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Monday, May 07, 2012

The weakness of “the living voice” in the 2nd century, and the integrity of the New Testament canon


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.



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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