Who Decided Which Books Belong in My Bible?
Suppose that you became a Christian in the second century A.D. You’ve heard the story of a divine being who died on a cross and rose from the dead. Through baptism, you’ve openly identified yourself with his followers. Now, you want to learn more about this deity. Yet you quickly realize that some people who call themselves “Christians” understand Jesus very differently from the Christians in your congregation. In fact, one nearby group that claims the name “Christian” also says that Jesus wasn’t actually a human being—he was a spirit that only seemed human!
How would you decide who was right?
As a twenty-first century Christian, the most reasonable reply seems to be, “Read your New Testament!” The problem is, most Christians in the second century couldn’t read. Even if you were one of the privileged few that possessed the capacity to read and write, you wouldn’t personally own a Bible. Your only “Bible” would have been found in an armarion—a specially-constructed cabinet with niched shelves for scrolls and codices—that stayed in the house where your congregation most often gathered. The armarion would likely have sheltered a copy of the Greek Old Testament and perhaps a couple dozen other sacred scrolls or codices.
But it’s possible that not all of these texts would have been identical to the twenty-seven books that you find in New Testaments today.
To be sure, the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s letters, and probably John’s first letter would have had a place in the armarion. But the cabinet could lack a few writings that your New Testament includes—the letter to the Hebrews and maybe the second epistle that’s ascribed to Peter, for example, or a couple of John’s letters. A quirky allegory entitled The Shepherd might have made an appearance in your armarion. You might even find a letter or two from a Roman pastor named Clement.
Do you sense the dilemma that faced first- and second-century Christians? How did they maintain a clear and consistent faith in the shadow of so many competing claims? And who decided on the texts that we call the New Testament today?
:: Circular Reasoning and Skeptical Spins ::
It isn’t helpful simply to reason circularly, as some Christian apologists have done, and to claim that “God chose the books” or that “the Scriptures say they’re inspired.” Any writer can claim inspiration! And the question isn’t whether God had any part in choosing the books; the question is, “By what human means did these texts come to be viewed as authoritative?”
Equally unhelpful are conspiracy theorists and skeptical scholars who claim that no definite set of texts existed until the fourth or fifth centuries A.D. Agnostic professor Bart Ehrman claims:
We are able to pinpoint the first time that any Christian of record listed the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as the books of the New Testament—neither more nor fewer. Surprising as it may seem, this Christian was writing in the second half of the fourth century, nearly three hundred years after the books of the New Testament had themselves been written. The author was the powerful bishop of Alexandria named Athanasius. In the year 367 A.D., Athanasius wrote his annual pastoral letter to the Egyptian churches under his jurisdiction, and in it he included advice concerning which books should be read as Scripture in the churches. He lists our twenty-seven books, excluding all others. This is the first surviving instance of anyone affirming our set of books as the New Testament. And even Athanasius did not settle the matter.
Unfortunately, this summary spins the facts and leaves readers with several impressions that aren’t quite accurate—impressions such as that, until the late fourth century, there was no consensus at all about which Christian writings were authoritative, and that the church’s standard even then was the word of a powerful bishop.
So what’s the complete story? When and how did Christians agree on which writings were authoritative in their congregations? And was there any standard for these discussions beyond the decree of a respected leader?
:: The Standard of Who Saw It Firsthand ::
The primary standard for deciding which books were authoritative emerged long before the fourth century—and this standard was not the word of a powerful bishop. Hints of this standard can, in fact, be found in first-century Christian writings.
Long before Athanasius was even born, testimony that could be connected to eyewitnesses of the risen Lord was uniquely authoritative among early Christians.
Even while the New Testament books were being written in the first century A.D., the words of people who had actually seen Jesus—especially the words and writings of the apostles—carried special authority in the churches (see Acts 1:21-26; 15:6—16:5; 1 Corinthians 4—5; 9:1-12; Galatians 1:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26-27). After the apostles’ deaths, Christians continued to value the testimony of eyewitnesses and their associates. In the first decade of the second century, Papias of Hierapolis put it this way:
I did not … take pleasure in those who spoke much, but in those who … recited the commandments given by the Lord. … So, if anyone who had served the elders came, I asked about their sayings in detail—what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s followers.
About the same time, a church leader named Polycarp cited the words of the apostle Paul as “Scripture.”
A generation later, when someone in the Roman church wondered which Christian writings should be considered authoritative, this emphasis on the eyewitnesses persisted. After listing the books that he viewed as authoritative, here’s what one Christian leader wrote regarding a popular book known as The Shepherd that was circulating in the churches:
Hermas composed The Shepherd quite recently—in our times, in the city of Rome, while his brother Pius the overseer served as overseer of the city of Rome. So, while it should indeed be read, it cannot be read publicly for the people of the church—it is counted neither among the prophets (for their number has been completed) nor among the apostles (for it is after their time).
Notice carefully this second-century writer’s reasons for not allowing The Shepherd of Hermas to serve as an authoritative text in the churches: This writing could not be added to the Old Testament prophets because the time of the Hebrew prophets had passed (“their number has been completed”), and—with the deaths of the apostles—the time of the apostolic eyewitnesses had also ended (“it is after their time”). This teacher didn’t forbid believers to read The Shepherd; he simply pointed out that the book should not serve as an authoritative text for Christian congregations (“it cannot be read publicly for the people of the church”).
Later church leaders such as Tertullian of Carthage and Serapion of Antioch echoed these sorts of standards, with Serapion clearly stating, “We, brothers and sisters, receive Peter and the rest of the apostles as we would receive Christ himself. But those writings that are falsely ascribed with their names, we carefully reject, knowing that no such writings have ever been handed down to us.” Again, Christians rooted their standard for determining which writings were authoritative in the testimony of eyewitnesses.
So, from the first century onward, Christians viewed testimony that could be connected to eyewitnesses of Jesus as uniquely authoritative. The logic of this standard was simple: The people most likely to know the truth about Jesus were either eyewitnesses who had encountered Jesus personally or close associates of these witnesses. So, although Christians wrangled for some time about the authority of certain writings, it was something far greater than political machinations that drove these decisions. Their goal was to determine which books could be clearly connected to eyewitnesses of Jesus.
_________
For references to quotations and for more information on the authenticity of the New Testament texts, see my book Misquoting Truth.
For more on this topic, take a look at this article from John Mark Harris.
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8:43 pm
Caleb
I found this article via The Poached Egg. Thank you for the post! It was insightful, as this has become a topic of interest for me as of late.
Know of any other good resources that address the selection of the books of the Bible in depth?
9:23 pm
Timothy Jones
Caleb, I would recommend this book for a thorough treatment of this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Revisited-Establishing-Authority-Testament/dp/1433505002/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1340760421&sr=8-2
11:07 am
Alan Brain
Hi,
Thanks for the information. I found your post via tweeter. I enjoyed reading your post and I will read your book.
I agree with you that the most important/popular christian gospels or letters found their way, around the second century, in the armarions of the christian communities (I said communities because it is not a given fact that, in those times, every christian had the money to get a copy of the manuscripts or to even have a proper house with an armarion).
The writings of the early church fathers, basically Justin Martyr, can give us some clues about what manuscripts were being read by the christian communities that Martyr knew of, that does not eliminate the possibility that other christian communities (not known by Marty) were reading other gospels.
I also agree with you that the christian criteria for deciding what books to read was their apostolic lineage, but the problem is that, as far as I understand, there is no compelling evidence that, for example, the four gospels were actually written by apostles or companions of the apostles. On the other side, we know that some of the letters of Paul were not written by Paul and does not help the case of the gospels.
The oldest reference to the four gospels are the writings of Justyn Martyr and he does not refer to these gospels by name, he talks about the memoirs of the apostles or just the memoirs. In Martyr writings we can find passages that match the canonical gospels but without names. I think the names of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John appeared later.
Also, some of the gospels were written in greek, how come the apostles, who according to acts were people without instruction/proper education, had a high level of greek language required to write a gospel in greek?
Not even that, a high level of greek was not enough, the apostles, in order to write the gospels, needed some understanding of the craft of literary composition and it is, again, not a given fact that they had that knowledge.
Lastly, how come the gospels are written in third person and not in first person? I know there is an explanation that says that they wrote in third person because the decide that the most important was Jesus and his message. I do not know what to think. On the other hand, If I would have been a witness I would have established myself as an eyewitness writing in first person.
So, I would like to know if there is any evidence of the apostolic lineage of the four canonical gospels.
Thanks
Alan Brain
12:16 pm
Timothy Jones
There is a future blog post that will look at a lot of these issues, but in the meantime here are a few thoughts in response to your questions:
First off, Justin Martyr is not the only ancient testimony from the church fathers regarding authoritative texts—far from it. There is Papias who lived in the first century and wrote in the early second, the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp’s testimony through Irenaeus, and the Muratorian Fragment. All of these date from the lifetime of Justin or earlier (the Muratorian Fragment might be a bit later, 170s or so). Papias mentions Mark and Matthew; Irenaeus, drawing from Polycarp, and the Muratorian Fragment also clearly reflect four Gospels.
Justin does not refer to writings by apostles’ names because he is primarily writing for a non-Christian audience that would have no idea to whom he was referring. Apostolic names would hold no weight with his audience, so why mention them?
Were some communities reading different Gospel texts in the second century AD? Of course they were—mostly the four that are retrospectively viewed as canonical, but also some others.
The question isn’t whether other texts were being read but which ones were known to trace back to apostolic eyewitnesses.
You note that names weren’t added until later. That’s partially correct. The names don’t appear on manuscript pages until second century. But that’s not the whole story: In the first place, names were at first placed on tags that hung from the texts. It’s quite likely that the Gospels had names and that the tags were lost—but that is speculative and I would prefer not to appeal to evidence that we don’t actually possess.
Here’s the far more compelling line of reasoning for which there is actual evidence: The four Gospels had achieved wide circulation by the early second century. There’s a fragment of John in Egypt from 110 CE or so, and other Gospel fragments show up in equally widespread locations. Without any doubt, the Gospels were in empire-wide circulation in the late first and early second centuries. By this point, the four Gospels had been around for 20-40 years.
Around the beginning of the second century, scribes did indeed begin to write titles on manuscripts—and the patterns of these additions actually become one of the strongest evidences for a consistent pedigree behind each of the four Gospels.
Now, if Christian communities were fabricating and forging, one would expect, let’s say, a manuscript of Mark’s Gospel from Rome to have Peter’s name at the top, while the same Gospel somewhere else would be ascribed to someone else. In other words, if scribes and churches began making up titles and connections in the second century, the manuscript evidence would include multiplicity of ascribed authors. With manuscripts spread from one end to the other of the Roman Empire and no centralized authority or means of widespread communication, there is no way that all the communities could come up with the same ascriptions if the ascriptions were fabricated in the second century.
Yet that is not at all what one finds in the manuscripts. What you find in the manuscripts is that every copy of the four Gospels that bears an authorial inscription is ascribed to the same authors that they are ascribed to today. The precise wordings may differ but never the ascribed name.
Only two possibilities can really explain this: (1) there were tags that have been lost (less likely, but possible, and it’s too speculative to be taken seriously) or (2) each Gospel was passed on with a clear oral history that traced it back to one author; in other words, each time a Gospel was copied anew for another Christian community, it was passed on to them with the same history.
This latter possibility reflects the types of statements that are actually found in Papias and the Muratorian Fragment, among other places. This does not, of course, prove that the ascribed authors wrote the texts. But, since they began to circulate widely at a very early stage, it does demonstrate that a clear and consistent oral history must have followed them from the earliest stages of their circulation; the lineage of the Gospels was not invented later but followed them from the beginning.
It appears that your understanding of forgeries has been drawn from Bart Ehrman’s recent book Forged. I would encourage you to take a look at some of the reviews of Forged. Even viewed from a charitable perspective, Forged presents far less than the whole story.
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/07/book-review-of-bart-d-ehrman%e2%80%99s-forged-writing-in-the-name-of-god%e2%80%94why-the-bible%e2%80%99s-authors-are-not-who-we-think-they-are/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2011/03/30/forged-bart-ehrmans-new-salvo-the-introduction-2/
Regarding the literacy of the early Christians: Understanding “agrammateus” in Acts 4:13 as “illiterate” misses the point of the term in its context. What’s being communicated is that these proclaimers of Jesus had never been trained as scribes, they were not scholars of the Jewish Torah. Now, the apostles may indeed have been illiterate for all we know, but “agrammateus” neither proves nor disproves that point.
What’s far more significant is that, even among poorer people, widespread documentary evidence points to the fact that professional scribes were readily available to turn spoken rhetoric into polished literary productions. It is entirely possible that the Gospels were orally communicated to a scribe, then turned into literary texts by that scribe. Paul tells us repeatedly that this is what he is doing in his letters, even mentioning his scribes by name (which was not customary). Why should anyone expect that the Gospel-writers would not have done this as well?
As for third- or first-person, first off, this only applies to John and some portions of Matthew. Mark’s eyewitness testimony is from Peter but Mark would naturally have spoken it in third person, and Luke’s Gospel is written by an individual who obtained eyewitness testimony but was not himself an eyewitness, by his own testimony.
But more to the point: Why did Xenophon write about Cyrus in the third person instead of the first, even though he was present in some portions? Why did Caesar write his commentaries in third person instead of first? Why didn’t Velleius Paterculus write every part of his history wherein he was alive in the first person? Simple: because use of third-person was one accepted way of relating a historical narrative in the Greco-Roman context. Mark’s Gospel begins a pattern that the other Gospels follow, writing in third person.
Hopefully, at least some of this is helpful to you!
Much of this is covered in far more detail here
http://www.timothypauljones.com/portfolio/conspiracies-and-the-cross/
and here
http://www.timothypauljones.com/portfolio/misquoting-truth/
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9:01 pm
John Mark Harris
I found your post via Baptist Press. I actually just wrote a post on just about the same topic on June 5 http://johnmarkharris.wordpress.com/2012/06/05how-did-we-get-the-bible-part-1/ I was getting a few questions, or someone would make the comment “well, the NT was written 300 years after Jesus” or “a few people just picked what ‘made it in’ hundreds of years after the Apostles” etc. I appreciated this post, I’ll link back to it in a follow-up post in the next few days. Blessings!!!
11:55 am
Timothy Jones
Thanks! I have added a link to your blog post as well.