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December, 2005 |
Close but no Cigar: Books Almost in the NT Part 3 |
Reasons for their rejection |
Posted by Charlie Trimm at 12/15/2005 6:29:00 PM (7 comments left) |
Well, here comes the part you've all been waiting for! Well, at least,
it is the end. Here is my discussion of why these books were rejected
and what impact that has on the books that were accepted. |
Reasons for Rejection For most of these books, no reason is given by the Church Fathers for their rejection, although they are explicitly rejected as Scripture. This is seen especially in Eusebius, who has a four fold classification. The first category includes the universally acknowledged books, the second is the disputed books, the third is the spurious books, and the fourth is the rejected books. The first two categories contain only books that are in our NT canon, the third contains all the books surveyed in this paper (except the Wisdom of Solomon), and the fourth contains the heretical and gnostic gospels and acts. The third category is rejected as Scripture, but not as unhelpful. They are good for private reading and edification, but not for building doctrine or public reading in the churches (Bruce 198-200). This attitude was common among the church fathers (such as Athanasius, Rufinius and the Muratorian Canon), many of whom would recommend that a book was to be read but not read as Scripture. But we still have not examined why these books were regarded as spurious. The Muratorian Canon gives the reason for the Shepherd of Hermas not being Scripture as its late date of writing. The Canon goes on to reason that since it was written late, it could not have been written by a prophet or an apostle. This shows that the lack of apostolic authority was enough to keep a book from the canon. As far as the Acts of Paul, a reason is given by Tertullian: it was composed in honor of Paul by a presbyter. But why is this wrong? No explicit reason is given, but apparently a similar unspoken but understood reason would exist as with the Shepherd: it did not have apostolic authority. No explicit reason is given why the other books did not become Scripture, but the main reason would seem to be the lack of apostolic authority. For example, Clement was not an apostle or an apostolic man, so this book could not be considered as Scripture. The date of the Revelation of Peter would be much too late for Peter to actually have written it, so pseudonymity would be a problem, as it would also be for the Epistle of Barnabas. Another reason for their exclusion is their relative quality and helpfulness when compared to the canonical books. While this is inherently subjective, these books have a different feel to them than do the canonical NT books. It is evident they are sub-quality and not inspired. The church fathers intuitively recognized which books should be in the canon. [C]ertain books
excluded themselves from the canon. Among the dozens or more gospels that
circulated in the early Church, the question how, and when, and why our four
Gospels came to be selected or their supreme position may seem to be a mystery
- but it is a clear case of survival of the fittest. As Arthur Darby Nock used
to say to his students at Harvard with reference to the canon, 'The most
travelled roads in Reasons for Acceptance This raises the
question of why some church Fathers would accept non-canonical books as
Scripture. If they are not Scripture why cite them as Scripture? As can be seen
by the recognition data above, there are patterns. Clement of The reason several extra-canonical books were added to early manuscripts of the NT is unclear. A possible reason is that even if these documents were not accepted as canonical, they were still recommended to be read by the faithful. So a scribe could have copied them without implying that they were inspired. One possibility for the inclusion of Wisdom in the Muratorian fragment is that the writer was at that point beginning a separate part of his list, the disputed books. This part of the list would include both OT and NT disputed books. That would mean that starting at Wisdom, he lists the disputed books after he has finished the confirmed books (Hill 441). The Muratorian Canon is also in a state of progress. There are three revelations listed in it (John, Peter, and Hermas). The Canon rejects Hermas, tentatively accepts Peter, and accepts John. Apparently in the past there were three revelations accepted, then at this point there was two, and finally later on there would be one (Metzger Canon 198). The canon for the most part moved from wider to narrower as time went on. The reason for this would be that as the documents spread to more churches, more study and data on the document came to light. Eventually, after several centuries of discussions, the church as a whole was able to determine what was useful for the church as a whole, what was apostolic, and what was orthodox. The canon was refined as more data was gathered. Are these books helpful for us today? While they are not inspired, they are still helpful in limited ways. An examination of the limited support for canonicity these books receives when compared to even the least-accepted book of the NT canon, 2 Peter (Green 5), encourages us that the while the choosing of the canon might seem haphazard at first glance, the process actually proceeded quite logically and we can be confident of our NT canon. The books also help us to see what the early church was like and give us a historical grasp of that time, keeping us from being myopic. They help us in seeing how those close to the apostles interpreted the apostles. And some of them are just fun to read!
Works Cited Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture. Downerâs Grove: IVP, 1988. Davis, Glenn. "Development of the Canon of the New Testament." www.ntcanon.org 2004. deSilva,
David A. Introducing the Apocrypha. de Young, James B. "A Critique of Prohomosexual Interpretations of the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha." Bibliotheca Sacra 147 (1990): 437-454. Goodspeed,
Edgar, Trans. The Apocrypha. Green,
E. M. B. 2 Peter Reconsidered. Hagner,
Donald Alfred. The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Hennecke,
Edgar, Wilhelm Schneemelcher, and R. McL. Wilson, Eds. New Testament
Apocrypha. Volume 1. ---.
New Testament Apocrypha. Volume 2. Hill, C.E. "The Debate over the Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon." WTJ 57:2 (1995): 437-453. Holmes,
Michael W. The Apostolic Fathers. Kirby, Peter. "Early Christian Writings." www.earlychristanwritings.com 2001. Knight, K. "Fathers of the Church." www.newadvent.org/fathers 2003. Metzger,
Bruce M. An Introduction to the Apocrypha. ---.
The Canon of the New Testament. Niederwimmer,
Kurt. The Didache. Osiek,
Carolyn. Shepherd of Hermas. Peterlin, Davorin. "Clement's Answer to the Corinthian Conflict in AD 96." JETS. 39:1 (1996): 57-70. Richardson,
Cyril C., Ed and Trans. Early Christian Fathers.
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