Why don't we question the decisions of the early church?

[RickC]

Just a quick post for now - WARNING! - the EWTN "Bring To You" link might be infected!

* Edited In One Day Later - it's OK (and reposted below).

[Homer]

Jeffrey,

You might find this recent topic interesting:

http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... ncy#p43595

God bless, Homer

[Apollos]

I think the issue of the canon is an interesting one, and I haven't seen it dealt with in a satisfying manner (to my mind) by Protestants. I don't think it is right to talk about the early church 'choosing' what books went in and what didn't. I believe the apostles left the Christian communities with collections of authorized books. These did differ slightly, as not all apostles had access to all books. That is why, I believe, there was always a central canon, which Eusebius calls the "confessed" or "acknowledged" (homologoumena) books, and a wider canon comprised of the "disputed" (antilegomena) books, James, Jude, 2 Peter and 2 and 3 John. These, I take it, were delivered by apostolic figures and received as apostolic writings in only limited geographical areas. The early church was involved in the process of bringing these together (a process that was never completed - to this day the Syrian Church of the East has a NT canon of only 22 books, for example, if I remember correctly).

What of the early church? I for one believe that the apostles delivered their doctrine and practices to the early Christian communities, and that therefore where there is unanimity among early Christian writers in different areas, that this testifies to its apostolic origin. The conspiratorial views of people like Ehrman and Pages assumes that there was some kind of centralized organizational structure in the early church which could simply dictate what churches would believe and what books they would use. There wasn't - we are talking about spread out, independent communities whose only guarantee in keeping the faith was to stay loyal to the faith and practice of the church as it had been originally delivered, either by apostles or by those who immediately succeeded them.

[jeffreyclong]

Apollos. I'm not trying to be difficult when I do this. Below, I've highlighted the "i believe's" in your post in red. And the sources for that belief in green.

I think I need to clarify something to hone the discussion in on one specific point. As the link http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... ncy#p43595 that Homer posted points out, evangelicals felt the Bible was under attack from historical, textual and literary critics. Their response was to make their claims to inerrancy and/or infallibility so narrow that they had to deny quality research that shed light on aspects of the Bible that had not been previously examined.

The narrow point I'm making is that the only way to claim inerrancy/infallibility for the New Testatment is to trust the decisions of the early church as infallible/inerrant. And they don't themselves meet the qualifications that they themselves based their decisions on. For example, they weren't apostles. Neither were they eyewitnesses. And all we know about them comes from internal sources so we have no way of judging their credibility to make these decisions.

This is one step removed from the discussion about textual, literary and historical criticism. If we are freed from the claims that the church made about the books, then we are free to examine the Bible on its own merits.

I think the issue of the canon is an interesting one, and I haven't seen it dealt with in a satisfying manner (to my mind) by Protestants. I don't think it is right to talk about the early church 'choosing' what books went in and what didn't. I believe the apostles left the Christian communities with collections of authorized books. These did differ slightly, as not all apostles had access to all books. That is why, I believe, there was always a central canon, which Eusebius calls the "confessed" or "acknowledged" (homologoumena) books, and a wider canon comprised of the "disputed" (antilegomena) books, James, Jude, 2 Peter and 2 and 3 John. These, I take it, were delivered by apostolic figures and received as apostolic writings in only limited geographical areas. The early church was involved in the process of bringing these together (a process that was never completed - to this day the Syrian Church of the East has a NT canon of only 22 books, for example, if I remember correctly).

What of the early church? I for one believe that the apostles delivered their doctrine and practices to the early Christian communities, and that therefore where there is unanimity among early Christian writers in different areas, that this testifies to its apostolic origin.

we are talking about spread out, independent communities whose only guarantee in keeping the faith was to stay loyal to the faith and practice of the church as it had been originally delivered, either by apostles or by those who immediately succeeded them.

How do we know this? Only through internal sources like the church fathers and Eusebius.

The conspiratorial views of people like Ehrman and Pages assumes that there was some kind of centralized organizational structure in the early church which could simply dictate what churches would believe and what books they would use.

Actually, I haven't heard Bart say that a centralized structure dictated these things. He makes the evidence available to us that there were changes being made through the process of copying between the time of the writing of the original document and their canonization. Both he and Dan Wallace acknowledge what scholars have known for a long time, which is that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 textual variants that are attributed to copyists, not authorities. Both also acknowledge that 99% of them have no impact on the meaning of a given text.

[Apollos]

Apollos. I'm not trying to be difficult when I do this. Below, I've highlighted the "i believe's" in your post in red. And the sources for that belief in green.

Hi Jeffrey,
It is not I simply decide something is true, that I qualify things. It is not even that I am not totally convinced, for historical reasons, because I am convinced that the data and the evidence supports those views; it is because I think that when it comes to history, we should couch our terms carefully. In a short post I cannot provide the pages and pages of evidence that have led me to a view, or the various thought processes and reasons behind them. I find amongst some of the hyper critical scholars an abundance of speculation put forth as fact - '2 Cors. was originally five letters, and a scribe redacted them no earlier than 125 ce' etc - that kind of statement. I don't think that is fair to the reader. The reader should know the difference between fact and opinion, no matter how convinced I am of my view.

I think I need to clarify something to hone the discussion in on one specific point. As the link http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... ncy#p43595 that Homer posted points out, evangelicals felt the Bible was under attack from historical, textual and literary critics. Their response was to make their claims to inerrancy and/or infallibility so narrow that they had to deny quality research that shed light on aspects of the Bible that had not been previously examined.

That is really a separate issue to the canon. Arguably the early Christians didn't have a view of the Scriptures which approached the Chicago Statement, and nor do I. That being the case, and since the Bible itself doesn't spell out the exact perimeters of inspiration, I don't worry too much about it. The canon issue however I think is different, for the reasons I gave. I think history supports the view that the apostles themselves delivered collections of writings which were later brought into one volume - our New Testament.

The narrow point I'm making is that the only way to claim inerrancy/infallibility for the New Testatment is to trust the decisions of the early church as infallible/inerrant. And they don't themselves meet the qualifications that they themselves based their decisions on. For example, they weren't apostles. Neither were they eyewitnesses. And all we know about them comes from internal sources so we have no way of judging their credibility to make these decisions.

Yes, I agree that is a problem for the Protestant supporters of strict interpretations of inspiration. They are defining a book as inspired, but the contents of that book were defined by councils. I don't think councils really had that much power myself, and that the main body of books was always received as authoritative in the church, but if they have to micro-define everything, then they have to do more than just define a 'basic' set of books that were always received - they have to be able to state by what authority they receive 27, and only 27, books of the NT. I don't think they can do this, and so I agree with you.

This is one step removed from the discussion about textual, literary and historical criticism. If we are freed from the claims that the church made about the books, then we are free to examine the Bible on its own merits.

I would say you are doing what Ehrman et al do right here - you have presumed the existence of a singular entity called 'the church' which could make claims about the books it accepted.

we are talking about spread out, independent communities whose only guarantee in keeping the faith was to stay loyal to the faith and practice of the church as it had been originally delivered, either by apostles or by those who immediately succeeded them.

How do we know this? Only through internal sources like the church fathers and Eusebius.

No, also by logic, historical deduction, and reasoning. Also, 'the church fathers' are a varied group of people. Many of them claimed to know and be eyewitnesses of the apostles. To dismiss their witness, given in living memory of events, in exchange for the speculations of twenty-first century liberal scholars who have conveniently dismissed all their testimony via guilty by association, by calling them 'church' fathers and linking them with that monolithic, singular entity called 'the church', which only exists in their imagination, is a mistake, in my opinion.

Actually, I haven't heard Bart say that a centralized structure dictated these things.

They don't state it. They don't define their terms. That is what makes them so frustrating. They just talk about 'the church' in a way that assumes it was a unified organization with centralized hierarchy to impose its thinking on all churches everywhere.

He makes the evidence available to us that there were changes being made through the process of copying between the time of the writing of the original document and their canonization. Both he and Dan Wallace acknowledge what scholars have known for a long time, which is that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 textual variants that are attributed to copyists, not authorities. Both also acknowledge that 99% of them have no impact on the meaning of a given text.

That is yet another issue, and is something the proponents of the Chicago Statement will have to work out - and I suspect this might be increasingly difficult, especially as it begins to reach a wider audience that the Dead Sea Scrolls have basically shown us that the historical books of the Old Testament were heavily edited, with narratives added, deleted, and misplaced, in the Hebrew Masoretic Text.

[jeffreyclong]

Apollos: Thank you for such a thoughtful response.

I find amongst some of the hyper critical scholars an abundance of speculation put forth as fact - '2 Cors. was originally five letters, and a scribe redacted them no earlier than 125 ce' etc - that kind of statement. I don't think that is fair to the reader. The reader should know the difference between fact and opinion, no matter how convinced I am of my view.

I agree. One of my chief criticisms of Ehrman is that he is irresponsible with his scholarship. He is writing to a pop audience and simultaneously tries to teach the tenets of criticism to his audience along with stating his own opinions about the results. Without coming across as condescending to the pop book market, I think that the majority of people won't follow up with more research after reading his books and thus he is more influential then he would be if he just wrote for academic journals.

However, in both books I've read, currently "Jesus, Apocalyptic prophet of the new millenium," he frequently says that good scholars have different and equally valid opinions about the matters he is discussing. And in a passage I just recently read, he stated that historians can never know conclusively, they can only give theories.

I can only handle so many quotes inside of the markup language, so if I have anything else to comment, it's gonna have to be in a separate reply.

[jeffreyclong]

Apollos wrote:

we are talking about spread out, independent communities whose only guarantee in keeping the faith was to stay loyal to the faith and practice of the church as it had been originally delivered, either by apostles or by those who immediately succeeded them.

I replied:

How do we know this? Only through internal sources like the church fathers and Eusebius.

Apollos replied:

No, also by logic, historical deduction, and reasoning.

It would take forever for you to go through the apologetics you are describing, but could you point me to some web resources that I can research about what you are describing?

I am especially interested in hearing what evangelical scholars are saying that are engaged with the same textual and historical material as guys like Bart.

Example: Dan Wallace. He was very insightful.

[Apollos]

It would take forever for you to go through the apologetics you are describing, but could you point me to some web resources that I can research about what you are describing?

I am especially interested in hearing what evangelical scholars are saying that are engaged with the same textual and historical material as guys like Bart.

Example: Dan Wallace. He was very insightful.

Sure. I can certainly get you started on some 'must reads'. Here's a start:

Charles Hill - The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church. I've seen this work cited in the works of some major scholars, though it is still less known than it should be. He basically goes for the jugular of the 'Bauer hypothesis' by demonstrating that the Gospel of John was known to Christians in the earliest ages of the Church.

Paul Trebilco - The Early Christians in Ephesus: Paul to Ignatius. This is an excellent book. Perhaps not directly what you asked, but this will give you an excellent overview of many of the debates, including information on books/articles for and against.

Richard Bauckham - Jesus and the Eyewitnesses and The Beloved Disciple. Bauckham also has done a lot to bring many modern assumptions about the early church into question, such as the idea that they were introspective, sectarian communities (another idea stemming from Bauer, which is assumed in Ehrman etc).

Anything (or almost anything) by E. Earle Ellis. I think this man did not get the recognition for his work that he deserved.

I would recommend C. Peter Thiede as well, and John Robinson's Redating the New Testament, though keep in mind that the former is almost infamous (since he insisted on the identification of 7Q5 from the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Gospel of Mark), but his works are very good, in my opinion, and usually written for the educated layman. Robinson's work argues that all of the NT was written before 70ad, and it is worth being familiar with his arguments, even if you don't accept them. The work is generally dismissed, but I've seen some heavy hitters refer favorably to it.
I would add Edmundson's Church in Rome in the First Century to those.

Kostenberger just published a book called 'The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Shaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity'. I have it but haven't read it yet. Ditto for N. T. Wright's work on the Gospel of Judas.

Lastly, I would recommend the audio messages of David Bercot at Scroll Publishing. I think his 'The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints' would be especially useful, but I would recommend a broader exposure to his messages - he has read through the ten volume translation of the ante-Nicene fathers numerous times and has a very good grasp on what early Christianity was like - especially in terms of what I was trying to communicate - the early church as independent congregations whose agreement in the faith testified to a common deposit of faith by the apostles. His book, Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, is also a good place to go.

[RickC]

* Note -
I contacted Firefox and this link has apparently been cleared of having any badware.
Thus, I'm reposting it.

"Bring to You" MP3 Debates, Apologetics Talks, EWTN
- not exclusively Roman Catholic
- scroll to Historical Jesus and Bible Reliability (about half down page)
- has 2 of the Richard Bauckham links (page one)
- the John Ankerberg programs are good (from a conservative perspective)
- also has Bart Ehrman, Jesus Seminar (and other 'liberal/revisionist') talks and debates
=============================================================

Before I got a warning from Firefox I had loaded about 4 newer mp3s (that I had never heard) and listened to part of Bart Ehrman V. Craig Evans on "NT Reliability." I didn't finish it, as it got too caustic and was just plain unedifying! I've heard Ehrman and Evans before and didn't hear much anything new.
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Jeffrey, et al -
I recall when Ehrman and Wallace had their debate. I've not heard it because I didn't want to pay for it (and still don't). There were several synopses of the debate online which I read. Again, I didn't hear much new.

I don't have a reply to anything specific in the thread. I can add a little, though.
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"Evangelical Labels"
The meaning of the word "evangelical" has been called into question, especially in the last 10-15 years. "Evangelicals" of different stripes have been in a kind of in-house discussion and debate. New labels have been coined to explain new movements or sub-groups within "Evangelicalism."

I've had a fair amount of resonance with "post-conservative evangelicals" along the lines of Roger Olson, Clark Pinnock, Greg Boyd, and others.

Excerpted from Roger Olson's new blog - Why inerrancy doesn't matter -
"I know I promised more about postconservative evangelicalism today. Even though it may not seem directly related to a delineation of that, this post does help explicate how most postconservatives think about the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

"First, a strong affirmation. As evangelicals, we postconservatives DO believe the Bible is our (and should be every Christian’s) norming norm for life and belief. Tradition is our normed norm–a secondary guide or compass that is not infallible. Scripture, we all agree, is infallible in all that it teaches regarding God and salvation.

Second, however, for most of us the word “inerrancy” has become too problematic uncritically to embrace and use. To the untrained and untutored ear “inerrant” always and necessarily implies absolute flawless perfection even with regard to numbers and chronologies and quotations from sources, etc. But even the strictest scholarly adherents of inerrancy kill that definition with the death of a thousand qualifications...."

"I have to conclude that within evangelical circles “inerrancy” has developed into a mere shibboleth because a person (such as I) can affirm everything many leading inerrantists believe about the Bible and yet be rejected and even criticized. I fear they have elevated a word into an idol.

"So how would I describe my own and many inerrantists’ view of Scripture’s accuracy? I think “infallible” does a better job than “inerrant” so long as I can explain what it means. “Infallible,” to me, means the Bible never fails in its main purpose which is to identify God for us, to communicate his love and his will to us, and to lead us into salvation and a right relationship with our Creator, Savior and Lord."
=============================================================

Then along comes the Internet Monk with -
Defining Terms: Evangelical and Post-Evangelical (excerpts) -
"Why do post-evangelicals pick on this Christian evangelical culture, especially as displayed in America? Here is a list of some of the aspects of evangelical culture that post-evs are reacting to:

* A lack of understanding of and respect for history and tradition,
* A “solo Scriptura,” literalistic, precisionist view of the Bible that does not adequately grasp hermeneutics, literary genre, history of interpretation, and church authority,
* Paradigms of church growth that stress building institutions rather than loving and helping people,
* Models of church structure, leadership, and organization that turn the church into a corporate marketing and business enterprise rather than the fellowship of God’s people,
* Models of ministry that depend on strategies, plans, and programs more than upon the Word and Spirit,
* A continual confusion of means and ends, and the inability to see that changing methods can and does alter the message,
* Pastors who are CEOs or inspirational speakers rather than pastors and spiritual directors,
* Preaching that sets forth principles to help us live as good, moral people, rather than proclaiming what Jesus did and does for lost and sinful people,
* A “temple-oriented” approach to the Christian life wherein everything revolves around the church and its programs (“churchianity”), so that churches are turned into family-friendly, religious activity centers rather than places of true discipleship,
* “Worship” that is more about the worshiper and his/her preferences and emotional experiences than about giving honor to the true and living God and reenacting the story of Christ,
* Captivity to a conservative (usually Republican) political agenda,
* An inability to see the dangers of power and greed as clearly as the dangers of immorality,
* A culture-war approach to public issues, wherein believers and churches take up rhetorical “arms” and wage war against those who disagree with them,
* An entire culture of religious consumers strung along by a “Christian-industrial complex” of corporations who get rich by marketing and selling stuff to them."
==================================================================

So. In my faith journey I was raised Fundamentalist, became Evangelical (but was considered Neo-Evangelical), morphed into Postconservative Evangelical, and am seriously wondering if I'm now Post-Evangelical???

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is, well, you know....
What N.T. Wright Said would fit in here real well right out now -
"Many of us grew up being taught to read the Bible in one or both of two ways.

"On the one hand there was the devotional reading: A passage each morning, and one prayed and listened to hear something that 'God was saying to me today' through it. The historical and literary setting was quite unimportant; what mattered was 'What does this say to me today?'. Now that's a venerable and not unimportant practise. But if it's divorced from other readings of Scripture it can become not only self-centered but also dangerously arbitrary. God doesn't deceive people but people can be, and often are, self-deceived. Detached devotional reading gets you so far but you can easily get stuck.

"On the other hand there was 'the Bible as proof texts'. Some classical instances come to mind; The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, with its doctrinal statements and its big biblical footnotes. That encouraged a mentality which thought of the Bible as an unsorted collection of data, belonging in principle to a unified dogmatic theology; as though God had given us the Bible like a jig-saw puzzle in a box all shaken up into bits, needing to be assembled into a single picture which, whatever it was going to look like, sure as anything wouldn’t look like what we actually have from Genesis to Revelation.

"Within modernist Christianity this took, very broadly speaking, two forms: The evangelical form, in which the game was to get every single piece into the picture somewhere in order to to get one great big unified picture and: The liberal form, in which you were allowed to play chess with the pieces, letting one piece take another piece and so, removing it from the board (the audience laughs). The goal was still the same: 'a single unified picture' but the method was different."

"And nobody stopped to question whether either of those activities was actually what God gave us the Bible for. I grew up with the devotional and the proof-texting method side by side. They didn't really interlock as far as I was concerned. It is only from the vantage point of increasing middle age that I realize that all sorts of other things are to be taken seriously as part of use of the text....".
==========================================================

Roger Olson comments on his blog that some time around the 90s the Fundamentalists hijacked the word "Evangelical" (cf. Religious Right) and I think I'm getting off topic!

For me, what guys like Ehrman "get into" is just the same old stale modernist debates. I couldn't agree with Ehrman more that Fundamentalism (of the extreme inerrantist variety) isn't the right way we should see Scripture. And I'm not the first to comment that Dr. Ehrman has thrown out the baby with the bath water. He just can't seem to get "past" Fundamentalism, even as an Ex-Fundamentalist himself. I'm not trying to put the man down. It's just that he seems "locked" where he's at and, sadly, very bitter (though I've heard interviews where he seemed like a fairly relaxed, nice guy).

Anyways, I never went through an "Emergent/Emerging" stage -
(but I wear Tshirts to church and like jazz guitar!!!) -
Besides, I heard this movement *died* not long ago.

Who knows?
I don't really care!
Jesus Reigns!!!!

Enuf from me - (might reply to specific posts later) - Thanks!

[jeffreyclong]

I appreciate everyone's thoughtful replies. And the resources. Very balanced, which I needed. Keep the discussion going if you like. I have enough to keep me busy for awhile now with all the resources you gave me.