New Testament Canon Archives

New Book on Canon Formation

May 9, 2023 3 Comments

My interest in the origins of the New Testament canon began probably 30 plus years ago. At the time, there was a general interest in the subject, but it was still pretty niche. One had to dig around to find works on the canon that went beyond the well-known volumes by the likes of Bruce Metzger or F.F. Bruce.

But thankfully things have changed in the last bit of time. Now the topic of canon has garnered quite a bit of attention—at both scholarly and lay levels. New work is being done, and fresh avenues are being explored.

One example of fresh work is the new volume of collected essays from T&T Clark, Canon Formation: Tracing the Role of Sub-Collections in the Biblical Canon, edited by W. Edward Glenny and Darian R. Lockett. I had a chance to read the pre-published version of the volume and provide an endorsement, but I have only just recently received my own hard copy.

The volume has 16 chapters, so obviously I will not be offering any sort of comprehensive review here. Instead, I simply note the books primary contribution, namely a deep dive into the form and structure of the canon, both at at macro level and also within individual canonical sub-units. This involves, among other things, the order of books, their arrangement, textual divisions, and inter-textual connections.

The other feature of the book that I appreciate is the fact that it covered both Old and New Testaments. This allowed for scholars to observe not only links within, say, the corpus of New Testament writings, but links between New Testament and Old Testament writings.

Of course, this volume is not the first to explore these sorts of issues and questions. Looming in the background here is the work of Brevard Childs who was a pioneer of sorts in regard to the overall structure and function of the biblical canon. And he addressed both New and Old Testament in his various works (even though he was an OT scholar). One might also think of the work of James Sanders.

Even so, the essays here provide an wonderful update on how the scholarly discussion about canonical structure has fared over the last few generations. As a whole, the essays were balanced, even-handed and insightful (even if I had some quibbles here and there). My only real complaint is that it will have a limited audience due to the $150 price tag! [Read more…]

6 Ways that Christian Students Can Prepare for College: #3 What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

March 20, 2023

I am in the middle of a 6-part series helping Christian students think through how to prepare for life at a big university. This topic is particularly relevant, I hope, given the number of high school seniors who are in the middle of deciding where they will go to college in the fall.

This little series is based on a recent lecture I gave to the Regents School in Austin, Texas, where I laid out 6 principles designed to help rising college students think more clearly about what’s ahead. It’s also based on my book, Surviving Religion 101. You can read the prior installments here and here.

We now come to a third consideration for rising Christian college students: “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger.”

No, this is not a quote from Kelly Clarkson. It was actually first said (as far as I know) by Friedrich Nietzsche. But it does capture a Christian principle, namely that opposition can actually be a blessing.

Indeed, this is true in other areas of life. For a weightlifter, or professional athlete, the pain of resistance can actually create more strength and endurance. Back in my soccer playing days, I can still remember the dreaded end of practice when we would run “lappers” around the field (a grueling endurance routine that still today makes me feel nauseated). As the players wilted in the heat, straining to take the next step, an outside observer might think the coach was out to destroy us. One might even think we were being punished for some misdeed.

But, as a player, you knew better. You knew your coach was just preparing you for the state tournament at the end of the season when every last drop of endurance would be needed.

In a similar way, the opposition at the university environment, as strange as it sounds, can be a tremendous benefit. It can shape a student into a better, more fit believer who can serve God in unique and exceptional ways—ways that would be impossible in an opposition-free life.

For one, opposition will force students to figure out what they really believe. [Read more…]

6 Ways that Christian Students Can Prepare for College: #1 Take This Transition Seriously

February 27, 2023

Well, it’s that time of year. By now, many high school seniors have heard where they have been accepted to college. Others are still waiting. But all are beginning to think about the next stage of their life post-high school.

And for Christian students this time of anticipation can be particularly acute. It is natural for them to wonder, How am I going to survive at a big university as a Christian? Am I ready to handle the challenges coming my way? What if I don’t have all the answers?

Of course, this sort of angst is not just felt by the students. It is also felt (and maybe felt more) by the parents. After all, Christian parents have spent the last 18 years teaching these students the gospel, taking them to church, and trying to show them how to follow Christ. It’s natural to wonder whether all this will be undone after just a few months in college.

So, what can be done to prepare? Just a few weeks ago I answered this exact question for the students at Regents School of Austin, TX. Their senior students have been reading through my book, Surviving Religion 101, and asked me to come speak to them before they graduated.

And I gave them six pieces of advice. Over the next few weeks, I will be going through each of these pieces of advice in a short six-part blog series.

And here’s the first thing I told them: [Read more…]

A Curious Clue about the Origins of the New Testament Canon

December 12, 2022

Although most discussions about the development of the canon focus on the patristic period (second century and later), there is much canonical gold yet to mine from the pages of the New Testament itself. Unfortunately, this step is often skipped.

There are a number of possible reasons for why it is skipped. But perhaps most people just assume that the whole idea of a “canon” is a late development anyway, and thus we wouldn’t expect to find anything about it in the New Testament books themselves.

Aside from the fact that such a position already presupposes an entire canonical “worldview” known as the extrinsic model (for my critique of this model see my book The Question of Canon), it keeps us from noticing some fascinating clues.

One passage that I think contains a number of intriguing clues is [Read more…]

How Many New Testament Manuscripts Do We Have From the Second Century?

November 21, 2022

“There is no second-century manuscript evidence.” —Helmut Koester

When it comes to the transmission of the New Testament text, the second century has been long recognized as a critical time period. And it is not hard to see why. If the New Testament books were written (more or less) in the first-century, then the extant manuscripts that get us closest to that time period will inevitably take on a level of significance.

The second century is also significant because of modern scholarly claims that it was precisely this period when the most serious textual corruptions were likely to have occurred, suggesting the earliest phases of transmission were marked by “textual chaos.”

So, do we have any manuscripts that possibly go back to this important century? Some scholars say no. As the above quote by Helmut Koester indicates, many see the second century as unreachable. Or, as J.K. Elliott has argued, “The second century is something of a dark age as far as the history of the New Testament text is concerned.”

And much of this skepticism has to do with the dating of manuscripts. In recent years there has been a push to reconsider the dates of our earliest NT papyri, pushing the dates of these manuscripts later and later.

Of course we cannot resolve these debates over dating here. And a number of scholars remain unconvinced that the traditional dates given to these manuscripts are so unreliable. But even with this recent push to re-date manuscripts, there are still a number that could be reasonably dated to the second century.

I might suggest that a reasonable way to proceed is to include manuscripts which have been given a possible second-century date either by (a) the original editors, or (b) the Nestle-Aland 28/Institut für Neuetestamentliche Textforschung (https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/liste).

When we consider both sources, we end up with twelve manuscripts possibly from the second century: [Read more…]