Johnny Skeptic

There was a thread on the New Testament canon several months ago, and since some issues were left unresolved, I would like to try to resolve them. By what criteria were the writings chosen that were included in the New Testament Canon? The only honest answer that Christians can give is by faith alone, but I want to see if any Christians at this forum will admit it.

Tigers!

Faith in what?

Johnny Skeptic

Let me put it another way: Did the choosers have good evidence that the writings they chose were God's choices and not their own choices? If so, what was the evidence?

Clivedurdle

Is it possible that in contrast to putting together a collection of books, they were editing it all and writing chunks themselves?

Were they actually disinterested or were they telling it as they saw it?

Were they putting the pieces together into their image of how the jigsaw fits?

robto

Major criteria:

1) Apostolicity - Written by an apostle or follower of an apostle.

2) Popularity - Used in many churches.

3) Theology - Presents Jesus in the "right" way, where "right" is in the eyes of the mainstream church.

4) Quoted by earlier Christian writers

Since the process took place over several centuries, you can't point to a single criterion or single person/group that was responsible for the decision.

None of these criteria were determinative. The Gospel of Peter, for example, was supposedly written by an apostle, but Bishop Serapion rejected it (c. 200 AD) because it hadn't been used historically and it diverged from "correct" theology. The Gospels of Mark and Luke, OTOH, were not written by apostles but were accepted anyway, because of their long use and their acceptable theology.

What would you consider to be evidence of God's choices?

robto

There was certainly some editing going on. The ending of Mark and the last chapter of John were added at a later time. It's not so easy to tell how much editing happened, since we don't have early versions of the books to compare.
Not disinterested at all, they were Christians, for goodness sake! "How they saw it" depended heavily on their theological outlook, and changes were often made on the basis of that outlook. See Bruce Metzger's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

Julian

Correction. Orthodox Corruption of Scripture is by Bart Ehrman, not Bruce Metzger.

Julian

TomboyMom

Did you read this interesting article that Amaleq13 gave me in my "teach me the basics" thread? It really lays it out. [Now that I have my own personal tutors, I can actually participate in this forum.]

Boro Nut

Faith in the Pious XIIIth Patented Holy Scriptural Detection Deconscribulator obviously.

Boro Nut

Johnny Skeptic

Well, if a being showed up who claimed to be Jesus and demostrated that he had abilities far beyond those of humans, and endorsed the New Testament canon, while that would still not be absolute proof that he was in fact Jesus, it would be much better evidence than depending upon apostolicity, popularity, or theology. It is important to note that most or all New Testament writers did not have any idea whatsoever that some, BUT NOT ALL of their writings would become scripture. In addition. The New Testament canon was arrived at by a vote. That fact discredits the canon because you can't take a vote in order to decide what God wants you to do. Such a vote would appeal to the fallacy of "argumentum ad populum."