One of the best ways to follow the proto-orthodox line of reasoning for what to include in the canon of the new testament is to consider the earliest surviving canonical list, a fragmentary text, subject to considerable debate in recent years, that is commonly known as the Muratorian Canon. Here is what I say about it in my book Lost Christianities (Oxford University Press) ****************************** This “canon” is a list of books that its anonymous author considered to be part of the New Testament Scriptures.  It is named for the eighteenth-century scholar, L. A. Muratori,. who discovered the manuscript that contains it in a library in Milan.  Muratori published the manuscript in 1740, not so much to provide the world access to the documents it contained -- principally treatises of several fourth- and fifth-century church fathers -- but in order to show how sloppy copyists could be in the Middle Ages.  In a treatise of Ambrose, for example, the scribe inadvertently copied the (same) thirty lines twice!  What’s worse, the second copy of these [...]

There's no way to put a precise date on the canonical process, but it is worth nothing that the formation of the canon was a long, drawn-out process.  Here are some thoughts on some of the key issues of the late second century drawn again from my book Lost Christianities (Oxford University Press). ****************************** Justin Martyr of Rome was one of the most productive proto-orthodox authors of the second century (martyred around 165 CE).  Still preserved are two “apologies” that he wrote – intellectual defenses of the faith against its pagan detractors – and a piece called the “Dialogue with Trypho,” in which he tries to show the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, largely by appealing to a Christian interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures.  Others of his works were lost, though, including an attack on heresies of his day that was later used as a source by Irenaeus. Despite his frequent appeals to authoritative texts, Justin shows no inclination towards a fixed canon of New Testament Scripture in his surviving writings.  He does [...]

Here now is a translation (from the Coptic) of a section of the intriguing apocryphal Gospel, The History of Joseph the Carpenter, by my colleague Zlatko Plese, as found in our book The Other Gospels (Oxford Press, 2014). As you’ll see there are eleven chapters before this and yet more after it; for the whole thing – along with some forty other apocryphal Gospels! – check out our book. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples, in the first person. ****************************** Joseph’s Death Draws Near 12 (1) But then the death of Joseph, my father, drew near, as is appointed to all people. (2) When his body grew ill, his angel announced to him, ‘In this year you will die.’ (3) And as his soul was troubled, he went up to Jerusalem. He entered the temple of the Lord and repented in front of the altar.  He prayed in this way, saying …. (I’m omitting the prayer here) 14 (1) After these things he returned to Nazareth, the town where he resided, and [...]

Why did it take so long to decide on which books would be in the canon? I continue my reflections on the issues connected with fixing a canon of Scripture in early Christianity, drawing from excerpts of my book Lost Christianities (Oxford University Press, 2003). ****************************** It may seem odd that Christians of earlier times, while recognizing the need for authoritative texts to provide guidance for what to believe and how to live did not see the need to have a fixed number of apostolic writings, a closed canon.  But in fact there is no evidence of any concerted effort anywhere in proto-orthodox Christianity (or anywhere else, for that matter)  to fix a canon of Scripture in the early second century, when Christian texts were being circulated and ascribed authority.  And different proto-orthodox Christians had different attitudes toward sacred texts. Let me illustrate the point by considering views found in three proto-orthodox writings from around the second quarter of the second century.  It is difficult to date these writings with any precision, but [...]

I provided a very brief overview of key aspects of how we got the canon of the NT (these 27 books and only these 27) in my previous two posts.  Now I want to move into a deeper look found in my book Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford University Press, 2003).  This was the second trade-book (for general audiences) I wrote, and it is the one that launched my career writing books for non-experts. The book is about the various forms of Christianity in the first several centuries (Ebionites, Marcionites, various kinds of Gnostics, various kinds of Proto-orthodoxy, etc.) and the books they used as their authoritative sacred texts.  Toward the end of the book I have a chapter on how the orthodox canon emerged out of that mess. I will be excerpting parts of the book here.  This will take a few posts. ****************************** So far as we can tell, all the Christian groups of the period came to ascribe authority to some written texts; and [...]

In my post yesterday I discussed the factors that motivated Christians to come up with a canon of the New Testament.  Now I can talk about how they decided which books should belong and how the process played itself out as leaders debated the issues over time. ****************************** The Criteria Used The “orthodox” church fathers who decided on the shape and content of the canon applied several criteria to determine whether a book should be included or not. Four criteria were especially important. A book had to go back to the very beginning of the Christian movement or it could not be accepted. If a really good and important book that was fully informed and “true” were written, say, last year, that would not be good enough for it to be part of Scripture. The canon of Scripture contained books from the beginning of the Christian movement. Only books that were written by apostles could be accepted as part of the canon; this included the disciples of Jesus and their followers of the [...]

In previous posts I discussed how we got the canon of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.  I now will discuss the formation of the New Testament canon.  Why these 27 books?  Who decided?  When?  On what grounds? This will be the focus of my next book, which I am beginning to read and think seriously about.  The following is the basic overview that I provide in my book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction 2nd ed (Oxford University Press). This will take two posts. ****************************** We are much better informed about the formation of the canon of the New Testament (than for the OT), in no small part because we have the writings of later church fathers who explicitly discuss the matter. We do not have nearly as much information as we would like—as is true for almost every set of historical events from the ancient world—but we have enough to give us a good idea of what motivated Christians to come up with a list of canonical books, what criteria they followed in deciding [...]

This past December 7 was one of my so-far-favorite days of my mortal existence.  As many of you know -- and some of you observed! -- that was the day I gave my final lecture at UNC, a "retirement lecture," with family, friends, former grad students, fabulous members of the Blog, fantastically helpful team members from the Biblical studies academy, and (I'm running out of "f's" here), and other fine-people from near and far in attendance. The lecture was recorded and I would like to share it with you here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBlxhhS_Tf8

Last year, I was interviewed for a documentary called Christ and the Gods. Recently, the team behind the film released the full version, so I thought it appropriate to share with you here.  (In addition, they released my entire interview, as opposed to just the snippets they included in the longger version, also included here.)  Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjYSnYSHmCE Projects like this never contain the full content for each expert interview. Instead, they splice them apart and typically only a very small portion makes it into the final cut. As such, the team behind the film also released my full standalone interview which you can watch here in its entirety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkOLcnUynwo&t=206s I hope you enjoy!

When I started the "New Testament in a Nutshell" series I promised to provide one-sentence, fifty-word summaries of each book of the New Testament, and promised, when I was done, to put them all together in one post.  Here is the post!  (It includes a few other 50-worders on the Gospels and Paul). The idea behind this is that if someone asks you, "What is the letter to the Galatians about?" -- you should be able to give a brief statement that covers what it is in a way that is distinctive (so what you say for Galatians is not the same thing you would say for Romans or Ephesians, etc.). So here they are.  You may well be able to improve upon them!  But hopefully you will find them of some good use.   The Gospels as a Whole Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are our oldest narrative accounts of Jesus, the Son of God who fulfilled Scripture in his life, death, and resurrection, who taught the way of salvation, performed miraculous deeds, was [...]

Now that I have spent two posts explaining the contents, structure, and organization of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, I can move on to explain how it is we got these books in particular.  Why not other books?  Who decided?  On what grounds?  And when? This will take two posts.  In this one, I give a brief overview of the understanding that was widely held for a very long time among scholars.  It was the one I was raised on! First I need to explain what we mean by "canon."  The term comes from the Greek word for “reed” or “rod.” A canon was a straight edge that was used, for example, by a carpenter to make sure that an alignment was correct; but it could also be used as a measuring stick. Eventually the word “canon” came to be applied in other contexts, by analogy, to refer to a rule or standard by which something could be judged, and in that sense it came to be applied to a collection or list of books. [...]