Allow me to preface with an apology for any rehashing that may be done in my attempted response as I would like to take this opportunity to organize my thoughts on assorted topics that have at least some relevance to the topic at hand. I feel I have very limited credentials to speak on much of what has been raised and for that reason I will give more treatment to some of the issues than others.
First, as to the origins of the canon. I’m sure it goes without being said that, as far as we know, none of the New Testament writers wrote with the intention of having their works canonized. So how’d it happen? I appreciate your five possible logical explanations for why the NT canon came together and I realize what I am about to say furthers the plight of the skeptic, but is it possible that the gathering of the canon came about by way of supernatural guidance? It would be nice to assume that closer to the event of Jesus’ incarnation there would be a deeper spirituality among God’s people. We are talking about people who supposed lived within just a few generations of the most revolutionary figure in all of history. These people’s great grandparents had seen Jesus. You get the idea. So perhaps their faith was so strong and God’s plan was so out of the ordinary that he used unparalleled guidance by the Holy Spirit to direct those responsible for assembling the canon very specifically as to what to include and what not and so on and so forth.
Moving on to the dating of the Biblical texts. I think the dating of the book of Acts is imperative in the dating of the gospels, which I would say is the most important dates we need to get right. We know that Acts was the second part of a letter written by Luke to “His Excellency” Theophilus. Accepting the assumption that Luke is a reliable historian (which I might add is the normal supposition made when examining the writing of all other historical figures [innocent until proven guilty]) one must wonder why Luke does not include two things in the book of Acts: 1. The Destruction of the Temple- AD 70 2. The death of the Apostle Paul (one of the book’s central figures)- AD 62. If you are willing to follow out the logic, you’d see that the reasonable explanation would be that the book of Acts would have been written before either of these two crucial dates. Going backwards, that would mean that the Gospel of Luke came before AD 62 and since Luke contains parts of Mark, as does Matthew, (Mark being the earliest Gospel) we have the Gospel of Mark being written very near Jesus’ death. Even if you don’t buy into that argument, consider this: Scholars, even liberals, put Mark in the 70s, Matthew and Luke in the 80s, and John in the 90s (generally). So, that is a window anywhere from about 40-70 years of Jesus’ death. That is two generations at best. Compare that with the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great (I owe such a comparison to Lee Strobel). His two earliest biographies were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than four hundred years after his death in 323 BC. Historians consider these to be generally trustworthy. In the case of Jesus, we are talking about twice as many biographies in less than a fourth of the time.
Finally, in regards to the Bible being “self-authoritative”. We know that the NT’s authority is rooted in the apostles who are the foundation of the household of God (Eph. 2:20). This makes sense since Jesus promised in John 16:13-14, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” So, ultimately, the NT’s authority is rooted in Jesus and we can work backwards from there to hear what Jesus said about the OT like Matt. 5:18 where Jesus claims, “truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” And I am sure you are familiar with tons of other NT verses like that that affirm the OT’s canonicity. I realize that it gets a little hairy to tell a skeptic, “the Bible is the Word of God because it says it is the Word of God and since it’s the Word of God I believe it.” But think of it this way. Imagine in a court of law the prosecutor is making his case for why he thinks the defendant is guilty and the defense attorney rises to object. The judge asks on what grounds does he object and he responds, “On the grounds that the prosecutor who is making this case actually believes the case he is making is true.” That is, analogously, what the authors of the Bible are so often accused of. I think this is especially prevalent when skeptics look at the gospel writers. They claim, “oh, these people had an agenda, therefore the fabricated nonsense they recorded is just that, nonsense.” But to borrow an analogy from Strobel:
Some people, usually for anti-Semitic purposes, deny or downplay the horrors of the Holocaust. But it has been the Jewish scholars who’ve created museums, written books, preserves artifacts, and documented eyewitness testimony concerning the Holocaust.
Now they have a very ideological purpose – namely, to ensure that such an atrocity never occurs again – but they have also been the most faithful and objective in their reporting of historical truth.
So it is with the gospel-writers. I recognize much of my focus has been on the gospels specifically rather than our broader intended scope of the entire Bible, but I really feel like Jesus has to be the starting point in apologetics. Seriously, if we measure time (or used to before they came up with the politically correct BCE/CE crap) according to the time of the man’s death he probably should be where we start when it comes to defending/working out our faith’s issues.
First, as to the origins of the canon. I’m sure it goes without being said that, as far as we know, none of the New Testament writers wrote with the intention of having their works canonized. So how’d it happen? I appreciate your five possible logical explanations for why the NT canon came together and I realize what I am about to say furthers the plight of the skeptic, but is it possible that the gathering of the canon came about by way of supernatural guidance? It would be nice to assume that closer to the event of Jesus’ incarnation there would be a deeper spirituality among God’s people. We are talking about people who supposed lived within just a few generations of the most revolutionary figure in all of history. These people’s great grandparents had seen Jesus. You get the idea. So perhaps their faith was so strong and God’s plan was so out of the ordinary that he used unparalleled guidance by the Holy Spirit to direct those responsible for assembling the canon very specifically as to what to include and what not and so on and so forth.
Moving on to the dating of the Biblical texts. I think the dating of the book of Acts is imperative in the dating of the gospels, which I would say is the most important dates we need to get right. We know that Acts was the second part of a letter written by Luke to “His Excellency” Theophilus. Accepting the assumption that Luke is a reliable historian (which I might add is the normal supposition made when examining the writing of all other historical figures [innocent until proven guilty]) one must wonder why Luke does not include two things in the book of Acts: 1. The Destruction of the Temple- AD 70 2. The death of the Apostle Paul (one of the book’s central figures)- AD 62. If you are willing to follow out the logic, you’d see that the reasonable explanation would be that the book of Acts would have been written before either of these two crucial dates. Going backwards, that would mean that the Gospel of Luke came before AD 62 and since Luke contains parts of Mark, as does Matthew, (Mark being the earliest Gospel) we have the Gospel of Mark being written very near Jesus’ death. Even if you don’t buy into that argument, consider this: Scholars, even liberals, put Mark in the 70s, Matthew and Luke in the 80s, and John in the 90s (generally). So, that is a window anywhere from about 40-70 years of Jesus’ death. That is two generations at best. Compare that with the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great (I owe such a comparison to Lee Strobel). His two earliest biographies were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than four hundred years after his death in 323 BC. Historians consider these to be generally trustworthy. In the case of Jesus, we are talking about twice as many biographies in less than a fourth of the time.
Finally, in regards to the Bible being “self-authoritative”. We know that the NT’s authority is rooted in the apostles who are the foundation of the household of God (Eph. 2:20). This makes sense since Jesus promised in John 16:13-14, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” So, ultimately, the NT’s authority is rooted in Jesus and we can work backwards from there to hear what Jesus said about the OT like Matt. 5:18 where Jesus claims, “truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” And I am sure you are familiar with tons of other NT verses like that that affirm the OT’s canonicity. I realize that it gets a little hairy to tell a skeptic, “the Bible is the Word of God because it says it is the Word of God and since it’s the Word of God I believe it.” But think of it this way. Imagine in a court of law the prosecutor is making his case for why he thinks the defendant is guilty and the defense attorney rises to object. The judge asks on what grounds does he object and he responds, “On the grounds that the prosecutor who is making this case actually believes the case he is making is true.” That is, analogously, what the authors of the Bible are so often accused of. I think this is especially prevalent when skeptics look at the gospel writers. They claim, “oh, these people had an agenda, therefore the fabricated nonsense they recorded is just that, nonsense.” But to borrow an analogy from Strobel:
Some people, usually for anti-Semitic purposes, deny or downplay the horrors of the Holocaust. But it has been the Jewish scholars who’ve created museums, written books, preserves artifacts, and documented eyewitness testimony concerning the Holocaust.
Now they have a very ideological purpose – namely, to ensure that such an atrocity never occurs again – but they have also been the most faithful and objective in their reporting of historical truth.
So it is with the gospel-writers. I recognize much of my focus has been on the gospels specifically rather than our broader intended scope of the entire Bible, but I really feel like Jesus has to be the starting point in apologetics. Seriously, if we measure time (or used to before they came up with the politically correct BCE/CE crap) according to the time of the man’s death he probably should be where we start when it comes to defending/working out our faith’s issues.
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