Paul. All written until 70 AD when Jerusalem was destroyed. But still: Finally, towards the end of the century, the apostle John writes his letters, the Gospel and the Revelation.
But the question remains where this incredibly precise time information comes from, since it cannot be determined from the text itself.
Consider, for example, the Gospels. What was the conclusion of the scholars who tried to determine the time of origin of the Gospels based on the facts? The following account is based on the article Gospel (literary genre, in German) in Wikipedia:
None of these estimations corresponds to that in the Schlachter Bible! Are then the completely different chronological classifications based on the knowledge of different historical facts? Essentially not. What plays a major role is, for example, the question whether the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 was prophetically foretold, or subsequently it was presented that way in the text. Another important point is the similarity of the synoptic gospels not only in the reports but also in the text of whole sentences and passages. There are various theories about this. For example, that the Gospel of Mark formed the basis for Matthew and Luke, or what role served an even earlier template, which unfortunately has not been preserved. We will talk about this in the next part of the series.
That fits better. And indeed, for the letters that are most likely really by Paul, the time of writing can be better narrowed down based on the facts. At least better than for all other parts of the canon of the New Testament. But even with these letters, the following must be said:
The Pauline epistles do not name the places of their writing, nor do they give much indication of the time of their writing.
As you can see, there are, especially in the letters where Paul must be questioned as the author, partly considerably different indications. In these cases I have entered all the different indications.
For example, if you are surprised that the Epistle to the Hebrews is not supposed to be by Paul: It was assigned to Paul’s letters in the oldest manuscripts like Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. However, one must not forget that these codices date back to the 4th century. The Christian scholar Origines, who already taught at the beginning of the 3rd century, however, already noticed a considerable difference:
Origines assumed, because of the unusual style for Paul (such as a vocabulary of 1000 different words at 3000 words in length compared to Paul’s rather limited one), that the content of the letter was Pauline, but the author unclear.
Furthermore, the statement in Hebrews 2:3 doesn’t really fit with Paul’s statement that he received the gospel directly from Jesus.
But if we would still want to assume that the Letter to the Hebrews is from Paul, we must therefore somehow explain this contradiction. And explain the observation of Origines and later scholars. And explain why Paul uses different vocabulary and expressions in different letters – and this has been done. For example, it is attributed to the fact that the letter was dictated and the writer had a different vocabulary. Now this does not fit at all with the idea of verbal inspiration. Because then God would have inspired either in letters ‚of Paul‘ his thoughts with different vocabulary and expression literally. Or he would have inspired the writer with a different vocabulary besides Paul. Or … that’s kind of strangely complicated, don’t you think?
„The great majority of historical-critical biblical research assumes the years around 90 AD as the time of the composition of Acts. … Evangelical commentators, on the other hand, usually defend an early dating of Acts to AD 62-65.“ (Wikipedia)
In the case of 1 and 2 Peter, it is debated whether this letter can actually have been written by Peter. Thus the writing must be assumed either before Peter’s death in 64 or very much later. I would say that one is pretty much in the dark here with regard to the time.
In the case of the Epistle of James no clear statement can be made: „Because the text itself contains only very few usable data, authorship and time of origin are disputed within biblical scholarship. Above all two opinions are represented“ (Wikipedia) And so I have entered the very early dating before the so-called council in Jerusalem as well as a time before the presumed death of James or a very later dating.
This becomes even clearer with the short Epistle of Jude: „Neither the time of origin nor the recipients of the Epistle of Jude can be determined with certainty.“ (Wikipedia)
For the Revelation of John, the year 68 or 69 was long assumed to be plausible as the time of origin, today it is more likely to be around the year 95 AD (Wikipedia).
So the answer to the question „When did the writings in the canon of the New Testament come into being?“ cannot be answered as simply and surely as we might have wished. Does this now make them per se untrustworthy? For the first followers of Jesus and the first Christians, this was rather irrelevant. Was it a question of whether the author was an apostle? We have only touched on the subject here. But in the part of the series about the canon it has become clear that this was not necessarily decisive either. A writing of an apostle, of another eyewitness or of someone who still knew it, was of course more highly estimated. But later, it was usually not so easy to determine who really was the author of a writing. Therefore, the quality of the content was more decisive.
One question remains: Why was the epochal event of the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the worship in the temple according to the Mosaic law not mentioned with one syllable in the writings of the New Testament as a fulfilled prophecy? Or maybe it is, but only indirectly? When Jesus‘ prophecy concerning Jerusalem, which we find in the Gospels, was fulfilled, then surely it was a triumph for Christians and an affirmation of their faith that this prophecy was fulfilled. Why is this not found in the scriptures at all? That is quite strange. That’s why some argue that Jesus‘ prophecy was actually written down afterwards. And date the texts after 70 A.D. But is that a strong argument? Well, the Christians who fled and survived were able to report this to everyone and had other concerns than writing this down. We would have liked to have it recorded by eyewitnesses, but that is just our view today and our wish.
Now one could argue that this is a good argument that the New Testament was written before 70 AD. But then, why are there no writings in the New Testament canon that were written after 70 AD that emphasize the fulfillment of prophecy and the consequences for the Christian faith (circumcision, food commandments…)? Well, at least the Gospel according to John, the three letters and the Apocalypse are dated by many to the end of the first century. But in them the event is not mentioned. Not even the prophecy of Jesus, which is found only in the synaptic gospels (Mat 24, Mar 13, Luk 21). The significance of the event was discussed in the centuries that followed, especially since the majority of the Jews did not join the Christians. But that is another subject.
Since the time of writing of many writings in the New Testament canon can hardly be determined, the historical context can also only be defined very roughly.
But perhaps more important for you is who the authors of the writings were. What do we know about them? We will deal with that in the next part of the series.
Is the New Testament a teaching book? In the sense that we know it from school, training or university? Do you want to learn or know something specific in one area? Then you expect a didactically clear and well-prepared presentation, don’t you? Is the New Testament structured like this? Let’s take a look at the example of one doctrine, namely the Trinity.
I would like to say one thing straight away: this is not an attempt to quickly clarify all questions about the doctrine of the Trinity. It is a contribution to the discussion. If there is a discussion at all, because it is often brushed aside because the doctrine is obvious or because church scholars have been convinced of it for two thousand years. Or the discussion consists of an alternating citation of supposed ‚proof texts‘.
There have been enough of these. Already in the first centuries after Christ, these discussions were held and others were finally ostracized as heretics or apostates because of deviating interpretations. But why were there discussions about the nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit already in the first centuries? Wasn’t this all clear from the oral tradition and the emerging canon of the New Testament?
And I would like to say one more thing in advance: this is not about whether any form of the doctrine of the Trinity is ‚right‘ or ‚true‘. Or the rejection of it. That is a completely different question. After all, there are a lot of things that we all accept as ‚true‘ or ‚right‘, but which are not mentioned in the Bible at all or only in passing.
What I often miss in discussions on this topic is a solid overview of the basics, the textual witnesses, the canon of the New Testament. Which expressions are combined and how, and above all how often they are used, gives us a fundamental clue. For what is repeatedly written is part of the teaching and thinking in the first century. What we do not find clearly in the manuscripts of the New Testament was probably not there at the time they were written.
So let us get an overview of the use of the Trinity in the text of the canon of the New Testament. In doing so, we group the overview: where are all three parts of the Trinity mentioned together and where only a combination of both.
Father, Word and the Holy Spirit are one
How often is this statement about the Trinity found in the New Testament canon? We have already looked at that in part 5 of this series. Exactly once. It’s in 1 John 5:7-8. More specifically, it was added there. The Comma Johanneum.
If it is nowhere else to be found in the canon, which was essentially laid down at the councils in the 4th century, but appears at this time in a gloss of the Latin Bible, at a time when the Trinity was also made obligatory as a doctrine at the councils, then this already speaks for itself. If a doctrine is present in a text, then one does not need to add a gloss or even change the ‚holy text‘ afterwards.
That the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one is nowhere stated in the canon of the New Testament.
God, Jesus/Christ and the Holy Spirit
In these verses, God, Jesus (or Christ) and Spirit or the Holy Spirit occur:
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him
Matthew 3:16 NIV
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Matthew 4:1 NIV
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
John 3:5 NIV
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Acts 7:55 NIV
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
Acts 10:38 NIV
and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 1:4 NIV
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Romans 8:9 NIV
And if the Spirit of him [context: God] who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Romans 8:11 NEÜ
to be a minister of ChristJesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:16 NIV
I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.
Romans 15:30 NIV
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:11 NIV
Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:3 NIV
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
2 Corinthians 3:3 NIV
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
2 Corinthians 13:13
I keep asking that the God of our Lord JesusChrist, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Ephesians 1:17 NIV
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,
Philippians 2:1 NIV
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in ChristJesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
Philippians 3:3 NIV
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternalSpirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
Hebrews 9:14 NIV
who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to JesusChrist and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
1 Peter 1:2 NIV
If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
1 Peter 4:14 NIV
This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that JesusChrist has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
1 John 4:2,3 NIV
These are all text in the canon of the New Testament, which I found by searching for the German words for „God* Jesus* Spirit*“ as well as „God* Christ* -Jesus Spirit“ on the ERF Bibleserver, and where Spirit did not refer to the spirit of a human being.
God, Son and the Holy Spirit
These are the additional results of the search for „God* Son* Spirit“ (in German).
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Luke 1:35 NIV
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the HolySpirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood [Some translate: blod of his Son].
Acts 20:38 NIV
How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Hebrew 10:29 NIV
Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit
These are the additional results of the search for „Father* Jesus* Spirit*“ (in German)
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
Luke 10:21 NIV
I keep asking that the God of our Lord JesusChrist, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Ephesians 1:17 NIV
Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
These are the additional results of the search for „Father* Son* Spirit*“ (in German)
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the HolySpirit,
Matthew 28:19 NIV
Here, only these three are referred to, but it is not said that they are one. But there are good reasons why also this text is possibly falsified. In an article in the forum (in German) I have described this in more detail. Here are just a few arguments from the 2001 translation:
These words are missing from the parallel accounts in Luke 24:47 and Acts 1:6. All other baptismal instructions in the Bible omit these words (Acts 2:38, Acts 8:15-16, Acts 10:48, Acts 19:5, Romans 6:3, Galatians 3:27). The ancient Christian writer Eusebius quoted this verse 18 times over a period of 36 years. The forged words did not appear in his quotations before the Council of Nicaea, but after. Ironically, this man may be the one who inserted these false words.
What impression do the texts give you when you read them with an open mind? We find God, the Father. We read about Jesus, the Son. And of the Spirit or Holy Spirit or God’s Spirit. But how often do we read about how these relate to each other?
God, or the Father, Jesus, or the Son, and the Holy Spirit are named together in many texts in the New Testament canon, but never all three are presented as equal or coequal.
A textbook-like explanation looks different.
But maybe the equality F == S == HS results transitive: F == S and S == HS with it also F == HS like in mathematics. So if Father and Son are equal, and Son and Holy Spirit, then also Father and Holy Spirit are equal.
Naming of God/Father, Jesus/Christ/Son, Holy Spirit in pairs
So many texts can be found by these searches:
Used parts of the Trinity
Search
Number of found texts in the NEÜ translation
Father Son
Vater* Sohn* -Geist*
43
God Son
Gott* Sohn* -Geist*
83
God Jesus
Gott* Jesus* -Geist*
254
Father Jesus
Vater* Jesus* -Geist*
77
Father Christ
Vater* Christ* -Geist*
37
God Christ
Gott* Christ* -Geist*
168
Spirit Christ
Geist* Christ* -Gott*
15
Spirit Jesus
Geist* Jesu* -Gott*
41
Spirit Son
Geist* Sohn* -Gott*
6
Spirit Father
Geist* Vater* -Jesus* -Christ* -Sohn*
12
Spirit God
Geist* Gott* -Jesus* -Christ* -Sohn*
93
God and Father and Jesus and Lord
Gott* Vater Jesus Herr* -Geist
26
In other translations the number varies partly clearly, because sometimes for example ‚God‘ is introduced for explanation. Therefore, in the overview of the texts, in which all three are mentioned, I had considered the Greek text in each case.
Of course, that’s way too many to look at in a video. But with this information everyone can do it himself. If one reads the New Testament completely by oneself, one can also be sure that one does not miss any passage. But one should compare several translations and for example compare the Greek text with an Interlinear Bible to see if it is written the same way there. As said, sometimes God is added by translation (e.g. God’s spirit), and with spirit ‚holy‘ or ‚holiness‘ is not consistently translated with or sometimes left out.
A large number of texts clearly distinguish between God, who is called Father, and Jesus Christ as Lord.
Jesus Christ is never referred to as the God.
The Holy Spirit is never called God.
I found it interesting how often a phrase „God our Father and Jesus Christ the Lord“ is used: 30 times I counted. I had also noticed this many times when reading the New Testament. Here is an example:
To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 1:7 NIV
You don’t find this wording in the Gospels and Acts yet, but after that in Romans, 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st Thessalonians, 2nd Thessalonians, 1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, Titus, Philemon, 1st Peter, 2nd John .
The phrase „God the Father“ and „Jesus Christ the Lord“ is used at least 30 times and in at least 14 letters.
It makes a clear distinction between „God the Father“ and „Jesus Christ the Lord“, and not „Jesus Christ the Son“. And the Holy Spirit is never mentioned. And it is only said of the Father that he is God, or of God that he is our Father. Jesus is not addressed as God but as Lord.
Were the authors back then perhaps much more concerned with the roles than with a concept like the Trinity? God is our Father, as it says in Jesus‘ model prayer. But Jesus is now our Lord. And since Pentecost at the latest, they had also had their experiences with the Holy Spirit – and nobody had the idea that the Father or Lord was now somehow in them, just as they described Father and Lord.
Let’s come back to the question from the beginning: Is the New Testament a textbook as we know it today? No. Or to put it with a lot of irony: What a sloppy job by Paul, Peter and John! Why do they confuse us with this wording? Or if you think the verbal inspiration is right: Why does God make us so confused here by using the different formulations so often instead of making the matter clear?
Did it take time, as with other topics, until they were understood? Perhaps the topic was not so important back then? Were the central messages of the Gospel not completely different? In view of this, perhaps it would be good to consider whether the doctrine of the Trinity is actually the central dogma – or not the Gospel after all?
Summary
The canon of the New Testament contains many texts with room for interpretation. But it also does not contain a definition of the Trinity as in many creeds. If you take the New Testament as a textbook, then no form of the Trinity – or contrary views – is explained particularly well in it. Would you like to disagree? Then take a look at any textbook on the subject. If it doesn’t contain a clear definition and its explanation and justification, would you buy such a textbook?
The New Testament is not structured like a modern textbook on any subject. Nor should it be.
Was the subject of the Trinity too complicated for the first century? Or was it simply secondary at best compared to the core message of the gospel?
History shows that it took a few centuries to establish the version of the Trinity that is widespread today. There is a great deal of literature on the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. If you want to read the facts from the perspective of a critical historian and can read English, this book is informative: How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. It’s by Bart D. Ehrman, by the way, who has done a lot of work with Bruce Metzger on the canon and the manuscripts of the New Testament.
Why do I mention this? Because it is very instructive to read how the same historical facts, manuscripts etc. can also be interpreted differently. If you see the facts from both sides, you can categorise them better and form your own opinion.
In the last 13 parts of this series on the canon of the New Testament, we have learned quite a lot of facts. Historical facts about the development of the canon and Christianity and those about the text and manuscripts themselves.
Maybe you’ve already asked yourself these questions throughout this series. If not, I’m doing it now:
And what am I supposed to do with this?
Can I still believe that I can find God’s thoughts in the Bible?
Why do some people come to different conclusions? They are the same facts for everyone. Is there no objective answer?
This brings us back to the idea that a personal evaluation is crucial here. This is not about personal preferences, like the favorite color. But rather the same as with the question: Is this picture beautiful? One says not unjustly: Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. The question, which fits our theme, is more difficult: Is this picture good?
Vincent van Gogh „Portrait of Dr. Gachet“
Can the question „Is this painting by van Gogh good?“ be answered simply? With yes or no? Already by this example we see that such a question does not make much sense. Should all the paintings in the world be divided into two groups, ‚good‘ and ‚bad‘?
In the same way, the question of whether the Bible is true or false does not make sense.
As for the question, „Is this painting by van Gogh good?“, you may think that there are objective criteria for that after all:
Finish (colors, details, technique)
Expression
Authenticity
Age of the picture
Artist
Conservation status
etc.
Wait a minute, why is the age of a painting an objective criterion for whether it is good? Let’s compare millennia-old drawings in a cave with a similar-looking chalk drawing by children on the street. There is a huge difference, isn’t there? But this is a slightly different question: What is the value of this picture?
And this is also the question that really interests us in relation to the Bible: What value does the Bible have for us?
However, this also brings general and personal evaluation factors into play. In the case of the image, for example:
How important do you think the artist is?
How important (for you) is the state of preservation? Small damages, aging of colors, etc.
Do you still like the picture, even if it is not the original but an almost perfect copy?
But you can of course also take the position that this picture must be valuable because it was sold in 1990 for 82.5 million US$ … This corresponds more or less to the thought that the Bible is valuable for one because first of all experts and secondly millions of others appreciate it. But since there are also experts and many millions of others who do not value the Bible at all, this does not necessarily help us.
But why is it possible to come to completely different conclusions when the facts are the same?
Facts and their Evaluation
An example from another area of life helps us here. You want to buy a house. The notary tells you: I’ve already drawn up the contract, just sign it down here. Would you do that? At least you would want to read it through in peace. In the process, you discover a few things you don’t understand, and sometimes there seems to be something wrong with the text. When you ask, you find out: The seller has sent his text in several parts to his lawyer. To be more precise, there were even different versions. Unfortunately, a few errors occurred during the transfer to the notary and the transcription there. But the notary corrected this to the best of his knowledge and also changed a few other things that could not have been correct. Nothing essential, just a few small things. Would you sign now?
Hardly anyone would do that with a contract. But when it comes to one’s own faith, life and hope for the future, that’s what many do with the Bible: sign blanketly. And even tend to be afraid of the facts we have considered so far, to ignore them or even deny them altogether. Why, in fact? Many other factors seem to play a greater role here than a rational evaluation of the facts.
To stay with the analogy: If you have known the notary personally for a long time, as competent and absolutely trustworthy and his office works very reliably, then you will have no problems with checking the documents received and their revisions. And then this analogy is lame: you have to sign a contract completely or not at all. And perhaps this has also been an unconscious assumption of ours with regard to the Bible.
The Facts
So, as far as the Bible is concerned, the Old and New Testaments, we want to know how reliable our sources are for this or that text. And there, research, historical and biblical criticism, as we have seen, instead of unsettling, has brought certainties:
The autographs are lost, but these and the copies were constantly read and used. Together with the oral tradition, Christians at the time of the first copies could still compare them. Of course, a certain uncertainty remains because we cannot check the condition of the first copies against manuscripts.
There are about 5,800 Greek manuscripts and many thousands more in Latin and other languages. From the first four centuries, however, very few manuscripts have survived, and of these, very few are complete. There are early translations.
There are probably over 400,000 discrepancies between the manuscripts of the New Testament, which itself has only 140,000 words. But most of them are spelling mistakes and can be eliminated this way.
There are intentional changes: For good intentions, because marginal notes were thought to be original, for example. But there were also those with the intention of defending or preventing a certain doctrine. Much of this we know by now. Others will still lie dormant in the text as yet unrecognized. So we know that there may still be surprises. But the fact that a comparison of the texts is possible at all shows that there are also very great similarities.
The canon of the New Testament consolidated itself only after about 300 years after a history full of trials and errors. Nothing speaks against the fact that God has influenced this process, even if the human hand can be seen only too well. What has remained, however, are writings that are convincing above all because of the quality of their content, especially in comparison with those that are not in the canon.
If God inspired the text, it was by being the ultimate source. This often leaves room for formulation by the human author. And accordingly he may have supervised the work of those who revised, compiled and copied the texts. This was not done flawlessly – which was never promised – but well enough to serve the purpose.
Looking at the Gospels, the writings of Paul, the other writings in the New Testament canon, writings that were not included in the canon, the writings of the church fathers and councils in chronological order, one can see how doctrines of Christianity first emerged or developed over the centuries.
We have not yet dealt with the last point in this series. But this is only an ‚interim assessment‘.
Let’s first look at some individual assessments of the facts listed.
Individual Assessments
Let’s take a look at some individual assessments and ask ourselves to what extent they are the result of facts, assumptions and personal assessments.
Assessment 1
„None of this is true. That was just invented to discredit the credibility of the Scriptures. For me, it is and remains all God’s Word.“
Well, you can do it that way. But denying facts is not a very good strategy in life otherwise either. Could it be that the issue here is more that certain assumptions and assertions about the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible are crucial? Or because otherwise certain doctrines of faith could be shaken?
Assessment 2
Titus 1:2 says: „God who cannot lie“. If God cannot lie, nothing in the Bible can be false.
This consideration contains some incorrect conclusions, but perhaps leads us to ignore this issue in the future. Also, it does not lead us to a stable foundation of faith.
Assessment 3
„He who lies once is not believed, even if he then speaks the truth“.
If someone thinks this way and then learns that texts in the Bible have been proven to be modified, this can lead to the Bible as a whole being rejected. However, this presupposes that one may assume that the Bible must have been preserved without errors.
Assessment 4
A ‚holy scripture‘ must not contain errors or human influence.
You can believe that and have it as a basic assumption. But it is not a law of nature, but a dogma of faith. However, it is unfortunately formulated too vaguely and leads to difficulties if one thinks about it.
Let’s take the tablets with the 10 commandments (actually words … but that’s a different topic). Let’s assume you get them pressed into your hand by God. If there is written „you shall not murder“ and later „you shall murder“, then one could already doubt the divinity of this text. But if a corner were broken off on the tablet and some of the words were badly legible, would you give it back to God because you could not accept it as divine in that way? However, if you get the tablets a hundred years later, but unfortunately they are broken. And some words are damaged and two sentences are only half preserved and in one place something has been repaired … then you are in the situation we have been talking about in this series. And then you find out that this is not the Orinigal at all! But Mose had to go again … because he has smashed the original …
By the way, the Bible often enough contains passages that express how the one who wrote it felt and thought. Is that not already a human influence? After all, God did not inspire the psalmist’s dejection in such a way that he could write it down as divine thoughts suitable for the holy scripture.
Does the Bible contain logical contradictions or contradictory statements? We have not talked about that at all yet. And also the evaluation of the content can also lead to very different conclusions.
Assessment 5
„It would have been nice if we had perfect copies or even the autographs with a guarantee of authenticity. But that’s not the way it is. Let’s see what we can do best with it. With the text of the Bible, I take into account how assured the text is because of the manuscripts.“
An idea or doctrine based on many texts is more reliable than something that occurs in only one text. If in this case the manuscripts also differ or there are differences to the context and the other texts, the reliability is rather low. One can live with this circumstance and take it into account.
Uncertainties and Risks
The personal weighting of facts therefore leads to very different results. With the same set of facts.
However, it is not only a matter of evaluating facts that we know, but also uncertainties and thus risks. There is a gap between the earliest copies preserved to us and the autographs. Here, too, one can evaluate differently.
„Since I know nothing about that time, I assume that anything could have happened there and the New Testament was completely destroyed. I don’t trust it at all.“
„It is true that I cannot directly verify what happened in the time between the autographs and the earliest copies preserved to us. But indirectly one can make certain statements. We have learned from some autographs that they were still used for reading aloud for many decades. Gross errors in a copy would thus have been noticed. Textual criticism has revealed the differences. But with it also the equal parts. Many changes have been corrected. For other unclear differences, I rate the passage as not very reliable. There is a residual risk that other falsified texts will be found. But I think it is quite unlikely that a newly found manuscript will turn everything upside down. I take all that into account when I read the Bible.“
Perhaps you are still waiting – or hoping – that I will make a conclusive, universal statement here about what you should think of the canon of the New Testament. Well, I hope it has become clear that there cannot be such one. In doing so, I would actually also be taking away from you the responsibility that everyone has for themselves. And so I end these ‚interim results‘ in the hope that you now have enough material to be able to make your personal assessment and position.
Rome, late July 144 A.D. „The clergy of the Christian community at Rome is holding a hearing. A very distinguished member of the congregation named Marcion stands before the presbyteries to present to them his teaching of the gospel, with the purpose of convincing the elders.
But what he now presented to the presbyters was so outrageous that it left his listeners speechless. The event ended with a strident rejection of Marcion’s views. He was formally excommunicated.“ (Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (German), p. 96)
Jehovah’s Witnesses may think of their legal committees, the disfellowshipping, and the shunning and ostracizing of such an apostate. But there are many differences. One in particular: „He had been a member of one of the Roman churches for a number of years and had demonstrated his orthodoxy by substantial financial contributions. No doubt he was a respected church member. … But then he was formally excommunicated and his monetary contributions were returned to him.“ (Metzger, p. 96) This has probably never been experienced by any Jehovah’s Witnesses. We would certainly have been happy to have our donations refunded when we officially left the religious community of Jehovah’s Witnesses. But that is another topic …
The Doctrine of Marcion
What doctrine then did Marcion present that provoked such a reaction? Marcion wrote only one work, the Antitheses. It has not survived to us, which is only too understandable in the case of a book so dangerous to the Church. We do know, however, that for a long time these thoughts were one of the strongest movements in Christianity and were fiercely opposed. Tertullian wrote „Five Books against Marcion“. And this was already his second, more detailed work! So it seems that there was something to Marcion’s teaching, if such an effort was necessary to prove that it was heretical – or maybe we should better say: not orthodox.
Thus, if the rebuttals are already so extensive, it is not possible to explain the doctrine adequately in a few sentences. Whoever wants to know more is referred to the monumental work (640 pages) of the scholar Adolf von Harnack: Marcion, das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (Marcion, the Gospel of the Strange God).
Nachdruck von Marcion, das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, Adolf von Harnack, 1921
Or from more recent times Barbara Aland Was ist Gnosis? Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2009. However, since we do not primarily want to analyze his teaching itself here, but what impact he had on the canon of the New Testament, we will start with a few statements by Paul.
Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through human agency, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead),
But when He who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace was pleased
For I would have you know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel which was preached by me is not of human invention. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
…, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus
But from those who were of considerable repute (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism)—well, those who were of repute contributed nothing to me. But on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised (for He who was at work for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised was at work for me also to the Gentiles), and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
Why the Law then? It was added on account of the violations, having been ordered through angels at the hand of a mediator, until the Seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by the Law; you have fallen from grace.
So then, as through one offense the result was condemnation to all mankind, so also through one act of righteousness the result was justification of life to all mankind.
What beliefs does Paul convey here about himself and the gospel?
Paul became an apostle directly from Jesus Christ Himself and God the Father. The other apostles were chosen by Jesus.
He was even chosen by God in his mother’s womb. None of the other apostles can say that about themselves and never did.
He received the gospel by revelation from Jesus Christ. He does not mention any gospels or reports of the other apostles as a source.
On the contrary, it did not consider it necessary to consult the apostles appointed before it in Jerusalem, as if it were only the advice of men.
The respected ones whose reputation he considers unimportant, the apostles and elders, the ‚pillars‘ of the church in Jerusalem, had nothing new for him.
He was entrusted with the gospel for the Gentiles. They agreed with this.
Paul even had to confront Peter publicly.
The law is there to make sin and transgression visible. The contrast to this is grace through Christ. At least that is how it can be interpreted.
Life comes only through the sacrificial death of Jesus.
Let us compare this with essential elements of Marcion’s thoughts and teachings, as far as they can be reconstructed from the writings of his opponents (I simplify here, but otherwise it will be a very long text or video):
Paul is the only true apostle, because only he truly understood the Gospel.
The other apostles fell back into the old Jewish thinking or never fully understood the true gospel.
The Old Testament with the law and its just, punishing God stands in contrast to the loving God and Jesus Christ and their redemption through grace.
Therefore, the Old Testament is no longer important for the believers, but only the Gospel.
The importance of Paul as an apostle and of the gospel as he preached it is not only emphasized but consistently developed – in some cases even radically developed. But it is interesting that many Christians today think pretty much the same way, isn’t it? „You just have to believe in Jesus, and then you’re saved.“, „Jesus loves you.“, „Love is the most important thing.“ „The Old Testament is not that important to us today.“ Although the church bitterly fought Marcion and his movement, it seems to me that today quite a few are again some kind of Marcionists.
However, I have not yet mentioned a central point in Marcion’s theology. Here he develops the Pauline thoughts to the last consequence. If there is such a difference between the Mosaic law and the love of the Christ, if the God of the Old Testament is just but also cruel, but in the Gospel is described as God of love, who is completely love, then YHWH from the Jewish Bible and the God of the Gospel cannot be the same! It must be a God unknown to us so far! The God of the Old Testament, of the Jewish Bible, the creator God of this sinful, unjust world, he called him the Demiurge, from ancient Greek δημιουργεῖν ‚to create‘. He, who in the Jewish Bible calls himself YHWH, is the lower God of the Law, the punishing one. A law that existed only to show the faultiness and sin of man and creation. Therefore, we did not know the highest God at all until now. He is a God full of love and goodness and he sent Jesus as his messenger. He is the Redeemer God who is far above the evil Creator God of the Law. The Creator God condemns us to death, the Redeemer God gives us life!
We may not be comfortable with the separation into two deities. But isn’t this how many people distinguish the God of the OT and the NT? So even today many see a contrast here and solve it in a surprisingly similar way. And in fact many theological concepts of Marcion were later incorporated into the teachings of the Church. Let us not forget that after his excommunication many churches joined his teachings and became one of the most important movements of Christianity.
Considering that the disputes on the subject of LAW were already current at the time of Paul and the relationship of Jesus‘ disciples to Judaism was constantly developing, he might have gotten away with it for a while (I am speculating now). But one thing was a logical consequence for him, which was certainly decisive: The messenger of the Redeemer God was good through and through and full of love and therefore could only be divine. He could have nothing human about him, because humans are part of the creation and therefore the imperfect work of the Demiurg. Humans cannot free themselves from evil and the law by themselves. Therefore, it only appeared as if the Son of God had become a man. He was also not the Messiah foretold in the OT. This, of course, was the terrible heresy of Docetism, which was fought just as vehemently by the church. This was already recorded between the first and second century:
I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.
2. John 1:7 NIV
The problem with the nature of Jesus Christ, as we have already seen, has occupied many and only one of several movements has survived. Marcion’s work, however, had another interesting influence.
How did Marcion influence the development of the canon?
Marcion was convinced that only Paul had received the real gospel directly from God and Christ and that the other apostles had not understood it and had even mixed it with thoughts from the Jewish Bible. Hearing Paul say this in Galatians and other letters, it does not sound so different. In fact, however, Paul’s letters and his theology were not at all as determinative in parts of the church as they still were in the middle of the first century. Marcion therefore wanted to restore the true gospel. Even in his time there were already different gospels, with different representations, and different copies and traditions – not to mention the Apocrypha. He therefore chose Luke’s Gospel as the only true one, and purged it of ‚errors‘. We had also seen in this series many examples of copyists deliberately changing the text to support or prevent a particular teaching. Marcion felt that even writings of Paul were so ‚corrupted‘ and set up a collection of corrected writings. Therefore, important scholars believe that Marcion was thus the first to establish a canon of Christian writings! This heretic, of all people! In fact, his work definitely helped to accelerate the development of the canon of the New Testament as we know it.
In summary, therefore, I would like to quote from Adolf von Harnack’s work (p. 262ff, German from 1921). Note: Soteriology is the doctrine of man’s redemption in the Christian context. I hope, the translation is somewhat ok, because it’s written in complex German of the 19th century!
Not only by the fact that all these pieces appear earlier in Marcion than in the great Church, the causal priority of this single man is proved, but even more surely by the observations (see Supplements III and IV) how strongly the Marcionite Bible as such and also through its text has influenced the Catholic one. Above all, the powerful penetration of the Marcionite prologues to the Pauline Epistles into the Latin Bible of the Church speaks the most eloquent language here. How often must the Marcionite collection of letters have come into the hands of Catholics and remained unrecognized at first! For decades copies of Paul’s letters were missing in the Catholic churches. But also the obvious fact that Irenaeus, the founder of the soteriological church doctrine, as well as Tertullian and Origen developed their biblical doctrines about goodness and justice, about gospel and law, about the Creator God and the Redeemer God etc. in the struggle against Marcion and learned from him in the process, is of highest importance. Finally – through Marcion also for the great church Paul has been reawakened, whom e.g. a teacher like Justin had already completely pushed aside and the Roman Christian Hermas had completely ignored. Above all, however, the position of the great Christianity towards the OT has become a considerably different one than before as a result of the confrontation with Marcion. Before, the danger was burning that one recognized the OT as the Christian document, partly explained literally, partly allegorically, and was content with it; now, although this danger was still not finally eliminated and a satisfactory clarity was not established, the judgment that in the OT „the ore still lies in the pits“ and that it is the legisdatio in servitutem as opposed to the New Testament legisdatio in libertatem, nevertheless created room and prestige for itself. Yes, we now hear statements about the OT from outstanding church scholars that go even beyond Paul. The church owes this to Marcion.
If one adds that only after Marcion the purposeful work began in the great Christianity to bring about the holy church, the bride of Christ, the spiritual Eve, the aeon beyond from heaven and to unite the congregations on earth to an actual community and unity on the basis of a firm doctrine rooted in the NT, as he did, then it is proven that Marcion gave the decisive impulse for the creation of the Old Catholic Church by his organizational and theological conceptions and by his work and provided the model. He is also credited with having first conceived and first realized the idea of a canonical collection of Christian writings, the New Testament. Finally, he was also the first in the Church to make Paul’s soteriology the center of doctrine, while the ecclesiastical apologists beside him based Christian doctrine on cosmology.
Adolf von Harnack: Marcion, das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, S. 245ff
Adolf von Harnack: Marcion, das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, S. 245Adolf von Harnack: Marcion, das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, S. 246Adolf von Harnack: Marcion, das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, S. 247
What were the movements among Christ’s disciples?
Having recognized that even a Christian movement that did not survive had an influence on the scriptures and the canon, the question arises whether there were others like it.
First of all, Jesus and the disciples lived in Judaism during the Second Temple period. At that time there were the movements of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots and others. The disciples came from or were close to these groups, probably except for the Sadducees, the priestly-aristocratic upper class. Paul had been a Pharisee, and Simon the Zealot may have been a Zealot. But the influence of the Essenes, who were expecting the Messiah, should not be ignored either. It is interesting to note that of these, essentially only the Pharisees survived after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Then the ‚Gentiles‘, i.e. people who were not Jews, also came. Some of them were also ‚God-fearers‘, i.e. Gentiles who already sympathized with Judaism. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD was of course a drastic event. Essentially, the movements among the Christians can be divided into three directions:
Jewish Christians
Nazarene (Wikipedia, Nazarene) They continued to consider keeping the law important and saw Jesus as a prophet. Unlike the Ebionites, however, they accepted the virgin birth. In the patronistic period and the church fathers they were known and their point of view was discussed
Ebioniten (Wikipedia, Ebionites) Whether they gave themselves this designation, ‚the poor‘, is unknown. But they tried, like Jesus‘ first disciples, to give up everything. For them, to be a disciple of Jesus, one had to be a Jew in any case. For them, Christ did not live before he lived on earth. He was only a man whom God adopted and gave a special position because of his righteousness. They also rejected Paul’s theology. Therefore, for the pre-orthodox Christians, they were heretics who had to be fought. That is why especially the position that Jesus was only a man was fought. And as we have seen, that is why they sometimes changed the text of the scriptures.
Pauline Christians Christians whose theolgy was based on the writings and teachings of Paul.
Gnostic Christians This was not a unified group, but there were many different directions. For them, the material world was fundamentally bad and all that mattered was a spiritual world. Well, there seems to be some of this idea left. The gnostic groups thought that they possessed ‚gnosis‘, ‚knowledge‘, this secret knowledge of the spiritual world and that this was the key to salvation.
Between 180 and 313 AD, the ‚great church‘ prevailed, which further developed Paul’s theology and contradicted all others in their writings. As a result, their points of view – or arguments to the contrary – entered into the texts and teachings of the church. In a way, a creed was formed which defended itself against all these other ideas.
313 AD is an important date because there, in the Edict of Milan, Christians were granted legal status throughout the Roman Empire. Then in 325 CE, Emperor Constantine converted and the first Council of Nicaea took place. There a uniform confession of faith was to be created, which was then finally the confession of Nicaea (Nicene Creed).
However, the claimed consubstantiality of God the Father and God the Son was rejected by many. Arius and his followers were called Arians (Wikipedia). The dispute with this group shaped not only the creed, but also the selection of writings for the canon and sometimes the text itself: Let us only think back to the Comma Johanneum or the other modified texts. When the leading movement, which stood behind the confession of Nicaea, then became the state religion by Emperor Theodosius in 380 AD, it finally prevailed.
These examples may suffice to show that the selection of the writings, the development of the canon and the writings themselves were not implemented in a straight line according to a plan step by step, but emerged over centuries. And that the influence of the other movements in Christianity, which have disappeared, should not be overlooked.
After having taken a look at the apocryphal gospels in the last part of this series, we now want to get an overview of the apocrypha in general. In the following, we will use the term apocrypha to refer to those writings that have not been included in the canon of the New Testament. The term is derived from the ancient Greek ἀπόκρυφος apokryphos, English ‚hidden, dark‘. There are more apocryphal books:
The biblical apocrypha (from Ancient Greek ἀπόκρυφος (apókruphos) ‚hidden‘) denotes the collection of apocryphal ancient books thought to have been written some time between 200 BC and AD 400. The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches include some or all of the same texts within the body of their version of the Old Testament, with Roman Catholics terming them deuterocanonical books. Traditional 80-book Protestant Bibles include fourteen books in an intertestamental section between the Old Testament and New Testament called the Apocrypha, deeming these useful for instruction, but non-canonical.
It is interesting that in Luther 1543 as well as in the English King James Version of 1611 these Apocrypha are summarized at the end. In the Vulgate and Catholic Bibles, however, they are found among the other books. Even in the early Greek translation, the Septuagint, they are found in between. Many modern Bibles, however, adhere to the Jewish Bible, which has not contained them since the 1st century AD. So the answer as to whether a book is part of the canon can vary.
As far as the New Testament is concerned, such differences no longer exist. But in the first centuries, besides the apocryphal gospels, which we have talked about in the last part, there were definitely other genres of apocryphal writings.
Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
The canonical Acts of the Apostles (also called Acts) describe in more detail the missionary activity of only a few apostles. Therefore, other Acts of the Apostles or Acts appeared in the second and third centuries:
Aprocryphal acts of Andrew
Aprocryphal acts of Thomas
Aprocryphal acts of Philippus
Aprocryphal acts of Matthias
Aprocryphal acts of Bartholomäus
Aprocryphal acts of Barnabas
…
Aprocryphal acts of Paul
Aprocryphal acts of John
Aprocryphal acts of Peter
What they have in common is that they are hardly based on facts but are more influenced by the Greco-Roman novel of the era. An example from the Acts of John:
The author reports that Jesus constantly changed his figure. Sometimes he looked like a little boy, sometimes like a handsome young man, sometimes he appeared with a bald head and a long beard, then again like a youth with his first down on his cheek.
Before his death, Jesus gathers his disciples in a circle around him and sings a hymn to the Father while his apostles hold hands and dance around him in a circle. The terminology of the hymn borrows heavily from the Gospel of John and its prologue. At the same time, the author gives it a docetic flair.
Incidentally, they are the oldest source of the celebration of the Eucharist for the dead.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 174
Apocryphal Epistles
In the New Testament, most of the writings belong to the epistolary genre. In the Apocrypha, on the other hand, only a few letters are found, probably because it was quite difficult to produce genuine-sounding letters.
Metzger describes the 2nd-century Epistola Apostolorum this way: „In short, the writing represents a Catholic Christian’s fierce attack on gnosis.“
There was also a 3rd Corinthians letter, which was highly respected by the Armenian Church. And a Laodicean letter. For this, of course, the Epistle to the Colossians in Colossians 4:16 had provided the steeple, as we have already seen at the beginning of the series. Presumably, however, this was written toward the end of the 3rd century. Jerome reports that „some read the letter to the Laodiceans, but it is rejected by everyone.“
Apocryphal Apocalypses
The most important apocryphal apocalypse is the Apocalypse of Peter from the period between 125 to 150 A.D. In the Canon Muratori it is listed after the Revelation of John. In the Codex Claromontanes, the list of canonical books is concluded with the Apocalypse of Peter. Opinions about it differed among the church fathers and also in the congregations. „The unknown author, who was the first to introduce pagan ideas of heaven and hell into Christian literature, drew his conception of the future life from a number of pre-Christian traditions.“ (Metzger p. 181)
So, already in the first centuries there was a flood of writings circulating in the churches. Some of them were also read and appreciated in the meetings and quoted by the Fathers of the Church. Nor could the title or the supposed author be relied upon as authority. The disciples of Jesus had to examine and evaluate the content:
Do not extinguish the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
Is there only one gospel? If you look at the Greek word from which the German and English word is derived, there is:
The Gospel is the good news that God has come to man in Jesus Christ. The word „gospel“ (German Evangelium) means „good news“ and comes from the Greek word euangelion. The message of Jesus was: God’s kingdom has dawned, he will finish his work and make the world whole.
The German word ‚Evangelium‘ is pretty close to the Greek euangelion. But ‚gospel‘?
Gospel is the Old English translation of the Hellenistic Greek term εὐαγγέλιον, meaning „good news“; this may be seen from analysis of ευαγγέλιον (εὖ „good“ + ἄγγελος „messenger“ + -ιον diminutive suffix). The Greek term was Latinized as evangelium in the Vulgate, and translated into Latin as bona annuntiatio. In Old English, it was translated as gōdspel (gōd „good“ + spel „news“). The Old English term was retained as gospel in Middle English Bible translations and hence remains in use also in Modern English.
I personally find the description of the BibleProject (German) quite good. And also the video (English) about it:
The Gospel as Good News of God’s Kingdom
In the Christian tradition, the word gospel is generally a shorthand term for the core message of the Christian faith. However, the exact meaning of the term gospel varies; depending on tradition or denomination. So, if we are looking for clarity, it is best to go back to the original source of this word in biblical history.
The biblical word for gospel denotes good news. But it is not just any news. The word is most often used when referring to important events involving rulers and their kingdoms. When King Solomon is appointed king of Israel, „good news“ is proclaimed throughout the land. In other words, gospel is a royal term that announces good news about the ruler in office.
Jesus announced the coming of God as King of Israel and all nations. But the way he imposed his reign surprised people. The cross is the royal announcement that God saves his world by dying for it and by allowing our sins to overwhelm him to the point of death.
Well, about the last paragraph we could discuss now, in how far this is so direct from the „original source of this word in the biblical history“. For example, if we were only allowed to use the Gospels. And that brings us to the issue. Just now I said „the Gospels“, but before that it was about „the Gospel“.
So if there is one gospel, one good news, why is there more than one gospel in the New Testament, namely 4 gospels? And why exactly 4? Three of them, the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, plus John. They are called synoptic gospels because they see the life of Jesus from a similar perspective and are quite similar. John’s Gospel is much more different from these than the three are from each other. Were there then only these three and later another gospel as writings? Besides the oral tradition, of course.
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, …
Luke 1:1 American Standard Version
Since there was no Gospel of John at the time of the writing of the Gospel of Luke, only Matthew and Mark would come into question. There the statement that already ‚many‘ had undertaken it would be perhaps nevertheless somewhat exaggerated. So we learn already from the gospel of Luke which has been handed down to us: There were many ‚gospels‘, but only four have been preserved to us.
And also the conclusion of John’s gospel makes understandable why there may have been more oral and also written reports against:
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
John 21:25 NIV
Which ones do we know about yet?
Apocryphal Gospels
By apocryphal gospels we refer in the following to those that have not been included in the canon of the New Testament. The term is derived from the ancient Greek ἀπόκρυφος apokryphos, English ‚hidden, dark‘. There are more apocryphal books:
Religious writings of Jewish or Christian origin from the period between about 200 B.C. and about 400 A.D. that were not included in a biblical canon or about which there is disagreement, whether for reasons of content or religious policy, or because they were written after the canon was completed or were not generally known at the time they were written.
These gospels, which have not been preserved to us, form two groups: those which were to supplement the four gospels and those which were to replace them. (This and the following examples are taken from Bruce M. Metzger The Canon of the New Testament, German, p. 164ff).
Now the early Christians were particularly interested in two points in Jesus‘ life and ministry, but these were omitted entirely by the Gospels: Jesus‘ childhood, which only Luke reports once (Luke 2:41-51), and the deeds the Savior did in the invisible world during the three days between the cross and the resurrection.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 164
There are numerous such reports since about the second century, and we at least know of their existence:
Proto-Gospel of James
Childhood story according to Thomas
Arabic Childhood Gospel
Armenian Childhood Gospel
History of Joseph the Carpenter
Gospel of the Nativity of Mary
Gospel of Nicodemus (also known as Acts of Pilate)
Gospel of Bartholomew
… (there are more)
I also listed them because they were already known at that time under a designation that included familiar names. However, that did not play a role in judging whether they should be part of the canon. So also we should get rid of the idea that the Gospel of Matthew belongs in it because the title already says that the apostle Matthew would have written it. Or 2 Peter must also be from Peter. Even if it is mentioned in the text, you have to be careful, because that was done in other texts as well.
We will take a closer look at four of them, because we can learn something from them about how the idea of what belongs in the canon and what doesn’t has developed.
Fragments of an unknown gospel (Papyrus Egerton 2)
Sometimes, even in modern times, previously unknown manuscripts of gospels appear. Perhaps we still remember news that now perhaps the history of Jesus and the whole Christian faith would have to be rewritten. Well, this has failed to happen. And not because all scientists conspired to cover something up. There are enough scientists who, on the contrary, have an interest in scientifically researching and publishing such a sensation. But the texts are published and everybody can judge for himself what he thinks about it.
One example is the fragments of an unknown gospel published by the British Museum in 1935. It was probably written around 110-130 AD. Some narratives are found in the Synoptics and John. But it also contains an apocryphal miracle worked by Jesus on the banks of the Jordan River. A textual example:
And he addressed the leaders of the people, and he [Jesus] spoke thus, „Search the scriptures in which you think you have life-they bear witness of me (see John 5:39). Do not think that I have come to accuse you before my Father; Moses will accuse you, in whom you have put your hope.“ (see Jn 5:45) Then, when they said, „We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where you are coming from“ (see Jn 4:29), Jesus answered them, „Now your unbelief accuses you…“
Unknown Gospel Papyrus Egerton 2, Fragment I, Zeilen 5-9
The interesting thing about this gospel is: It probably has no written model, but written and oral tradition still overlap here. This was already described by Papias of Hierapolis, who lived around 100 AD.
It must also be pointed out that the production of Gospels and other apocryphal writings did not stop or was notably hindered by the development of the New Testament canon. Popular piety built itself on the steady stream of romantic and imaginative writings whose historical value was at best of marginal interest.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 166
The Gospel of Hebrews
What then were the views of the church fathers on the apocryphal gospels?
In the writings of the various Church Fathers, we encounter passages and quotations from various early Gospels from the second and third centuries. We can gauge from them the use they made of the apocryphal books and the authority they attributed to them.
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 166
Jerome was very interested in it and proudly reports that he made a translation into Greek and Latin. And he quotes from the Gospel of Hebrews. Origen also does it and Clement of Alexandria uses it. In the Coptic version of a sermon on Mary, the God-bearer, attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem, the author puts a quotation from the Gospel of Hebrews into the mouth of a representative of the „Ebionite heresy.“
This is what is written in the [Hebrews] Gospel: When Jesus Christ was about to come to man on earth, the Good Father in heaven chose a mighty power called Michael and entrusted Christ to his protection. And the power came into the world and was called Mary, and [Christ] was in her womb seven months.
Coptic version of a sermon on Mary
Now perhaps we understand better the difference with the gospels in the New Testament. And why the Church has ultimately excluded such gospels from its canon. Ultimately – because in the beginning it was still quoted from them.
The Egyptian Gospel
The so-called Egyptian Gospel was written in Greek shortly after 150 and was even recognized as canonical in Egypt. In a polemic against the Gnostic Julius Passianus, Clemens quotes parts of it, for example, a passage from a dialogue between Salome and the Lord:
„When Salome inquired how long death would reign, the Lord (who did not think life was bad and creation evil) replied: ‚As long as you women bear children.’“ In response to Salome’s inquiry as to whether she had done well not to have children, she receives the reply, „Eat of every plant but the bitter one.“ and „When you have trodden the robe of shame underfoot, and the two become one, and the male with the female [is] neither male nor female.“
Bruce M. Metzger Der Kanon des Neuen Testaments, S. 168
These words clearly call for sexual abstinence. Here we can see the thinking of some Gnostics and the Encratites, who, for example, rejected marriage.
The Gospel of Peter
„The text reports the passion, death and burial of Jesus and embellishes the account of his resurrection with details of the miracles that followed. The responsibility for the death of Jesus is laid exclusively on the Jews, Pilate is absolved of all guilt. Now and then traces of the Docetic heresy are found.“ (Metzger, p. 169).
If one compares these and even more divergent gospels with those in the New Testament, one can see clear differences in quality, both theologically and historically. At that time, people were convinced that the gospels in the canon corresponded best to the faith and teachings of the apostles and were essentially accurate and reasonable.
Why exactly 4 Gospels?
Based on what we have discussed so far, we would probably have no problem if there were now 3 or even 5 Gospels in the New Testament. That would have been just the best, available at that time. But what already occupied the church fathers at that time was the question, why there was not only exactly one scripture about the life of Jesus, but several with certain deviations. There were different ’solutions‘ for this:
There must be a rationale as to why there are exactly four.
The four are combined into one.
Only one can be the right gospel. That is chosen, and all others are rejected.
In part 8 we had already seen how Irenaeus of Lyon argued:
„It cannot be at all that the number of Gospels is greater or less than it is, for in the world in which we live there are also only four cardinal points and four winds … The four living beasts (Revelation 4:9) symbolize the four Gospels … and there are four main covenants with humanity: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ.“
Irenaeus of Lyon, Adv. Haer. III 9,8
In particular, the reference to the four beasts in Ezekiel and the Revelation of John are interesting, because this was already to gain great influence in later Christian art from about the fourth century (see Wikipedia). Here is an example from a 7th century codex where you can nicely see the connection of evangelists with the animals:
The evangelists with their attributes, Codex Amiatinus (7th c.)
But you do not have to go to a library to find this symbolism. For example, the animals can be found above the western entrance of the cathedral of Speyer (Germany) around a huge round window in the four corners of the comprehensive square the four animals again. Few visitors are likely to know that this refers to the four gospels:
Western portal of the cathedral in Speyer. The symobles are eagle, man, lion and bull as symbols for the gospels
Central portal of the west facade of the cathedral in Chartres
But back to the Gospels. Tatian took a different path. He wrote the Diatessaron, which combines the four Gospels into one, by incorporating the Synoptics into the Gospel of John. When he went back to the East in 172 AD, it translated the Greek Diatessaron into Syriac. This was read for a long time in place of the four Gospels in all the churches of the capital and later of the entire region.
Marcion, who will be discussed in part 13 of this series, took the opposite approach. He recognized only the Gospel of Luke and rejected all others.
Summary
In summary, we could say that there is only one gospel but many gospels in the sense of scriptures. Why these are different is a question we cannot elaborate here. But are there exactly four gospels in the New Testament because that was God’s plan from the beginning? Well, that sounds a bit like the reasoning of Irenaeus of Lyons. And it ignores what we noted in Part 10 about inspiration. A more natural explanation is that God, through his Holy Spirit, helped several people compile the accounts into writings. And in other gospels, God’s involvement seems more questionable. Interestingly, the Christians and Church Fathers do not seem to have divided all of these into inspired and non-inspired. But rather more or less beneficial. And as it is said in other writings in the New Testament, God helped the disciples of Jesus through the Holy Spirit to test them for their truthfulness, because in the beginning it was still possible to ask eyewitnesses. In later centuries, he may well have supported people again in such a way that they considered some of these writings worthy of inclusion in the canon. For a while, people still quoted from other gospels, but eventually this stopped. What of this was God’s will and influence or church policy is for each person to decide for themselves. We will go into this in part 13.
In the last part of this series I had said that with terms like ‚the Holy Scriptures‘ or ‚the Word of God‘ some assumptions and ideas are unconsciously linked. At the very least, we should be clear about exactly what we mean by the terms ‚God’s Word‘ and ‚the Holy Scriptures‘ when we use them. And most importantly, are these terms even used in the Bible itself? Let’s look at that, much like I did in the article and video: Should we (let ourselves) be called Christians or anointed ones? or Should we (let ourselves) be called brothers of Christ.?
‚The Holy Scripture‘
Let’s start with the fact that the Bible is often called ‚the Holy Scripture‘ in German – and to some extend in English. If you search for ‚holy scripture‘ in some German Bible translations, e.g. in the ERF Bibleserver (in German), you will find – nothing! This is not quite true. I found one passage in a translation which also shows the reason why we do not find this in the text of the Bible:
The Jews in Berea were not as prejudiced as those in Thessalonica. They responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ with great readiness, and they studied the Holy Scripture daily to see if what Paul taught was in accord with what the Scriptures said.
Acts 17:11 Neue Genfer Übersetzung.
Now these, who were more noble than those in Thessalonica, received the word with all readiness, on every day examining the Scriptures, whether these things were so.
Acts 17:11 Berean Literal Bible
Acts 17:11 Interlinear Greek
In the Greek here namely γραφὰς (graphas) noun, accusative, feminine, plural (Strong’s) is written. Strictly speaking, the Greek text even says only ‚the writings‘ – already the word ‚holy‘ is added. Interestingly, all the English translations on biblehub.com render this as ‚Scriptures‘. I also examined the few other passages where it is translated ‚holy scriptures‘. In fact, it is only twice in the Greek text:
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God — the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures (γραφαῖς ἁγίαις, graphais hagiais) Paulus, Knecht Christi Jesu, berufener Apostel, ausgesondert für das Evangelium Gottes, das er durch seine Propheten in heiligen Schriften vorher verheißen hat.
Romans 1:1,2 NIV
and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures (ἱερὰ γράμματα, hiera grammata), which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture (γραφὴ, graphē) is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness …
2 Timothy 3:15, 16 NIV
And immediately something stands out, which I had already analyzed in detail in parts 2 and 8: With ‚Holy Scriptures‘ here quite clearly the old testament, the Tanakh is meant.
Incidentally, the word γράμμα gramma used in 2 Timothy 3:15 is used only 15 times in the New Testament and always describes something written, usually a letter. Strong’s states, „From grapho; a writing, i.e. A letter, note, epistle, book, etc. plural learning.“ Here it is in the plural: writings. Whereas in verse 16 the word γραφή graphé (without the suffix ‚holy‘) is used, which is used 51 times. Strong’s states, „(a) a writing, (b) a passage of scripture; plur: the scriptures. A document, i.e. Holy Writ.“ By the end of the explanation, we already see how it moves from explaining the language to interpreting it. Incidentally, if one calls Strong’s Greek 1124 directly on biblehub.com, the part „A document, i.e. Holy Writ.“ is missing.
Instead of an explanation, you can find even more interpretation. For example, in HELPS Word-studies:
The addition „, i.e. the inspired, inerrant writings of the Bible (the 66 books of Scripture, 39 in Hebrew, 27 in Greek)“ has nothing to do with the Greek word used in the Vers. And in the previous part 9 of this series we talked at length about inspiration and also the claim of infallibility of the text. And in part 8 we talked about the origin of the canon of the New Testament and how many books the Bibles of different branches of Christianity have. Why the important second part is only in brackets is not explained. Whereas the reference is important that in the New Testament γραφή graphé is always used for the Old Testament.
Let’s compare this with the NAS Exhaustive Concordance. And let’s take into account that its name contains ‚exhaustive‘:
The whole ‚exhaustive‘ explanation is: ‚a writing‘. More detailed explanations are often found in Thayer’s Greek Lexicon:
Here one finds the main meanings grouped together and also immediately with their use in the text. These explanations are given: „(a) a writing, thing written (from Sophocles down): πᾶσα γραφή every scripture namely, of the O. T., (b) ἡ γραφή, the Scripture κατ‘ ἐξοχήν, the holy scripture (of the O. T.) — and used to denote either the book itself, or its contents (some would restrict the singular γραφή always to a particular passage; see Lightfoot on Galatians 3:22) (c) a certain portion or section of holy Scripture.“ I found it interesting here how it moves from „every scripture namely, of the O. T“ to „the Scripture“ and then to „the holy scripture (of the O. T.)“ without further justification. But at least the Old Testament is correctly spoken of.
But let’s take a look at the usage itself. The use of this word γραφή graphé is diverse. And sometimes surprising.
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Romans 9:17 ESV
This is really what the Greek text says. How could ‚the Scripture‘ speak to Pharaoh? Some translations solve this creatively-interpretatively: „For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, … :“ (NIV), „For he said in the Scriptures to Pharaoh,“ (Aramaic Bible in Plain English) and „In the Scriptures the Lord says to the king of Egypt,“ (Contemporary English Version).
We note:
Nowhere in the Bible does it say ‚the holy scripture‘, but only twice in the New Testament does it say ‚the holy scriptures‘ and that clearly refers to the Old Testament.
Otherwise, the New Testament speaks only of the ‚Scripture‘ or the ‚Scriptures‘ and means the Old Testament.
Is this splitting hairs now? I don’t want to make a dogma out of it, but under the surface lies an important question: Is the Bible an authoritative collection of writings, or a collection of authoritative writings? What is meant by this? To put it casually: Did either identify writings as holy and were they then collected? That’s how it was originally with the Old Testament. Or is there a holy collection – the canon – whereby the writings included in it also thereby become holy? If we now recall what we learned in a previous part about the canon of the New Testament, we may better understand why this is important. If the canon, which was not established by the Church until the fourth century, is authoritative, then this decision of the Church has a very different significance. This is exactly how the Catholic Church sees it:
„Apostolic succession is the proof that authority belongs to the Catholic Church alone. She alone is steward and guardian over the interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Whoever breaks with Her breaks with the Holy Spirit.“
„The Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church of Christ, Pius XI declares; she is the divinely appointed guardian of revealed truth, which must not be dragged down to the bottom of discussions.“
However, the New Testament does not make this statement! And Protestants will contradict it also vehemently. Just as the first quotation is actually about the fact that the Catholic side resolutely contradicts the ’sola scriptura‘ (only the Scripture).
Is it really necessary to burden the scriptures that have been handed down and preserved for us with so many absolute claims that cannot be upheld historically and on the basis of the facts? Must one insist on verbal inspiration, even though that makes no sense (see Part 9 of this series)? Or that the Catholic Church alone is the guardian? Are the scriptures perhaps just a gift from God to help us gain wisdom and live as He wills? This is something that everyone must evaluate for themselves. But maybe I should not just say something like that here. If you publish such a thought as a professor, it can cost you your job at a theological seminary that puts its own tradition above the object of tradition – the scriptures (see, for example, the article about Peter Enns).
If the Bible is for us ‚the [infallible] Holy Scripture‘, then we will naturally struggle to accept that it demonstrably contains human aspects, has been revised, and some things have been altered or lost in copying or translation.
This is what I meant at the beginning, that with a term like ‚the Holy Scripture‘ we may associate rather far-reaching, unspoken assumptions. And we automatically activate these with the use of the term in mind when we read or think about the Bible.
God’s Word / Word of God
You already suspect it. With the term ‚the Word of God‘ it will not turn out differently. Is that a good description for ‚the Scriptures‘? If everything is ‚the Word of God‘ for us, we expect a certain perfection of the text, don’t we? Is this term even used in the scriptures to refer to ‚the Bible‘?
And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem was multiplied exceedingly, and a great multitude of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith..
Acts 6:7 Berean Literal Bible
Good. This hardly means ‚the Bible‘. Neither it spreads nor there was even one letter of the New Testament written at that time.
For the word of God is living and active …
Hebrew 4:12 Berean Literal Bible
That doesn’t sound like ‚the Bible‘ either. But gives us a much better, more comprehensive meaning.
And many were gathered together, so as to have no more space, not even at the door. And He was speaking the word to them.
Mark 2:2 Berean Literal Bible
‚The Word‘ certainly did not refer to the Bible or the New Testament, which did not even exist yet.
Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and every expression of evil, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.
James 1:21 Berean Literal Bible
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
Ephesians 6:17 Berean Literal Bible
The sword is taken in hand here in the sentence, not the Bible. In fact, a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as I recall, felt called on the basis of this text to lash out with texts taken from the Bible as if with a sword. And I can also remember how many a speaker waved his printed Bible around at this text. But back to the text.
For this is concealed from them willingly, that heavens existed long ago and the earth, having been composed out of water and through water, by the word of God, through which the world at that time perished, having been deluged with water.
2 Peter 3:5,6 Berean Literal Bible
Here, too, there is obviously no mention of ‚the Bible‘ as the Word of God. But what then? Perhaps the text is to be understood as this translation renders it: „and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.“ (ESV)
And isn’t even Jesus sometimes referred to as ‚the Word of God‘? Because of this text, for example:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, a glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:1, 14 Berean Literal Bible
Let me summarize it this way:
The Bible is not God’s word, but the Bible contains God’s words.
This is a very important difference. It keeps the Bible valuable, even if it’s not as perfect as we might like it to be. When I wrote that down, I thought I had found a nice pithy phrase. But in an email about this series, someone wrote me, „In the 1980s, a brother once told me, „The Bible is not God’s Word, it contains God’s Word!“ I was hardly the first. But when several come up with the same thought, it is worth examining more closely.
These are truly the words of God:
The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”
Exodus 24:12 ESV
What about this?
But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if …
1 Corinthians 7:12 NASB
When Paul says something, are they exactly God’s words? Well, if he writes it in a letter, which is then in the New Testament … We had already addressed that in the last part about inspiration. And would you say that every word of the Lord – clearly Jesus is meant here – were directly inspired by God. Everything he said and then was written down in the Gospels? So the gospels that we know and which are part of the New Testament?
Returning to the words of God, what about this?
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Matthew 4:5,6 NIV
What the devil says is not from God, is it? So the first part of the verse are not God’s words. Then it gets complicated. The devil is quoting … ‚God’s word‘? That’s right. Even the devil can quote ‚God’s word‘. But his words are not God’s words, are they?
Ok. I’m certainly not trying to make a dogma or a rule here either. It’s again about a deeper problem with the term ‚Word of God‘: it pretty much implies verbal inspiration: no word in the Bible is formed or shaped by humans. But this is not correct, as we saw in the ‚inspiration‘ part of tis series. Even to call the autographs themselves – let alone a translation – ‚the Word of God‘ or ‚The Holy Scriptures‘ is then going quite far.
Perhaps we are also sometimes too fixated on a ‚Holy Book‘. We hope for a written, perfect guide for life and faith. But who had that? For Abraham, this ‚Word of God‘ was enough:
Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot was separated from him, „Now, lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, …
Genesis 13:14 World English Bible
Today, God no longer speaks directly to us – at least not to me. Therefore, I am grateful for what I have.
And with that, I delete for myself what does not correspond to the facts but also what creates a false expectation:
„The Bible is the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, fully inspired by God (dictated word for word) and thus contains exactly what God intended. It has been preserved for us to this day exactly as the Bible itself says so, every book, paragraph, sentence, word, comma and period.„
It remains: The Bible is. Or better, as I find: the Scriptures are. And precisely because I try not to have unrealistic expectations of the scriptures, I find words of God and wisdom in them and it contributes to a stable foundation of my faith:
The Scriptures – the Bible –, whose utlimative source is God, contain what we need. Enough has been preserved to this day for us to know God and live in wisdom as He desires.
And what do we need, what does God expect from us?
He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micha 6:8 World English Bible
And with that we are … far from the end of this series! 😀
For example, I have spoken of ‚the Bible‘ an incredible number of times. Just a moment ago. Yet we have not even examined the meaning of this term. The German word Bibel comes from the ancient Greek βιβλία biblia with the meaning: ‚books‘. The explanation in Wikipedia is quite revealing:
The English word Bible is derived from Koinē Greek: τὰ βιβλία, romanized: ta biblia, meaning „the books“ (singular βιβλίον, biblion). The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of „scroll“ and came to be used as the ordinary word for „book“. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, „Egyptian papyrus“, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.
The Greek ta biblia („the books“) was „an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books“. The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew, delivered between 386 and 388 CE) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia („the books“) to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.
Latin biblia sacra „holy books“ translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια (tà biblía tà hágia, „the holy books“). Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra „holy book“. It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.
So ‚the Bible‘ is perhaps the best term we can use.
In part 11 we will then deal with this topic: One Gospel – but many Gospels?
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52, a fragment of John’s Gospel from the time of Emperor Hadrian and Church Fathers‘ citations).
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