Yarr! – The Weblog of Bob Heffernan

The arguments in the previous post, and probably many more, give enough reason to suggest that even if we did not have a notion of canon and did not regard anything beyond the OT as scripture we would still find the NT writings to be trustworthy and worth reading. We do not need a doctrine of scripture to make the historical narratives of Jesus and the early church absolutely essential reading. Similarly, the teachings of the apostles is also essential (and trustworthy) even if we haven’t included the documents in which they are recorded into a formalised canon of scripture.

However, The doctrine of scripture and of canon gives us more than this. It allows us to equate directly the words of Paul and the other NT writers with the words of God himself. A doctrine of scripture gives us assurance that the NT writers have not made some mistake on a vital point. So, while the writings of Paul, say, would carry much authority because of Paul’s importance as an early believer and a person who saw the risen Jesus, they carry much more authority when they are identified with the very words of God.

A doctrine of a closed canon allows us to be sure that we have not missed any important documents and that we need not continue to add documents to the canon. It allows us to assert that scripture is sufficient as we have it and that God is not going to reveal anything substantial that he has not revealed already.

It seems to me that there are a number of reasons to accept and trust the NT documents as we have them even before we introduce notions of scripture and canon:

1. Firstly, it is indisputable that the reconstructed documents that we have correspond almost exactly and in a very precise way to the original documents written. The science of textual criticism has, because of the unprecedented number and quality of the extant copies the NT documents, has allowed us to reconstruct them with remarkable accuracy. The NT we read today is absolutely trustworthy in this regard.
2. Secondly, earlier scepticism with regard to early dating of the NT documents has been assuaged and it is now generally felt by most scholars that they are all relatively early. This gives us confidence that they correspond, in the way that they claim, to the teachings of the apostles.
3. With regard to the Gospels and Acts, modern scholarly study is (slowly) recovering from the biases of the liberal scholarship of the past few centuries and is rediscovering that the gospels have all of the hallmarks of being well-researched eye-witness accounts. It is becoming increasingly clear, from a scholarly perspective, that they are largely trustworthy as historical documents. This may not yet be the consensus but the liberal dismissal of the historicity of the Gospels and Acts has been seriously and convincingly challenged. For scholars who reject the presuppositions of liberalism (many of which were pre-scholarly biases disguising themselves as scholarly scepticism) the historical documents of the NT have been found to be much more trustworthy than once thought. Moreover, much of this work is being done by non-evangelical scholars. As such, even from a simplistic pre-faith point of view, it seems reasonable to accept the Gospels and Acts as reliable historical documents (in they way we would accept other similar early histories). Even without positing a doctrine of scripture or of canon we, as Jesus followers, will be interested to read these documents to learn about Jesus and his teaching and to learn about the practices of the apostles and early churches. This, one must remember, will have been their original purpose. See, for instance, the introduction that Luke writes to his gospel.
4. With regard to the Pauline epistles it is beyond dispute that many of the letters that bear his name were written by him. Even many of those letters that were previously thought to be inauthentic are now being reconsidered and found to be genuine. Paul was an important and influential early believer and so we will want to read his writings even before we have decided they are scripture. Moreover, Paul argues convincingly for his points and argues that they themselves are inspired by the Spirit and are truth (without reference to a notion of scripture). We can read them, think on them, and find them convincing.
5. The same holds for the other epistles. Even in cases where they may not have been written by those whose names they bear they were all composed so early as to almost certainly correspond to apostolic teaching. The general unity of teaching in the NT would seem to back this up. Thus if we, as the early believers did, wish to hold fast to the teachings of the apostles we will eagerly read them even if we have not formulated a doctrine of canon or of NT scripture.
6. The Revelation of John claims, in a manner similar to the OT prophets, to be a record of prophecy. In fact, John claims he was told to record the prophecy by Jesus himself. There is even a command not to alter the words of the prophecy or add to it. Thus, the Revelation demands to be read as scripture. So, apart from any considerations involving other NT documents, this book must be read as scripture or not at all. We must choose to accept it, as we choose to accept other scripture, or choose to reject it entirely. It has a different status from the other NT books, which mostly do not claim to be written scripture (even when they claim to be true) and where the authors do not appear to be conscious of writing scripture.

Issues of epistemology have become increasingly important in recent Christian discourse. In the face of this many evangelicals cling strongly to a modernist epistemology in order to deny that issues of epistemology pose any problems to the scriptures speaking authoritatively. For instance, the following is part of one of the articles in the recent Together for the Gospel Statement released by several prominent evangelicals:

We deny that … the truth of the Gospel can be expressed or grounded in anything less than total confidence in the veracity of the Bible, the historicity of biblical events, and the ability of language to convey understandable truth in sentence form. (Emphasis mine)

This is not, however, the place for a long conversation about epistemology and whether or not a modernist epistemology such as that espoused above is necessary for the scriptures to be able to speak with authority. We may illustrate the problem of interpretation from a perspective that avoids most of this conversation by considering the problem of harmonisation.

Consider the issue of the two accounts of Judas’ death: the first in Matthew 27 and the second in Acts 1. Examples of passages such as these, which are held to be inconsistent, have often been used as grounds for denying the inerrancy of the scriptures but this is not our interest here. There are certainly certainly several questions raised by the two passages — `who purchased the field?’, ‘how exactly did Judas die?’, and so on — but let us assume that we can come up with some harmonisation of the two passages that allows us to answer these questions. For instance, it is often argued that when Luke says in Acts that Judas `acquired a field with the rewards of his unjust deed’ what he means that is that after throwing his money at the feet of the chief priests and elders and hanging himself, as in the account in Matthew, the chief priests purchased the very field in which Judas had hanged himself and so, in some sense, he `acquired’ the field indirectly via the chief priests. Furthermore, in the light of the fact that Luke was a physician it is argued that his account of Judas’ death simply records a detail of medical interest while leaving out the bigger picture; so Judas did hang himself, as in the account in Matthew, and he remained hanging for several days until the rope broke and his stomach, swollen from decomposition, burst open. Luke recorded the latter fact as it interested him that a body would burst open if it fell after several days of hanging.

Now, such a harmonisation is purely speculative. There may be, and probably are, alternative explanations that harmonise the two accounts. Only one such harmonisation, so long as it is plausible, is needed to defend against the charge of inconsistency. However, what is the status of these harmonisations when it comes to authority? Where is our confidence placed? In the two differing accounts in scripture? In our harmonisation of these accounts? If scripture is sufficient why should such harmonisations be necessary? Should we ever construct such harmonisations our should we simply treat competing passages separately from each other? There are many questions such as these raised.

While the construction of such harmonisations has long been part of the apologetic argument to deny that scripture contradicts itself it seems to me that the normal evangelical view of scripture does not allow us to formulate such harmonisations. When asked `what is the story of Judas’ death?’ we can only say that there are two different accounts in scripture and, while it might be possible to harmonise these two, we must read them on their own merits. To do anything more would be to place our trust in the harmonisation and not scripture itself. Most evangelicals would probably find this to be reasonable enough. However, the process of arriving at a harmonisation is the same as the process of deriving a doctrine from scripture. So, by analogy, when asked something like `what does Paul teach about eschatology’ we should only say that in this passage he says this, in that passage he says something else and while it might be possible to harmonise them in some way we must treat each passage on its own merits as to do otherwise would be to place our trust in a doctrine and not scripture itself. This is plainly not what is done in general.

In conclusion it seems to me that, while evangelicals generally treat scripture as a source from which we extract truths and rules for living, the normal evangelical view of scripture does not provide any real grounds on which to do this. Any doctrine of scripture we formulate must provide a clear explanation of how the authority of scripture is actually to be put into practice.

After God spoke long ago in various portions and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets, in these last days he has spoken to us in a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he created the world.

So opens the book of Hebrews and this sheds much light on how the early believers viewed scripture; Jesus, the Christ and the Son of God, had fulfilled the scripture and was now the Word of God incarnate (in the language of John). As such, Jesus himself now takes the place in the life of the church that the scripture took in the life of Israel. God once spoke through Moses and the prophets but now he has spoken in a final way through Jesus. The scripture was still important, certainly. Firstly it provided evidence that God had acted in exactly the way in which he had promised in scripture and that Jesus had fulfilled the prophecies of scripture. Secondly, in the words of Paul, the scripture was `able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.’ Thirdly, and again in the words of Paul, by virtue of its inspired nature the scripture was `useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness’. So, scripture formed an important part in both the evangelistic preaching and the internal teaching of the early church.

However, it seems clear that the most basic authority in the early church was Jesus as Word incarnate and his speech in the life of the church through the Spirit. It is clear that the Spirit could not speak in such a way as to contradict scripture — Jesus had not come to contradict scripture but he had fulfilled it — but it seems to me that the modern language of scripture as the sole authority in the life of the church would have seemed odd, if not outright blasphemous, to the early believers.

While the principle of scripture as self-interpreting is a valuable hermeneutical rule-of-thumb — certainly the idea of inspiration is a good basis for some idea of unity among the varying parts of scripture and this allows us to clarify one part of scripture with other parts — this can not be taken as a denial of the clear fact that things external to scripture are important, and often essential, when it comes to interpreting scripture. In the first instance, much work needs to be done in the study of the classics and ancient languages before we can even begin to read the New Testament documents or translate them into another language. Moreover, knowledge of the cultural and historical background is vital to the understanding and interpretation of scripture. Much will be missed if we deny this, even if we are careful to look to other parts of scripture for elucidation.

With regard to the idea of `perspicuity’ it seems to me that the history of Biblical interpretation rules this idea out of court. The scripture is evidently not clear and what one takes out of it depends strongly upon one’s context and the hermeneutical tradition to which one is heir.

The only way scripture can ever be `clear’ is through the action of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me that any doctrine of scripture that wishes to argue that the scripture is in any way `clear’ must take the Spirit into account. This suggests that any doctrine of scripture is linked in a fundamental way to a doctrine of the Spirit, not just in the initial process of the writing of scripture but in the continual state of these inspired writings existing as scripture.

This raises issues of hermeneutics. Might it be necessary for a doctrine of scripture to take into account not only the documents themselves as scripture but the readings of those documents as, in some sense, scripture also. Can one read scripture as scripture without the Spirit mediating?

While we have no wish to dismiss flippantly the notion of verbal inspiration there are several indications that this doctrine may not correspond entirely with that of the apostles and early believers.

First there is the issue of translation. The earliest believers read and quoted from the LXX with impunity. There are several instances in which NT quotations of the Old Testament (LXX) are different from the reading we find in our Protestant bibles (where the OT is translated from the Masoretic text). In some instances the differences are quite large, although perhaps never to the point of contradicting the point being made. While the early believers would have been fully aware that the LXX was a translation this does not seem to have caused any occasion for pause. This makes one wonder how important the idea of verbal inspiration could have been to the early believers.

Secondly, with regard to statements about the `original autographs’, since we do not and never will have possession of these original autographs any assertions about verbal inspiration or any other properties are purely hypothetical. It seems to me that there is little point in basing any aspect of our doctrine of scripture on hypothetical documents. Any doctrine of scripture we espouse must deal with the actual documents were are dealing with and the actual means by which they have been transmitted. Moreover, since the early believers seem to have made little or no attempt to preserve these autographs it is unlikely that they were held in particular regard, over and against copies made from them.

Thirdly one might mention errors of grammar on the part of Paul, but this is perhaps a trifling point.

On what basis can we construct a canon of the New Testament? If we are to accept the ruling of the various councils, on what basis can we than say that scripture is the only authority for the church? On what basis can we say the canon is closed, or even should be closed?

Apart from Peter’s endorsement of Paul’s letters (including, perhaps, letters that are no longer extant) as scripture and John’s claim to have been told to record his Revelation (which is a claim to be writing scripture) we have little in the way of internal biblical evidence for the idea of a New Testament canon or for the idea that the NT writers believed themselves to be writing scripture. This is a later development. It is clear, however, that most of the NT writings were written as public documents and were intended for wide circulation.

Why subscribe to a notion of canon at all? There seems to be no evidence that the NT writers themselves did.

Apart from possible issues with the canon of the Old Testament (discussed in the previous post in this series) there is a definite problem when it comes to deciding exactly what constitutes the canon of the New Testament. The modern evangelical view of scripture is epitomised by the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy, which states as one of its theses:

`We deny that church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.’

However, the canon of scripture was a product of early church councils. In this way, acceptance of the New Testament documents as scripture is a product of the very church councils that modern evangelicalism is otherwise (and justly) wary of. It seems to me that there are two options:

1. One can accept the decisions of the councils as binding in this matter and, consequently, as binding in their other proclamations also. It is difficult to justify a situation where the ecumenical councils spoke with authority only with regard to scripture. Modern evangelicalism has often tried to evade this point by arguing that the councils merely confirmed the status of what everybody already recognised to be scripture. However, this provides no basis for contending that the canon is now closed (since the closing of the canon was exclusively a function of the ecumenical councils).
2. Alternatively one must provide some other grounds for arguing for a fixed, and closed, canon.

[I am starting a series on Scripture which I will add to every few days for the next few weeks. It is my hope that these posts will generate some discussion, so if you're the sort of person who reads my blog but never comments, now is your chance...]

The question of the canon of the Old Testament is the first we must deal with. It seems to me that we can affirm that Jesus and the apostles would probably have considered all of the books in our canonised Old Testament as scripture. However, whether they would have considered other books besides these is open for debate, and whether they had much of a notion of canon at all is difficult to decide.

While it seems doubtful that there was a settled canon of the Old Testament during the time of Jesus it seems clear in the Gospels that Jesus accepted, without qualification, the existence of scripture. From his quotations and allusions to the Old Testament we can ascertain that he would have considered most (and so, probably all) of what we now call the Old Testament to be part of Scripture. It might be the case that Jesus accepted as scripture some books that were not added to the canon (some of the non-canonical portions of the LXX, for instance) but we have no direct evidence for this. He sometimes quoted scripture as the words of God and so clearly held to some notion of inspiration. So, it seems safe to say that what we now call the Old Testament is likely to have been accepted as inspired Scripture by Jesus himself.

When it comes to the attitudes of the apostles and early Christians it is again quite clear they held the same view. We have the clear evidence for Paul’s attitude — for example, in 2Tim 3:16: `Every scripture is inspired by God …’ — and we have an abundance of evidence throughout the Acts and the epistles in the way that the New Testament writers quote from and talk about Old Testament writings. Again, as with Jesus, the words of David, for instance, are sometimes referred to as the words of God and so there is again some notion of inspiration operating. The New Testament writers do, on occasion, refer to what would now be considered non-canonical writings and so there is some evidence that their canon might have been more inclusive than ours — perhaps comprising the entire LXX — but again this is difficult to say.

It is possible that the apostles and early believers, and perhaps Jesus himself, had no idea of `canon’ and may have seen scripture as something that could be added to. This is suggested by Peter’s willingness to consider the letters of Paul as scripture (cf. 2Pe 3:16).

An important question raised by the idea of `New Testament Christianity’ (see my last four posts) is the following:

• What is the place of the Bible in this framework?

This is an important question. If our aim is to live our Christian lives in the way that the Christians we read about in the New Testament did then we must recognise the fact that, while they held the Old Testament scriptures in high regard, they were not a ‘people of the book’. If we are to insist that there is no difference between the church prior to the closing of the canon and the church after the closing of the canon then several issues emerge. Why should we insist on such a thing as the canon of scripture in the first place? If we are going to profess suspicion of many of the developments of post-Constantinian Christianity, or even post-apostolic Christianity, why should we accept the rulings of the ecumenical councils on the matter of canon. If we really are to live in the same way as the first Christians, who had no New Testament, what place does the New Testament have in our Christian lives? Moreover, might it not be argued that the settling of the canon went hand in hand with the hardening of the hierarchical bishop-centred forms of Christianity that began to emerge after the first generation of Christians. If so, does a rejection of this hierarchical ecclesiology not necessitate a rejection of the idea of a New Testament canon?

To put it simply, the question is this: The earliest believers got along fine without a New Testament and relied primarily on the Spirit to teach them (through men such as Paul whom the Spirit equipped for this purpose). Why can’t we do the same?

Also, the existence of a New Testament surely gives rise to a dramatic change in ecclesial structure. Whereas before we have the spirit speaking through and to the church at large in a dynamic manner now we have scripture as a final and authoritative record of the spirit’s speaking. This gives rise to the need for the pastor as teacher/preacher whose job it is to interpret the scriptures for the church.

Rather than answer these questions, I think I will embark on a small series of posts outlining some issues and questions I have in this area. I am uncomfortable with the position many protestants seem to take, viz. we reject the idea that ecumenical councils have any authority and affirm that scripture is the only authority for the church. Well, ecumenical councils have authority in only one area, that is to decide what constitutes scripture. That is to say, we trust them on this one but nothing else. Those creeds might be nice, but need to be subjected to scripture. Why? Well…

It has always seemed to be an inconsistency that lies at the heart of much protestant thinking about the church and about God speaking. Not that I feel the need to reject scripture, but I am beginning to feel the need to restate and rediscover my ideas about it. My father and I have been discussing this sort of thing recently so in the next while I will trot out a few posts on scripture and questions I have in this regard to see if it generates any discussion.