Introduction

No greater creative act can be mentioned in the whole history of the Church than the formation of the apostolic collection and the assigning to it of a position of equal rank with the Old Testament.

ADOLF VON HARNACK

History of Dogma, vol. 2

The story of the New Testament canon is a bit of a conundrum. Despite the fact that the contours of the New Testament canon were, for the most part, decided by the fourth century, vibrant and vigorous discussions about the authenticity of these books has persisted well into the twenty-first century—nearly seventeen hundred years later. The question of canon simply will not go away. While the actual New Testament canon of the Christian church has been largely unchanged during this time frame, scholars and laypeople alike never seem to tire of discussions about ancient Christian writings and what role they might have played within the infant church. And the reason for this fascination with the canon is not hard to find. Previously unknown gospel writings continue to be discovered, the authorship and date of New Testament books continue to be challenged, and the diversity of early Christian “Scriptures” continues to be highlighted. And rather than satisfying the scholarly appetite for all things canonical, each new discovery or discussion actually seems to increase it. Thus, Kurt Aland was right when he recognized the inevitable centrality of the canon issue: “The question of Canon will make its way to the centre of the theological and ecclesiastical debate . . . [because] the question is one which confronts not only the New Testament scholar, but every Christian theologian.”

In the midst of all this scholarly attention on the question of canon, serious questions have been raised about the integrity of the New Testament. Most of these questions have centered on the problem of canonical boundaries. How do we know we have the right books? Why these books and not other books? And what about apocryphal books used by other Christian groups? But, in recent years, a new and more foundational question has begun to take center stage (though it is really not new at all). While the validity of the canon’s boundaries is still an area of concern, the attention has shifted to the validity of the canon’s very existence. The question now is, why is there a New Testament at all? If there are no real distinctions between “canonical” books and “apocryphal” books, and if some books were forged by authors pretending to be apostles, then what can account for the emergence of an authoritative canon? The answer, according to some scholars, is not to be found in the first century—there was nothing about earliest Christianity (or the books themselves) that would naturally lead to the development of a canon. Instead, we are told, the answer is to be found in the later Christian church. The canon was an ecclesiastical product that was designed to meet ecclesiastical needs. Sure, the books themselves were produced at a much earlier point, but the idea of a canon was something that was retroactively imposed upon these books at a later time. Books are not written as canon—they become canon.

This idea that the New Testament canon was not a natural development within early Christianity, but a later artificial development that is out of sync with Christianity’s original purpose, is, I shall argue, a central framework that dominates much of modern canonical (and biblical) studies. We will call this the extrinsic model of canon—the idea that the canon was, to some degree, imposed upon the Christian faith. Or, as Harnack has argued, the New Testament was something the church was “compelled” to do by the rise of Marcionism. Loren Johns, in his article “Was ‘Canon’ Ever God’s Will?” states the question clearly: “Is canon . . . a function of Christendom or of a certain kind of ecclesiastical power?” For Johns, the answer is clearly the latter. In a similar fashion, Christopher Evans, in his book Is “Holy Scripture” Christian? argues that the production of a canon is due to the “worldliness of the church” and the “secularization of Christianity.” Lee McDonald also indicates that the idea of a New Testament canon may be inconsistent with the founding of Christianity: “We must ponder the question of whether the notion of a biblical canon is necessarily Christian. The best available information about the earliest followers of Jesus shows that they did not have such canons as the church presently possesses today, nor did they indicate that their successors should draw them up.”

It is worth noting that this extrinsic model of the canon’s origins was criticized a number of years ago by Brevard Childs (though he used different terminology). Childs described this same view: “It is assumed by many that the formation of a canon is a late, ecclesiastical activity, external to the biblical literature itself, which was subsequently imposed on the writings.” In similar language, he says this model views the canon as “simply a post-apostolic development undertaken by the early catholic church which could be sharply separated from the formation of the New Testament literature.” Childs refers to this as a “modern consensus” which has led to “the almost universal rejection of a traditionally earlier dating for the first stage of the New Testament’s canonization during the first half of the second century.”

If the New Testament canon was a later ecclesiastical creation, as the extrinsic model suggests, then what were the specific circumstances that led Christians to do such a thing? As can be imagined, the answers to this question vary widely. David Dungan, in his book Constantine’s Bible, pins the origins of the canon on the influence of Greek philosophy and its emphasis on possessing a list of genuine writings that contain true doctrine. According to Dungan, this influence culminated when the pagan emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and then “powerfully intruded” into the affairs of the church and determined the canon through “coercive enforcement.” Koester takes a different route, arguing along with Harnack that “the impelling force for the formation of the canon” was the second-century heretic Marcion. Thus, in an attempt to counter Marcion, the “New Testament canon of Holy Scripture . . . was thus essentially created by Irenaeus.” Elaine Pagels follows a similar path as Koester and lays the origins of the canon at the feet of Irenaeus. Regardless of the specific raison d’être given to the canon, a dominant position in critical scholarship today is that the idea of canon is not a natural and original part of the early Christian faith.

Now, it should be noted from the outset that there is much that is correct in the extrinsic model. Indeed, these scholars are correct to observe that a New Testament was not an instantaneous development within early Christianity—it took time for this collection to be developed and shaped. And, they are correct to remind us that the entire process took several centuries to complete, and the church played an influential role in this process (as did heretics like Marcion). However, are we really to think that “nothing dictated that there should be a NT” prior to these later ecclesiastical actions? Was there nothing about earliest Christianity that might have given rise to such a collection? Was the idea of new Scriptures entirely foreign to the early followers of Jesus? It is the purpose of this volume to suggest otherwise. Our goal is not to deny the truth of the extrinsic model in its entirety, but to offer a well-intended corrective to its assessment and interpretation of some of the historical evidence. Paradigms always need adjustments and refinement, and this volume hopes to take a helpful step forward in that direction. This brief study, therefore, is not designed to offer the final word on the very complex subject of canon, but to reopen dialogue on a number of key topics where the dialogue, at least in appearance, seems to be closed. Thus, the format of this book will be unique. Rather than being yet another introduction to canon, it will focus narrowly upon five tenets of the extrinsic model. Each chapter will focus on one of these tenets, offering an assessment and response.

By responding to the major tenets of the extrinsic model, this volume will effectively be offering an alternative approach—what we might call an intrinsic model. This model suggests that the idea of canon is not something imposed from the outside but develops more organically from within the early Christian religion itself. The earliest Christian communities had certain characteristics and also held a number of theological beliefs that, especially when taken in tandem, would have made a new collection of sacred books (what we could call a “canon”) a more natural development. As Everett Ferguson put it, “A canon of New Testament writings placed alongside the scriptures of Judaism resulted primarily from the internal dynamics of the Christian faith.” Childs argues in a similar fashion when he says:

Canon consciousness thus arose at the inception of the Christian church and lies deep within the New Testament literature itself. There is an organic continuity in the historical process of the development of an established canon of sacred writings from the earliest stages of the New Testament to the final canonical stabilization of its scope.

In other words, we shall argue that the makeup of first-century Christianity created a favorable environment for the growth of a new written revelational deposit. And when we look at the historical evidence of how this new written deposit developed—particularly the early date by which many of these books were received and the self-awareness of the New Testament authors—it is quite consistent with what we would expect if the intrinsic model were true. If that is the case, then we can agree with Childs that we should not make an overly sharp division between the early and late stages of the canon.

At this point, two clarifications are in order. First, as noted above, it is important to remember that the intrinsic model does not reject all the claims of the extrinsic model. The two models should not be unnecessarily polarized. Indeed, we can agree that the canon was a long, drawn-out process that was not finalized until the fourth century or later—and the extrinsic model rightly recognizes this point. The canon did not pop into existence overnight. However, the intrinsic model is not denying this lengthy canonical process. Rather, it is simply arguing that the idea of a canon, and the beginning of the canonical process, cannot be laid solely at the feet of later ecclesiastical figures (or groups) who sought to solidify their power. There is something about the canon that seems more innate to the early Christian movement. Second, it is important to recognize that both the extrinsic and intrinsic models are historical models that do not require a commitment to any particular theological perspective. One might be inclined to think of the extrinsic model as a historical model and the intrinsic model as the theological model—as if the latter required a belief in something like inspiration. But that is not the case. The intrinsic model has theological aspects to be sure (as we shall see below), but it is essentially making a historical argument, namely that the canon developed early and naturally out of the Christian religion. One need not believe in inspiration to hold such a position.

David Meade provides a helpful way of describing the differences between the intrinsic and extrinsic models. Using different terminology, he refers to each model as the “push” and the “pull” respectively:

A central question that arises out of the morass of controversy is the question of the direction from which the canonical process of the New Testament proceeds. In other words, is the formation of the New Testament “pushed” from elements inherent within itself or its Jewish origins or is it “pulled” into being by forces of the church and society largely external to the texts themselves?

Of course, the answer is that the canon is, to some extent, the result of both push and pull. But, the purpose of this volume is to argue that the extrinsic model (the “pull”) has unduly dominated modern canonical studies and needs to be corrected by a recovery and new appreciation of the intrinsic model (the “push”). When it comes to explaining the formation of the New Testament, we cannot ignore the “elements inherent within itself or its Jewish origins” that gave it birth.

With the basic contours of these two models in mind, let us now turn to the five major tenets of the extrinsic model that this book will address. As we do so, it is important that we are clear about the limitations we face when expressing the tenets of any particular model. Models, by definition, are generalized descriptions and therefore subject to exceptions. Thus, by listing these five tenets we are not suggesting that everyone in the extrinsic camp would hold all of them without exception, nor are we suggesting that they exhaustively capture the beliefs of the extrinsic camp. Rather we are simply making a general observation that these five tenets are often (though not always) found together among those who see the canon as a later ecclesiastical development, and therefore they warrant our attention here. In addition to this, we must be careful to avoid another misconception, namely that merely addressing these five tenets would somehow prove the intrinsic model. To be clear, the goal of this volume is not to prove the intrinsic model—our purpose here is not nearly so ambitious. But if we can show that these five tenets are problematic (and that is the goal of this volume), then that would raise serious questions about the viability of the extrinsic model and at least pave the way for a reconsideration of the intrinsic model. Here are the five tenets:

Tenet one: We must make a sharp distinction between Scripture and canon. Central to the extrinsic model is the insistence that the term canon can only be used after the church has acted to create a final, closed list of books. To use only this definition gives the impression that the canon is a late ecclesiastical creation. We shall argue in chapter one that this definition is correct as far as it goes, but that we should not rule out other definitions that bring more balance to our understanding of canon.

Tenet two: There was nothing in earliest Christianity that might have led to a canon. While the extrinsic model insists that the idea of a canon was nowhere in the mind of the earliest Christians, chapter two will suggest that there was a matrix of theological beliefs held by early Christians that gives us good reason to think that a canon might have developed quite naturally.

Tenet three: Early Christians were averse to written documents. A core tenet of the extrinsic model is that the whole idea of canon had to be a later ecclesiastical development because the earliest Christians were illiterate and uninterested in books. On the contrary, we shall argue in chapter three that while most Christians were illiterate (as were most people in the world at this time), they were characterized by a robust textuality—the knowledge, use and appreciation of written texts.

Tenet four: The New Testament authors were unaware of their own authority. A frequent claim of those in the extrinsic camp is that the authors of the New Testament did not conceive of themselves as producing authoritative texts—they were merely producing occasional documents that were only later regarded as Scripture. Indeed, such a claim is critical for establishing the canon as an artificial ecclesiastical creation. However, in response, we shall argue in chapter four that the New Testament writers actually do provide substantial indications that they understood their message as authoritative, and often do so quite plainly.

Tenet five: The New Testament books were first regarded as Scripture at the end of the second century. If the extrinsic model were true, we would expect that it would have taken a while for the New Testament writings to attain a scriptural status. And many advocates of the extrinsic model argue that the end of the second century was when this status was first acquired—most fundamentally due to the influence of Irenaeus. Although this date is often used, it is subject to serious question. In chapter five, we will examine the state of the canon in the second century and will argue that many of these writings were regarded as Scripture at a much earlier point.

Now that we have an overview of the questions that lay before us, we can begin to see that they have significant implications for the field of canonical studies. We are not dealing here with the standard questions about canon—for example, how do we know these are the right books?—but instead we are dealing with more foundational and more fundamental questions about where the canon comes from. The issue is not so much which books, but whether Christianity should even be defined by books. For that reason, we have an opportunity here to consider (or reconsider) the macro direction we might take in the field of canonical studies. While much of modern scholarship is committed to the extrinsic model—and the five tenets to which it holds—we must remain open to the possibility that it may be in need of some modification. And we should not be surprised if it turns out that it does. The field of biblical studies, just like other fields, is sometimes in need of a paradigm shift. It is these shifts that allow the discipline to move forward in productive ways. So let us turn our attention now to the following chapters and explore that possibility.

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