James White and Michael Kruger Discuss Roman Catholicism

I heard the terms "serious category mistakes" and "remarkable revisionism" here, in this discussion between James White and Michael Kruger, in response to some Roman Catholic discussions of how the canon of the New Testament is viewed.

We have the resources today to understand who's right and who's wrong. It is my conviction that the more that we look into these things, the more vacuous the Roman Catholic accounting of itself is shown to be.

(There is a long clip from "Catholic Answers", which is broken down and discussed later. If you'd like to get to the actual discussion, skip to about the 20:00 mark in the video)

Michael Kruger: 10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: # 4: “Books Were Not Regarded as Scripture Until Around 200 AD”

One of the arguments that Michael Kruger makes in his work Canon Revisited, (Michael J. Kruger, “Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books”, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books © 2012), is that not only did the church passively “receive” the canon, but because of the intrinsic, “divine” qualities of the New Testament writings, (and their clear apostolic origins), that the canon of the New Testament actually imposed itself upon the early church (pg 115).

Did they do this “imposing” early or late? Another “misconception” that Kruger addresses is that it was “late”, and the notion that Irenaeus somehow invented the concept of a New Testament canon.

In recent years, … , somewhat of a quasi-consensus has been building that the canon was first regarded as Scripture at the end of the second century (c.200).  McDonald is representative of this view, ‘[New Testament] documents were not generally recognized as Scripture until the end of the second century C.E.’

Rather, he cites evidence of canon-think prior to the year 200, in the form of an emerging “canonical core” – works collected even in the first century, even during the lifetimes of the Apostles, and recognized as “core” Scriptural works of an emerging New Testament, such as the four gospels and Paul’s letters:

Justin Martyr (c.150):  He refers to plural “gospels” and at one point provides an indication of how many he has in mind when he describes these gospels as “drawn up by His apostles and those who followed them.” Since such language indicates (at least) two gospels written by apostles, and (at least) two written by apostolic companions, it is most naturally understood as reference to our four canonical gospels.   The fact that he actually cites from the Synoptics and John shows that he had a fourfold gospel in mind.

Papias (c.125):  Papias tells us that the early church had received the gospels of Mark and Matthew and valued because of their apostolic status.  In fact, Papias even affirms that Mark received his information from Peter himself—a very ancient tradition of the church.  Although Papias writes c.125, he actually refers to an earlier time (c.90) when he received this information from “the Elder” (who is no doubt John the Elder, one of Jesus’ disciples). Papias also knew 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation, and some Pauline epistles.

Barnabas (c.130).   The Epistle of Barnabas (4.14) explicitly cites Matt 22:14: “Many are called but few are chosen.”  Barnabas clearly regards Matthew as Scripture because he introduces his citation with “It is written” (the same language he uses when citing OT books).

1 Clement (c.95).  1 Clement charges the church to “Take up the epistle of that blessed apostle, Paul… To be sure, he sent you a letter in the Spirit concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos.”  Scholars agree that Clement is referring here to the letter of 1 Corinthians which he said Paul wrote “in the Spirit,” no doubt showing the high authority he gave to the book.  1 Clement also makes likely allusions to other epistles of Paul including Romans, Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians; and also Hebrews.

2 Pet 3:16 (c.65).  One of the earliest examples comes from the well-known passage in 2 Pet 3:16 where Paul’s letters are regarded as on par with “the other Scriptures” of the Old Testament.  Most notably, this passage does not refer to just one letter of Paul, but to a collection of Paul’s letters (how many is unclear) that had already begun to circulate throughout the churches—so much so that the author could refer to “all his [Paul’s] letters” and expect that his audience would understand that to which he was referring.

The church today has warrant for accepting the 27-book New Testament canon as a fait accompli, because the God-breathed Scriptures – a literal “act of God” – were recognized as Apostolic, regarded as Scripture from the first, were dutifully collected, meticulously copied, and patiently handed on, from the hands of the Apostles, to their disciples, and so on, and so on…

That’s an “apostolic succession” we can count on. 

Michael Kruger: 10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #3: The NT Authors Did Not Think They Were Writing Scripture

Michael Kruger has posted the third of 10 blog posts on “misconceptions about the NT Canon”. And it is evident from what he writes that the writers of the New Testament were indeed aware that what they were writing was Scripture:

1 Thess 2:13.  In perhaps Paul’s earliest letter, he is explicit about his own authority as an apostle of Jesus Christ when he reminds the Thessalonians, “You received the word of God, which you heard from us, and accepted it not as the words of men but as what it really is, the word of God” (2:13). By the phrase “word of God” (λόγον θεοῦ), Paul is no doubt referring to the authoritative “apostolic tradition” which they had already passed to the Thessalonians through their oral teaching and preaching. But, if Paul’s apostolic instruction bears divine authority, are we to think that the instruction contained in 1 Thessalonians itself does not?  Is this letter somehow exempt from that very authority? Paul acknowledges elsewhere that the mode of delivery for his apostolic instruction is secondary, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thess 2:15).

1 Cor 14:37-38.  This passage is one of the most explicit about Paul’s apostolic authority, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.  If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized” (1 Cor 14:37-38).  Most noteworthy about this passage is that Paul directly addresses the precise nature of his writings and declares that they are a “command of the Lord” (κυρίοu ἐντολη,).  Such a phrase is common throughout the Old Testament as a reference to either the commands that come directly from God himself or to the commands he has given to Moses. So confident is Paul of his authority to speak for the Lord that he declares that anyone who does not recognize the authority of his writings is himself “not recognized.”

Luke 1:1-4.  Luke makes express claims to be passing down apostolic tradition. In his prologue, Luke claims that the traditions included in his gospel have been “delivered” to him by those “who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.”  Most scholars view the “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” as a clear reference to the apostles. And the term “delivered” is a standard reference to the way that authoritative apostolic tradition is passed along. Thus, Luke understood his gospel to be the embodiment of the authoritative apostolic “Word” that had been delivered and entrusted to him. Craig Evans comes to the same conclusion about the prologue, “Luke does not see himself primarily as a biographer, nor even a historian.  The Lukan evangelist is a writer of Scripture, a hagiographer who is proclaiming what God has ‘accomplished among us.’”

Rev 1:1-3. The most explicit claim for a book’s authority no doubt comes from the author of Revelation.  The opening line of the book directly claims that it is the inspired prophecy of Jesus Christ delivered to John by an angel (1:1).  Consequently, there is a divine blessing attached with this book: “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near” (1:3).  Moreover, the authority of this book is heightened by the inclusion of an “inscriptional curse” at the end, warning the reader not to add nor take away from this document lest they suffer divine judgment (22:18-19). 

My contention here is simple: the NT authors show evidence that they understood their writings to contain authoritative apostolic tradition.  Since the apostles were commissioned by Christ to speak for him, and were empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so, then these writings would have borne the authority of Christ himself.  Thus, whether we call these books “Scripture” is a bit beside the point.  To the earliest Christians, they were “the word of God.”

Roman Catholics are fond of citing verses like Matt 10:40 and similar verses as evidence of “apostolic succession” in the church: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me”. Richard Bauckham notes:

For this same message the disciples must have employed the same sayings in which Jesus himself had crystallized his teaching [paragraph break]. In that sense a formal transmission of Jesus’ teaching by authorized tradents, his disciples, began already during Jesus’ ministry. … Only when formulated and transmitted by the eyewitnesses and especially, though not exclusively, by the Twelve after the resurrection of Jesus would the narrative traditions about Jesus have become more formal, in the sense of tradition authorized by an acknowledged competent tradent and formally delivered to others. (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, ©2006, pg 285).

So there were “authorized representatives” who spoke and wrote with the authority of Scripture. But the later generations of Christian writers clearly recognized themselves as NOT having anything like the authority that the Apostles had. Clement, writing in 96 AD, is clearly cognizant of a certain impotence in his address to the Corinthians. Writing in 58:2, he says “accept our advice” (συμβουλήν, or “symboulen”). Michael Holmes notes this was “a ‘symbouleutic’” (or “deliberative”) letter, a category widely discussed by ancient rhetoricians and to which 1 Clement closely conforms” (“The Apostolic Fathers”, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, © 2007, pg36). Clement knows that he must reason with them; he may not order them. As well, Ignatius writes clearly in multiple places that “as a bishop he, unlike the apostles, is not in a position to give orders or to lay down the precepts or the teachings (δόγματα), which come from the Lord and the apostles alone (see his letters to the Magnesians 13; Romans 4:3; Ephesians 3:1 etc. Citing John Behr’s introduction to Irenaeus of Lyons “Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching” Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, pgs 9-11).

For reasons like this, Oscar Cullmann (“The Tradition”, in “The Early Church”, “London: SCM Press Ltd, © 1956), writes:

We shall insist on the fact that the infant Church itself distinguished between apostolic tradition and ecclesiastical tradition, clearly subordinating the latter to the former, in other words, subordinating itself to the apostolic tradition (pg 87).

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that the early church understood this distinction, the Roman Catholic Church puts “sacred Tradition” on the same level of Scripture (in its “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” otherwise known as “Dei Verbum”), with both “sources” “flowing from the same divine wellspring,” “merging into a unity” and “to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence”:

there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.(6)

The authors of Scripture knew they were writing Scripture. The early church, following them, knew that they were subordinate to it. It is the Roman Catholic Church which is out of step with both “apostolic tradition” and “ecclesiastical tradition”. It is the church of Rome which, though it had been invited to a place at the table, claims without warrant to speak with the authority of Christ, and chose to “sit in the first place” without having been asked to do so. We pray for the day when the master bids them “go and take a lower seat”.

Previous entries:

Introduction (JB comments)

#1: The Term “Canon” Can Only Refer to a Fixed, Closed List of Books, (JB comments)

#2: Nothing in Early Christianity Dictated That There Would be a Canon (JB comments)

Michael Kruger: 10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #2: Nothing in Early Christianity Dictated That There Would be a Canon

The Protestant understanding of the Canon of the New Testament must address critics on two sides: the Roman Catholics who say “you can’t have your canon without the authority of the Roman Catholic Church”, and on the liberal side, who say, “the idea of a NT canon was an afterthought”.  Dr Kruger addresses this notion in his most recent blog post:

[I]n recent years, a new challenge has begun to take center stage (though it is really not new at all).  …  The question now is “Why is there a New Testament at all?”  The answer, according to critics of the canon, is not to be found in the first-century—there was nothing about earliest Christianity (or the books themselves) that would naturally lead to the development of a canon. Instead, we are told, the answer is to be found in the later Christian church.  The canon was an ecclesiastical product that was designed to meet ecclesiastical needs. Thus, the New Testament canon was not a natural development within early Christianity, but a later, artificial development that is out of sync with Christianity’s original purpose—it was something imposed upon the Christian faith. … I will argue here that the earliest Christians held a number of beliefs that, especially when taken in tandem, would have naturally led to the development of a new collection of sacred books—what we could call a “canon.”  In other words, the theological matrix of first-century Christianity created a favorable environment for the growth of a new written revelational deposit. Let us consider what three of these theological beliefs might have been.

1. The earliest Christians believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the eschatological fulfillment of foundational Old Testament promises about God’s redemption of his people.  It is important to remember the Jews of the first century period were in a state of anticipation—waiting and longing for God’s redemptive deliverance of Israel.  In other words, Jews of this period viewed the story of the Old Testament books as incomplete.  When the Old Testament story of Israel was viewed as a whole, it was not viewed as something that was finished but as something that was waiting to be finished. N.T. Wright observes, “The great story of the Hebrew scriptures was therefore inevitably read in the second-temple period as a story in search of a conclusion.”  What made the earliest Christians unique is that they believed that the story of the Old Testament had been completed.  It was finished and fulfilled in the coming of Jesus of Nazareth.  The long-awaited redemption of God had arrived.

If so, it is not difficult to see how this belief might impact the production of new scriptural books. If Christians believed the OT story had now been completed, then it reasonable to think that the proper conclusion to the Old Testament might then be written.  Otherwise the OT Scriptures would be a play without a final act. This possibility finds confirmation in the fact that some of the New Testament writings seem to be intentionally completing the Old Testament story.  It is noteworthy that the first book of the New Testament begins with a genealogy with a strong Davidic theme (Matt 1:1), and the (likely) last book of the Hebrew canon begins with a genealogy that has a strong Davidic theme (1 Chronicles 1-2). This structural feature led D. Moody Smith to declare, “In doing so, Matthew makes clear that Jesus represents the restoration of that dynasty and therefore the history of Israel and the history of salvation. Thus, Jesus continues the biblical narrative.” Davies and Allison agree that Matthew “thought of his gospel as a continuation of the biblical history.”

2. The earliest Christians believed that Jesus inaugurated a new covenant.  We must remember that the Jews of the first century were covenantally oriented. N.T. Wright has observed that “Covenant theology was the air breathed by the Judaism of this period.”[5]  And it is clear that the earliest Christians were also covenantally oriented, as they saw Jesus as ushering in a new covenant (Luke 22:20; cf. Matt 26:28; Mark 14:24; 2 Cor 3:6; Heb 7:22, 8:8).  What implications does this belief have on canon?  The answer lies in the very close connection between covenants and written texts.  It is well-established by now that the very concept of ‘covenant’ (or treaty) was drawn from the ancient near eastern world where a suzerain king would often make a treaty-covenant with his vassal king. And here is the key: when such covenants were made, they were accompanied by written documentation of that covenant.  It is not surprising then that when God made a treaty-covenant with Israel on Sinai, he gave them written documentation of the terms of that covenant.  Indeed, so close was the connection between the covenant and written texts, that Old Testament language would often equate the two—the written text was the covenant!

If this is the background of early Christian understanding of covenants, then the implications are easy to see. The earliest Christians were themselves immersed in the covenantal structure of the Old Testament and thus would have understood this critical connection between covenants and written texts.  Thus, if they believed that through Jesus Christ a new covenant had been inaugurated with Israel (Jer 31:31), it would have been entirely natural for them to expect new written documents to testify to the terms of that covenant.  In other words, this Old Testament covenantal background provides strong historical reason for thinking that early Christians would have had a predisposition towards written canonical documents and that such documents might have arisen naturally from the early Christian movement.  At a minimum, the covenantal context of early Christianity suggests that the emergence of a new corpus of scriptural books, after the announcement of a new covenant, could not be regarded as entirely unexpected.

This appears to find confirmation in 2 Cor 3:6 when Paul refers to himself and the other apostles as “ministers of the new covenant”—and Paul makes this declaration in a written text that bears his authority as a minister of the new covenant.  Thus, one could hardly fault the Corinthians if they understood Paul’s letter as, in some sense, a covenant document.

3. The earliest Christians believed in the authority of the apostles to speak for Christ. Jesus had commissioned his apostles “so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority” (Mark 3:14–15).  When Jesus sent out the twelve, he reminds them that “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matt 10:20).  Thus, he is able to give a warning to those who reject the apostles’ authority: “If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words…it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town” (Matt 10:14).  Given this background, we come to the key question: what would happen if the apostles put their authoritative message in written form?  How would such documents be viewed?  Initially, of course, the apostles delivered their message orally through teaching and preaching. But, it was not long before they began to write their message down. And when they did so, they also told Christians “Stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thess 2:15). And again, “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him” (2 Thess 3:14).  It is here that we see the obvious connection between the role of the apostles and the beginnings of the canon.  If apostles were viewed as the mouthpiece of Christ, and they wrote down that apostolic message in books, then those books would be received as the very words of Christ himself.  Such writings would not have to wait until second, third, or fourth-century ecclesiastical decisions to become authoritative—instead they would be viewed as authoritative from almost the very start. For this reason, a written New Testament was not something the church formally “decided” to have at some later date, but was instead the natural outworking of the redemptive-historical function of the apostles.

In sum, these three theological beliefs of the earliest Christians should, at a bare minimum, make us hesitant about confident proclamations from modern scholars that early Christians had no inclinations toward a canon.  On the contrary, these beliefs suggest that the development of a new corpus of scriptural books would have been a natural, and to some extent even inevitable, part of early Christianity.

Previous entries:

Introduction (JB comments)

#1: The Term “Canon” Can Only Refer to a Fixed, Closed List of Books, (JB comments)

Michael Kruger: 10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #1: The Term “Canon” Can Only Refer to a Fixed, Closed List of Books

One of the things that really stood out for me about Dan Wallace’s blog post on Protestant Ecclesiology was the sentence “it has been long noted that the weakest link in an evangelical bibliology is canonicity”. The reason this is a weak link is not because it’s really a weakness. Someone in Dr. Wallace’s position (a) should know better than this, and (b) should not be propagating this type of trash.

Regarding (a), “knowing better”, he should at least be familiar with the polemics of it. Oscar Cullmann was perhaps one of the leading New Testament scholars in the mid 20^th century. Cullmann, a conservative Lutheran, stood his ground in the face of the tide of liberal “higher critical” scholarship, and he almost single-handedly laid the foundation for the current generation of New Testament scholars whose work IS respected in the “academic” world of New Testament scholarship.

More on that another time. But it was Cullmann who most forcefully demonstrated for me the pure bankruptcy of the Roman Catholic apologetic in the world. Cullmann had written and published the (till then) most extensive documentation of the life, death, and legend of the Apostle Peter. It is Cullmann’s work on Peter that stands the test of the back-and-forth of “Petrine scholarship”. Whether or not his is the best understanding is another story, but his is the “consensus” view, that (a) Peter (exegetically) is the “rock” of Matthew 16:18, but (b) there is no hint of “succession” in the New Testament.

When Cullmann’s work was published, do you think that Roman Catholic scholars actually addressed it? No, they did the Roman Apologetic “two-step”. Here it is in Cullmann’s own words:

In … most of the Catholic reviews of my book on St. Peter, one argument especially is brought forward: scripture, a collection of books, is not sufficient to actualize for us the divine revelation granted to the apostles (cited in “The Early Church”, London: SCM Press Ltd, © 1956, in the Foreword to the article “The Tradition”, pg 57).

 Roman Catholic apologetic never changes. This trashing of Scripture is the first step in the “two-step”. The second step is to say, “Only on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church was the “canon” “fixed”. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church is what it says it is”.

And as for Dr. Wallace and (b), the real disappointment of this article is that he, a New Testament scholar of the highest order, should not be allowing himself to be used as a pawn in this kind of Bible-trashing trash.

As for an appropriate (and really, a stellar) response to Roman Catholic trashing of the New Testament canon, kudos to Michael Kruger, another New Testament scholar of the highest order, has drawn upon some of the best thinking that Protestantism has to offer, in order to help man-in-the-street Protestants (and pastors!) to understand how this complex process came about.

Dr Kruger has produced the first of his 10 Misconceptions about the New Testament Canon:

Indeed, one’s definition of canon drives one’s historical conclusions about canon–particularly regarding its date.  And precisely for this reason, there has always been a vigorous debate amongst scholars over what we mean by the term “canon.”  However, in recent years, that debate has taken an interesting turn.  One particular definition of canon has begun to emerge as the dominant one.  In fact, scholars have suggested that we must all use this definition lest the entire field of canonical studies be thrown into confusion and anachronism. And that definition is the one that says canon only exists when one has a closed, final, fixed list. You can have “Scripture” prior to this time, but not a “canon.”  This can be called the exclusive definition.

The impact of this new “consensus” has been profound on canonical studies:  If you cannot have a canon until books are in a closed, final list, then there could not be a canon until the fourth or even fifth century at the earliest.  Thus, this definition has been used to push the date of canon further and further back into the later centuries of the church. Remarkably, then, the date for canon has become later and later while the historical evidence hasn’t changed at all.

But, is the exclusive definition the best definition for canon?  And are we obligated to use it to the exclusion of all others?  Although this definition rightly captures the fact that the boundaries of the canon had fluid edges prior to the fourth century, I think it creates more problems than it solves.

The problems with this type of approach:

1. “it seems some degree of limitation and exclusion is already implied in the term ‘Scripture.’” 

2. “significant ambiguity remains on what, exactly, constitutes this closing.  If it is absolute uniformity of practice, across all of Christendom, then, on those terms, there was still not a canon even in the fourth century.  Indeed, on those terms we still do not have a canon even today!” Especially not if we consider Dr Wallace’s model, Orthodox ecclesiology.

3. “…arguably the most foundational problem for this definition… The abrupt change in terminology gives the impression that these books bore some lesser status prior to this point; it communicates that Christians only had Scripture and not a canon.  Or, as one scholar put it, prior to the fourth century Christian only had a “boundless, living mass of heterogenous” texts [again, citing Dr Wallace’s “authority” on the canon, David Dungan and Eusebius].  But this is misleading at best.”

Dr Kruger provides much better Protestant approaches to the Canon issue: “Brevard Childs has highlighted what we might call the functional definition which suggests we have a canon as soon as a book is used as Scripture by early Christians.  On this definition, we would have a canon at least by the early second century.  And I have argued for a third definition in my forthcoming article for Tyndale Bulletin that would define canon as the books God gave his corporate church (what I call the ontological definition).  One might say this views canon from a divine perspective.  On this definition, we would have a “canon” as soon as these books were written.”

That is, when Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, it never didn’t have “apostolic authority”. It never didn’t carry the weight of Scripture. That is how the canon came about.

"Canon Fodder"

Dr. Michael Kruger, who is Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC, and co-author (with Andreas Kostenberger) of the work The Heresy of Orthodoxy (among other things) has a fairly new blog entitled Canon Fodder, and he's already promising to make it interesting with an upcoming series entitled 10 Common Misconceptions About the NT Canon.

Here are the 10 Misconceptions:

The Term “Canon” Can Only Refer to a Fixed, Closed List of Books
Nothing in Early Christianity Dictated That There Would be a Canon
The New Testament Authors Did Not Think They Were Writing Scripture
New Testament Books Were Not Regarded as Scriptural Until Around 200 A.D.
Early Christians Disagreed Widely over the Books Which Made It into the Canon
In the Early Stages, Apocryphal Books Were as Popular as the Canonical Books
Christians Had No Basis to Distinguish Heresy from Orthodoxy Until the Fourth Century
Early Christianity was an Oral Religion and Therefore Would Have Resisted Writing Things Down
The Canonical Gospels Were Certainly Not Written by the Individuals Named in Their Titles
Athanasius’ Festal Letter (367 A.D.) is the First Complete List of New Testament Books

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