The New Testament canon of the "apostate" Church

[historia]

From an earlier thread:

The only thing to do today is to return to the source of divine knowledge that we have: the written Word of Him

But who decides what constitutes "the written Word of Him"?

Many of the texts being quoted in this thread, including Revelation, 2 Peter, and the Pastorals, were not universally accepted as authoritative in the early Christian community. And there were many other texts that were ultimately excluded from the New Testament cannon too.

And so, if the early Christian community quickly fell into apostasy, to the point of becoming "unrecognizable," as several here are claiming, why are you all quoting from the books (and only those books) that were chosen by that supposedly apostate Church? Why do you submit to their New Testament canon?

Question for debate:

Why do Jehovah's Witnesses, who claim the early Church fell into apostasy, nevertheless accept the New Testament canon that was ultimately set by that same "apostate" Church?

[JehovahsWitness]

First, there is no evidence of any canonical lists from the 1st Century.

No but they wouldnt have needed any since the first century was when Christian scripture was being written.

You lost me here. I thought you were previously arguing that the apostles themselves created authorized lists of approved scripture:

Yes I wasnt clear here... what I meant is while the Apostles and the first century eye witnesses of the gospel events were alive their oral testimony was all that was necessary to authenticate Christian tradition and teaching. As the Christian writings (the gospels and eventual approved letters) were added those same church leaders were on hand to give them their approval.

As the Apostles and that generation of church leaders died there would have arisen a need for secondary testimony, testimony that needed to look, in the absence of eye-witesses leaders , for the evidence of their (first century) authenticity. Thus the birth of these formal catalogues. These catalogues are not choosing the canon (by canon I mean which writings came over time to be accepted and used by the Christian community) , they are investigating and providing opinion on what choices that community made.

JW

[Mithrae]

As the Apostles and that generation of church leaders died there would have arisen a need for secondary testimony, testimony that needed to look, in the absence of eye-witesses leaders , for the evidence of their (first century) authenticity.

Given the absence or failure of the Spirit whose direct teaching and guidance was promised by Jeremiah, Paul, John and the author of Hebrews, then yes, that was a need which the churches gradually came to recognize over the late 1st and early/mid 2nd centuries and have continued to affirm ever since.

[historia]

These are a bit of chicken-and-egg questions. Judging any one book against the "rest of Christian scripture" assumes we've already decided the rest of the canon, when that is precisely the thing we are trying to decide in the first place.

True but what else are we to do but set a standard of the earliest Christian traditions and writings?

What we can do is recognize that there is no truly objective criteria or standard from which one can arrive at the current 27 books. The canon is simply an historical fact, the result of Christian Tradition.

If the canon was set in the 1st Century -- presumably under the imprimatur of the apostles themselves -- those books would be highly sought after. We'd expect churches all over the Empire to request them, and therefore for those writings to circulate widely, most likely together in collections.

The (genuine) Pauline epistles followed that pattern, but not the rest of the New Testament, and especially not Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and Revelation.

I don't think books /letters were requested by popular demand

Why not? If you were the leader of the church in Antioch, for example, and you heard that there were books that the apostles had approved as scripture that your church didn't possess, wouldn't you want to get those and read them?

Your hypothesis holds that the apostles (or their immediate successors?) approved various books, but then has to assume that they didn't bother to write that list down or share that information widely, since later Christian authors tell us explicitly that not all churches agree on which books should be in the NT canon.

The simpler (and better) explanation here is that the apostles and their immediate successors did not define a canon. That is a later development.

So which was it, nobody knew anything about anything until the fourth century which is not supported by the documented development of Christianity as an organised and theologically harmonious body or each generation were in fact looking to those that preceeded them to know what was authentic scripture.

It seems to me neither of these hypotheses explain the evidence very well.

Clearly, it was not the case that "nobody knew anything about anything until the fourth century," since we have Christian authors citing various books as scripture and discussing the canon well before then.

But neither can it be the case that "each generation" simply "looked to those that proceeded them." Had that been the case, then we would see unanimous agreement about the 27 books from the very start -- or, alternately, that any early disagreement would have persisted indefinitely. Neither is the case.

No, what best explains the evidence is the hypothesis I set out at the beginning of the thread: The canon was reached through a long process of consensus building, which reached its effective conclusion in the late-4th and early-5th Century.

[JehovahsWitness]

True but what else are we to do but set a standard of the earliest Christian traditions and writings?

What we can do is recognize ...[t]he canon is simply an historical fact, the result of Christian Tradition.

I'm not in disagreement, its just we differ as to what is being referred to as "christian tradition".

The simpler (and better) explanation here is that the apostles and their immediate successors did not define a canon.

I don't seen that as either simpler or better. Having something in writing cannot possibly be the determinating factor in what is established Christian tradition since christianity's founder did not write down his own teachings at all. Oral "tradition" is at the foundation of the Christian faith. The simplist and imo best (ie most reasonable) assumption therefore is that it was those same oral authorities that kept the teachings alive, authorised what written records would be considered authentic (as in true accounts and authoritive directives). How they did this (Acts does record the sending of written directives as well as chosen representatives) is less important than that they did it. The evidence that they did is the church itself, which existed as a unified body of believers that did not fragment and dissolve after their leader died.

No, what best explains the evidence is the hypothesis I set out at the beginning of the thread: The canon was reached through a long process of consensus building, which reached its effective conclusion in the late-4th and early-5th Century.

Fair enough; I suppose that brings us full circle. As long as we can see Gods hand overseeing the end result, it is not paramount how and when that hand was acting. We will have to agree to disagree on the details.



As always, I thank you for the exchange


JW

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CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS and ...JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

[Eloi]

(...)
I'm simply giving you an historical analysis of how the New Testament canon formed.
(...)

That's just your perspective; I'll tell you mine:

You are giving me your historical analysis of the time when the congregation was led by people with apostate ideas and lacking the holy spirit ... and the Ortodox Church was not even the first religious institution after the apostasy. I instead gave you a historical analysis of when the apostles were in charge of the Christian congregation: the first century ... precisely when the canonical books were written.

Have you not noticed that after them nothing inspired was written? Explain that.

[Eloi]

A simple way to tell what happened when the Bible we know today became that 66-books volume is that the scholars of the subject who lived in those later times (after the 3rd century) were dedicated to DISCOVER which books were already considered canonical since the 1st century and put them together inside one single volume.

[Diagoras]

How they did this (Acts does record the sending of written directives as well as chosen representatives) is less important than that they did it. The evidence that they did is the church itself, which existed as a unified body of believers that did not fragment and dissolve after their leader died.

A claim that the early church was 'unified' isn't supported by strong evidence of many conflicting theological views of the time, e.g. gnosticism.

Source:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/heresy

I further note that there's the small matter of something called the 'Inquisition'. Who knows precisely which 'heretical' christian beliefs might have survived and flourished if church leaders hadn't been so utterly brutal in extirpating any slightly dissenting view?