Ep. 180 - Benjamin Laird ”The New Testament” pt. 1

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[00:01:29] Deconstructed these walls and I found a...

[00:01:40] Welcome to the Deconstructionist podcast.

[00:01:42] We're back.

[00:01:43] I'm your host John Williamson

[00:01:45] and welcome to season 12.

[00:01:46] We've been off the air so to speak for a little while

[00:01:49] but I've been very busy cooking up

[00:01:51] some brand new interviews

[00:01:52] that we'll be releasing in the coming weeks

[00:01:55] as well as a brand new limited series.

[00:01:58] So special series that I've been working on.

[00:02:00] I'll have more information on

[00:02:01] as we get a little closer to release

[00:02:03] but it's something that definitely falls

[00:02:05] within the realm of what we talk about here

[00:02:08] on the Deconstructionist

[00:02:09] but it's a little different

[00:02:11] or different enough in format

[00:02:12] that I think that it deserves its own space

[00:02:15] and so it'll be its own limited series podcast

[00:02:18] with its own name and site

[00:02:20] but I'll also likely release it here as well

[00:02:24] and hopefully you guys enjoy it.

[00:02:26] So as always if you've enjoyed the music

[00:02:29] that you hear on the podcast

[00:02:31] the intro and the outro

[00:02:33] it's from our good friend

[00:02:34] the talented Clay Kirchenbauer

[00:02:36] who releases his music under the name Forest Clay.

[00:02:39] You can find these songs

[00:02:40] and others anywhere you find your music.

[00:02:43] This week's guest is Dr. Benjamin Laird

[00:02:45] who just released a new book called

[00:02:47] Creating the Canon

[00:02:49] Composition, Controversy, and the Authority of the New Testament.

[00:02:53] Always a fascinating topic we get into

[00:02:55] who actually wrote the different books

[00:02:58] of the New Testament

[00:02:59] who were the original audience

[00:03:01] and how did these various writings

[00:03:03] eventually come together into one bound volume

[00:03:05] that we now call the New Testament and the Bible.

[00:03:08] Dr. Laird received his PhD

[00:03:10] from the University of Aberdeen

[00:03:12] in my other favorite country, Scotland

[00:03:14] and is the Associate Professor

[00:03:16] of Biblical Studies

[00:03:17] at the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity

[00:03:20] at Liberty University.

[00:03:21] He's written a number of books on the New Testament

[00:03:24] including 40 questions about the Apostle Paul

[00:03:27] and 5 views on the New Testament Canon.

[00:03:29] So without further ado

[00:03:31] here is Benjamin freakin' Laird.

[00:03:34] 🎵 Don't do it anymore 🎵

[00:03:43] 🎵 It's taking me too long to recover 🎵

[00:03:47] Alright, welcome to the podcast

[00:03:49] very excited today to have on Dr. Benjamin Laird

[00:03:51] thank you so much for spending some of your morning with me.

[00:03:54] Glad to be here, thanks for the invitation.

[00:03:56] Absolutely, so before we jump into it

[00:03:58] because I think listeners are going to be very interested

[00:04:01] I know this is a topic that has popped up over the years

[00:04:04] that folks have wanted to discuss

[00:04:06] before we jump into it though

[00:04:08] tell folks a little bit about yourself

[00:04:10] and part of your background.

[00:04:12] Yeah, glad to. I am a Colorado native

[00:04:15] lived there until I was about 15

[00:04:17] then my family moved to Central Virginia

[00:04:19] back in the mid 90's

[00:04:21] and went to high school there

[00:04:23] close to my mother's family

[00:04:25] that's why we came to Virginia.

[00:04:27] And quickly in my college years

[00:04:30] I had an interest in Biblical studies

[00:04:32] so I did a Biblical studies degree

[00:04:34] and also took a lot of history courses

[00:04:37] and I think the Lord just directed me

[00:04:39] to the study of the early church over time

[00:04:42] and so I was able to

[00:04:44] in my graduate studies and doctoral work

[00:04:46] do quite a bit of work on the New Testament Canon

[00:04:48] which is the subject of this book

[00:04:50] that we're discussing today.

[00:04:52] But as far as my education goes

[00:04:54] I went to Liberty University

[00:04:56] met my wife there

[00:04:58] did some graduate work at Southeastern Seminary

[00:05:01] completed a couple degrees there

[00:05:03] then went over to the UK

[00:05:06] and studied at the Universities of St. Andrews and Aberdeen

[00:05:09] and then came back to Virginia

[00:05:11] after that was completed

[00:05:13] and I'm fortunate to teach at the

[00:05:16] School of Divinity at Liberty University

[00:05:18] where I did my undergraduate degree

[00:05:20] and I've been teaching there since 2014

[00:05:23] so I'm in the beginning stages of my 10th year there

[00:05:26] and I get a chance to teach a lot of Greek

[00:05:28] and New Testament courses

[00:05:30] and I've been blessed with a

[00:05:32] wide range of students

[00:05:34] students that are undergraduate

[00:05:36] also I'm able to teach a lot of graduate and doctoral courses too

[00:05:39] so I definitely

[00:05:41] have some unique opportunities there

[00:05:43] and one of the things I love to discuss is the Canon

[00:05:46] but it's not exclusively what I teach

[00:05:48] I teach a lot of, as I said, Greek courses

[00:05:50] and I'll teach some intro to New Testament

[00:05:53] things like that

[00:05:55] so really in a good situation there

[00:05:57] and the Lord's been good

[00:05:59] That's excellent

[00:06:01] and as a person with Scottish heritage

[00:06:03] I thought that was pretty cool that you were over

[00:06:05] at the University of Aberdeen

[00:06:07] and over in Scotland

[00:06:09] so very cool

[00:06:11] Yeah, the history there is just fascinating

[00:06:13] so if you get a chance to ever go

[00:06:15] any of your listeners ever get a chance to go

[00:06:17] take in the history

[00:06:19] it's something you won't forget

[00:06:21] it's a great experience

[00:06:23] It's a beautiful country

[00:06:25] So talking about your book

[00:06:27] that this entire conversation is based on

[00:06:29] Creating the Canon

[00:06:31] Composition, Controversy

[00:06:33] and the Authority of the New Testament

[00:06:35] this is something that comes up a lot

[00:06:37] for those that have even

[00:06:39] passively looked into

[00:06:41] the Bible

[00:06:43] you find out that there are a lot of other writings

[00:06:45] that have circulated around for a while

[00:06:47] so the question becomes

[00:06:49] how did it come to be that we have this

[00:06:51] defined set of writings

[00:06:53] that became the New Testament

[00:06:55] so what inspired you to

[00:06:57] jump in and try to answer that question

[00:06:59] so to speak

[00:07:01] Well like I said, it's been a question I've been interested

[00:07:03] in for a long time

[00:07:05] the issue of canon formation

[00:07:07] and how the New Testament came together

[00:07:09] as a student I was just thinking

[00:07:11] if I'm going to invest my life in teaching

[00:07:13] and preaching

[00:07:15] and I'm going to base my theological convictions on

[00:07:17] what is in this Bible here

[00:07:19] I want to know something about where it came from

[00:07:21] and

[00:07:23] so I thought about that for a while

[00:07:25] I'm like most people

[00:07:27] I hear a lot of second hand things

[00:07:29] I hear some

[00:07:31] viewpoints that probably have more

[00:07:33] merit than others

[00:07:35] but for a while I just kind of

[00:07:37] did the best I could to navigate that issue

[00:07:39] then after several

[00:07:41] years I said you know I want to look at this

[00:07:43] a little more formally and

[00:07:45] look at this in a

[00:07:47] more direct way so I read a lot of

[00:07:49] the secondary literature

[00:07:51] a lot of works on canon that were out there

[00:07:53] then also started to look into the Church Fathers a little bit more

[00:07:55] as my

[00:07:57] study kind of progressed there

[00:07:59] but really I think the subject

[00:08:01] was really prompted by just a concern

[00:08:03] about the authority of Scripture

[00:08:05] also I'm just naturally curious

[00:08:07] about historical things

[00:08:09] I mean how could you not be interested I would say

[00:08:11] and you know how this unique collection

[00:08:13] of writings came together

[00:08:15] 27 volumes that are

[00:08:17] incredibly foundational

[00:08:19] and influential in church history and even

[00:08:21] world history and it's just

[00:08:23] interesting that we have all these works

[00:08:25] that come from different authors written in different places

[00:08:27] and different times yet they

[00:08:29] all came together right into

[00:08:31] one collection so I've always just been curious

[00:08:33] about the process

[00:08:35] and so really in my graduate years

[00:08:37] in Masters level

[00:08:39] courses I started to

[00:08:41] really focus a bit more

[00:08:43] on that question directly and it's been something

[00:08:45] I've been you could say dabbling in

[00:08:47] or at times very much into

[00:08:49] that question there

[00:08:51] how the canon came together

[00:08:53] I think one of the things

[00:08:55] that would be a good place to start too is

[00:08:57] just kind of talking about some of the misconceptions

[00:08:59] that a lot of people have I think the average

[00:09:01] individual

[00:09:03] probably thinks you know that

[00:09:05] a lot of times it almost seems

[00:09:07] anyway like people think that the

[00:09:09] book came fully formed and fell

[00:09:11] from the sky and

[00:09:13] was written by singular individuals

[00:09:15] and things of that nature

[00:09:17] so not quite that easy

[00:09:19] you know as I got through your book you know

[00:09:21] and some of the things I had read previously

[00:09:23] it's not quite so simple

[00:09:25] as that and so talk about

[00:09:27] some of the misconceptions that you had to wade through

[00:09:29] in order to start to even

[00:09:31] break down how this came to be

[00:09:33] yeah I think the first

[00:09:35] part of what you said is very important you know

[00:09:37] sometimes we think or often times we think

[00:09:39] of the New Testament as a book right

[00:09:41] it's a single

[00:09:43] book and we kind of

[00:09:45] treat the different writings in there

[00:09:47] as though they're kind of like chapters or something

[00:09:49] but we have this idea of this singular volume

[00:09:51] this single volume

[00:09:53] but in reality what we have

[00:09:55] are individual writings that

[00:09:57] were written individually and circulated

[00:09:59] individually and came together

[00:10:01] really in different ways

[00:10:03] at different times even

[00:10:05] so there's a very interesting history about

[00:10:07] every writing so you have a history

[00:10:09] about the collection as a whole but you also have

[00:10:11] the history of the individual writings

[00:10:13] in the first place

[00:10:15] but I think a lot of times people are

[00:10:17] like you said they have this idea that

[00:10:19] the New Testament just kind of came in one

[00:10:21] lump sum in one instance

[00:10:23] and just kind of you know

[00:10:25] fell out of the sky or something and

[00:10:27] there it is all of a sudden it's in the bookstore a New Testament

[00:10:29] right? But yeah

[00:10:31] in reality we have individual

[00:10:33] writings and it was a long process

[00:10:35] I think it was a natural process but it was

[00:10:37] a long process that led

[00:10:39] to finally a more or less

[00:10:41] universal consensus on

[00:10:43] probably less right

[00:10:45] there's never been a full universal consensus

[00:10:47] but a wide consensus on

[00:10:49] the canon. It took a while for that

[00:10:51] to emerge so that's one

[00:10:53] kind of misperception I think

[00:10:55] people have then there's also

[00:10:57] a lot of theories about what prompted

[00:10:59] it right? So even if we can come

[00:11:01] to the conclusion and we recognize

[00:11:03] that we do

[00:11:05] have individual writings and this is a long process

[00:11:07] even if we recognize that there's the question of

[00:11:09] what prompted this and I think that's

[00:11:11] where there's a lot of misperceptions

[00:11:13] out there and

[00:11:15] a lot of this is debatable

[00:11:17] scholars even continue to debate so it's not

[00:11:19] as though scholars all have their one view and

[00:11:21] you know the lay people have their other

[00:11:23] even among scholars there's questions as to

[00:11:25] what would have prompted this?

[00:11:27] What led the church to recognize these

[00:11:29] particular works? And

[00:11:31] one of the common I think ideas

[00:11:33] is that there was something extrinsic

[00:11:35] there was something external and

[00:11:37] maybe some kind of usually

[00:11:39] it's portrayed as some kind of controversy

[00:11:41] or trial or

[00:11:43] some situation that

[00:11:45] led the church to kind of

[00:11:47] form around these to recognize this

[00:11:49] particular group of writings

[00:11:51] so among scholars they might say

[00:11:53] well in the second century you have this heretic

[00:11:55] named Marcion and he was a great threat to the church

[00:11:57] and we'll talk about him a little bit

[00:11:59] but Marcion had this

[00:12:01] very very negative view

[00:12:03] on the God of the Old Testament

[00:12:05] and believed that this was a God of evil

[00:12:07] and wrath and judgment he's very

[00:12:09] vindictive and you want to stay away from him right?

[00:12:11] But Jesus is

[00:12:13] you know he's kind of the go between he stands

[00:12:15] between us and this God of wrath

[00:12:17] that's described in the Old Testament

[00:12:19] and we don't even want to confuse

[00:12:21] the father of Jesus with the God of the Old Testament

[00:12:23] either I mean that's how

[00:12:25] skewed his doctrine was

[00:12:27] but he's known

[00:12:29] for recognizing a small

[00:12:31] body of works and it's usually identified

[00:12:33] as a edited volume of

[00:12:35] Luke's gospel and then a

[00:12:37] smaller well somewhat smaller collection

[00:12:39] of Paul's writings usually it's identified as 10

[00:12:41] works and so the idea

[00:12:43] of many scholars is that

[00:12:45] the kind of authoritative

[00:12:47] figures authoritative figures of the

[00:12:49] greater church saw this as a problem

[00:12:51] you can't have a heretic like Marcion

[00:12:53] decide what everybody's

[00:12:55] going to be reading and what everybody recognizes

[00:12:57] as authoritative so he's

[00:12:59] recognizing a version of

[00:13:01] the gospels that resembles Luke and so they

[00:13:03] said you know if that's the case

[00:13:05] we need to actually broaden this because there's

[00:13:07] other gospels that we view as authoritative

[00:13:09] as well you know Matthew and Mark

[00:13:11] and John in particular so

[00:13:13] they recognize the four gospels and a larger

[00:13:15] body of Paul's works and some other epistles

[00:13:17] and Acts and Revelation so it's

[00:13:19] kind of like a reaction to

[00:13:21] Marcion where they realized wait a minute

[00:13:23] the church isn't recognizing enough

[00:13:25] scripture we need to actually

[00:13:27] recognize all these writings

[00:13:29] so that these writings don't get neglected

[00:13:31] so sometimes Marcion

[00:13:33] gets a lot of credit for

[00:13:35] the production of the New Testament or at least prompting

[00:13:37] it and then others would have a

[00:13:39] viewpoint this is more common among lay people

[00:13:41] but it's not exclusively

[00:13:43] something for lay people even some

[00:13:45] scholars hold this view and that's the view that

[00:13:47] in the fourth century or so

[00:13:49] you have different councils of the church that

[00:13:51] are very important and very

[00:13:53] influential and so the church

[00:13:55] was kind of fighting over all

[00:13:57] these doctrinal issues they had

[00:13:59] many disputes especially about Christology

[00:14:01] you know is this

[00:14:03] Jesus is he of divine origin is he

[00:14:05] to be considered one in the same nature as

[00:14:07] God the Father or is he a lesser

[00:14:09] created being so

[00:14:11] they're in this quagmire and so

[00:14:13] they had to resolve this and the only way

[00:14:15] to resolve this would be to kind of

[00:14:17] select certain writings that

[00:14:19] should be considered authoritative because

[00:14:21] you're not going to win a theological argument or settle

[00:14:23] a theological argument if you've got this guy over

[00:14:25] here recognizing these gospels

[00:14:27] another guy recognizing another set of gospels

[00:14:29] you need to be able to work you need to

[00:14:31] at least have a foundational starting place

[00:14:33] and then you can actually discuss

[00:14:35] what those writings present about Jesus

[00:14:37] so the argument is that

[00:14:39] the canon that we have today is largely a

[00:14:41] byproduct of those councils

[00:14:43] and often times it's stated that maybe

[00:14:45] the council in Isaiah first half of the

[00:14:47] 4th century was instrumental there

[00:14:49] but I would say that's a

[00:14:51] misperception just because we have

[00:14:53] well two reasons one is we have

[00:14:55] a lot of evidence before the 4th century that

[00:14:57] the church had gravitated

[00:14:59] towards these apostolic writings

[00:15:01] so it's not as though we have all of a sudden

[00:15:03] the 4th century they get this list and they say

[00:15:05] ok now we've got to read these things

[00:15:07] and you know no previous acceptance of

[00:15:09] the writings before that so historically

[00:15:11] it doesn't make sense but also

[00:15:13] just the records of these councils we don't have

[00:15:15] any firm evidence that they got

[00:15:17] together to kind of settle the issue

[00:15:19] of canon. There are

[00:15:21] some times where the councils

[00:15:23] few times where the councils will actually

[00:15:25] list writings that should be read in public

[00:15:27] but that seems to be more of just

[00:15:29] a reflection of what the church as a whole

[00:15:31] already believed at that point rather than

[00:15:33] you know something novel that

[00:15:35] they had just started and

[00:15:37] you know some kind of decree that they just

[00:15:39] kind of created at that moment then

[00:15:41] but I would say those are

[00:15:43] some of the kind of common viewpoints

[00:15:45] that people have is there was some kind of

[00:15:47] external threat so again

[00:15:49] that could be some kind of heresy

[00:15:51] like Marcion or maybe even

[00:15:53] the Aryan controversy in the 4th century but

[00:15:55] that's just a common perception that

[00:15:57] everything was just kind of in limbo

[00:15:59] and people were reading whatever and then all of a

[00:16:01] sudden certain events just

[00:16:03] led the church to

[00:16:05] to determine a certain set of writings

[00:16:07] that were to be considered authoritative

[00:16:09] so that is troubling

[00:16:11] I would say for a lot of people because

[00:16:13] now you don't really

[00:16:15] have something that is

[00:16:17] intrinsic or valuable

[00:16:19] something about the writings themselves

[00:16:21] that sets them apart. You have

[00:16:23] decrees by fallible humans

[00:16:25] right, that are stating

[00:16:27] which writings we should read and which we should not

[00:16:29] and if that's really the case then it leads to the

[00:16:31] question you know did they get it right?

[00:16:33] You know why did they say these writings are

[00:16:35] actually more authoritative and why did they leave

[00:16:37] these writings out? And did they

[00:16:39] kick writings out? You know that kind of thing

[00:16:41] so there's a lot of questions that we have

[00:16:43] when we make this very much

[00:16:45] a human product right

[00:16:47] that was kind of the creation of

[00:16:49] all the whims of these councils or

[00:16:51] certain theologians or bishops

[00:16:53] of the early church

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[00:18:55] Yeah, that becomes very interesting because

[00:18:57] especially from

[00:18:59] the vantage point of somebody

[00:19:01] who lives in the United States and

[00:19:03] this day and age, there's

[00:19:05] a lot of emphasis placed on the

[00:19:07] authority of scripture by a lot of

[00:19:09] Western churches. And so

[00:19:11] as soon as that question sort of

[00:19:13] arises, then it sort of throws

[00:19:15] everything on its head a little.

[00:19:17] But based on what you just said,

[00:19:19] it sounds like

[00:19:21] the

[00:19:23] reality of it is probably a culmination

[00:19:25] of things that happened over hundreds and hundreds

[00:19:27] of years, and it wasn't just one

[00:19:29] point in time where it was suddenly

[00:19:31] decided that, hey, these are the

[00:19:33] writings that we are going to

[00:19:35] view with more authority than some of these

[00:19:37] others, like some of the other gospels that are

[00:19:39] floating around out there,

[00:19:41] and that sort of thing.

[00:19:43] Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a natural

[00:19:45] process, but it's a long process.

[00:19:47] So what I argue for in the book

[00:19:49] is that we don't have just

[00:19:51] one particular occasion where there's a

[00:19:53] decree and everybody was happy

[00:19:55] with a new list that was just kind of

[00:19:57] formed out of thin air. But there

[00:19:59] was a natural process,

[00:20:01] and this involved

[00:20:03] a recognition of the works that could

[00:20:05] actually be traced back, I would say,

[00:20:07] indirectly to Christ, which sounds really strange

[00:20:09] because we know He didn't write anything.

[00:20:11] So we don't have any works of Christ out there,

[00:20:13] but the early church

[00:20:15] recognized that each of the writings

[00:20:17] that were recognized as authoritative, these

[00:20:19] canonical writings, they have an indirect

[00:20:21] route back to Jesus. And the reason

[00:20:23] why is because Jesus, before

[00:20:25] He ascends,

[00:20:27] of course He commissioned, well even at the beginning

[00:20:29] of His ministry, He commissioned several as His disciples.

[00:20:31] Later He refers to them as Apostles.

[00:20:33] John tells us

[00:20:35] what the gospel of

[00:20:37] John, Jesus says, you know, I have sent you

[00:20:39] out, I am now sending you out. Just as the Father

[00:20:41] sent me, I am now sending you out.

[00:20:43] A lot of that sent language

[00:20:45] in the gospels. So He sends out

[00:20:47] these Apostles and they served as His representatives.

[00:20:49] So they

[00:20:51] instructed the people, they guided the church.

[00:20:53] We have the Great Commission,

[00:20:55] Matthew 28, right? Teach them

[00:20:57] all things that I have commanded you. And the Apostles

[00:20:59] played a leading role in that, of course.

[00:21:01] And so they went out teaching,

[00:21:03] bearing ministry to, or witness

[00:21:05] to the miracle of the

[00:21:07] resurrection and the things they observed in life

[00:21:09] of Jesus. And then they

[00:21:11] communicated both orally

[00:21:13] and through written text.

[00:21:15] And so what we have in the New Testament then

[00:21:17] is arguably, it's the

[00:21:19] extant record of the Apostolic testimony.

[00:21:21] It's the testimony that the Apostles

[00:21:23] delivered in that

[00:21:25] first generation there of the church

[00:21:27] back in the first century.

[00:21:29] So what we could argue

[00:21:31] is that when we read the New Testament,

[00:21:33] we're reading the Apostolic testimony

[00:21:35] about Christ. So we're reading

[00:21:37] the works that could actually

[00:21:39] be traced back to those who were

[00:21:41] commissioned directly by Christ Himself.

[00:21:43] So that's why they actually

[00:21:45] go back to Jesus if you think about it

[00:21:47] that way. And

[00:21:49] then by nature, of course,

[00:21:51] and conversely, the other writings, if they

[00:21:53] cannot be traced back to an Apostle,

[00:21:55] then that means the chain that goes back to

[00:21:57] Jesus is broken because they're going

[00:21:59] to be produced by individuals who are not connected

[00:22:01] to Christ then. So

[00:22:03] the early church was very much

[00:22:05] concerned that these writings were Apostolic

[00:22:07] and what we mean by Apostolic

[00:22:09] is a whole other kind of subject

[00:22:11] here, a complicated thing that

[00:22:13] we had discussed as well.

[00:22:15] But the early church was convinced at least,

[00:22:17] I could put it this way, that each of the writings

[00:22:19] could be traced back to an Apostolic community

[00:22:21] which would include people like Paul

[00:22:23] and the Twelve, and even those

[00:22:25] who worked directly with the Twelve.

[00:22:27] So we have this Apostolic community

[00:22:29] then that actually

[00:22:31] inherited the teachings of Jesus

[00:22:33] and passed them on and was

[00:22:35] authoritative because of their relationship to

[00:22:37] Jesus Himself. So that's really

[00:22:39] kind of a key thing, but the question then

[00:22:41] of canon, which writings are in and out,

[00:22:43] that's really a question of which ones can actually

[00:22:45] have a rightful place,

[00:22:47] actually can rightfully claim to go back to Jesus.

[00:22:49] That is, which of these writings

[00:22:51] are actually part of the Apostolic community?

[00:22:53] So if a writing was considered

[00:22:55] to be, say, a work of the 2nd century,

[00:22:57] even though it might bear

[00:22:59] Apostolic tradition,

[00:23:01] and maybe it's even consistent with Apostolic

[00:23:03] teaching, the early church

[00:23:05] would not recognize it as ultimately authoritative

[00:23:07] because it was not actually produced

[00:23:09] from those individuals whom Christ

[00:23:11] sent out. So, as I

[00:23:13] said, it's a natural process, but

[00:23:15] it took a bit of time for them to

[00:23:17] come to a more or less a consensus

[00:23:19] on which of those writings

[00:23:21] had a rightful place, because there's going to be questions about

[00:23:23] well, what about 2nd Peter?

[00:23:25] Does this actually go back to Peter?

[00:23:27] Who authored this? So there were

[00:23:29] a lot of questions about authorship.

[00:23:31] And that shouldn't surprise us

[00:23:33] because if you're going to put a great emphasis on

[00:23:35] Apostolic authority, you want to know

[00:23:37] which of the works could actually be

[00:23:39] ascribed to the Apostles, which are

[00:23:41] actually authentic. So if there was any

[00:23:43] question about a particular work, it usually

[00:23:45] was around that issue.

[00:23:47] And so it was understood that the

[00:23:49] Apostolic writings are ancient, they're going

[00:23:51] to go back to the 1st century.

[00:23:53] It was understood that they are going to

[00:23:55] contain content that was consistent

[00:23:57] with Jesus and

[00:23:59] the Apostles, right? So if you have

[00:24:01] a writing that is produced in

[00:24:03] the 2nd century, by nature they're going

[00:24:05] to rule that out. Or if it was a writing that

[00:24:07] had maybe a

[00:24:09] Christology that was inconsistent with what's

[00:24:11] in the four Gospels, they would immediately

[00:24:13] not recognize that work. It's not going to

[00:24:15] be accepted widely as Scripture.

[00:24:17] Maybe in some quarters, but not widely.

[00:24:19] So there were

[00:24:21] many different kind of issues

[00:24:23] they discussed, but really what they were concerned about

[00:24:25] was establishing those Apostolic

[00:24:27] writings that were to serve as the

[00:24:29] foundation for the Church.

[00:24:31] Yeah, I think you touched on a couple really

[00:24:33] important things there.

[00:24:35] The first one being from a historical perspective,

[00:24:37] obviously you're looking

[00:24:39] for as many first-hand

[00:24:41] accounts as possible, instead of

[00:24:43] like second and third person.

[00:24:45] You want something that is

[00:24:47] based on first-hand accounts,

[00:24:49] like so who were the witnesses who were alive

[00:24:51] who actually preached

[00:24:53] and traveled with Jesus? And then

[00:24:55] the second piece of that is

[00:24:57] anytime you're looking at

[00:24:59] a situation where you're investigating

[00:25:01] say even a

[00:25:03] car accident, you're gathering witnesses

[00:25:05] together and the ones whose

[00:25:07] accounts coincide

[00:25:09] with the other,

[00:25:11] you're keeping those. And the one person

[00:25:13] that's like a UFO came down out of nowhere,

[00:25:15] you're like, maybe not that one.

[00:25:17] So you're looking for accounts

[00:25:19] that match

[00:25:21] and including those, because

[00:25:23] you can kind of be semi-

[00:25:25] sure that those were the folks

[00:25:27] who in fact witnessed

[00:25:29] what happened.

[00:25:31] Yeah, so each of the four Gospels

[00:25:33] for example, it does exactly what you're

[00:25:35] describing there. They're all written by either

[00:25:37] apostles or close associates of apostles.

[00:25:39] So Matthew and John, they're of the

[00:25:41] Twelve, they were eyewitnesses of these events.

[00:25:43] So their works

[00:25:45] are going to be incredibly valuable, and the

[00:25:47] early church placed a great emphasis on these

[00:25:49] writings. Matthew and John were

[00:25:51] the two most popular writings, two most

[00:25:53] popular Gospels in the early church.

[00:25:55] Then you have Mark, and Mark

[00:25:57] is simply, according to many early church

[00:25:59] sources, he's simply bearing the testimony

[00:26:01] of Peter. So it's based

[00:26:03] on the eyewitness testimony of Peter then.

[00:26:05] And then Luke is drawing upon a number

[00:26:07] of eyewitnesses as well. We even

[00:26:09] have eyewitness language in the prologue,

[00:26:11] Luke 1, 1-4.

[00:26:13] So these are not traditions that just

[00:26:15] kind of pass down from generation to generation,

[00:26:17] but they go back to early

[00:26:19] eyewitnesses, all four Gospels.

[00:26:21] So that's powerful historical

[00:26:23] evidence, but then

[00:26:25] also when you, like you're describing there,

[00:26:27] if you have more than one eyewitness, that's

[00:26:29] going to be very powerful. So any

[00:26:31] lawyer would tell you they'd rather have

[00:26:33] three or four witnesses than one.

[00:26:35] And also what's helpful

[00:26:37] too is the story,

[00:26:39] just thinking about our understanding of Jesus,

[00:26:41] it's much more difficult

[00:26:43] to, I would say, twist

[00:26:45] four stories around than one.

[00:26:47] So if you hear

[00:26:49] just one account about Jesus, maybe one

[00:26:51] teaching or one miracle, it's in

[00:26:53] one Gospel,

[00:26:55] you're much more likely to confuse

[00:26:57] what's actually stated there than if you could

[00:26:59] say draw from three or four.

[00:27:01] So the more sources we have, the better

[00:27:03] picture we have of the whole story.

[00:27:05] And so the four together,

[00:27:07] they're like four portraits of

[00:27:09] Jesus and together they give us a very good

[00:27:11] picture of His life and ministry

[00:27:13] and teaching and that type of thing.

[00:27:15] So yeah, four is important, not just

[00:27:17] for, not just historically, but even

[00:27:19] as far as our ability to interpret

[00:27:21] and understand, it's very

[00:27:23] important that way.

[00:27:25] Yeah, and I definitely want to jump into the Gospels.

[00:27:27] I think that's a really interesting portion

[00:27:29] to talk about.

[00:27:31] But before we do that, one of the

[00:27:33] things that's kind of interesting is

[00:27:35] this idea that there are no original

[00:27:37] copies left.

[00:27:39] And so we have copies of copies

[00:27:41] essentially because these are

[00:27:43] writings that were written down in papyrus and we know

[00:27:45] papyrus doesn't last very long.

[00:27:47] But we have found some pretty

[00:27:49] old copies

[00:27:51] through the Dead Sea Scrolls

[00:27:53] and Nag Hammadi and some of these

[00:27:55] other findings, these discoveries.

[00:27:57] What do those

[00:27:59] discoveries sort of tell us about

[00:28:01] the early Church and sort of

[00:28:03] the formation of some

[00:28:05] of these writings?

[00:28:07] Well it is interesting. It does tell me a lot of things.

[00:28:09] One that comes immediately to my mind is

[00:28:11] just how popular the

[00:28:13] non- or I should say how popular the canonical writings

[00:28:15] happen to be. So if you compare

[00:28:17] and a lot of people do this, right?

[00:28:19] Especially apologetic works love to bring

[00:28:21] this up. They'll state, and it's usually

[00:28:23] for a different reason, right? They'll say, well you know,

[00:28:25] for the Gospels we have X number

[00:28:27] of manuscripts in these centuries

[00:28:29] and for all these other works of antiquity

[00:28:31] we have only three or something like that.

[00:28:33] And what I find interesting

[00:28:35] about that is

[00:28:37] not so much what it tells us, and I do think

[00:28:39] it tells us something about the reliability

[00:28:41] of the transmission. I think there's some relevance

[00:28:43] there, but even beyond that I think that it's

[00:28:45] interesting because it tells us what the early Church

[00:28:47] was reading. So if

[00:28:49] it was the case that say in the 4th

[00:28:51] century a council determined out of thin

[00:28:53] air the canon that we

[00:28:55] have today and said, okay we're going to start

[00:28:57] reading these 27 works and everybody

[00:28:59] just kind of reacted to that and that's what

[00:29:01] we have today. If that was the

[00:29:03] case then how do we explain the fact that we

[00:29:05] do actually have quite a few

[00:29:07] extant manuscripts from say

[00:29:09] even a few from the 2nd century but

[00:29:11] several from the 3rd, 4th and 5th century

[00:29:13] much more so than any other

[00:29:15] early Christian writing.

[00:29:17] So if it was the case that we had

[00:29:19] for example a certain gospel

[00:29:21] that was kicked out in the 4th century

[00:29:23] well what we'd expect is maybe to find

[00:29:25] some older copies of that

[00:29:27] and then maybe a decrease in

[00:29:29] those copies once you get to the 4th or

[00:29:31] 5th century but you would expect to find more

[00:29:33] kind of copies of those works

[00:29:35] but you really don't find that. So the 27

[00:29:37] books that we have are by

[00:29:39] far, they were the, from

[00:29:41] the testimony we have, the witnesses that have survived

[00:29:43] they are clearly the most

[00:29:45] popular writings in the early church.

[00:29:47] All 27 of them. So we don't have anything

[00:29:49] that even competes to say the

[00:29:51] writings of Paul or Acts or especially

[00:29:53] the gospels. The gospels were the most widely

[00:29:55] read of all the Christian writings.

[00:29:57] So it does tell me that they're reading them

[00:29:59] very often. It also tells me that

[00:30:01] this was not just

[00:30:03] the writings were not just for scholars

[00:30:05] and so what's interesting is a lot

[00:30:07] of these manuscripts, a lot of them seem to have been

[00:30:09] written by professional scribes

[00:30:11] but not all of them. Some of them were

[00:30:13] just kind of, you can tell were written by amateurs

[00:30:15] who just wanted, people just wanted copies

[00:30:17] for themselves. And

[00:30:19] so we actually have a very

[00:30:21] diverse group of

[00:30:23] Greek writings that have survived to us. Some are

[00:30:25] very professional. You can tell

[00:30:27] the script is just very

[00:30:29] carefully done and

[00:30:31] just looks very nice and neat unlike when

[00:30:33] I write by hand. But

[00:30:35] you find that very much

[00:30:37] in a lot of these early writings. But then you find

[00:30:39] there's people in churches who just wanted a copy

[00:30:41] for themselves and so they're just going to

[00:30:43] copy something by hand and go

[00:30:45] with it. So it shows us that

[00:30:47] these Christian

[00:30:49] writings were read throughout

[00:30:51] the Mediterranean world. They weren't just read in

[00:30:53] say one community somewhere like

[00:30:55] the Gnostic gospels. They are

[00:30:57] read from west to east and

[00:30:59] read early on, read frequently

[00:31:01] and read by people of all

[00:31:03] different walks of life. So

[00:31:05] sometimes we look at these early

[00:31:07] manuscripts and we're just

[00:31:09] interested in textual issues, right? The

[00:31:11] transmission of the text and that's incredibly valuable.

[00:31:13] But it also tells me that these are

[00:31:15] very popular works early on.

[00:31:17] So I think that's another insight we can gain from

[00:31:19] that.

[00:31:21] Yeah, that's very interesting. And

[00:31:23] one of the other things that I thought was interesting

[00:31:25] too, and I had heard a couple

[00:31:27] of these

[00:31:29] not even really theories but I mean

[00:31:31] we know this is fact now, the fact that

[00:31:33] there were a lot of people in

[00:31:35] that era who were writing

[00:31:37] under the authority of

[00:31:39] someone who was more well

[00:31:41] known, whether that be Paul or

[00:31:43] someone else. But it was not

[00:31:45] Paul but someone writing under the name of

[00:31:47] Paul to use sort of Paul's

[00:31:49] position and authority

[00:31:51] and this

[00:31:53] was something that was pretty common at the time. This

[00:31:55] happened quite a bit. So how

[00:31:57] much more difficult did that make

[00:31:59] it to sort of trace

[00:32:01] its lineage back to

[00:32:03] the apostles or someone who did

[00:32:05] have actual authority?

[00:32:07] What was that like for

[00:32:09] the early church when we're talking

[00:32:11] third, fourth century when we're really

[00:32:13] sort of trying to narrow down

[00:32:15] which books should be included and which ones shouldn't.

[00:32:17] Yeah, good question. And

[00:32:19] that actually is a subject that

[00:32:21] emphasizes just how important apostolic authority

[00:32:23] was, right? So not all of these

[00:32:25] early Christian works

[00:32:27] that were, I would say, post-New Testament

[00:32:29] era, right?

[00:32:31] These non-canonical works, not all of them

[00:32:33] were named after apostles. We do

[00:32:35] have a few that were not. For example

[00:32:37] there's an epistle

[00:32:39] to Barnabas and some others

[00:32:41] and many gospels that are named

[00:32:43] after other figures who were not

[00:32:45] part of the twelve, but a large

[00:32:47] number of them are actually named after

[00:32:49] apostles. And so that

[00:32:51] just shows how much value they placed

[00:32:53] on apostolic authority, how much

[00:32:55] of a leading role these individuals played.

[00:32:57] There's, for example, many

[00:32:59] writings that are named

[00:33:01] after Peter. Peter was kind of the favorite.

[00:33:03] So if you're going to

[00:33:05] write something and assign

[00:33:07] it to an apostle, maybe in the second or

[00:33:09] third century, Peter was kind of

[00:33:11] your go-to person, right? But there were others

[00:33:13] as well. So that

[00:33:15] does tell us that the apostles'

[00:33:17] writings were very influential,

[00:33:19] viewed as authoritative, that it wasn't

[00:33:21] just, you know, if you can just create something with

[00:33:23] great content, it's going to be accepted.

[00:33:25] It was much more than that. There had to be

[00:33:27] apostolic roots or

[00:33:29] there had to be an apostolic origin for it to be accepted.

[00:33:31] Then as far as the

[00:33:33] reception goes, we actually don't

[00:33:35] have too much, I would say

[00:33:37] controversy about any of those

[00:33:39] works that are outside the canon.

[00:33:41] So if you go outside of them, you'll have

[00:33:43] certain communities that

[00:33:45] might read a certain work, there might be

[00:33:47] a degree of acceptance in

[00:33:49] certain places, but you never

[00:33:51] have a work that is widely

[00:33:53] regarded as scripture and authoritative

[00:33:55] or canonical. You never find that.

[00:33:57] Again, it's just kind of pockets

[00:33:59] and waves where you'll find different Christians

[00:34:01] accept them. So you'll

[00:34:03] never have, for example, you know,

[00:34:05] the early church, you go to church

[00:34:07] in Spain or Italy or Syria

[00:34:09] or Egypt, wherever it is, and

[00:34:11] you'll go to church and they're all reading the Gospel of

[00:34:13] Judas or the Gospel of Thomas.

[00:34:15] It doesn't work that way. The four were

[00:34:17] recognized very early on, and there was consensus

[00:34:19] on that. So outside

[00:34:21] of scripture, I should say

[00:34:23] outside the canon, there are

[00:34:25] some Christians who are reading these

[00:34:27] works that are circulating them, but

[00:34:29] they never had the degree of influence or

[00:34:31] popularity, never circulated as widely.

[00:34:33] So there's not as much debate

[00:34:35] about those. A lot

[00:34:37] of the debate actually centered on the

[00:34:39] disputed books in the canon.

[00:34:41] So, works

[00:34:43] especially that are part of the Catholic epistles,

[00:34:45] the seven writings from James through

[00:34:47] Jude. So you'll have disputes

[00:34:49] about some of the Johannine epistles

[00:34:51] for example, you know, 2nd and 3rd John,

[00:34:53] or some might dispute James or

[00:34:55] 2nd Peter. And there's

[00:34:57] questions then about, you know, did 2nd Peter actually

[00:34:59] write 2nd Peter? Or

[00:35:01] is this a different author?

[00:35:03] And there were some disputes,

[00:35:05] even Hebrews, there's questions about who wrote Hebrews,

[00:35:07] but the church as a whole

[00:35:09] came to the consensus that these

[00:35:11] do have a rightful place in the canon.

[00:35:13] Not despite their inauthenticity,

[00:35:15] but on the

[00:35:17] resolution that they actually, on the

[00:35:19] conviction that they do in fact go back to the

[00:35:21] apostles. Scholars might dispute

[00:35:23] that today, but that was the

[00:35:25] early viewpoint of the church.

[00:35:27] Large segments of the Christian world

[00:35:29] did in fact believe that they have a rightful

[00:35:31] place, that they were written

[00:35:33] by apostles either directly or you could

[00:35:35] even say indirectly, but there's a

[00:35:37] connection there to the apostolic community

[00:35:39] for sure, that the early church

[00:35:41] recognized. So I would say actually

[00:35:43] it might be as a surprise to some, but

[00:35:45] a good amount of the dispute actually

[00:35:47] centered on the apostolic writings that we have

[00:35:49] in the New Testament, those canonical works.

[00:36:15] We could keep others away

[00:36:19] in the name of some so-called

[00:36:23] safety.

[00:36:29] Cause we sold our souls

[00:36:35] for a little bit of power

[00:36:39] and control,

[00:36:41] and we left a hole

[00:36:47] and those were called to love.

[00:36:51] Oh church, what have we done?

[00:36:57] No church,

[00:37:07] when will we ever see

[00:37:13] until we're all treated the same

[00:37:17] that nobody is actually free?

[00:37:27] Oh church, you started to pave the way

[00:37:39] to our irrelevancy

[00:37:43] cause we've driven the other

[00:37:47] away.

[00:37:53] Cause we sold our souls

[00:37:59] for a little bit of power

[00:38:03] and control,

[00:38:05] and we left a hole.

[00:38:11] I guess they're not enough.

[00:38:24] Oh church, what have we done?

[00:38:28] But there is hope, somewhere to go

[00:38:34] someone to feed, someone to lead,

[00:38:38] someone to call.

[00:38:42] And who are we if not redeemed?

[00:38:48] Bringers of peace and justice sweet and holy love.

[00:38:54] Oh church, what have we done?

[00:39:00] No church, what have we done?

[00:39:06] May we sell our souls

[00:39:16] to be rid of all the power and control.

[00:39:24] May we lose ourselves

[00:39:30] for those were called to love.

[00:39:36] Oh church, let that be us.

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