Looking for Brief and Accessible Books on the Origins of the Biblical Canon? Here are Two Good Ones
Whenever I speak on the origins of the New Testament canon, I am regularly asked about whether there are brief, accessible books on the subject—the kind that could be given to lay folks in the church. Unfortunately, my books on canon usually don’t qualify (e.g., Canon Revisited clocks in at over 300 pages).
For years, I have been asked to write a shorter version, but just haven’t had the time. Thankfully, others have stepped in to fill that gap. Let me mention two wonderful little books that have just come out in the last few years.
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Just this year, Chuck Hill, professor emeritus of New Testament at RTS Orlando, has …
Persistent Myths about the Origins of the New Testament
Are the NT manuscripts corrupted? Have scribes irreparably changed the text? Were Christian scribes competent to copy the text reliably?
How many “other” gospels were there in early Christianity? Were these gospel suppressed by “orthodox” groups? Were these lost gospels as popular as the canonical ones?
Don Carson and I answer these questions for a TGC video:
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Book Notice: Can We Trust the Gospels?
I recently received an advanced reader copy of the new book by Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Crossway, 2018). Peter is the Principal of Tyndale House, a study center (mainly focused on biblical studies) out of Cambridge, England.
Although similar books have been written in the past (curiously Mark Roberts wrote a 2007 volume for Crossway with the exact same title!), this new volume has some excellent features:
– It does not presuppose prior knowledge of the Gospels, even having a chapter entitled, “What are the Four Gospels?” Thus, it would be great to give to a new Christian or a non-Christian.
– There’s an intriguing … Continue reading...
The Heresy of Orthodoxy: Was the NT Text Reliably Transmitted?
This post is the final installment in a series of videos where Andreas Köstenberger and I discuss the theory of Walter Bauer on unity and diversity in early Christianity.
These discussions are based on our book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity (Crossway, 2010).
You can find the prior four installments here, here, here, and here.
In this last video, we tackle the very important issue of textual transmission. Skeptics have argued that the wild theological diversity in early Christianity would not only have led the church to have different canons, but it would also … Continue reading...
The Early Text of the New Testament Now Available (in the UK)
I just heard from the folks at Oxford University Press this week and they indicated that the volume edited by Chuck Hill and myself, The Early Text of the New Testament, is now available in the UK. Unfortunately, like many Oxford volumes, it is a bit pricey at 90 pounds ($175). Ouch. But, hopefully some major research libraries will pick it up (and some scholars with a generous book budget!). The book is available in the US in August.
Here is a blurb from the back cover and the table of contents:
…The Early Text of the New Testament aims to examine and assess from our earliest extant sources
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