Loading...I am in the midst of a thread in which I explain why it is puzzling that the Apocalypse of Peter did not make it into the New Testament, when the book of 2 Peter did. So far I have talked about both books, as well as the Gospel of Peter, another Petrine book that did not “make it.” Now I need to explain how church fathers decided which books would be accepted as official scripture and which not. I’ve dealt with the issue on the blog several times over the years, the first time being in response to a question on the matter I received some six years ago. What I said then is what I would still say now! Here it is:
QUESTION:
I just read Jesus, Interrupted … and have now seen that you have written quite a few books and articles. I am particularly interested in how the books of the New Testament were chosen and why/how the others were not. Can you recommend a good read for this?
RESPONSE:
Ah, this is one of the BIG questions of early Christian studies! I have been interested in it for over 35 years. My first PhD seminar in graduate school was devoted to just this question, and I started thinking about it years even before that!
I do address the question in several of my books. As you know from having just read Jesus Interrupted, I devote a good chunk of chapter 6 to it; in particular it is the overarching subject of Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (that book is my long version of the answer!).
There are lots of other books worth reading on the topic. These are my two favorite: (1) For a very informative, reliable, and helpful nuts-and-bolts account …
The rest of this post is for blog members only. If you’re not a member of the blog, now’s the best time in the history of the human race for you to join! It won’t take much time or money, and every dime you pay (about five of them a week) goes to help those in need. So why not?
The orthodoxy criteria strikes me as somewhat circular. What is considered orthodox affects what is accepted into the canon and what is accepted into the canon affects what is considered orthodox.
Yup!
Thank you Bart for your blog. It’s a breath of fresh air to read something written by a person who tries to honestly use the evidence and logic to reach conclusions, rather than people who start with their conclusions and then cherry-pick the evidence, ignore the evidence they don’t like, and twist the evidence in order to support their conclusions.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you have an opinion why Matthew would have been assigned a Gospel? It seems to me he would be the least likely candidate since he was remembered as a tax collector, aside from Judas!
Thanks and happy Thanksgiving
Ah, but he was repentant. And maybe they thought he was particularly literate?
Just as a footnote, there was a medieval legend that Matthew was in fact illiterate.
For example, Caravaggio painted a series of paintings focused on St Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel.
One of the studies for this series, “Saint Matthew and the Angel”, depicts the (illiterate) Matthew writing his gospel, his hand being guided by an Angel:
http://www.caravaggio.org/saint-matthew-and-the-angel.jsp
(This version of the painting was rejected by his patrons, and it was replaced by the painting known as “The Inpiration of St Matthew”:
http://www.caravaggio.org/inspiration-of-saint-matthew.jsp. )
I’m certainly not suggesting there is any historical basis for this legend, nor does this tell us anything about the reason folks in the early centuries used for deciding to include “Matthew” in the canon. But I’ve always thought this was an interesting story.
Literate because he was a tax collector? But, really how much “literacy” was needed to be a Tax Collector? Presumably a tax collector for the Romans? Enough Latin to record names places and amounts and a corresponding ability at rudimentary math…counting. Add to that likely the ability to bully.Hardly literacy in Koine Greek!
I’m sure there are other reasons to doubt Mathews authorship… maybe the question should be why didn’t the Church Fathers question?
Almost none, I think. Banging on doors demanding money doesn’t require an education.
Happy Thanksgiving! Seems like orthodoxy was most important since they felt free to assign apostolic authorship to writings that agreed with their theology. But then, Paul seems to be the only apostle who actually wrote anything, so they had to make such assignments if there were to be any gospels at all.
I think you may have answered my question above!
“and so the anonymous four Gospels that were accepted were assigned to important figures: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John”
theres a difference between something being written anonymously and something not mentioning the author in the text.
to say the four gospels were written anonymously suggests they were found on a park bench and for a hundred years had no names attached to them.
but theres no evidence to suggest the authors of the four gospels were ever not said to be mattew, mark,luke,john
The term “anonymous” when involving literary texts, technically means that the author does not indicate his or her name.
Yes but you suggest they were assigned names of important figures because they were anonymous – do you not need a theory for why the original authors name was lost? People would have known originally who wrote them
The authors *chose* to remain anonymous. Original readers *may* have known the authors, but it’s not always clear. But if someone knows who the author of an anonymous work was, the work is *still* anonymous. The term “anonymous” applies to what is revealed in the writing by the author, not to what others might know about the author.
“and so the anonymous four Gospels that were accepted were assigned to important figures: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John”
but mark and luke werent important figures – if the gospels were just assigned important names a hundred years later they would have picked peter and paul.
and matthew was a tax collector – which is very bad choice for someone to write your first account of jesus’s life.
There were lots and lots of important people to whom Gospels could be assigned, not just one or two! (And plenty of works were assigned to Peter and Paul, of course)
Yes should said peter and paul would be more likely to be picked – but the point is mark and luke arent important figures, theyre names add no authenticity to the texts
I disagree. They were very important figures in some circles of early Christianity.
Quote:
Did you ever notice the names Christians of the 2nd century and afterwardascribed to the apocryphal works? Thomas, Andrew, Nicodemus, Bartholomew “Acts of Matthias”…neither the bible nor history say much about these figures either, yet for some reason the Christians who created these lies apparently thought ascribing them to such names would increase their popularity. Consider that perhaps history doesn’t tell you how awesome Matthew, Mark and Luke really were.
End quote
Thoughts?
Just because they don’t appear much in the Bible doesn’t mean they were not widely known by early Christians. Not *everyone* wanted to assign their works to Peter or Paul. Otherwise there would be nothing but Peters and Pauls, and no one would trust the *next* one.
There were only a very small number of people in Jesus’ original circle. Each and every one of them would be considered vitally important by later Christians. There are all kinds of later legends around Joseph of Arimathea, who is very briefly mentioned in the gospels, and was certainly not a close follower of Jesus. (If he existed at all.)
There are actual writings of Paul that have survived. There is a great deal of information about both him and Peter, of varying degrees of credibility. Meaning that if you want to attribute something to one of them, people are going to ask “Why didn’t we have this already?”
Why did Robert Graves write several books from the perspective of the Emperor Claudius, who most people were at best marginally aware of, when he could have picked one of the really famous charismatic emperors (several of whom appear in his books)? Because it’s easier to build a literary work around a lesser known figure. It lends credibility, and people will be interested precisely because they know so little about this person. A much better way to depict past events through the eyes of a witness to them–somebody less involved in what’s going on, but known to have been present for much of it, and acquainted with most or all of the principal players.
Does 3) and 4) imply that the orthodox view was the widespread view and heterodox views shouldnt be described as “challenging” orthodoxy?
It means that everyone defined their own views as orthodox and “other” views ass heterodox.
But would you say orthodoxy was overwhelming the orthodoxy rather than one of many small factions which won out?
Sorry, I don’t understand the question.
“ass heterodox” Ha!
Was there a criteria of not including stuff that’s just too bizarre? I know there’s crazy stuff in the NT but the one with the talking cross makes the NT books seem pretty normal.
Usually the debates were over theological appropriateness rather than sheer craziness. There are some very strange bits of the NT as well (the zombies who come out of their tombs in Matthew 27 or the shadow of Peter healing the sick in Acts, etc.)
That’s a really useful summary of the criteria, and it got me thinking about why 1 Clement didn’t make the cut.
In Church tradition, Clement was an associate of Apostles and his letter to the Corinthians in the 1st century. I understand this letter was used by proto-Orthodox churches. Do you know why it was not included in the canon?
Partly because the books doesn’t claim to be written by Clement; though there were some church leaders who thought it belonged. Part of the problem, though, was that the book seems to presuppose a time *after* the apostles had passed off the scene.
This makes me think even more that the wild punishments in The Apocalypse of Peter was at least part of the reason it wasn’t accepted into the canon. 2 Peter talks about destruction but not punishment. A new heaven and a new earth don’t seem to technically fit but maybe theologically it was still okay.
Bart,
I’m interested in the Letter of James because some historians believe it is a legitimate letter and this would shine a light on Peter, being that James, as I understand, was in Peter’s Jerusalem group. It is also said to be hostile to Paul.
In your book Forged you say James brother of Jesus is almost certainly the intended author of the letter but he almost certainly is not the actual author. Your first point seems well supported (the author was intended to be James brother of Jesus). Do you believe the Letter of James is hostile to Paul? And do you believe that James actually was hostile to Paul? And do you see this letter as shedding some light on Peter’s post-Crucifixion thinking? And, if I may, do you know of any legitimate source for investigating Peter’s post-Crucifixion thinking? Thanks.
I think it is definitely hostile toward a certain form of Pauline thought, but not to Paul himself (whom the author does not know). And no, I don’t think it helps us know much about what Peter was thinking (there are no ties to Peter in the letter)
Was it much of a problem for the church fathers to determine accurately which of the books actually went back to the ‘original decades of the Christian church’? Do you think they got that right?
They got *some* of it right, definitely! But they didn’t have research methods comparable to ours, or data bases, or other ways of establishing chronology
The real expert on how the Gospels were selected is, of course, Dan Brown. :o)
Do you think that any of the canonical-Gospel authors knew any of Paul’s letters or teachings? Why or why not?
They may have been aware of Paul’s teachings/ideas: Mark seems to embrace a Pauline view of Jesus’ death, and Matthew seems to be arguing *against* a Pauline understanding of the Law. But they give no indications that they had read any of his letters (at least the ones we have) — interestingly, not even Luke!
I thought the canon was supposedly written under divine inspiration. If no one knows who wrote lots of the books, how can it be claimed that the Bible is divine?
You’d need to ask a theologian! My view is that it’s not; but I’m not a Christian theologian.
Dr. Ehrman:
“Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written to his converts in the province Galatia around 55 CE. This letter’s authenticity has not been seriously challenged nor has it been viewed as having been heavily edited.” – ‘The Real Paul’ by B.B. Scott
With the exception of 1 Cor 14 : 34-35 would you say the same about 1 Corinthians?
That it has not been heavily edited? I’m not sure what’s being asked! Edited by whom?
Dr. Ehrman:
I suppose I could best put it like this: Are you reasonably confident that (some of the most important parts of Paul’s undisputed letters) NAMELY: 1 Cor. 15:1-54, and Gal. chapters 1 & 2 do not have any significant doctrinal differences from what Paul originally wrote? In other words: are the 1 Cor. 15:3-8 death, burial, and appearance narratives solid, as well as Paul’s belief in bodily resurrection later in the chapter, as well as the material related to Paul’s meeting with the men who are the ‘pillars’ in Jerusalem?
Thanks
In my opinion, yes.