Category: New Testament Canon

A Curious Clue about the Origins of the New Testament Canon

Although most discussions about the development of the canon focus on the patristic period (second century and later), there is much canonical gold yet to mine from the pages of the New Testament itself.  Unfortunately, this step is often skipped.

There are a number of possible reasons for why it is skipped.  But perhaps most people just assume that the whole idea of a “canon” is a late development anyway, and thus we wouldn’t expect to find anything about it in the New Testament books themselves.

Aside from the fact that such a position already presupposes an entire canonical “worldview” known as the extrinsic model (for my critique of this …

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How Many New Testament Manuscripts Do We Have From the Second Century?

“There is no second-century manuscript evidence.” —Helmut Koester

When it comes to the transmission of the New Testament text, the second century has been long recognized as a critical time period. And it is not hard to see why. If the New Testament books were written (more or less) in the first-century, then the extant manuscripts that get us closest to that time period will inevitably take on a level of significance.

The second century is also significant because of modern scholarly claims that it was precisely this period when the most serious textual corruptions were likely to have occurred, suggesting the earliest phases of transmission were marked by “textual …

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