This blog post is in response to some comments over at Green
Baggins. Trosclair
wrote:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it
appears that your method would require us to find out, with some level of
certainty (more than just a plausible hypothesis), whether a particular epistle
or gospel was written by an Apostle before we accepted its inspiration. Given
such a method, each Christian would have to investigate the Apostolic origin of
each book of the NT and then determine his/her own canonical list.
I’ve repeated this several times, but Remember Kruger’s
premise. He is not writing a work that will prove to skeptics that the
Christian New Testament canon is what Christians say it is [the “self-authenticating”
model he outlines]. He is rather arguing that, given the process by which the
canon developed, Christians do have adequate grounds for believing the “self-authenticating”
model.
Trosclair wrote:
Assuming such a method, my personal
canonical list would probably be about half of the New Testament’s 27 books. If
we wish not to rely on the 2nd century witnesses, we must rely on current
scholarship or our personal intuitions. I don’t put much faith in either one of
these. Do you find this method acceptable? What other method would you
recommend?
As you might expect, there is a discussion of this. First of
all, it’s not the case that Kruger doesn’t rely on the 2nd century
witness. The point of Cullmann’s treatment is not that the 2nd
century witness was unreliable. It was that “oral tradition” as a bearer of the
“Apostolic witness” was unreliable. And much in the fashion of a game of “telephone”,
the early church realized that a fixed written source was needed in order to
become reliable. That’s the point of the creation of the canon. After that,
theologians like Irenaeus and Tertullian are considered to be far more reliable
theologians than some of the Apostolic fathers.
For example, it should be noted that the second century writer
Papias said “I did not think that information from books would profit me as
much as information from a living and abiding voice” (cited from Michael W.
Holmes, “The Apostolic Fathers”, 3rd edition, Edited and Translated
by Michael W. Holmes, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic ©2007, “Fragments of
Papias”, pg 735).
Cullmann puts forth this argument about Papias and the
weakness of “the living voice”:
1. For Paul, the paradosis (“oral tradition”), in so far
as it refers to the confession of faith and to the words and deeds of Jesus,
has a parallel in the Jewish concept of paradosis.
2. This tradition relates to the
direct apokalypsis of the Lord to the
Apostles. That is, the office of the Apostles was unique because they provided
unique eyewitness testimony to the life of Christ.
3. This “Apostolic tradition” was the definitive, eyewitness testimony of
the Apostles. This “tradition” lived and died with the apostolic office. No
other source had the eyewitness authority of the Apostles. The later church
did maintain an “ecclesiastical tradition”, or “traditions of the church”. There
was a clear difference in authority between the “Aposotlic tradition” and the “ecclesiastical
tradition”. However, that did not prevent the church, at a later date, from
mixing the two.
4. The development of the canon was
a conscious decision on the part of the earliest church, born from the
consciousness of the heresies spinning out of control, to establish a superior
written norm, and to stake out the boundaries of orthodoxy and heresy.
Cullmann makes the case that the canon of the New Testament
became fixed, as a necessity, because of the damage that was being inflicted by
various Gnostic heresies: “oral” tradition was no longer reliable because it
was becoming an admixture of too many things. The only reliable “apostolic
tradition” was that which had been written down by the apostles and their
associates during the lifetimes of the apostles.
This is the place to speak about
the establishment of the canon by the Church of the second century. This again
is an event of capital importance for the history of salvation. We are in
complete agreement with Catholic theology in its insistence on the fact that the Church itself made the canon. We
even find in this fact the supreme argument for our demonstration. The fixing
of the Christian canon of scripture means that the Church itself, at a given time, traced a clear and definite
line of demarcation between the period of the apostles and that of the Church,
between the time of foundation and that of construction, between the apostolic
community and the Church of the bishops, in other words, between apostolic and
ecclesiastical tradition. Otherwise, the formation of the canon would be
meaningless.
We must recall the situation that
led the Church to conceive the idea of a canon. About the year 150 there is
still an oral tradition. We know this from Papias, who wrote an exposition of
the words of Jesus. He tells us himself that he used as a basis the viva vox and that he attached more
importance to it than to the writings. But
him we have not only this declaration of principle; for he has left us some
examples of the oral tradition as he found it, and these examples show us well
that we ought to think of an oral tradition about the year 150! It is entirely
legendary in character. This is clear from the story that Papias reports
about Joseph Barsabbas, the unsuccessful candidate, according to Acts 1:23 f.,
for the post of twelfth disciple rendered vacant by Judas’s treason. Above all
there is the obscene and completely legendary account [in Papias] of death of
Judas Iscariot himself.
Regarding this, Papias says: Judas
walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having
swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass
easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.
The period about 150 is, on the one
hand, relatively near to the apostolic age, but on the other hand, it is
already too far away for the living tradition still to offer in itself the
least guarantee of authenticity. The oral traditions which Papias echoes arose
in the Church and were transmitted by it. For outside the Church no one had any
interest in describing in such crude colours the death of the traitor. Papias was therefore deluding himself when
he considered viva vox as more
valuable than the written books. The oral tradition had a normative value in
the period of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses, but it had it no longer in
150 after passing mouth to mouth (Cullmann, 88-89).
What Cullman relates here is that the church (as reported by
Papias) had greatly valued the living voice of the Apostles. But they
recognized the thing that we (Protestants) have all along been saying: the
“living voice” is not a reliable transmitter, after a point. Over time, the
value of this “living voice” had seriously degraded.
* * *
Regarding the second portion of Trosclair’s comment, in
response to modern scholarship, Kruger asks, “Are Christians rational to
continue their belief in the canon in light of these claims of modern
[critical] scholars? He says, “several considerations suggest that the answer is
yes”. Paraphrasing for brevity:
1. There are many other scholars outside the “critical
consensus” who affirm the apostolicity of these New Testament writings. So much
so, one wonders whether the critical consensus can be called a “consensus” in
the first place. These scholars have made an an impressive historical case for
the apostolic origins of the New Testament books.
2. Modern historical methodologies used to reach these “critical”
conclusions rest on on-Christian and enlightenment assumptions. “It comes as no
surprise then, that its conclusions are at odds with traditional belief”
3. Kruger argues that not only is there a lack of reasons to
accept the certain critical positions, but there are compelling reasons to
think they are false.
4. See also my
previous post on the whole topic of the possibility that some New Testament
works were pseudepigraphical.
Trosclair wrote:
Of course the 2nd century witnesses
themselves would disagree with your rejection of the “Roman Catholic view”.
You don’t know this to be the case. The “Roman Catholic view”
is actually, still, a work in progress. I’ve noted this in my blog post on “The
Roman Bait-and-Switch on [Holy] Orders”.
The 2nd century church developed an apologetic
which included succession – it is clear from the writings of even Roman Catholic
writers like Raymond Brown and Francis Sullivan [not to mention Protestant
writers] that “succession” itself was a 2nd century development. As
a second century development, it is no way “instituted by Christ”. And I
outlined the implications of this.
Citing the Roman Catholic theologian Edward Kilmartin: “In
Trent’s Decree on Holy Orders, Canon 6 states that there is in the Church ‘a
hierarchy instituted by divine ordination, which consists of bishops, presbyters
and ministers.’” The Vatican II formulation steps back from this and notes, ““Christ
the Lord” … “set up a variety of
offices”. And other writers have further clarified this: “Biblical and
patristic studies make clear that historically
a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed ‘the apostles were careful
to appoint successors in’ what is called ‘this hierarchically constituted
society,’ specifically ‘those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,’ an
episcopate with an ‘unbroken succession going back to the beginning.’ [citing
Lumen Gentium 20]. For that, evidence is lacking…”
Trosclair wrote:
Cullmann is a fine source, I agree.
But his reasons for accepting the canon yet rejecting the Apostolic authority
found in the 2nd century Church rests on his assumption that Christ was
ignorant about his own Church. Even the greatest of scholars can base their
ecclesiology on what is a faulty assumption, i.e., Christ’s ‘ignorance.’
I haven’t read all of Cullmann, but you’ll have a hard time
convincing me that he argued for this. More likely, given that he was arguing
against Bultmann, who was asking questions about, and making comments on, what
Jesus actually knew. But this is the place for a whole ‘nother discussion.
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