How the New Testament Canon was Formed

The New Testament Canon , Part 1
The most commonly asked question directed at me when I speak on university campuses or in churches is, "How was the New Testament formed?" Because the church has always believed that the documents found in the NT are "inspired" writings and the most important source documents for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (and Christian doctrine), this is not only a good question, but a critical one.

My initial understanding of this issue took place around 30 years ago when I took a New Testament survey course as a freshman in college. Our text was Merrill Tenney's New Testament Survey (Eerdmans 1961). In this text Tenney presents the following criteria to have been observed by the early church in the formation of the canon:
- the author must have either been an apostle or a close associate of an apostle
- the document cannot contradict other "inspired" writings with respect to doctrinal teaching
- the document must share the overall "feel" and "character" of other inspired writings, AND
- it must have been cited by early Christian writers and be accepted by the majority of churches

Although these criteria sound reasonable, one cannot find a clearly described methodology like this in the patristic writings. Many early writings were accepted as inspired by some church fathers, yet failed to meet one or more of these conditions.

I believe Tenney must have also mentioned that the canon was confirmed at a church council - this point stuck in my head for years and many people have echoed this belief over the years. In fact, the exact list of NT documents was confirmed at the third Synod of Carthage (397 AD), but this was only a regional council and by this time the 27 NT documents had already been agreed upon by most of the church...but there were some exceptions.

A Natural Delivery
The NT was NOT dropped from heaven.
The NT was NOT delivered by an angel.
The NT was NOT dug up in a farmer's field as golden plates like the Book of Mormon.
The NT was NOT suddenly "discovered" in a clay jar with 27 "books" intact like the Dea Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi texts.

The NT canon developed, or evolved, over the course of the first 250-300 years of Christian history. If the NT had been delivered by an angel, or unearthed as a complete unit it would not be as believable. Part of the historical validity of the NT comes from the fact that we can trace its development, albeit not as precisely as we might like.

I will attempt to trace this development from the introduction of the gospels to the highly disputed Revelation of St John. I intend to do this in several parts, along with the content of the first four centuries, so you can "see" this development within the proper historical context.

Oral Tradition
Oral tradition was the normal mode for communicating the teachings of a master in the ancient world. For one thing, before the use of papyrus was widespread writing was both clumsy and expensive. Using a stylus on a clay tablet worked, but once the clay dried no "corrections" or "edits" could be made. Writing on a scroll made of an animal skin was certainly an improvement, but was still limited. The widespread use of papyrus for the ancient world was like the coming of the internet in the modern world - a virtual explosion of written communication began.

Once great teachings began to circulate in written form ancient writers continued to be skeptical of using the written word. There was a sense that it fell far short for the communication of treasured knowledge. Church historian Eusebius relates this thinking from the fragments of Papias,

Irenaeus (A.H. V.33,3-4) quotes another passage from Papias where the author tells us that he knew the apostle John. This represents one of the earliest references to an early oral tradition within Christianity - Papias is writing down what he remembered hearing from the mouth of John, Polycarp, and others - so he is writing down oral tradition.

Oral Tradition and the words of Jesus
The words of Jesus were recognized as inspired very soon after the resurrection, yet it was 2-3 decades before his words were circulated in written form. We have one clear example of oral tradition in the NT when Paul is addressing the Ephesian elders,

This citation is especially interesting since Luke, the author of Acts, does not record this saying in his own gospel. In fact, this agrapha, from the Greek word "unwritten," does not appear in any of the four canonical gospels and is a witness to the sayings of Jesus being transmitted in an oral tradition.

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The New Testament Canon, Part 2
Many Christian scholars disagree with the theory that the sayings of Jesus were initially transmitted in an oral tradition. The concern is that this would threaten the integrity of his message, and thus threaten the validity of the gospel tradition. This section of how the NT was formed is more problematic and it should be remembered that the task for the historian is to present the evidence as objectively as possible, always acknowledging that we are working with theories of events that happened 2,000 years ago for which we do not have ALL the evidence.

Probably as early as the late 40's the oral traditions that carried the words of Jesus began to be put into writing. This probably happened in order to protect the integrity of the message, to keep only 'authoritative' sayings intact. The Nag Hammadi texts seem to shed light on this phase of the gospel development. The Nag Hammadi Library, is a collection of thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty texts, discovered in the Egyptian desert in 1945, sealed in a large clay jar. The story of this discovery is the stuff of an adventure novel and can be found in summary form online at www.answers.com - the full story is found in the introduction of The Nag Hammadi Library in English by James Robinson (pp.22-24, rev.ed., HarperCollins Paperback, New York-1990).

Within the Nag Hammadi texts was a Gospel of Thomas which appears to be nothing more than a collection of 'sayings' and stories, not written with any recognizable chronological or thematic order. Some of the sayings are almost identical parallels found in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) - Saying 9, for example is the parable of the sower. Yet others are not only different, but bizarre. Just one example will serve to make the point and keep this discussion moving forward:

It is likely that the early leaders began to hear odd sayings like this one and determined that an authoritative set of sayings needed to be recorded. Most scholars believe that Mark's gospel was the first of the four NT gospels written, followed by Matthew and Luke. The dates given vary widely from the early 60's (for Mark) into the 80's (for Luke). The difficulty with dating comes from the fact that early writers, like Paul for example, do not quote from any of the four gospels. Clear quotations do not begin to appear until the early second century. Even more liberal scholars would not suggest a second century date for the synoptic gospels, thus the lack of quotations are attributed to a slow pace for copying and circulating these documents. Papyrus does not become widely and commonly used outside the Egyptian region until the second century...and that is where our discussion of the NT canon will pick up.

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The New Testament Canon, Part 3
We have seen that most of the earliest non-NT Christian documents cite the OT as “scripture” and only make allusion to what is now NT text. Ignatius of Antioch is full of allusions to, and paraphrases of, NT texts. It is only when we come to the second century apologists that verified citations from what we now call NT texts begin to be common.

In the 140's Marcion constructed his own canon which included most of Paul's letters in edited form, along with Luke's gospel. Marcion rejected the other gospels as having been tainted by the Jews. This list by Marcion is the first known listing of what is called a New Testament canon.

Justin Martyr does not cite any NT writing by name, but he designates his several NT citations with “it is recorded,” or the “memoirs of the apostles.” He refers to the “Gospels” saying,

Sometime around 170-175 Tatian, possibly a disciple of Justin, created a harmony of the four orthodox gospels known as the Diatessaron. This text was accepted in some circles, even being used to replace the four gospels, but this success was short lived. What this harmony reveals, however, is that the church recognized four gospels.

The four gospels are confirmed by Irenaeus of Lyons in Against the Heresies (cir. 175),

Irenaeus also quotes from, or alludes to, almost all the documents that become the orthodox NT. These citations are mostly from Pauline works (25+ occurrences from each of these: Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians). His Pauline citations/allusions include all three "Pastoral" epistles. The other general NT letters get scant recognition and a few are totally absent (Philemon, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude). He also refers to a few non-NT documents as “inspired” (1 Clement, Shepherd of Hermas).

By the time we come to the end of the second century and look at the citations of Clement of Alexandria (writings cir. 195-202) and Tertullian (writings cir. 205-225) we find hundreds of references from almost every NT document. The NT writings that are excluded by these two men are very similar to that of Irenaeus, but Clement then includes many writings as “scripture” that did not get final acceptance. One can take the citations from Clement and Tertullian and reconstruct the entire NT excluding the 4 or 5 small epistles which they neglect. Indeed, this is a very important factor from this point forward - “Did Clement/Tertullian cite from it?” These are the first two prolific Christian writers. From this point forward we find an increasing number of fathers writings great numbers of documents filled with biblical citations.

The Muratorian canon is a manuscript fragment that represents the oldest known list (or canon) of the New Testament. The beginning and ending of the MS is missing. The document is dated by most scholars about 170 AD. It was discovered in a library in Italy by Ludovico Antonio Muratori, a famous historian of the time. This list consists of the following:
- (Matthew and Mark were apparently named in the beginning of the fragment which is missing)
- Luke and John
- Acts
- all 13 of Paul's letters
- 1 and 2 John is assumed since the writer only names two letters of John
- Jude
- the Revelation of John

This listing omits Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. It also names a few documents that do NOT appear in the orthodox NT.

So by the middle of the second century most of the 27 documents in the orthodox NT canon had already gained widespread acceptance, especially the four gospels. It is critical to understand the importance of why only four gospels were accepted. These early fathers were very familiar with the other gospels that were floating around – Marcion's gospel of Luke, the various gnostic gospels, and other “proto-orthodox” gospels that simply were not well accepted.

Gnosticism was at its zenith during the second century. There were many Gnostic texts and many orthodox ones as well that did not make the NT canon. Most of the documents that were not accepted had too many bizarre texts and thus did not have a large following. One aspect of why a gospel/document was affirmed to be in the NT was how much acceptance it received among the churches in various regions. This acceptance was also reflected in if, and how much, the church fathers cited the document.

In our next section on the NT we will illustrate some of the bizarre texts that one finds in the various documents that failed to make the orthodox NT canon.

The New Testament Canon, Part 4
As we stated at the end of our last section, Gnosticism reached its zenith in the second century, particularly in Egypt. The development of the New Testament in the second century necessitates some discussion of Gnostic texts. The proliferation of Gnostic texts forced church leaders to address these texts and explain why the church had to reject them. We do not have the space to look at Gnosticism to any great degree - I am not an expert in the subject - this section will focus on the bizarre nature of the Gnostic texts.
For more on Gnosticism, see the discussion on The Initial Heresies and Heretics.
You can also read An Introduction to Gnostic Texts.

It is important to understand that many ancient texts have some bizarre passages - the NT has some strange passages as well, and one must be ready to admit this before launching an attack against strange gnostic texts. For example,

I know there are many who have given explanation for these passages - I have just read 2-3 explanations for both of these, and none satisfy me 100% - my point is simply to say that we must admit that there are some strange passages in our NT documents that cannot be easily explained. I could list many more. And if you read the early fathers you will find many strange passages as well. One can give some explanation for the strange gnostic passages, but even with the proper historical context bizarre is...well, bizarre. The gospel contained in the New Testament is powerful because it is profound - taking the complicated and making it exceedingly simple to understand. These gnostic texts are just not easy to grasp.

Gospel of Thomas
Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which the man shall eat, and the lion become man; and cursed is the man whom the lion shall eat, and the lion become man."   Gospel of Thomas 7

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper side as the lower; and when you make the male and the female into a single one, that the male be not male and the female female; when you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom]."   Gospel of Thomas 22

For those who attack Christianity for being male dominated and somehow think the gnostics were more favorable to women:

Simon Peter said to them: "Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy of the life." Jesus said: "Behold, I shall lead her, that I may make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter into the kingdom of heaven."   Gospel of Thomas 114

This page to be completed later.

Read my paper, An Introduction to Gnostic Texts.

If you would like to use this article in a class or have it in a print-friendly format:
download the paper.