Reformation500: a new review of Michael Kruger’s “Canon Revisited”

Michael Kruger, "Canon Revisited"

John Stebbe, a new writer at http://reformation500.com and a former-Lutheran-turned-Reformed believer, has posted a glowing review of Michael Kruger’s “Canon Revisited”:

http://reformation500.com/2013/06/25/review-of-canon-revisited-by-michael-kruger/

The author answers the question, “How can Christians have confidence that the 27 books of the New Testament are the correct ones?” …

Kruger … says that God has provided “the proper epistemic environment in which belief in the canon could be reliably formed.” This environment has three parts:

1) Providential exposure: the books which God has inspired as Scripture will be available for Christians to examine.

2) Attributes of canonicity: Divine qualities, corporate reception, and and apostolic origins.

3) Internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.

The author says that the[se] ‘attributes of canonicity’ are mutually reinforcing.

While Kruger “does not attempt to convince skeptics that the Bible is the Word of God”, he makes the firm case, “from the Scriptures themselves, as well as evidence from history”, that the Bible, especially the New Testament, contains precisely the books that God intended.

Stebbe reminds readers about Roman Catholic claims to authority, and reminds them that the Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures came first:

Rome asks us to accept its authority because it is the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, Rome’s authority is self-authenticating. Yet Catholics criticize Protestants for claiming that the Scriptures are self-authenticating. Kruger asks us to recall that the first Christians had a canon even before the New Testament was written. Their canon was the Old Testament, which “seemed to have existed just fine before the founding of the Church.” So the first Christians had no trouble recognizing the books of the Old Testament as Scripture, without an external authority such as Rome giving its imprimatur. This was only possible because the Old Testament books were self-authenticating.

You can check out some articles I wrote earlier on this work, and also the “Kruger vs Ratzinger” series that I wrote on the topic of “which came first, “the Church” or the Scriptures?

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Attention Roman Catholics: ”Sola Scriptura” is in the Bible

My copy of Canon Revisited arrived last Friday. (Michael J. Kruger, “Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books”, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books © 2012). Kruger’s is the first work that I am aware of, from a Reformed and evangelical perspective, that deals specifically with the entire range of the issues surrounding the Protestant acceptance of the 27-book canon of the New Testament. That includes not only the writing of the books [and Kruger notes that the New Testament books were “Scripture” at the moment they were penned], to how they were collected [immediately], how the church fathers used them, to how they were copied [and there are detailed accounts of “books” in that day as well as book production], distributed, used in worship, reflected upon, [in some cases] disputed, and accepted, all without the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

But he only does this incidentally. The stated purpose of the book, Kruger notes, is not to provide a comprehensive look at the history of the development of the canon of the New Testament. There are other works that deal with the historical issues (I’m thinking of Bruce Metzger’s Canon of the New Testament and Lee McDonald’s The Biblical Canon).

Kruger’s stated purpose is to respond to “the narrow question of whether Christians have a rational basis (i.e., intellectually sufficient grounds) for affirming that only these twenty-seven books rightfully belong in the New Testament canon. Or put differently, is the Christian belief in the canon justified (or warranted)? The answer is an unqualified “yes”.

While Kruger does not write specifically to counter the charge of the Roman Catholic Church (that only the supposed authority of the Roman Catholic Church can have fixed this canon for Protestants, and therefore Protestants are dependent upon Roman Catholic authority), he clearly is aware of this charge and he addresses it thoroughly. And since there are unthinking Roman Catholics who do not know what Sola Scriptura is [and worse: thinking Roman Catholics who do know what it is, but who nevertheless continue to caricature that position], and who thoughtlessly continue to ask the question “where is Sola Scriptura in the Bible?”, this work is extremely useful in addressing these specific claims as well.

* * *

The development of the canon of the New Testament is an area of study which, because of its complexity, has led to a lot of confusion. Especially in dialogues between Roman Catholics and Protestants. And because the issue is such a complex one, even well-meaning, though somewhat uninformed Protestant scholars (who have not been thoroughly up-to-speed on this issue), have helped to feed the confusion. For example, when noted Greek scholar Dan Wallace only recently said “it has been long noted that the weakest link in an evangelical bibliology is canonicity”, it caused a firestorm. Or when some Protestants, in unguarded moments, (for example, Sproul or Gerstner) say something like “the canon is a fallible collection of infallible books”, unthinking Roman Catholics are quick to say “Aha! The phrase Sola Scriptura doesn’t appear in the Bible, therefore the Roman Catholic paradigm is true”.

This work is the first that I am aware of to combine, in one place, all of the work that has been done on this topic, but perhaps has not been presented as a single, cohesive argument. And Kruger presses home the point that Protestants are indeed justified in thinking that do the books of the New Testament canon “have divine authority apart from their reception by the community of faith”, but also that “this authority can be known through the books themselves as the power of the Spirit works within them” (294, emphasis in original).

The title of the work, Canon Revisited, indicates that Kruger is aware of some of the breadth of the work on the topic, as well as the massive amounts of confusion. Indeed, Part 1 of the work is an overview of the many different viewpoints that seek to account for the Canon of the New Testament. While acknowledging that he can’t go into great detail on any one of these models, he does spend a good amount of time describing and evaluating some of the various “community-determined” and “historically-determined” views on the New Testament canon. Some of these are from Bart Ehrman types of historical-critical scholars. But Kruger is aware, too, that he is addressing not only historical-critical scholars, but Roman Catholics and other evangelical views as well.

The primary thrust of the work is to stake out and then respond to objections to what he calls “the Self-Authenticating” model of the Canon. By “self-authenticating”, he means, “we can know which books are canonical because God has provided the proper epistemic environment where belief in these books can be reliably formed. This environment includes not only providential exposure to the canonical books, but the three attributes of canonicity that all canonical books possess—divine qualities, corporate reception, apostolic origins—and the work of the Hoy Spirit to help us recognize them. Thus, contra the de jure objection, Christians do have adequate grounds for affirming their belief in the canon” (pg 113).

* * *

As someone who has dealt with questions of Roman Catholicism virtually all my adult life, I’d like to focus strictly on questions dealing with Roman Catholic challenges to the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura. The “Canon” argument has been used by Roman Catholics from the time of the Reformation (Kruger cites “the sixteenth-century Roman Catholic Cardinal Sanislaus Hosius, papal legate to the Council of Trent”, who said: “The Scriptures have only as much force as the fables of Aesop if destitute of the authority of the Church”, pg 40). I’ve noted here that Roman Catholics are so comfortable with “the canon issue” that, in response to a major work undermining the centuries-old myth of “Peter as the first pope”, Oscar Cullmann did not receive responses that directly addressed his work on Peter, but that he merely that “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).

To be sure, some Roman Catholic pay some lip service to Scripture. It’s “in there”, among the legs of the stool. But in practice, for Roman Catholics, the Bible has no intrinsic authority as the Word of God. That is, even though God may speak, still God’s very Word is helpless to communicate its message without the “interpretation” of the Roman Catholic Church. For example, in his recent “Covenant and Communion”, Scott Hahn, echoing Cardinal Hosius at Trent, “The Church [and by this he means “the Roman Catholic Church] makes the various individual texts into a single book or ‘Bible.’ Without the Church we have only a jumble of unconnected texts” (pg 35).

* * *

“My Sheep Hear My Voice”. Thus, Kruger begins his chapter outlining what he calls the “Canon as Self-Authenticating” model. It is noteworthy that he re-affirms what Calvin said of Scripture in his Institutes. “God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word….Scripture is indeed self-authenticated.” (from Institutes 1.7.4-5). He cites also Reformed writers such as Francis Turretin and Herman Bavinck:

Herman Bavinck reminds us that the church fathers [who had no official certification from Rome] understood Scripture this way: “in the Church Fathers and the Scholastics  … [Scripture] rested in itself, was trustworthy in and of itself (αὐτοπιστος), and the primary norm for church and theology” (Kruger, pg 90, citing Bavinck, “Reformed Dogmatics”, Vol 1, pg 452).

Kruger provides the definition of the term he is working with:

…for the purpose of this study, we shall be using the phrase self-authenticating in a broader fashion than was typical for the Reformers. We are not using it to refer only to the fact that canonical books bear divine qualities (although they do) but are using it to refer to the way the canon itself provides the necessary direction and guidance about how it is to be authenticated. In essence, to say that the canon is self-authenticating is simply to recognize that one cannot authenticate the canon without appealing to the canon. It sets the terms for its own validation and investigation. A self-authenticating canon is not just a canon that claims to have authority, nor is it simply a canon that bears internal evidence of authority, but one that guides and determines how that authority is to be established (91).

Of course he will look to external criteria as well. But as he says, “The canon, as God’s word, is not just true, but the criterion of truth. It is an ultimate authority … thus, for ultimate authorities to be ultimate authorities, they have to be the standard for their own authentication. You cannot account for them without using them” (91).

So, Sola Scriptura is in the Bible. Among other things, the New Testament canon “speaks for itself” (159).

I’d encourage any Roman Catholics who are reading this to pick up a copy of the book and take a look at Kruger’s presentation. Don’t convince yourself, as Roman Catholics have done for generations, on the basis of a caricature. If you want to challenge Protestantism, to say somehow that it is lacking, here is the place to start. And of course, I’d encourage every Protestant to read this work and become familiar with these issues.

I’ll pick this up here next time, Lord willing.

Canon Revisited: A Bit of Housekeeping

I’ve been working through Dr Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited, (Michael J. Kruger, “Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books”, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books © 2012). My intention is to have something like a chapter-by-chapter summary that can easily be referred to. This is information where, it is true, Protestants generally are weak. Let’s be like John the Baptist: “Make his paths straight”.

My greater hope, though, is that you’ll buy the book, read it, and internalize it.

Just to keep track of things, here are links to previous posts taken from the work:

Attention Roman Catholics: “Sola Scriptura” is in the Bible

The Canon of the New Testament as Self-Authenticating

Michael Kruger’s Criteria for Canonicity

Canon Revisited: Potential Defeaters

The Divine Qualities of Scripture (1): The Unity and Harmony of Scripture

The Divine Qualities of Scripture (2): Redemptive History and Intertextuality

                                                                                                                               

There are four more chapters to discuss:

Apostolic Origins of the Canon

The Corporate Reception of the Canon: The Emergence of a Canonical Core

The Corporate Reception of the Canon: Manuscripts and Christian Book Production

The Corporate Reception of the Canon: Problem Books and Canonical Boundaries

These last four chapters are where the details are discussed, the “tumultuous history of the canon”.

My hope is to work through these carefully over the coming weeks; the details in these four chapters, as messy as they are, show the hand of God working in a mighty way to take control of his own Word, his own message.

None of this, I don’t think, is new. I’ve seen portions of what Dr Kruger writes here and there – in Oscar Cullmann, Herman Ridderbos, and Greg Bahnsen, among others. But what’s here is where all the details come together, in one place – history and doctrine and epistemology – to give Protestants a single focal point on the New Testament canon, a comprehensive response to the objection that Protestantism is somehow undermining itself in the acceptance of the New Testament canon.

Sola Scriptura is in the Bible.

Canon Revisited: Potential Defeaters

In three previous posts, I’ve worked specifically through different areas of Dr Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited, (Michael J. Kruger, “Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books”, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books © 2012):

Attention Roman Catholics: “Sola Scriptura” is in the Bible

The Canon of the New Testament as Self-Authenticating

Michael Kruger’s Criteria for Canonicity

There are a number of other blog posts here at Triablogue focusing on many different aspects of his work, as well as on his blog series, “Misconceptions about the Canon”.

But over the next week or so, I specifically want to work through the details of Dr Kruger’s argument, because there are historical and exegetical details that, because of his status as a New Testament scholar, readers will not necessarily be familiar with. We may have touched on some elements in the past, but they’re assembled here as part of a cogent argument that critics will need to address before they simply say “nuh uh!” and hang up.

As is the case with any good scholar, Michael Kruger is not squeamish about dealing with challenges to his work. The vast majority of this book (following after the chapters in which he (a) reviews the various theories of the New Testament canon, and (b) outlines his own thoughts regarding the “New Testament Canon as Self Attesting”) involves “Exploring and Defending” this “Canonical Model”.

Here again are his “criteria for canonicity”, reasons why the New Testament books are included in the canon, reasons why the early church included these 27 works, and only these 27 works in the New Testament canon:

(1) They have “divine qualities” (canonical books bear the “marks” of divinity),

(2) Corporate reception (canonical books are recognized by the church as a whole),

(3) Apostolic origins (canonical books are the result of the redemptive-historical activity of the apostles).

In the rest of the book, Dr Kruger goes into more detail about what is meant by these qualities, and what kinds of challenges these “criteria” do face in the real world of New Testament scholarship. In a brief section at the end of chapter three (pg 121), he notes:

The essence of the self-authenticating model is that Christians have a rational basis (or warrant) for affirming the twenty-seven books of the New Testament canon because God has created the proper epistemic environment wherein belief in the canon can be reliably formed. However, that is not all that needs to be said. Even if one has a rational basis for holding to a belief, that belief still faces the possibility of epistemic defeat by other beliefs that one might come to hold. Such “defeaters are the kind of beliefs that would challenge or undercut a prior belief, giving one reason to think that the prior belief is false.

While he notes, “in a volume this size it is not possible to mention all potential canonical defeaters, so we will focus on the primary ones”. Here are some of the primary challenges he sees and addresses:

The challenge to divine qualities: apparent disagreements and/or contradictions within the New Testament books: Argues against the existence of divine qualities in these books. If New Testament books are inconsistent with one another – as many scholars have claimed – then how could they really be from God?

The challenge to Apostolic Origins: a number of New Testament books were not written by the Apostles: Much of modern scholarship argues that a number of New Testament books are pseudonymous forgeries. For instance, only seven of Paul’s epistles are widely regarded as authentic. How, then, can we claim that all canonical books are apostolic?

The challenge to corporate reception: there was widespread disagreement in the early church that lasted well into the fourth century: Is it still possible to say that there was significant consensus of the early church, or was this “consensus” called into question “when we recognize the widespread disagreement and confusion that existed in early Christianity about the extent of the canon? If the church experienced disarray over canonical books from the very start, should this not raise doubts about whether the Spirit was really at work?

He admits that not all of the question can be addressed adequately in a single volume, “we will attempt to provide at least a preliminary response” to each of these objection in the rest of the volume.

And in the process, he gives a broadly Reformed and Evangelical understanding of what the early church was, what it was like, and how it operated, especially with regard to its posture vis-à-vis the Scriptures.

There is rock-solid information here about the early church that you won’t want to be without.

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.

* * *

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. 

“Open up an acorn, and you can see a fully-formed tiny baby tree in there”

Garrison (#364):

You seem to suggest that the Roman Church sees herself as being born fully as she appears and exists in the current day like Athena from Zeus’ skull. That is not the truth, and I know of no one who seriously contends such a thing.

The Roman Church did teach that, all the way through the 17th century. At the very least, the Council of Trent, believed and taught such a thing. That’s what the phrase semper eadem was all about. It was only after the Reformation and the enlightenment began to point out certain discrepancies, that someone like Newman was required to address “certain apparent variations in teaching”, among other things. At one time, the Roman Church did see itself as being born fully, and in “essence”, Bryan and others here have argued that absolutely nothing was lacking in “the Church that Christ founded”. That’s what it means to say Christ “founded a visible church”. Open up an acorn, and you can see a fully-formed tiny baby tree in there, with all the things it will have as an adult tree.

You [JB] said:
“The canon of Scripture was the determining factor in ongoing ‘orthodoxy’ (beginning with Irenaeus and Tertullian, in the way that Cullmann explains it), and yes, ‘Scripture alone’ was God’s intended method for seeing to it that the gates of hell do not prevail against the church.”

An assertion so far without evidence.

It’s argued strenuously by Cullmann, whose entire work I have not reproduced here. If I could, I would. That is his conclusion. My first comment here was to recommend the work of Michael Kruger, Canon Revisited. I’ve placed Kruger’s conclusions in juxtaposition with the 1962 Joseph Ratzinger essay “Primacy, Episcopacy, and Successio Apostolica”, where then-theologian Ratzinger says, at some length:

We should not deceive ourselves: the existence of New Testament writings, recognized as being “apostolic”, does not yet imply the existence of a “New Testament” as “Scripture”—there is a long way from the writings to Scripture. It is well known, and should not be overlooked, that the New Testament does not anywhere understand itself as “Scripture”; “Scripture” is, for the New Testament, simply the Old Testament, while the message about Christ is precisely “spirit”, which teaches us how to understand Scripture.” The idea of a “New Testament” as “Scripture” is still quite inconceivable at this point—even when “office”, as the form of the paradosis, is already clearly taking shape” (Ratzinger, 25).

Kruger’s point, however, (which has been examined and confirmed from different viewpoints by such scholars as Oscar Cullmann and Richard Bauckham) is this (as I’ve summarized him):

“My Sheep Hear My Voice”. Thus, Kruger begins his chapter outlining what he calls the “Canon as Self-Authenticating” model. It is noteworthy that he re-affirms what Calvin said of Scripture in his Institutes. “God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word….Scripture is indeed self-authenticated.” (from Institutes 1.7.4-5). He cites also Reformed writers such as Francis Turretin and Herman Bavinck:

Herman Bavinck reminds us that the church fathers [who had no official certification from Rome] understood Scripture this way: “in the Church Fathers and the Scholastics … [Scripture] rested in itself, was trustworthy in and of itself (αὐτοπιστος), and the primary norm for church and theology” (Kruger, pg 90, citing Bavinck, “Reformed Dogmatics”, Vol 1, pg 452).

Kruger provides the definition of the term he is working with:

…for the purpose of this study, we shall be using the phrase self-authenticating in a broader fashion than was typical for the Reformers. We are not using it to refer only to the fact that canonical books bear divine qualities (although they do) but are using it to refer to the way the canon itself provides the necessary direction and guidance about how it is to be authenticated. In essence, to say that the canon is self-authenticating is simply to recognize that one cannot authenticate the canon without appealing to the canon. It sets the terms for its own validation and investigation. A self-authenticating canon is not just a canon that claims to have authority, nor is it simply a canon that bears internal evidence of authority, but one that guides and determines how that authority is to be established (91).

Of course he will look to external criteria as well. But as he says, “The canon, as God’s word, is not just true, but the criterion of truth. It is an ultimate authority … thus, for ultimate authorities to be ultimate authorities, they have to be the standard for their own authentication. You cannot account for them without using them” (91).

So, Sola Scriptura is in the Bible. Among other things, the New Testament canon “speaks for itself” (159).

Now, it takes him several hundred pages to make his case. I’ve gotten half way through the book, if you’re really interested in interacting with Kruger’s supposed “argument from silence”. Just because I haven’t reproduced the whole thing here doesn’t mean that it’s an argument that Roman Catholicism doesn’t have to contend with. And no, I’m not going to say that it’s a slam-dunk, but it definitely changes the terms of what has been a 500-year-old disagreement.

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. 

The Divine Qualities of Scripture (1): The Unity and Harmony of Scripture

All Scripture is God-breathed (“θεόπνευστος”)

“If anyone ponders over the prophetic sayings … it is certain that in the very act of reading and diligently studying them his mind and feelings will be touched by a divine breath and he will recognize the words he is reading are not utterances of man but the language of God” (Origen, Princ., 4.1.6)

“… the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God …” [WCF1.5].

The “beauty and excellency”, the “efficacy and power”, the “unity and harmony” of the Scriptures, in these qualities, the Scripture speaks, bearing “the very attributes of God himself” (Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books © 2012, pg 127). “When men encounter God, they are vividly aware of his beauty, majesty, and perfection and need no further ‘evidence’ that he is God (Pss. 27:4; 50:2; 96:6; Isa. 6:1-7; Rev 1:12-17; 4:3). In addition, Scripture itself is described over and over again throughout the Bible as bearing these very same attributes” (pg 127).

By contrast, Scott Hahn, a Roman Catholic apologist, for example, considers that “the Church” somehow gives the Scriptures their attribute of being Scripture:

“without reference to the meaning these texts possess in the [Roman Catholic] Church’s life and liturgy, the Scriptures become a kind of dead letter, an artifact from a long-extinct exotic culture. Biblical exegesis becomes an exercise in “antiquarianism” or “archaeology” or perhaps “necrophilia.” [quoting Joseph Ratzinger: [Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy”, 1986] … The Church makes the very individual texts into a single book or ‘Bible.” Without the [Roman Catholic] Church we have only a jumble of unconnected texts [Hahn, “Covenant and Communion”, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press ©2009, pg 35].

Kruger here draws on speech-act philosophy: “Speaking (and therefore divine speaking) can take three different forms: (1) locution (making coherent and meaningful sounds or, in the case of writing, letters); (2) illocution (what the words are actually doing; e.g., promising, warning, commanding, declaring, etc.); and (3) perlocution (the effects of these words on the listener; e.g., encouraging, challenging, persuading) (pg 119-120).

The very nature of their content, their “divine qualities” have a perlocutionary effect on the reader. Citing Hebrews 4:12, the Scriptures are “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”… “It changes, shapes, and transforms its reader or hearer. The canon [of the New Testament] is not so much to be judged as the thing that does the judging. When this attribute of the canon is appreciated, once again, we can see how the canon is not so much shaped by the community of faith, but a means of shaping the community of faith”.

Echoing this, Kruger cites Justin Martyr on the words of Christ” “For they possess a terrible power in themselves, and are sufficient to inspire those who turn from the path of rectitude with awe; while the sweetest rest is afforded those who make a diligent practice of them (Dialogue with Trypho, 8:2)

He cites the Apology of Aristides (C. 130) “the author invites the emperor to read ‘the Gospel’ because ‘you also if you read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it’” 2.4 (Syriac).

He cites Irenaeus defending “the fourfold Gospel” on the grounds that these Gospels are always “breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh” (Haer 3.11.8).

The Unity and Harmony of Scripture

Kruger affirms that in the Scriptures, “there is unity on a complex array of theological issues, such as the nature of God, the make-up of man, the nation of Israel, the purpose and structure of the church, the person and work of Christ, the message of forgiveness and redemption, the importance of holiness, the role and function of the sacraments, eschatology and the last days, and so on” (133-134). “Whenver we speak of a canonical book’s doctrinal unity with other divine revelation, that is just another way of saying that book is orthodox”.

Orthodoxy in Scripture manifests itself in several different ways. Traditionally, Protestants understand orthodoxy as exhibited through the test of a prophet (Deut. 18:20) or by examination (Acts 17:10), as the Bereans searched for themselves to verify that Paul’s inspired teaching is consistent with the inspired teaching of the Old Testament.

Kruger also works through two other perspectives on orthodoxy:

“First, from the perspective of the earliest Christians as they worked with an incomplete New Testament canon and sought to recognize (for the first time) the books that God had given”

“Second from our modern day as we work with a complete New Testament canon and ask whether there are sufficient grounds for thinking that these books are indeed from God” (134)

1. The earliest church working with an incomplete New Testament Canon

Critics such as Walter Bauer (“Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity”) argue that orthodoxy “could have not been a reliable guide in the development of the canon because there was no uniform standard for orthodoxy until the fourth century” (pg 135). Kruger instead, while acknowledging that Bauer “is certainly correct at a number of points” including that “early Christianity was quite a diverse affair, heresies emerged early,” and “this diversity certainly continued into the later centuries of Christianity, other aspects of Bauer’s thesis have been “challenged and roundly (some say decisively) critiqued”. “The sticking point for Bauer is whether there was a reliable standard by which a book’s orthodoxy could be measured in this earliest phase of Christianity”. Kruger argues that there were three sources:

a. The Old Testament. Citing Ben Witherington, “Gnosticism was a non-starter from the outset because it rejected the very book the earliest Christians recognized as authoritative—the Old Testament”. The Old Testament provided the earliest Christians with an initial (orthodox) doctrinal foundation).

b. “Core” New Testament books. Some works, such as the letters of Paul and the Synoptic gospels, as has been noted earlier, never were not regarded as Scripture, and thus a source of orthodoxy. “Thus, there appears to have been a collection of core New Testament writings that would have functioned as a norm for apostolic doctrine at quite an early point.

c. The “rule of faith”. While Kruger provides, elsewhere, a more detailed discussion of apostolic tradition in the earliest church, he notes here that “the rule of faith worked to bring harmony precisely because there was harmony already there” (within the OT, core NT works, and the understanding of redemptive history that the early church already had) “that could be summarized and expressed. It was this conviction about the internal qualities of Scripture that helped guide the church fathers in their reception of the canon.

2. Orthodoxy and a Complete New Testament Canon

“We must remember that the question about how we recognize the canon is not just a historical one (how it happened in the early church) but an epistemological one (whether the Christian religion [today] has sufficient grounds for thinking that these twenty-seven books are given by God as canonical)” (141-142). “When we answer the latter question, we can do so by considering the New Testament canon as a completed whole”.

Remember, we are now working in the context of considering the “divine qualities” of the 27-book New Testament canon. And of course, “the theological unity of the New Testament books has not gone unchallenged. Whereas Walter Bauer challenged the existence of orthodoxy in the early church, F.C. Baur has challenged the existence of orthodoxy across the spectrum of the completed New Testament canon”. Baur, in the 19^th century, argued that each New Testament book was produced and motivated by separate particular theological agendas, some of which were in conflict. This type of objection, Kruger notes, constitutes a second potential defeater to the divine qualities of Scripture, “and certainly cannot be dismissed lightly” (143).

Again, though, while acknowledging some diversity within the New Testament, “it must not be assumed (though it often is) that differences necessarily entail genuine contradiction”. He discusses apparent differences between Paul and James, as well as many of their agreements (such as the unity of the Gospel Message, Acts 15, and Paul’s “ongoing care and affection” for the church at Jerusalem, and the fact that “there is no real disagreement” between Paul and James on Paul’s understanding of justification [145]).

Kruger also notes a key contradiction within the argument of the Bauer/Baur camp: “If the ‘winners’ [of the “orthdodoxy” battles of the early church] determined the canon, then why would they pick books from various and contradictory theological camps? One cannot argue that the canon is the ‘invention’ of the proto-orthodox designed to suppress the opposition [as Bauer claimed], and then turn around and argue that the canon is a cacophony of diverse theological viewpoints that stand in opposition” (146).

Thus, “Should Christians abandon their commitment to the canon’s authority because biblical critics, who view scriptural interpretations as merely a human enterprise, claim to have discovered theological incongruities? No” (147).

It’s not simply our word against theirs

I want to continue with my series on Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited, and a subset of that series, “Kruger vs Ratzinger”, but first I’d like to put some definitions on the table.

Reformed Protestants are accustomed to thinking in terms of “Divine Revelation” in terms of “special revelation” (in Scripture, which encompasses both the Old Testament and the “apostolic witness” which occurred orally during the lives of the apostles and which was written down and accepted in the form of the New Testament canon), and “general revelation” (for example Psalm 19 and Romans 1:19-20).

I’ll deal with the apostolic witness and also the acceptance of the New Testament canon as I continue to work through Canon Revisited”, but I also wanted to put this into some perspective (vis-à-vis the Roman Catholic system). To that end, I’m providing the complete treatment on “the transmission of Divine Revelation” from the “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, Sections 74-94.

Texts and comments in red are areas that we will certainly want to contest. And we certainly have the historical basis to do so. As well, I’ll deal with some of the more specific definitions moving forward.

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ARTICLE 2

THE TRANSMISSION OF DIVINE REVELATION

74 God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”: that is, of Christ Jesus. Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth:

God graciously arranged that the things he had once revealed for the salvation of all peoples should remain in their entirety, throughout the ages, and be transmitted to all generations.

I. THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION

75 ”Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, and which he fulfilled in his own person and promulgated with his own lips. In preaching the Gospel, they were to communicate the gifts of God to all men. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline.”

In the apostolic preaching. . .

76 In keeping with the Lord’s command, the Gospel was handed on in two ways:

- orally ”by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received - whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit”;

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One point for discussion is that Reformed believers also hold that there was an “oral” tradition; as I’ve noted in a number of places, though, this “oral” testimony needed to be written down, among other reasons, because of a “moralism [noted in the writings of the ‘Apostolic Fathers’] which ignore[d] the notion of grace, and of the redemptive death of Christ”, and which was remedied by “the codification of the apostolic tradition in a canon [a ‘canonical core’], henceforward the superior norm of all tradition”.

  

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- in writing ”by those apostles and other men associated with the apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing”.

. . . continued in apostolic succession

77 ”In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority.” Indeed, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.”

78 This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, “the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.” ”The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer.”

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What occurs above, for the most part, falls into the realm of what can be verified historically. I’ll be tracing the process of this more thoroughly through works like Ratzinger’s “Primacy, Episcopacy, and Successio Apostolica,” in the work “God’s Word: Scripture-Tradition-Office” (San Francisco: Ignatius Press ©2008; Libreria Editrice Vaticana edition ©2005), along with interactions with Kruger, Cullmann, Von Campenhausen, and others.

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79 The Father’s self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: “God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness.”

II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE

One common source. . .

80 ”Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.” Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age”.

. . . two distinct modes of transmission

81 ”Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”

“And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”

Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition [emphasis added].

Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium [emphasis added].

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At some point, yes, theological and hermeneutical understandings will shape our view of history. But at some point, within the Roman Catholic hermeneutic, the historical record is stretched way too far, and far too much of what is current Roman dogma is reflected “back” into the history, that the history becomes evidence that the Roman hermeneutic itself is faulty.

It’s not simply our word against theirs.