The New Testament Canon: Its Basis for Authority

By Frank Thielman

Box 875, Montreat, N. Carolina 28757

It has been customary for evangelical scholars who treat the subject of the NT canon to rejoice that both “liberals” and “conservatives” are united on which books should be included in it. This unanimity has sometimes been used as evidence of God’s providential care over the canon and as reassurance that even in the face of liberal higher criticism, at least the books with which Christianity has to do are clearly defined. Thus John Wenham can say that “unanimity has remained sufficiently complete to the present day to make any revision of the canon appear most improbable.”[1] But disturbing voices have been raised in recent years over the nature of the NT canon and the extent to which its twenty-seven books should be regarded as canonical in the traditional sense. These voices have been so numerous and their arguments so clearly expressed that Wenham’s statement, at least as it relates to the functional canon, can no longer be considered valid.

E. Käsemann, of course, forms the center of the debate with his doctrine of a “canon” of justification by faith within the traditional canon.[2] While he would not argue for a physically modified traditional canon, he does not hesitate to exclude from the functional canon such writings as John and James. These may be left in the traditional canon merely to contrast the “canon within the canon” and are not authoritative Scripture for the church.[3] Käsemann’s followers have taken his views to their logical extreme. D. Dungan, for example, in a 1975 article where he surveyed the state of scholarship on the canon, predicted that Gos. Thom. would soon be bound with copies of the NT,[4] and Kurt Aland could say, “The formal canon cannot be taken as actually existing.”[5] Therefore, although Käsemann would not argue for rebinding copies of the NT, and although Dungan’s bold prediction has not been fulfilled, a vast revision of the canon is taking place in scholarly circles—one which leaves the traditional canon intact but refuses to acknowledge the totality of its canonicity for the modern church.

Another development, equally challenging to the traditional view of the canon but formulated in response to Käsemann’s scheme, has also appeared in recent years. It proposes that the canon as it stands is authoritative, but contains mutually contradictory theologies which justify a “rich” variety of divergent confessions. Thus P. Hammer explains that “Given a scriptural canon, perhaps the only real heresy is to forget that richness and deny the need for theological variety.”[6] Hans Küng and J. D. G. Dunn have been the most important recent exponents of this view.[7]

Both the “canon-within-the-canon” and the “unity-through-contradiction” views find their basis in the “discovery” of contradictory theologies in the NT. Whereas the early fathers felt the canon to be self-consistent, both of these theories say that in light of recent research this view can no longer be maintained. The early fathers apparently respected contradictory theologies without realizing it; these theologies were therefore canonized, and any divergence which was later discovered was plastered over after the fact by allegorization and farfetched apologetic. We must therefore either choose the most sensible theology out of the group and establish a canon within the canon, or we must realize that even contradictory theologies have a central unity in the work of God in Christ and seek to concentrate on our oneness in this fact rather than on our divergent practices.[8] Both schemes, therefore, are in essence attempts to cope with the conclusion to H. von Campenhausen’s Formation of the Christian Bible, in which he says that “it should certainly not be legitimate to support the traditional canon with arguments which played no part in its formation.”[9] These arguments, he says, were “extremely naive and cannot be retained.” He then lists them as the infallibility, consistency, and unity of Scripture.[10] Recent work in the area of NT theology by evangelical scholars has gone a long way toward showing these arguments to be less naive than von Campenhausen thought, and therefore toward discrediting both the canon-within-the-canon and the unity-through-contradiction views.[11] But a front upon which these views are seldom attacked, the area of the history of the formation of the canon, deserves more attention from evangelical scholars than it has recently received, for in it exist criteria for the formation of the canon which von Campenhausen and his followers have neglected. When these criteria are brought forward, the inconsistencies in both the canon-within-the-canon and the unity-through-contradiction views of the place of the canon in modern theological debate become apparent.

It has been popular since the days of Harnack to see the chief incentive for the formal delineation of the canon as the dual threat of Marcion and the followers of Montanus.[12] But it is seldom emphasized that the orthodox tendency to recognize a specific group of writings as the deposit of authoritative apostolic tradition began many years before the appearance of either of these heresies. It is possible that Marcion’s own canonical list and the formulation of Montanist scriptures provided the immediate stimulus for naming the books that would make up the NT canon, but the idea of canon as authoritative tradition can be traced to Jesus himself, and the placing of this tradition in written form goes back to Paul. The point has been persuasively and extensively argued by both H. Ridderbos and Simon Kistemaker.[13] It is only a half-truth, says Ridderbos, that the study of the canon belongs to church history rather than to redemption history.[14] In Mark 3:14–15 Jesus ordains the apostles to preach and drive out demons. They go forward with a unique authority given by Jesus himself. In Matt 10:40 the apostles are so closely identified with Jesus that he tells them, “He that receives you receives me” (cf. John 13:10). These apostles, moreover, are endowed with a special measure of the Holy Spirit for the completion of their foundational task (Matt 10:18–20; Mark 13:11; Luke 21:13–15; Acts 1:8; 2:1) and are even told, “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth…and he will tell you what is to come” (John 16:13).

In view of their Christ-given authority and special endowment with the Holy Spirit, then, it is not surprising that the apostles and the gospel tradition which they handed down became increasingly important after the resurrection and ascension. Thus Paul addresses himself authoritatively to the recipients of all of his letters, and in Colossians and 1 Thessalonians he instructs the congregation to read the epistle in the assembly. The Colossians are even to read a letter addressed to the Laodiceans in their church gathering (1 Thess 5:27; Col 4:15). The reading of the apostolic witness in the church assembly parallels strikingly the reading from the Hebrew scriptures in the synagogues of the first century (Luke 4:16) and shows that very early the apostolic witness began to take written form. When dealing with possibly gnostic opponents in Corinth,[15] Paul consciously puts a previously oral but authoritative apostolic tradition into writing in order, apparently, to solidify it for the pneumatic Corinthians (1 Cor 15:1–8).[16] The Corinthians knew this tradition, for Paul had “passed on” to them its contents. Yet he does not feel it sufficient to say simply, “Remember the tradition I gave you”; instead he commits it to writing in order to crystallize it. The solidifying of the authoritative apostolic tradition in response to gnostic heresy, then, began long before Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion. The canon originated with the commissioning of the apostles by Jesus and began to be committed to writing as early as Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

It is understandable, therefore, that Ignatius should appeal to the apostolic tradition in his epistles, and place the authority of that tradition far above the authority of his own instruction. When writing to the Romans he says, “I do not order you as did Peter and Paul; they were apostles, I am a convict” (4:3; cf. Ign. Eph. 3:1; Magn. 6:1; Trall. 3:3). And it is significant support for the acceptance of the documents of our NT as apostolic that very seldom do we find specific quotations of or allusions to one NT document in another, in fact we never find an instance of this which cannot be ascribed to a common underlying tradition.[17] This is in stark contrast to the noncanonical literature of the early church from the Didache onward, which is studded with quotations of and allusions to the NT.

Moreover, the early church began to regard the books of the NT as inspired in a unique sense, setting them apart even further from its unauthoritative, nonapostolic literature. The school of canon scholarship represented by A. Sundberg, K. Stendahl and E. Kalin, of course, would passionately contradict this statement; but their arguments do not appear to be well founded. Sundberg claims that inspiration was not a criterion used by the early fathers in deciding which books should be placed in the canon. The concept of a uniquely inspired canon of Scripture, he says, dates not to Jesus nor to the apostolic fathers, but to the sixteenth century. Jesus and his disciples, according to Sundberg, adhered to an open canon and taught that the whole Christian community was inspired. This attitude is also evident in the apostolic fathers who spoke of their own writings as inspired in the same way that they spoke of the inspiration of Scripture.[18]

This argument, however, contains serious omissions. First, while it is not the purpose here to enter into debate on the OT canon, Sundberg’s idea that Jesus and his followers had no defined canon of Scripture has not satisfactorily dealt with the objection that Jesus often quoted the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Prophets[19] but never quoted anything outside the Jamnian canon of Scripture. We may question, therefore, whether the early church did indeed inherit a “loose” concept of inspiration from Jesus.

But second, and far more important for the purpose here, Sundberg’s thesis that the early fathers did not consider the apostles uniquely inspired must be called into question. Jesus himself gave his disciples a special portion of the Holy Spirit for the completion of the apostolic commission (John 16:13; 20:22), and the early fathers recognized this apostolic authority to be unique. Clement speaks of Paul as being full of alētheias pneumatikōs, “true inspiration,” a considerably more powerful description than that which he applies to himself. (His own letter is “written through the Holy Spirit.”)[20] Athenagoras, moreover, speaks of the OT prophets as “lifted in ecstasy above the natural operations of their minds by the impulses of the Divine Spirit…the Spirit making use of them as a flute-player breathes into a flute.”[21] Origen says that all who read them will “feel a trace of their divine inspiration and will be convinced by his own feelings that the words are not the composition of men.”[22] Kalin would deny that such ideas were transferred to the written apostolic tradition only and claim that they were seen as adhering in the whole Christian community. But even though the NT does teach that every believer is to some extent inbreathed by God, it is difficult to see how such vivid and mechanical ideas as that of Athenagoras could have been applied to all believers and writings which were faithful to the apostolic tradition. Rather, the reading of documents considered to carry the Christ-given apostolic authority within the church assembly shows that the early Christians did regard these documents as inspired to an unparalleled degree in accord with their unique authority. This authority and inspiration appears to have been decisive for delimiting the canon.[23]

The apostolic origin of the NT writings was, therefore, of utmost importance for their authority and consequently for their canonicity. The apostles were uniquely commissioned by Jesus, and the early church made no mistake in considering them uniquely inspired. In fact, in emphasizing in the face of gnosticism the need for canonical documents to have apostolic authority (if not apostolic authorship), they were only underscoring a principle which had existed in the church since the days of Jesus himself. The apostolic authority which the apostles derived from Jesus would have attached itself to both the oral and the written apostolic tradition.

W. G. Kümmel is therefore in error when he says that “the canon is much more a factual reality than the realization of a theological concept.”[24] It is indeed the realization of the theological concept of inspired apostolic authority. Whether or not the early church, the apostles, and Jesus himself were in error in using such a theological concept, and whether truly apostolic documents were the only ones included in the church’s final delimitation of the canon are subjects for another study. But both the concept and the application of it by the early church have been ably defended by evangelical scholarship.[25]

The ramifications of this historical reconstruction are wide for both the canon-within-the-canon and the unity-through-contradiction arguments against the traditional canon. Käsemann argues that in light of the “irreconcilable theological contradictions” in the canon, Christians must engage in the theological task of “discerning the spirits,” of separating the Word of God from the canon. The problem with such an approach, however, is that the basis for authority is destroyed. My canon within the canon may be quite different from Käsemann’s. I may choose the docetic Christ of John and the works principle of James to inform my theology. Who is to say which canon is correct? Käsemann would insist that this charge of subjectivism is false; but it is difficult to see on what grounds. The choice, he would say, is not his but that of “the Gospel.” But as Küng asks, how is it that one can be confronted with the gospel in Romans and not in John? Why is Käsemann compelled to discern between good and bad spirits in the NT rather than between kinds of good spirit?[26] In the end, Käsemann can only rely upon dogmatic assertion to establish his inner canon—the same expedient which he has sought to avoid by means of his critical attitude toward NT theology.

Küng offers a perceptive critique of Käsemann’s position; but his own scheme is also open to the charge of “arbitrary subjectivism.”[27] He would opt for seeing the contradictory theological strands within the NT as the basis for ecumenical unity. The differences among the NT documents are all derived differences having to do with the particular situation to which the document was written. The NT has a central core around which all of these divergent interpretations revolve, and thus to allow validity to only one part of these derived interpretations is “choice, i.e. heresy.”[28] Canonical diversity calls us to unity.

Küng has made a necessary statement concerning the need to allow Christians who do not adhere to our particular interpretation of various peripheral issues the freedom to differ. But as Raymond Brown says, he has made the problem too simple, for in practice he too adheres to the canon of early Catholic developments within the NT canon.[29]

J. D. G. Dunn, a Protestant, has sought to avoid this charge by admitting that “Like it or not all Christians have operated and continue to operate with a canon within the NT canon.”[30] The function of the canon for Dunn, then, is to show “the ranges of acceptable diversity but also the limits of acceptable diversity.”[31] This sounds charitable and reasonable until we realize “how few the essentials are and how wide must be the range of acceptable liberty.”32 Not surprisingly, he goes on to assert that the canon does not allow “the contemporary situation to dictate the message and perspectives of its faith.”[33] But how, on the view of either Dunn or Küng is this possible? Both claim that the writers of the NT were so conditioned by the situations out of which and into which they wrote that they sometimes expressed contradictory or lame theological viewpoints. All that is left for either writer is his gospel core and whatever canon within the canon he happens to see and choose to follow. But since neither is able to assert his canon as authoritative, it seems that he must allow the contemporary situation to dictate the message and perspectives of his faith. If he does not, then it is difficult to see what message or perspective he is left with. If Käsemann depends upon the subjectivism of his own feelings to show him “the gospel” within the canon, Dunn must rely upon the subjectivism of his own feelings about whatever contemporary situation confronts him to inform his “canon” at that moment.[34]

R. Brown recognizes this problem and using the example of Paul claims that “only the Church, guided by and guiding scholarly investigation, can tell us how much of Paul’s thought is God’s revelation for his people.”[35] But what is the practical meaning of this sentence? Either scholarship is guiding the church or the church is guiding scholarship: but the pleasant thought of having it both ways only means that both are going around in circles and does not reflect reality. Brown then goes on to caution his readers that even though the NT writers were conditioned by their times and often wrote from viewpoints that today are unacceptable, they should not think that “they can quickly or easily recognize” the “time conditioned mentality” of the writers when it appears. Such a caution is little comfort when we consider that the alternative to relying upon ourselves for choosing our canon is to rely upon finite scholars or a corruptible institution.

Dunn and Küng, then, have discovered the theological difficulty with Käsemann’s position. Brown likewise has noticed problems with both Küng and Käsemann. But Brown himself relies upon the church and scholarship to say what is authoritative in the canon and has not escaped the problems of subjectivity which Dunn and Küng encounter. Indeed each position only shows the confusion over authority which must plague every Christian who has denied the Christ-invested, apostolic authority of the entire canon. The canon is the written deposit of the apostolic witness which Christ commissioned, and as such prevails over institutions, the contemporary situation, personal feelings, and even scholarship. A certain amount of diversity is undeniable; but it does not extend to contradiction, for God cannot contradict himself. Once proper historical exegesis is performed, the divinely commissioned apostolic witness to the gospel must emerge as self-consistent and authoritative, and it is not naive, then, to expect the canon to be infallible, consistent, and unified.

The canon-within-the-canon view denies the authority of the entire canon because it sees it as inconsistent; the unity-through-contradiction view canonizes the inconsistency. The apostolic-authority view, however, denies that the apostolic witness, since its commission originates with God, can be inconsistent. It is therefore spared the subjectivity of the other views and recognizes that because the NT canon derives its authority from Christ himself, anything less than submission to it in its entirety is a neglect of the whole counsel of God.

Notes

1. Christ and the Bible (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972) 159.
2. The classic statement of Käsemann’s position is found in his essay “The New Testament and the Unity of the Church” (Essays on New Testament Themes [London: SCM, 1964] 95–107).
3. G. Wainwright, “New Testament as Canon,” SJT 28 (1975) 559.
4. “The New Testament Canon in Recent Study,” In! 29 (1975) 339.
5. The Problem of the New Testament Canon (Oxford: The University Press, 1962) 30.
6. “Canon and Theological Variety: A Study in the Pauline Tradition,” ZNW 67 (1976) 89.
7. Küng’s position is stated in his essay “‘Early Catholicism’ in the New Testament as a Problem in Controversial Theology” (The Council in Action: Theological Reflections on the Second Vatican Council [New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963] 159–95). Dunn’s thesis is given exhaustive expression in his book Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977).
8. See Küng, “Catholicism,” 183–89.
9. H. von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972) 333.
10. Ibid.
11. See especially D. Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1981). Guthrie’s stated purpose includes “demonstrating the considerable amount of unity within the NT” in order to offset the “prevailing tendency to stress the diversity” (p. 17). This task is both valid and crucial to maintaining the authority of the NT canon for present-day Christianity. It is therefore disturbing to read evangelicals criticizing Guthrie’s desire to stress the unity of NT theology as, for example, G. Fee does in his review of Guthrie’s book (CBQ 44 [1982] 509: “For many such uncritical blendings will militate against the book as a whole”).
12. See, for example, R. M. Grant, The Cambridge History of the Bible (3 vols.; ed. P. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans; Cambridge: The University Press, 1970) 1.284-308.
13. H. Ridderbos, The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1963), and Simon Kistemaker, “Canon of the New Testament,” JETS 20 (1977) 3–14. Cf. C. F. D. Moule’s statement (The Birth of the New Testament [3rd ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1982] 236–7): “The twelve evidently constituted the earliest Christian ‘canon’ or measuring-rod—the standard by which the authenticity of the Church’s message was to be gauged, for the duration of their lifetime.” After the death of the last of the twelve, Moule explains, the search began for guarantees of the claims of the church. These were found in written records. “With the appeal to ‘the Lord and the Apostles’ begins an inevitable process of development leading to accredited writings” (p.239).
14. Authority, 13.
15. See W. Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971).
16. Kistemaker, “Canon,” 12.
17. The famous essay, “On the Inter-relation of 1 Peter and other N. T. Epistles,” in E. G. Selwyn’s Commentary on The First Epistle of St. Peter (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981) makes this point with exhaustive research and admirable clarity.
18. Sundberg makes these points on a technical level in “The Bible Canon and the Christian Doctrine of Inspiration,” Int 29 (1975) 352–71, and on a more popular level in “The Making of the New Testament Canon,” Interpreter’s One Volume Commentary on the Bible (ed. C. M. Layman; Nashville: Abingdon, 1971) 1216–24. Kalin’s scheme is almost identical and appears in “The Inspired Community: A Glance at Canon History,” CTM 42 (1971) 205–8.
19. J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology (London: SCM, 1971) 1.205-8.
20. 1 Clem. 47:1–3; cf. 63:2. This example is also used by Sundberg (“Making,” 1217), who sees the two sentences as referring to the same phenomenon. But the sentences could just as easily be interpreted in the manner suggested above, and should be read this way in light of the other evidence adduced.
21. Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians, chap. 9 (ANF 2.133).
22. On First Principles 4.1.6 Ellen Flesseman-van Leer (“Prinzipen der Sammlung und Ausscheidung bei der Bildung des Kanons,” ZTK 61 [1964] 404–20, esp. p. 418) uses evidence from Origen to conclude, “Es scheint, dass im Osten eine Zeitlang ein anderes Kriterium prävalierte: die Inspiration.”
23. Cf. C. H. Dodd, The Authority of the Bible (London: Nisbet, 1960) 187. Theo Donner has made the point more recently in “Some Thoughts on the History of the New Testament Canon,” Themelios 7 (1982) 23–27.
24. Introduction to the New Testament (rev. ed.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1975) 509. Kümmel is quoting O. Weber.
25. See, for example, D. Guthrie, New Testament Introduction (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1978).
26. “Catholicism,” 173.
27. This is the charge which Küng (“Catholicism,” 175) levels at Käsemann.
28. Ibid., 188.
29. “Canonicity,” JBC, 533.
30. Unity and Diversity, 375.
31. Ibid., 387.
32. Ibid., 377.
33. Ibid., 387.
34. E. Best (“Scripture, Tradition and the Canon of the New Testament,” BJRL 61 [1978-79] 258–89) has sought to solve this dilemma by claiming that the NT documents are still of great value as the first “freezings” of the tradition. They are of objective value as correctives to later interpretations which may be imperceptibly led away from the original revelation. But Best’s suggestion is no solution for two reasons. First, he seems to have had in mind only a part of the canon in his argument; while it appears valid for the four gospels, Acts and Paul, would it work equally well for 2 Peter or Revelation? Many would argue that 1 Clement or the epistles of Ignatius, chronologically written at the same time as or before these documents, are “better” freezings of the tradition than 2 Peter or Revelation, yet they are not canonical. Second, Best’s contention that each transformation, despite its greater profundity, stands in need of correction by the original freezing does not necessarily hold. Some have claimed that Wesley’s sermons are far more inspired than, for example, 2 Peter. Thus a second transformation may reform the first transformation (in this case 2 Peter) to a more “canonical” position. It is, therefore, difficult to see why on Best’s theory, “the freezings we call the NT are…the most useful,” or in what sense they are “primary” and “essential” (pp. 288-89). Best’s attempt to preserve the canon as objectively useful in modern Christianity despite his belief that it is not authoritative in its entirety is, therefore, futile.
35. “Canonicity,” 533.