10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #8: “Early Christianity was an Oral Religion and Therefore Would Have Resisted Writing Things Down”
Note: this is the eighth installment of a blog series announced here.
Recent years have seen a flurry of scholarly activity focused on the oral transmission of Jesus material within early Christianity. Scholars (ranging from Gerhardsson to Dunn to Bauckham) have explored different models for how this oral tradition would have been preserved and delivered to each new generation.
Out of this discussion, however, a new objection to the origins of the New Testament canon has arisen. The earliest Christians are now portrayed as being so committed to oral modes of delivery that they would have had an aversion to the written text. Indeed, this entrenched resistance to the … Continue reading...
Review of New Book, Did God Really Say?
In a prior blog post, I mentioned the publication of a new book edited by David Garner entitled, Did God Really Say?: Affirming the Truthfulness and Trustworthiness of Scripture. This book is a compilation of papers originally given at the 2011 PCA General Assembly by scholars from Reformed Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Covenant Theological Seminary. Participants included Scott Oliphint, Michael Williams, Robert Yarbrough, Vern Poythress, John Frame, and myself. David Garner also included a summary chapter.
I noticed in the Aquila Report today that there was a helpful review of the book by Aimee Byrd. In particular, she notes a thread running through a number of the … Continue reading...
Baur vs. Bauer: Is the New Testament Really Filled with Contradictory Theologies?
Perhaps no book in the history of the world has received as much scrutiny and criticism as the Bible. For generations, scholars have picked apart every aspect of this book: its history, its transmission, its veracity, its theology, its morality, etc. It has been criticized, ridiculed, mocked and condemned. However, in their haste to heap criticism on the Bible, occasionally critics offer arguments that actually prove to be inconsistent with one another. They make accusations against the Scripture that are mutually exclusive—they cannot all be true. Of course, such inconsistencies are rarely noticed. If a scholar is intent to find contradictions in the Bible, he will rarely find contradictions in … Continue reading...
10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #7: “Christians Had No Basis to Distinguish Heresy from Orthodoxy Until the Fourth Century.”
This is the seventh installment of a blog series announced here.
Ever since Walter Bauer published his now famous Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity there has been a widespread obsession amongst modern scholars with the theme of early Christian diversity. Study after study has explored how different, contradictory, and divergent early Christian beliefs were. And it is on this basis that the terms “heresy” and “orthodoxy” are declared to be unintelligible prior to the fourth century. After all, we are told, there was no Christianity (as we know it) prior to this time period, but only a variety of different Christianities (plural) all claiming they are the true … Continue reading...
10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #6: “In the Early Stages, Apocryphal Books Were as Popular as the Canonical Books”
This is the sixth installment of a blog series announced here.
One of the most common claims by some critics of the NT canon is that apocryphal writings, particularly gospels, were as common and as widely-used as the NT writings. Helmut Koester is a good example of this trend. He laments the fact that the terms “apocryphal” and “canonical” are even used by modern scholars because they reflect, according to him, “prejudices of long standing” against the authenticity of these apocryphal texts.[1] Koester then argues, “If one considers the earliest period of the tradition, several apocryphal gospels are as well attested as those which later received canonical status.”… Continue reading...