The Canon of Scripture

Sources: C.H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (Nisbet, 1952); Richard Bauckham, The Gospels for All Christians (Eerdmans, 1998); F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (IVP, 1988); Frances Young, The Making of the Creeds (Trinity, 1991); Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford, 2017).

Reading: 1 John 4:1-6 or 2 Thess 2:14-15.

I. Where Did the Bible Even Come From?
"All scripture is God-inspired and useful" (2 Timothy 3:16).
"People moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:21).: But in what sense? And how did their writings end up in our Bible?
Few Christians know the Bible's history. Many fear that history, or fall for distortions.: Popular accounts of scripture: Verbal dictation, dual authorship, inspired intuition, and response to experiences of God.
Simplistic, theologically loaded, and often extreme stories about the Bible's origins flow
from anti-Protestant Catholics, anti-Catholic Protestants, liberal modernists, fundamentalist modernists, and skeptics.
Moderns use a generic 'template' for the written scriptures of 'religions.'; This distorts the texts' different histories and otherwise neglects the uniqueness of Christian (and other) traditions.
Christians have unique stances on God's relationships with us,: thus a rich basis for a fully Christian account of scripture.
The Bible's history is complex, but nothing to be afraid of!

II. One Witness in Two Testaments
Israel generated and kept the writings of the Old Testament (and many others besides).
The church of Jesus Christ generated and kept the New Testament writings along with them.
Each corpus had a nucleus of rapid universal respect, and writings 'at the margin' that gained universal respect more slowly.

III. Canonicity: What's Our Standard of Fidelity to Christ?
Rival factions became a new influence and threat to the apostolic church network, and in it.: The problem arose even in the NT era, so this isn't some unforeseen problem!
Evidence includes 1 John 2:18-20, 2 Cor 10-13, Rev 2:2-3, 2:14-16, 2:20-25, Jude 3-4, 1 Tim 1:3-7, 2 Thess 3:17, Luke 1:1-4.; Some, like Marcion in 144, questioned Israel's God and scriptures.
The early church standardized its scriptures, statements of faith, and structures:: The standard was faithfulness to the already familiar traditions of Jesus and his apostles.
Canonizing authorities included local church practices, churches in major cities, prestigious theologians, and bishops.
Holy scripture was preached, commented on, and used for authoritative teaching and training.: Authentic Scripture is to be read in church 'among the prophets and apostles' (Muratonian Fragment, ~170-200?).
The church resisted Marcion's shortened canon (and truncated god) in ~140.
Montanists' prophesying provoked the closing of the canon.
Church Fathers continued to make lists of scriptures.: A good source: Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity.
E.g., Origen Commentary on Psalm 1, Athanasius Festal Letter 39 in 367, Laodicia canon 60 in 363, Jerome Epistle 53.9 in 394, Augustine On Christian Doctrine 2.13 in 395.
Athanasius is the first to list the 27 books of our New Testament.
Councils and bishops in the next 50 years released canonical lists.
Rome eventually accepted Hebrews and the East accepted Revelation (cf. Hippolytus of Rome, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus). Christians never fully agreed on the Greek Old Testament's additional books. Scribes generated a huge (and somewhat variant) textual tradition that is unsurpassed in quantity and quality.

IV. From Israel's Scriptures to the Old Testament
Jews had a basically settled list of canonical Scriptures (Jamnia in 90? Baba Bathra 14-15, 4 Ezra 14:45-46, Luke 24:44), though not a uniform approach to them (Sadducees v. scribes in Luke 20:27-40).: At its margin circulated apocryphal [fan-fic] wisdom, narratives, prophets (Tobit, Jubilees, Greek OT apocrypha, 1 Enoch at Qumran/in Jude).
Jesus affirmed Palestinian Israel's scriptures while shifting their focus and meaning.: Christians spread Christological interpretations of Israel's Scriptures (Matthew 22:41-46, Hebrews 1, and many others).
Greek-speaking Christians appropriated the Septuagint (LXX: Greek OT) as Jews cooled to it. Melito of Sardis coined the phrase 'books of the old covenant' around 170.

V. From Jesus' Traditions to the New Testament
Jesus' ministry was the necessary provocation for the Christian tradition that grew from it.
Christians shared and shaped oral, then written, traditions about Jesus (Ignatius Philadelphians 8, 2 Clement 2:1-4).: Churches circulated 'apostolic' letters, then 'scriptures', then collections (2 Peter 3:15-16).
Jerusalem and then Rome were early centers of scrutiny and transmission (1 Corinthians 15:3-5; 1 Clement).
Other gospels, acts, letters, and apocalypses circulated officially (Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement) and popularly (Paul and Thecla).
Twenty NT writings were universally accepted.: At the cluster's margins, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, and Revelation took longer to win the church's consensus.
Common criteria for canonicity were writings that were: written or sourced from apostles, sometimes via associates, and during the apostolic age;
consistent internally as well as with other respected scriptures and with apostolic orthodoxy; and
publicly read (so respected) in the services of churches founded by apostles.
Thus the church verified its trustworthy authorities in the ancient world's lower trust environment.

VI. Contested Canonicities
In translation, the Bible has been expressed in an ever increasing variety of cultural contexts.
Medieval Christianity came to understand itself as uniquely centered on Jesus’ traditions, including scripture,: and uniquely open to the Lord’s further leading.
Protestants privileged holy scripture over the structures that midwifed it. The Enlightenment investigated the Bible’s ordinary linguistic, historical, cultural, and social character.: Fundamentalists reaffirmed the (original) Bible’s inspiration and inerrancy.
Modernists/liberals treated scripture critically, as a fallible human record.
Evangelicals honored both the Bible’s ‘divine’ and ‘human’ character.
Pentecostals stressed the Holy Spirit’s new work within a Protestant canonical framework.

VII. Why Does the Bible Matter?
The Bible is normative:: its canon governs all church traditions, including itself.
Continuity with it is fellowship with Israel, Jesus, and his apostles.
Scripture is powerful:: It reflects the Father's character and will,
shares in the Son's ministry and truth, and
works in the Holy Spirit's power,
through Israel's and the Church's voices.
The Bible is purposeful: true as God is true, in ways that make us holy.: Lausanne Covenant 2: We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority
of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety
as the only written word of God,
without error in all that it affirms,
and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
We also affirm the power of God’s word to accomplish his purpose of salvation.
The message of the Bible is addressed to all men and women. For God’s revelation in Christ and in Scripture is unchangeable.
Through it the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illumines the minds of God’s people in every culture to perceive its truth freshly through their own eyes
and thus discloses to the whole Church ever more of the many-colored wisdom of God.

VIII. How Do We Relate to the Bible?
Top-down? (Pietist evangelicals, fundamentalists)
Then-now? (historical critics, liberal Protestants)
Every which way?

Torah: the 'gospel' of Israel's birth, liberation, and constitution as God's people.	Gospels: Four biographies of our Jesus that center on the good news of the Kingdom's arrival and the church's creation through his life, death, and resurrection.
Prophets: the tragic story of Israel leaving God in its 'adolescence' ('former prophets'), along with promises of the fatal consequences and God's promises to 'resurrect' Israel nevertheless ('latter prophets').	Acts and Revelation: Luke keeps telling Jesus' story through the activities of his Spirit's developing Church. Revelation tells the story of the church's continuing struggles to stay faithful under pressure, and God's determination to see it through its trials in the context of our world's judgment and new creation.
Writings: Israel's worship and contemplation of the God it was coming to know more maturely.	Letters: Church correspondence, from letters of Paul and other leaders to a sermon (Hebrews), is 'inside information' on our maturing community and its mission.
(Latter Prophets eventually end up after Writings in Christian Bibles.)	(Revelation concludes the list of New Testament writings.)