The Da Vinci Code Tidbits
Christians and others need to understand something of the history surrounding the emergence of what we now call the New Testament. In a nutshell books were written by different authors during the 1st century AD about Jesus’ life and ministry and about happenings in the Christian communities of the time. Such books would be recommended for reading in Churches and if they were approved for such use in any widespread way they would begin to wield authority within the Churches.Then such books would be copied and circulated even more widely and collections of them would emerge. Some books from they were written were readily accepted as spiritually valuable for public reading in Churches whereas others though recommended and even used in some Churches, had questions raised about them and yet others were rejected as not suitable for public reading in worship from day one.
Over the first four centuries of this era there were, at times, heated controversies about certain books that are now in the New Testament canon (or list of books generally approved as scripture based on authorship, date, content, and use in Churches). The New Testament books that attracted quite a bit of controversy were James, Hebrews, 2 Peter, Jude, 2-3 John, and Revelation.
From time to time and in some sections of the Christian Church other books that are not now in the New Testament canon came up for strong mention and some were even being quoted as scripture by a few of the early Church leaders (called Church Fathers). The most popular of such books were The Epistle of Barnabas (late 1st or early 2nd century, not to be confused with the much later Gospel of Barnabas, beloved by Muslims but mentioned by name only in the 5th century AD, the first text appearing only in the 15th or 16th century AD), Shepherd of Hermas (early 2nd cent.), Didache (early 2nd cent.), and the Apocalypse of Peter (late 2nd or early 3rd cent.)
Over time, none of these gained wide enough recognition-in-use among the churches because of one or more of the following reasons; doubtful authenticity, uncertain origin, non-apostolic authorship or late dating.
Interestingly, not one single Gnostic text, with the possible exception of the Gospel of Thomas (essentially sayings of Jesus) features in the centuries old controversies about books that were being used in public worship in the churches. To say then a book was left out of the canon when such a book never even came up for consideration is begging the question far too much.
Dan Brown’s fictional historian Leigh Teabing is out of his depths when he alleges that Constantine somehow tampered with the New Testament. Those who argue that King James did likewise are in the same unenviable position as Teabing. To change anything in a New Testament book or the Bible one would have to do the impossible.
To illustrate with the New Testament, that one would have to gather up from across the then known world, not just most of but every single one of, the tens of papyri, the hundreds of uncials (script in caps only), the thousands of miniscules (script in cursive) and lectionaries (selected passages for reading in worship services) as well as the thousands of quotations in the writings of the early Church Fathers in Greek, Latin and other languages, uniformly correct or destroy all of these and produce the doctored version for copying and distribution.
Sensible people in the modern world have to cultivate the discipline of not being fooled by nice sounding nonsense. Substance must be much more important than style.
The main concern of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 was not the canon but the relationship of the Son to the Father in Eternity (following the controversy between Alexander bishop of Alexandria and one of his presbyters, Arius, in 318 or 319 over Alexander’s sermon “The Great Mystery of the Trinity in Unity”).
©Rev. Clinton A. Chisholm, August, 2006
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4 Responses
Good article. Actually needed some of this info for a discussion i was having.
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Great article chis i find it very refreshing and this would settle argument on the origin of the NT.
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Clinton Chisholm Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Yes Carson though concise the essential pointers are there.
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