Steven3
Lion King
Joined: 10 Jul 2007
Posts: 1205
Location: UK
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 Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:36 am Post subject: NT Canon (Metzger, Schaff, Schneemelcher) |
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Hello folks 
I guess that here, General Apocrypha Discussion and Debate, would be the correct place to examine whether God "selected" a dominant faction in the early church to "canonize His word"? I quote Dust*, as he's the main advocate of this view on this forum, but would welcome other definitions of this reasoning:
| Dust wrote: | | I would actually phrase my reasoning as thus.....that the compilation and canonicity of Christian writings was entrusted to God's chosen, just as the compilation and canonicity of the OT was entrusted to God's Chosen. If one wishes to find the true body-of-Christ (His Church)follow the Word. |
Okay. I've put in the subject line three representative key authors to suggest three directions in which this discussion might usefully go (rather than off down the path after magic mushrooms and New Age crystals, excuse my tweedy predictability  )
  Using the late Bruce Metzger to stand for Canon-criticism as his book, "Canon of the NT" still seems to be the standard work defining the field. (I haven't seen Tom Wright's "The Last Word")
 Philip Schaff's multivolume work, being out of copyright is an easy point of reference for patristic sources, though Lightfoot is on the web too. The earliest patristic sources gives us the second and third generation after Paul, Clement, Ignatius and so on, to compare with the NT.
 Schneemelcher's is the scholarly edition of the core NT Apocrypha, though Nag Hammadi and other materials have been dug up since. Older translations, by M.R. James etc. can be found at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ (but take the dating on this page with a pinch of salt, most is not what Schneelmelcher gives)
So these are the three main areas of relevant sources. Now, subjective of course, but as far as I can see :
 Metzger recognises most of the epistles being established as early as AD90, in 1Clement, and a consensus developing on an informal canon quickly, even if the formal elevation to "GRAPHE", Scripture took a little longer. The water being muddied by later controversy on two or three books.
the 2ndC documents in Schaff document a very quick and steep descent into immortal soulism, mythical material, and what can only be described as non-NT doctrine. This is before the Trinity enters with Tertullian, so primarily referring to the period from NT to Tertullian. Also, the ECF (Early Christian Fathers) do not make the claims for themselves that Paul or Peter makeL: | Polycarp wrote: | | Polycarp 3:2 For neither am I, nor is any other like unto me, able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who when he came among you taught face to face with the men of that day the word which concerneth truth carefully and surely; who also, when he was absent, wrote a letter unto you, into the which if ye look diligently, ye shall be able to be builded up unto the faith given to you |
The material in Schneemelcher, Nag Hammadi, and preserved in fragment in Schaff etc, shows, subjective again, but in my eyes at least, a very dire set of fiction worse that the Jewish Pseudepigrapha in context and textual integrity. The worst are the late pseudo Acts and Gospels preserved in Gnostic, Coptic or Slavonic sources, but even fragments preserved in Schaff show the same tendancy. | Hippolytus, in Against Heresies, wrote: | | v:7. They (the Naassenes) say that the soul is very hard to find and to perceive; for it does not continue in the same fashion or shape or in one emotion so that one can either describe it or comprehend its essence. And they have these various changes of the soul, set forth in the Gospel According to the Egyptians. |
All of which leads to the 27 books of the NT speaking for themselves and standing for themselves. My hypothesis is that if someone today, never having seen a NT contents page, and not knowing which was "in the canon" and which was "out", was called upon to start from scratch with all of these books, they'd probably end up with 26, minus Revelation because it's so different, - and maybe 1Clement on grounds of him being mentioned in Phil.4:3, and his teaching being so consistent with 1Co & 2Co (we'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the phoenix!).
Even Revelation, when compared like-with-like, other apocalyptic material, is so far ahead of what's in Schneemelcher, that if any prophecy was in the NT, then it'd have to be Revelation.
So, a working hypothesis:
1. The NT canon was stable before the Christological controversies.
2. The NT canon as "chosen" (sic, confirmed) by the victors in the Christological controversies actually excludes books promoting the immortal soul, in either Rabbinical or Platonistic guise, and excludes the building-blocks of later Christology, such as the Trinity, which would have been to their advantage to include.
Taken together 1 & 2 would then indicating that God did not "select" the victors in the Christological controversies (or anyone else) to "canonize the NT".
Comment?
God bless
Steven
_________________
Jo5:26 The Father ... has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
Ro6:10 the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
2Co13:4 he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. |
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