Apostolic Origins of the New Testament Canon

In a way, I’ve been like a kid in a candy shop, working through Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited. Not only is the work itself just an incredibly rich source of information about the Apostolic period and the early and late second centuries, but it ties together so many other things as well.

And of course, key for me is the opportunity to tell Roman Catholics that yes, the New Testament Scriptures came first, and then the idea of “apostolic succession” was much later and not foundational to “the church that Christ founded”. That the notion of “a succession of bishops” was later and secondary to the “succession” of the message. That Apostles held a unique, foundational, non-repeatable (and “non-succeedable” role) in earliest Christianity. That they were more concerned that “the Apostolic message”, the “Apostolic paradosis”, whether spoken or written, be the thing that is focused on. Any concept of “a succession of bishops” was later than, and secondary to the content of this new message that the Apostles preached.

Kruger’s chapter, “The Apostolic Origins of the Canon” is such a rich source of details about this that I’m going to continue to spend some time in this area. All the while, though, keep in mind that what Kruger is saying comes far earlier (in the 50’s AD, vs the 150’s AD) about what’s truly important in the church.

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Kruger’s first purpose, however, seems to be to address the generations of critical scholars who caused so much confusion and difficulty in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. And he does an exceptional job of this:

For many scholars, particularly from the historical-critical model, the idea of a canon arose well after the books of the New Testament were written—and thus was retroactively imposed upon books originally composed for another purpose. Thus, it is argued, the existence of a New Testament canon could not have been anticipated or expected ahead of time, but finds its roots squarely in the theological and political machinations of later Christian groups. Koester argues that “the impelling force for the formation of the canon” was the second-century heretic Marcion. In order to counter Marcion, the “New Testament canon of Holy Scripture … was thus essentially created by Irenaeus.” For reasons such as this, McDonald argues that “no conscious or clear effort was made by these [New Testament] authors to produce Christian Scriptures,” and Gamble contends that “nothing dictated that there should be a NT at all.” Barr is even more direct: “The idea of a Christian faith governed by Christian written holy Scriptures was not an essential part of the foundation plan of Christianity” (Kruger 160-161).

Of course, this is precisely the argument that Joseph Ratzinger made in 1961, which was repeated in the 1994 CCC, and re-issued as (and in fact, trumpeted as) a book written by “Pope Benedict XVI”, who relied on these very historical-critical arguments, all the while decrying the “historical-critical” method as a proper hermeneutic for Roman Catholics.

Kruger instantly focuses on what is wrong with this line of thinking:

But are we to really think that “the impelling force for the formation of the canon” goes no further back than the second century? We shall argue that the historical-critical model has been myopically focused on the time after the writing of the New Testament books and, as a result, has overlooked the critical time before and during the writing of these books, particularly the significance of the redemptive-historical epoch from which they came. In short, it has been preoccupied with the corporate reception of these books and has neglected their apostolic origins. It is here, then, that we come to the second of our three attributes of canonicity. The apostolic character of these books reminds us that their authority—indeed their very existence—does not depend on the actions of the later church but is rooted in the foundational role played by the apostles as “ministers of the new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6). They are not regarded as canon because the church receives them; the church receives them because they are already canon by virtue of their apostolic authority (161).

Here, now, is a key to Kruger’s method. (Keep in mind, he has, by this point, already addressed the “divine qualities” of the New Testament canon – the fact that “God breathed” these scriptures into existence. Here, in this chapter, he will speak of the many different facets of “Apostolic origins” of these writings, before delving into some of the messy details about “corporate reception” of the canon by the early church.

The purpose of this chapter, then, is to explore the apostolic origins of these books in greater detail (while addressing a potential “defeater” to apostolic origins along the way. But we cannot begin there. The foundational role of the apostles must be understood within its proper context. Thus, we first want to examine the historical and theological matrix of the first century that gave birth to these books. Was this an environment in which canonical books would have naturally sprouted? Were the theological and historical conditions favorable for a new scriptural deposit to emerge? What do we know about early Christian beliefs, and how would they have affected their expectation of a new revelation from God? Although there are many ways to address these questions, we shall argue that there were two key factors in the historical context: (1) there was a structural framework for canon already in place [in the form of Christ’s naming of a New Covenant and a related expectation for “covenant documents]; (2) and there was a clear and powerful rationale for canon: redemption. After this historical context has been established, we will address the role of the apostles as the “agents” of the canon. When these three factors (covenant, redemption, and apostolicity) are viewed together, it will become clear that the idea of a canon was not an after-the-fact development with roots in church history, but rather a natural, early, and inevitable development with roots in redemptive history (162).

And in the process of bringing out these ideas, I’m going to continue to focus on notions of different kinds of “tradition”, the primary role of the Apostles and the lateness of the idea of “succession”, and more.