“The Question of Canon” Now Available
I was just informed by IVP-Academic that my book, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate, is now out and available for purchase (see here). This was a bit of a surprise because I haven’t received my own copy yet! But, I am glad to know it is out.
Here is the description of the book:
…Unlike many books on the New Testament canon, this book does not seek to explain why these books and no others. It asks the questions: Why is there a NT at all? Was the notion of a canon of literature out of sync with the earliest
Continue reading...
Why You Can Rely on the Canon
I want to thank Matt Smethurst over at The Gospel Coalition for posting my interview on the NT Canon with Mark Mellinger. I gave this interview back in April when I was at the TGC national conference participating on a panel discussion on the authority of Scripture (for that discussion, see here).
Mark and I had a fun and lively discussion on why the NT canon is reliable. Here it is:
[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/65324716″ width=”400″ height=”300″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen]… Continue reading...
Ten Basic Facts about the NT Canon that Every Christian Should Memorize: #9: “Christians Did Disagree about the Canonicity of Some NT Books”
Note: for the full series, see here.
When it comes to basic facts that all Christians should know about the canon, it is important that we recognize that the development of the canon was not always neat and tidy. It was not a pristine, problem-free process where everyone agreed on everything right from the outset.
On the contrary, the history of the canon is, at points, quite tumultuous. Some Christians received books that were later rejected and regarded as apocryphal (this was discussed in an earlier post). More than this, there was disagreement at times even over some canonical books.
For instance, Origen mentions that books like 2 … Continue reading...
Ten Basic Facts about the NT Canon that Every Christian Should Memorize: #7: “Early Christians Often Used Non-Canonical Writings.”
Full blog series can be found here.
For Christians struggling to understand the development of the New Testament canon, one of the most confusing (and perhaps concerning) facts is that early Christian writers often cited from and used non-canonical writings. In other words, early Christians did not just use books from our current New Testament, but also read books like the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Epistle of Barnabas.
Usually Christians discover this fact as they read a book or article that is highly critical of the New Testament canon, and this fact is used as a reason to think that our … Continue reading...
Ten Basic Facts about the NT Canon that Every Christian Should Memorize: #6: “At the End of the Second Century, the Muratorian Fragment lists 22 of our 27 NT books”
Note: See the full blog series here.
This series is designed to introduce lay Christians to the basic facts of how the New Testament canon developed. One of the key data points in any discussion of canon is something called the Muratorian fragment (also known as the Muratorian canon). This fragment, named after its discoverer Ludovico Antonio Muratori, contains our earliest list of the books in the New Testament. While the fragment itself dates from the 7th or 8th century, the list it contains was originally written in Greek and dates back to the end of the second century (c.180).
Some have argued that the list should be dated … Continue reading...