The Canon of the New Testament

I covered how the New Testament has been extraordinarily preserved

and how this ensures that we have access to the original readings

and the original words of the apostles.

And last week, I spoke about the accuracy of the New Testament

and I covered how the New Testament is historically reliable,

how it's accurate, how it's true,

and how it can be corroborated by the historical record.

And this extends even to the deeds and words of Christ,

even to his miracles.

In fact, we talked about last week how non-Christians,

even ancient anti-Christians,

confessed that Jesus performed miracles.

And so because of all these things,

we can conclude that the New Testament claims are worthy of our trust

and especially so when it speaks about Jesus' resurrection.

So today we've got our final topic.

We're going to be talking about the canonicity of the New Testament.

And with this, I'm going to go over questions like

who decided what books were in the New Testament?

And how was the New Testament put together?

And what about those false gospels we hear about sometimes?

Why aren't those in the Bible?

If you're like me, you might have heard of a lot of questions

or even concerns about these things.

You might have wondered about those things yourselves.

You might wonder if someone messed up.

Maybe someone put something in there that shouldn't be there.

Maybe someone took something out that should be there.

So today I want us to consider these questions

and we'll look at the answers that we have for them.

And my hope is that after today,

you'll see a glimpse of how God has worked by His Holy Spirit

to not just inspire and preserve the New Testament,

but also to assemble it.

So before we talk about how the New Testament was assembled,

I need to tell you what the New Testament is.

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books and letters

that were written or supervised by Jesus' apostles.

And these apostles were the ones commissioned to have authority

to teach and preach the gospel of Jesus

and to explain Christian doctrine.

Now there's a lot of confusion and some false theories

about who decided what these apostolic documents included,

who assembled them into the New Testament.

You've likely heard some of these false theories.

You might even believe some of these false theories.

So I think that it would be good for me to start our time off

by going through these theories one by one.

Some of these mistaken theories are false theories.

So let's get started.

So the first false theory on how the New Testament got put together,

I call this one the Bible dropped down from heaven theory.

And people often don't put it in so many words,

but basically this theory assumes that the Bible,

the New Testament was created outside of history,

that it was done without human hands,

and that it was presented to us here on earth in complete form.

Now, of course, this is not how the Old Testament

and the New Testament were written or how they were put together,

and both of them are very clear on this.

If you just glance at it, you'll see how God fit to inspire humans

to write his word over many centuries and in many lands.

And as we'll see, he also inspired humans to put his word together.

So this Bible dropped down from heaven theory isn't true.

But there's another theory on how the Bible,

and especially the New Testament, was put together,

and I call this one the conspiracy theory.

This theory maintains that sometime in the 4th century,

300 years after Jesus, the Roman Emperor Constantine,

or an early pope, they plotted or colluded to manufacture the New Testament.

Constantine, of course, is known as the first Christian emperor.

He came to power in the early 300s A.D.

And the running assumption behind this theory is that

Constantine or an early pope were pretty bad guys,

and they took out stuff that should have been in the Bible,

and they put stuff in that shouldn't be there,

and they did all of this in some kind of smoke-filled back room.

They were committing all sorts of terrible crimes.

If you're familiar with the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown,

he posits this very theory.

But of course, neither Constantine nor an early pope

decided what was in the New Testament.

This theory, in fact, is so false,

it's hard to believe it has much currency today.

There's simply no evidence that Constantine or an early pope

ever decided what was in the New Testament.

And there's a whole lot of evidence that they didn't.

And even if they did decide what was in the New Testament,

their power only extended to the Roman Empire,

and by the 4th century,

Christianity was so widespread beyond the Roman Empire

that anything they did for the Roman Church

wouldn't have had any effect on all those Christian communities

outside of the Roman Empire.

And on top of that, we have biblical manuscripts

and Christian writings from before Constantine,

and they're consistent with the Bible we have today,

showing that our New Testament goes well back before them.

So, the conspiracy theory is also wrong.

But let's keep moving.

We've got some other theories to talk about.

The next one I call the ecumenical church council theory.

This one makes a lot more sense than the other two.

This one maintains that there was an ecumenical church council.

That is a worldwide, universal church council

sometime back in antiquity.

And this council had representatives from every church

all over the world.

And this council codified the contents of the New Testament.

Well, many Christians will be surprised to learn

that this is not true.

There was no ecumenical worldwide church council

that ratified the contents of the New Testament

or decided what books were in it.

There were, of course, various smaller regional councils

held in various geographical locations,

and they did issue New Testament lists,

but they had very limited influence.

They didn't have binding power or anything like that.

There were no worldwide councils

with any kind of binding power

that decided on the New Testament.

The closest we can come to something like this,

to a council of this nature,

is the Council of Trulot in Constantinople in 692.

This council ratified various New Testament lists

that were made by previous smaller councils or individuals.

But the problem with the Council of Trulot

is that it was not ecumenical.

Only Roman churches were invited.

Occasionally, you'll hear people call this an ecumenical council.

It wasn't.

We can say the same thing about the Second Council of Nicaea.

They did the same thing,

but again, only Roman churches were invited.

Everyone outside the Roman Empire

wasn't invited to this council.

So this ecumenical church council theory,

it's an attractive one,

but it's not true.

All right, so the next theory,

the next theory has even more merit to it.

This one, we'll just call it the Apostles Did It Theory,

and according to this theory,

the Apostles not only supervised

the writing of the New Testament,

they also helped collect the New Testament documents

and assemble them together.

So sometimes you hear, for example,

that John, the last surviving disciple of Jesus,

the author of Revelation,

you'll hear that he was responsible for doing this,

for sealing the New Testament.

And some people find evidence for this

with the last words of John

that he put in the final verses of the New Testament

in Revelation,

where he says,

if anyone adds to these things,

God will add to him the plagues

that are written in this book.

And if anyone takes away from the words

of the prophecy of this book,

God shall take away his part from the book of life.

This is Revelation 22, verses 18 through 19.

Revelation 22:18–19

Now, we do have reason to believe

that John and the Apostles did help assemble

at least part of the New Testament.

For example, there's an ancient Christian writer

named Eusebius.

He's writing around the year 312, 311.

And he says that the Apostle John

took the three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

He bore witness to their truthfulness,

and he wrote his fourth Gospel,

the Gospel of John,

as a supplement to these other three.

And so certainly it seems probable

that the Apostles played a role

in gathering the New Testament documents.

For instance,

I can give you some other examples.

In 2 Peter,

Peter calls Paul's letters Scripture.

So he was probably aware

of a collection of Paul's letters,

and he approved of them.

He called them Scripture.

It also seems quite likely

that Paul and probably the other Apostles

collected their own letters to some extent,

or their followers did,

like Timothy or Silas and so on.

So it's reasonable to conclude

that the Apostles played a role

in collecting and assembling

the documents of the New Testament.

But we don't have any explicit evidence

that one or some of the Apostles

collected all 27 books in the New Testament.

And it would seem likely

that early Christian writings

would mention this if it had happened,

and they don't,

as far as I'm aware.

And so,

clearly the Apostles played a role

in deciding which documents

were authoritative,

but that's not the whole story.

So if this is the case,

who decided what was in the New Testament?

Most people,

when we get to this point,

they start scratching their heads

and wondering what other option

is even available

if those aren't true.

Well, the answer, I think,

is a wonderful testimony

in how God's guiding Spirit

works through history and the Church.

And here's the answer.

The New Testament

was not assembled

in one place or time,

or by one person or group.

Rather, the New Testament

was assembled

by various churches

throughout history

relatively independently

of one another,

and it was done so

many times.

And this all began

in the very early church

of the second century.

Back then,

when these early churches

were deciding

on the contents

of the New Testament,

they all had one

overriding factor.

They wanted to identify

the documents

that were published

by the apostles

or were published

with their supervision.

And from the very beginning,

there was broad agreement

over what these documents included.

And any disagreements

were met with

careful consideration

and prayer

and research

and the remarkable thing.

Perhaps the stunning result

in this

is that every church community

eventually came to use

the very same 27 book

New Testament

we have today.

In other words,

the same New Testament

remarkably emerged

in multiple churches

relatively independently

of one another.

Just like how God

used multiple people

over many countries

and languages

to write the Bible,

so he used many people

over many countries

to put it together.

Now you might be

a little skeptical

about all of this,

so I want to show you

what this process

of putting the New Testament

together looked like.

And to do this,

we're going to travel

back in time

about 2,000 years

to the very beginning

of the Christian church

to those first few decades

after the resurrection

of Jesus

to when the apostles

were traveling around the world

and preaching

the gospel of salvation.

So if we go to say

45 AD

to the ancient city

of Corinth

and if we peek in

on a church service

around this time,

we would notice

that the church

in Corinth

at this time

didn't have

a New Testament

and it's because

the New Testament

didn't exist.

These very first Christians

like those in Corinth,

they didn't have

the New Testament

because it hadn't

been written yet.

The earliest New Testament

documents date

from around the year 50,

give or take a few years.

So if we're in 45 AD

in Corinth,

15 years after

the resurrection of Jesus,

the only scriptures

that the Christian church

would have had

was the Old Testament.

But if we stick around

long enough,

there eventually

will come a day

when the Corinthians

get a letter

from a guy named Paul.

And we call this letter

1 Corinthians.

And because Paul

was an apostle

and commissioned

by Jesus

to have great authority

to preach and teach,

the Corinthians

start reading

Paul's letter

in their church services

alongside

the Old Testament.

And in fact,

Paul seems to instruct

his churches

to do this

in his letters.

The Corinthians

then start sending

this letter around

to their neighboring

churches in Greece,

to churches in

Philippi and Thessalonica.

And again,

this is something

Paul told his churches

to do.

And those churches

in Thessalonica

and Philippi,

they start sending

the Corinthians

their letters

from the apostles.

And we call these

1st and 2nd Thessalonians

and Philippians.

And all of a sudden,

perhaps without

even them realizing it,

the New Testament

is being born.

And over the next

30 or 40 years,

various apostles

wrote or supervised

the composition

of the New Testament

documents.

And over these decades

and also afterwards,

Christians began

exchanging and verifying

these documents

to make sure

they actually came

from the apostles.

And sometimes churches

would find that

someone had hoodwinked

them and a document

they had maybe thought

might be apostolic

really wasn't.

And they would reject it.

Now this process

of gathering

and evaluating

and verifying

documents as apostolic

it took a good deal

of time in part

because the Christian

church expanded

so rapidly

over so many

thousands of miles

that it was often

difficult to communicate

with one another.

For instance,

by 200 AD,

the Christian church

had spread from

the west coast

of Spain

to northwest Africa,

of course all the way

through western Europe

to Greece and Turkey

to Egypt

to the Caucasus

to Persia

to Afghanistan.

It even seems likely

that the church

had spread into

western China

and northwest India.

And churches back then

they didn't have

telephones or email

or things like that.

They didn't have

a quick way to travel

back and forth.

And on top of this

many churches

that you see here

didn't even speak Greek

and they needed

these documents,

these apostolic documents

to be translated.

And all this means

is that it took a while

for these early churches

to come to agreement.

They had broad agreement

early on

but it took some time

for things to settle down

and for complete agreement

to arise

about the New Testament.

And if you're curious

about this

we can even observe

this agreement

emerging for ourselves.

We can go back

and canvas

early Christian writings

in the second

through third centuries

and we can see

these discussions

over the New Testament

taking place

and we can watch

this general agreement

arising.

And we can do this

if we gather

some early Christian writings

and we scan their contents

to see

what their New Testament

looked like.

So for example

if we go to

180 AD

to Lyon's France

and we look at the

writings of a Christian

theologian

named Irenaeus

Irenaeus was a disciple

of a man named Polycarp

and Polycarp

was a disciple

of the Apostle John.

So Irenaeus

has good apostolic

connections.

And if we sift

through Irenaeus'

writings

we can see

which New Testament

books he quotes from

and we can get

a good idea

of what his

New Testament

looked like.

This would be

the equivalent

of someone

a thousand years

from now

going through

all the sermons

at Trinity

to see what was

in our New Testament

to see what

our pastors

quote from

and documenting

this to figure

out what books

we had.

And when we do

this with Irenaeus

we get the following

list of New Testament

books.

Now I know that

this font might be

a little hard to see

I wanted to get

everything on one slide

but what you see

here on the left

is the list

of the 27 books

of the New Testament

and then on the right

we can see if

Irenaeus included them.

The letter C

means he explicitly

cites from

that particular document.

Now Irenaeus'

New Testament

looks pretty similar

to ours.

He has all the

major books.

He has the four

Gospels, Acts,

most of the letters

of Paul which you

can see highlighted

in red.

He also has

1 John

and 2 John.

He has 1 Peter.

He has Revelation.

Some of the

differences however

are that he never

mentions Philemon

or 3 John

or Jude.

Now these are

extremely short

documents.

They're only a few

paragraphs long

so he probably

never had occasion

to quote from them.

Remember he wasn't

giving us a list

of New Testament

books.

He was just

writing a theological

work and quoting

from the New Testament

whenever it was

relevant.

And you have to

preach a lot of

sermons to quote

from 3 John

and Philemon

and things like that.

So it's not

surprising that he

never got around

to it.

Now notice this

chart also has

some question marks.

I've got a question

mark around

Hebrews.

Irenaeus definitely

does mention

Hebrews but we

don't know if he

thought of it

positively or not.

We just know he

knew about it.

There's a question

mark at James.

He does seem to

quote from James

but it's not

totally certain.

There's also a

question mark around

2 Peter.

It's unclear if he

quotes from it.

Irenaeus he also

might have an

additional document

in his New Testament

called the Shepherd

of Hermas but again

it's unclear.

We're not sure.

There's some other

things we can glean

from Irenaeus.

For example he

tells us very

clearly that all

Christians accept

the four Gospels

and only the four

Gospels.

And he seems to be

right about this

because all

Christians before him

as far as we can

tell and those

contemporary with him

accepted the four

Gospels and only the

four Gospels.

Irenaeus also tells us

that Christians only

accept documents that

have an apostolic

connection.

So just from

Irenaeus alone

we can see that

even at this very

early date his

New Testament is

almost identical to

ours and perhaps

if he were to have

given us a list of

New Testament books

it would have been

identical but we

just are unclear.

We can't totally

verify that.

And we can continue

doing the same kind

of study with other

writers around the

same time as well.

Remember we've been

with Irenaeus in

France I mean and

in 180 AD we can

go to Northwest

Africa to around

200 AD we can

canvas the writings

of a Christian named

Tertullian we can do

the same thing we can

make a list and we

can see what he had

in his New Testament

and in fact the only

things Tertullian

doesn't quote from are

2nd and 3rd John and

also James and 2nd Peter

but again he may have

never had occasion to

quote from them he's

not making a list here

he's just writing some

theology.

He also tells us that

there's only four

Gospels Matthew Mark

Luke and John.

He also says the New

Testament is made up of

documents stemming from

the apostles.

Interestingly Tertullian

rejects the Shepherd of

Hermas explicitly as

being part of scripture.

So if you're wondering

about this document the

Shepherd of Hermas we

have good evidence that

it was written in Rome

probably around the year

150.

It was not written by an

apostle.

There were some early

Christian writers that may

have thought it was

apostolic but eventually

everyone agreed that it

wasn't.

Now we can keep doing

this.

We can keep canvassing the

writings of the ancient

world.

For example around the year

200 the first full scale

translation of the New

Testament happened that we

know of.

It's called the Old Latin

Translation and it seems to

have included all 27 books

of the New Testament.

And if around this time we

can go to a guy named

Origen of Caesarea in

Palestine.

He's writing around the year

240 and he includes all

27 books.

In fact he's the first one

to give us a complete New

Testament list and it

seems to have all 27.

Some scholars believe that

his list may have been

altered by later scribes or

translators but if we go

through Origen's writings he

quotes from all 27.

So we know he knew about

them.

And like I said we can keep

doing this through decades

and centuries and if we did

we would see all the

churches eventually cluster

around the 27 documents we

have today.

And like I said the most

remarkable maybe the most

wonderful thing about this

process is twofold.

Firstly even the very early

church had brought agreement

on the contents of the New

Testament as we just saw.

And secondly all Christian

churches eventually settled on

using the very same New

Testament.

And they did this though

speaking different languages

and sometimes living thousands

of miles apart sometimes in

communities that were at war

with one another.

Despite this every church

eventually came to use the

same exact 27 book New

Testament.

Now this did take a very

long time in some places.

For instance the Roman

Catholic Church did not

technically authorize the

27 book New Testament until

the Council of Trent in the

1500s.

But it I know I know but in

practice in practice the Roman

Catholic Church had always

adhered to a 27 book New

Testament since before the

year 200 when the old Latin

translation happened.

Even some of our Protestant

reformers questioned New

Testament books.

For example Martin Luther

didn't like the book of

James.

He wanted to throw it out.

But eventually all churches

agreed and began using the

27 book the 27 apostolic

documents in the New

Testament even if they never

formally ratified a New

Testament list a New

Testament canonical list.

So to sum up on how the New

Testament was assembled we can

say the following.

It did not fall out of

heaven.

There was no conspiracy

theory.

There was no political

subversion by a Roman

emperor or a pope or anything

like that.

There was no single ecumenical

council.

And while the apostles did help

assemble the New Testament

there was no single uniting

factor in this process except

the Holy Spirit.

He led churches to

independently investigate and

test which documents were

apostolic to verify this and

the wonderful result is that they

all eventually zeroed in on the

27 book New Testament we have

today relatively independently

of one another.

So.

All right.

All right.

All right.

The early church they carefully

went through these materials.

They decided on the New Testament

but let's be skeptical here.

What if they were wrong?

What if they messed up?

What about those heretical

Christians like those Gnostics that

we hear about?

What about them and their

Gospels like the Gospels of Mary

and Judas and Peter and the

Gospel of Truth?

What if those heretical groups

were right?

What if those documents really

are from the apostles?

What if our New Testament should

include them?

In fact what if those Gnostics

were the true Christians and

were the ones who are wrong?

How do we know?

Well those are great questions.

So let's for the sake of

argument let's stop trusting the

early church.

Let's look and see what those

heretics thought.

In fact let's go one step

further.

Let's just not look at what

those heretical groups thought

about the New Testament.

Let's figure out the contents of

the New Testament on our own.

Let's do this for ourselves and

see what documents really are

apostolic and what conclusions we

come to.

So we're going to do two things

now.

We're going to examine the early

Christian heretical sects to see

what their New Testaments

contain.

And then while we're doing this

we're going to figure out which

writings truly come from an

apostle so that we can create our

own New Testament and we see what

we come up with.

All right.

So there's a few things we need to

know before we start.

First, the early heretical sects

made up a small minority of

Christians.

Our evidence clearly shows that the

vast majority of Christians in the

early centuries followed the

mainstream church that you and I

all would have been a part of

because their core beliefs, their

theology, match our own.

And this mainstream church spanned

thousands of miles, dozens of

cultures, many languages and

countries.

And secondly, it was directly

linked to the apostles.

And we know this through various

lines of evidence.

But, you know, deciding on what the

New Testament is, it's not a

popularity contest.

Who cares about the apostolic

connections?

We're being skeptical here.

Let's go with the heretics for a

moment.

They claimed like they had

apostolic connections as well.

Let's see if they're right.

So the most influential heretical

sects in the second through fourth

centuries were the following groups.

It was the Montanists in Asia Minor,

the Novationists in Rome, the

Donatists in North Africa, the

Arians there in Egypt and Western

Europe.

These were the largest heretical

sects outside of the mainstream

church.

They flourished between the second and

fourth centuries.

But the interesting thing about

these folks is that all the

evidence points to the fact that

they accepted the very same New

Testament as the mainstream church.

Their dispute had nothing to do

with the contents of the New

Testament, but it had everything

to do with its interpretation.

So from this, we conclude most

heretics accepted the New Testament

of the mainstream church.

That wasn't the issue.

But let's look at those oddball

groups that didn't do this.

Perhaps the largest sect with a

different New Testament was the

Marcionites.

They flourished in the mid-second

through third centuries.

But the problem with them is their

New Testament.

Their whole Bible actually was

different because they rejected

every biblical writing that was

Jewish.

Now, if you think about that, that's

everything except for the Gospel

of Luke.

Luke was the only Gentile writer.

And they also accepted Paul because

Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles.

But that still wasn't enough.

They had to go through and change all

the verses because they're constantly

quoting from the Old Testament.

So they had to take all that stuff

out.

Now, I have to say that these

Marcionites don't seem like a very

reliable group to trust.

If we know anything about Jesus and

the apostles, they were Jewish.

They believed the Old Testament.

So it seems like a silly group to

trust on which documents are

apostolic.

So remember, we're trying to see if

heretics were right about the New

Testament.

And what we found so far was that

they either agree with us or they

maintain an absurd position like the

Marcionites do.

So we only have one group of heretics

remaining, the big bad Gnostics.

Now, these guys, they had all sorts of

additional New Testament documents.

Gospel of Thomas, Peter, Philip, Mary,

Judas, Gospel of Truth, Acts of John,

Acts of Andrew, Revelation of Paul.

And they claimed that these were from

the apostles.

Now, one of the curious things, though,

is that the Gnostics don't seem to have

rejected the New Testament of the

mainstream church.

They just added to it.

So they acknowledged the authoritative

status of the New Testament of the

mainstream church.

Hmm.

But even so, what about all these

additional Gnostic Gospels?

Sometimes people are troubled by

these things.

Sometimes people are wondering if

these should be in our New Testament

too.

They wonder why they're not.

So, like I said, we're going to

figure this out right now.

I want to do to these Gnostic

documents what I did to the

documents of the New Testament last

week.

I want to subject these Gnostic

texts to historical investigation,

to historical scrutiny, to see if we

can verify their contents and their

claims.

And when we do this, when we go through

these Gnostic documents, we quickly

find that we can't verify their

historical contents.

None of the false Gospels, the false

Acts, the false Epistles can have their

contents historically verified, except

only in the vaguest of ways.

They're totally disconnected from

history, and frankly, they seem just

made up.

They have none of the fine-grained

historical anchors that exist in our

New Testament.

And this is precisely what we would

expect from something that was

fictitiously crafted after that

point.

And secondly, they not only seem

disconnected from history, they seem

disconnected from Judaism.

They have no idea about Jewish culture

in Palestine.

Our New Testament is filled with

information like this.

In fact, the Gnostic documents have

much more in common with Greek

philosophy and culture and tradition.

And like I said, if we know anything

about Jesus and the Apostles, it's

they were Jewish and living in

Palestine.

On top of this, though, the content of

these Gnostic documents has all sorts

of ridiculous things.

They have a giant walking cross that

comes out of the tomb of Jesus and

talks to people.

They have the Apostles doing things

like sham miracles, like resurrecting

fish and taming bedbugs.

And they've got Simon the Magician, he's

mentioned in the book of Acts, flying

around in the air in some kind of

wizard's duel with Peter, and people

are paying money to see it, according

to the Acts of Peter anyway.

It's crazy stuff.

It totally lacks versimilitude,

authenticity.

It strains credulity.

But none of this is the case with the

27 documents of the New Testament.

They are anchored in history.

They are steeped in Jewish background.

And we can verify them from many

angles.

But we've got more reasons for rejecting

the Gnostic writings.

And this is because none of them can be

reliably dated to the first century.

Every single one of them is most likely

dated to the second or third centuries

or later.

None of them can be placed in a first

century context.

Every once in a while you hear someone

say the Gospel of Thomas can come from

the first century.

There's no hard evidence for this.

In fact, there's good evidence against it.

But all 27 documents of the New Testament

can be dated to the first century.

With great certainty or at least a great

amount of plausibility.

And this gives us a final reason to

reject the Gnostic writings.

And this is that none of them can be

reliably attributed to apostolic

authorship or oversight.

Not a single scholar that I'm aware of

actually believes that these Gnostic

writings come from the Apostles.

And not only did the early Church agree

with this, but even most ancient

heretics agreed with this.

We saw this.

The Donatists, the Montanists, the

Novationists, the Arians.

They rejected the Gnostic writings too.

And if that's not enough for you,

even ancient non-Christian writers

claimed the same thing.

Some of the most famous Neoplatonic

philosophers named Plotinus,

Amelius, Porphyry, they were aware of

the Gnostics.

They attacked the Gnostics.

And Porphyry explicitly accuses the

Gnostics of forging documents in other

people's names.

And the most amazing thing about all of

this is that when Porphyry turns to

attack the early Church, the mainstream

Church, he acknowledges that their

writings did come from the Apostles.

So, let me summarize.

We reject the Gnostic writings because

none of the Gnostic writings can have

their contents verified.

None of them engage with Judaism.

None of them can be reliably dated to

the first century.

Many of them have ridiculous content.

And most importantly, none of the Gnostic

writings can be reliably attributed to

the Apostles.

And even ancient heretics and non-Christians

agreed with this.

On the other hand, the 27 books of the

New Testament can be historically

verified.

They can be reliably dated to the first

century.

They can be reliably indexed back to an

Apostle through various lines of

evidence.

And in fact, the 27 documents of our

New Testament are the only documents in

the entire world that can be linked to

an Apostle.

And these apostolic connections are

something confessed by the ancient

mainstream Church, ancient heretical

Christians, and even ancient non-Christians.

Therefore, if we were constructing a

New Testament from scratch, these 27

documents are precisely the documents we

would put in.

But we can keep adding to this.

As we saw earlier in this talk, it so

happens that these same 27 New Testament

documents happen to exactly match the

earliest complete New Testament list that

exists.

from 245 AD, from origin.

And they also match the earliest full-scale

New Testament translation, the Old

Latin, around the year 200, maybe

earlier.

And lastly, these 27 books are the very

documents that every church eventually

chose to put in their New Testament.

Therefore, for all these reasons, we can

be confident that our New Testament includes

all apostolic documents and that it excludes

all non-apostolic documents.

So, in brief, no one person decided what was in the

New Testament.

Rather, many churches decided independently, and we

accept their decisions because when we do the same

research, it does in fact seem that our New Testament

contains only apostolic documents and all the

apostolic documents.

We didn't leave anything out.

So, to sum up this three-part series we've been talking about, we have good

reason to trust that our New Testament indeed has been well-preserved.

We also have good reasons that it's accurate and true, and that it contains all documents

connected with the apostles and only documents connected with the apostles.

But if you're like me, you might still be wondering a couple things here.

You might be wanting a little more assurance, maybe some more guarantees.

In fact, why stop at the apostles and their writings?

Because I'll tell you what I'd really like to see in my New Testament.

I'd like to have a letter directly from Jesus, delivered by the apostles.

That's what I want in my New Testament, and I'd like to know why we don't have it.

Well, if you're wondering about this, if you're like me, I want to invite you to read the

New Testament, and then you'll find your answer.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says this,

You are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink,

but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the human heart.

You see, we do have this letter from Jesus, and it is delivered by the apostles,

but it's written on something better than paper.

It's written on something better than pen and ink.

It's written on your heart, and it's written by the Spirit of God.

What a wonderful privilege and gift that we've been given.

A few verses after this, Paul explains something very profound about this letter from Jesus,

and something very profound about the nature of the New Testament.

This is just three verses later, 2 Corinthians 3.6.

He says,

Now the Greek words behind the phrase New Covenant are

and they can just as well be translated New Testament.

And with this understanding, Paul is making a statement about the very nature of the New Testament.

He says it's not ultimately written in pen and ink.

It's ultimately written by the Spirit.

And this all points to the fact that the New Testament is more than just pen and ink and letters and a bunch of words.

It's a spiritual document.

It's of the Spirit.

And what this means is that for you to have a complete New Testament,

you need more than just the pen and ink apostolic documents and letters.

You need that letter from Jesus written on your heart.

And if you're missing that letter, then you don't have the whole New Testament.

And when you put that spiritual letter from Jesus together with the writings of the apostles,

then each one are like self-authenticating witnesses that declare the truthfulness of one another.

I remember when I was 18 years old and I was caught up in my sins and I encountered Jesus.

And He caught me up and He cleaned me up and He wrote me this living letter on my heart saying,

forgiven.

And the remarkable thing for me was that for the first time in my life,

the Scriptures came alive to me.

I'd heard them every week in church for 18 years.

But once that letter was delivered,

every word of Scripture had new and profound meaning for me.

And you know, this is the same way the apostolic documents of our New Testament

were independently gathered by various churches throughout history.

People filled with the Spirit of God,

carrying that letter of Jesus in their hearts,

they met with these apostolic documents,

and they all fit together.

And they testified to each other.

And this was prophesied centuries before in the prophet Jeremiah.

He said this about the New Testament.

I guess I don't have it in there.

He said,

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,

when I will make a new covenant, a new testament,

with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant, the testament,

that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand

to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant, my testament that they broke,

though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

For this is the testament that I will make with the house of Israel after those days.

I will put my law within them.

I will write it on their hearts.

And I will be their God.

And they shall be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother,

saying, Know the Lord.

For they all shall know me.

From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquity.

And I will remember their sins no more.

If you're here today and you're still looking for that letter from Jesus,

I want to invite you to pray with me right now.

Let's pray together.

Father in heaven, we thank you that you sent your son Jesus.

We thank you that you inspired your apostles to write letters and documents for us by your Holy Spirit.

And we thank you that you've also written on our hearts.

Father, I pray now for anyone who's longing to know you,

who's longing to be forgiven in your name,

who's longing for that letter of Jesus.

And I pray, Lord, you write on their hearts right now.

And I pray for all of us, Lord, if we're doubting or struggling,

if we have questions about the faith,

that you would affirm your truth to them now.

You'd comfort them.

And you would make the scriptures come alive for them.

And we pray all this in the holy and mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.

We've got some questions.

That was a lot.

A lot of names and dates and places.

So the question's about the book of Hebrews.

If you guys read the book of Hebrews, it doesn't say who wrote it.

And it doesn't say in the title.

It just starts out.

So this is the early church really wondered this too.

And they had the very same question.

You see these debates over the epistle of Hebrews.

And what we can say is if we go back to the second century and the third century,

everybody claims that it came from an apostle.

Many of them said it was Paul, but that he had help,

that Luke translated it from Hebrew into Greek,

or that someone else translated it,

or someone else helped him write this letter.

And when we read Hebrews, if you're very careful,

you'll see that the author says that he received this message from the apostles.

There's a line in there in the beginning when he says,

this was declared to us by the apostles.

And then you also have the historical evidence that he seems to be writing before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

So the apostles are still alive.

They're still around.

The whole epistle is structured around temple worship.

So if that thing had been destroyed, I mean, there's no way he would have mentioned this.

So you put all those together.

And it's written in the apostolic times.

It's written by someone connected with the apostles.

And the early church explicitly testifies that it had,

either it was written by apostles or had apostolic oversight.

So we would class Hebrews in the same way that we class the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Mark.

These were not apostles, but they wrote with apostolic supervision,

that there was apostolic help and commissioning in their documents.

So that's where we would put the Gospel of Hebrews.

The final thing with the Gospel of Hebrews is that it just sings to you.

I mean, you just read this thing and it just comes alive.

And I've read a ton of early Christian writings,

and the only writings like that are in the New Testament.

I've never encountered any even remotely close to that.

So that's what I'd say about the Gospel of Hebrews.

Or the epistle of Hebrews.

Did I say Gospel of Hebrews?

Epistle of Hebrews.

Gospel of Hebrews is a different topic.

Anything else?

So I realize that in this presentation you've been focusing on the New Testament,

but some of these lists generated by the councils would have included lists of the Old Testament.

It seems like there's substantial more variance in those lists.

Are there any quick comments?

Yeah.

Yeah, so the questions about the Old Testament

and variations between the Old Testaments of churches.

Some of you may know that while churches agree on the contents of the New Testament,

they don't agree on the contents of the Old Testament.

If you go to a Catholic Bible, they've got some few extra books.

And if you go to an Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, they've got some few extra books.

So the short answer is that Protestants, Evangelicals,

accept the Hebrew-Jewish canon, the Hebrew-Jewish Old Testament.

We believe this is the Old Testament of Jesus and the Apostles.

This is the stuff written in Hebrew.

That extra stuff, this stuff ends around the year 400 BC.

So there's a 400-year gap between our Testaments.

The Old Testaments of the Catholics and the Orthodox,

they fill in that gap with other Jewish writings that were mostly written in Greek, not in Hebrew.

And if we go back to the earliest Jewish lists,

it seems to be our list, the one that we have,

whereas the other churches, the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox,

they follow the Greek Jews in Egypt, whereas we follow the Hebrew Jews in Palestine.

Now, there are lots of debates about this.

I mean, the early church talked about this extensively again and again.

The other thing I'll add is that the first Christian list of Old Testament documents

is by Melito of Sardis around the year 170, very early.

And it appears to agree with us.

And so I think we're on good, firm ground for that,

that we go with the Old Testament that seems like was the Old Testament of Jesus and the Apostles.

We don't add the Greek stuff that later Greek Jews added in.

This is books like 1st Maccabees, 2nd Maccabees, stuff like that.

So that's the short answer that I would say.

Other questions?

All right.

Great.

It's been awesome being with you folks.

Oh, one more.

Could I just ask, do you really write Greek and other languages?

I mean, how did you do all this stuff?

This is my dissertation.

So my dissertation is on the reception of the Book of Revelation

into the New Testament all throughout church history.

And so I went through all the writings and all the council lists

and anything anyone said about the contents of the New Testament.

Some of the stuff you've heard is pretty new stuff.

It hasn't been published before, and I'm hoping to do that in the future.

It's Greek and Latin and languages.

So my program, they make you learn a ton of languages.

We just have to keep taking languages.

So Greek and Latin, Syriac, Coptic, I mean, there's a lot.

And we have to study them.

I can't, they get you to the point where you can kind of muddle through something with a dictionary.

To get to the point of like fluently reading something takes, you know, years of efforts.

So I can kind of do that with Greek, but the other ones I can't, I can't really do that.

But so these, most of what I quoted from are from Greek and Latin writings,

but we could go to Syriac and Armenian and Arabic and Coptic and stuff like that too,

if people were interested.

Those writings are usually after the Greek and Latin writings.

And Syriac's about the same time.

Syriac's just as early.

But the other writings are a little later.

And these are professors at the Divinity School that...

They are, yes, some of them, most of them are in the Religious Studies Department.

Some of them are in the NALC Department, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

They have lectors that teach languages.

Sometimes you have to do independent studies or you go somewhere else and take these languages.

Could you put the comments, since Luther was mentioned on that?

Yeah, yeah.

Are you...

Yeah, James...

Correct me, correct me.

No, no, no, no, no, no correction.

James is an official of straw.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things with Luther you got to watch out is, you know,

he's just quick to make these statements.

Yeah.

A lot of stuff's from table talk and, you know, like, well, strictly off the record,

this is what I really think about the Anabaptists.

Hey, you spell that with one B or two.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But a dissertation's been done that looks to see, if even, say, as the Epistle of Strahd,

James, he cites that no less.

Oh, really?

And in his theological treatises, he cites James no less than any other book.

It's perfectly proportional.

Oh, great.

In terms of his practice...

Yeah, yeah.

That's fantastic.

I'd love to see that dissertation.

And, in fact, you can find similar phenomenon with some of the early church.

I mentioned a writer, Eusebius.

He is suspicious about the book of Revelation.

But if you look at his writings, he quotes from it.

And he'll use it, even though he's a little suspicious of it.

And so we find similar things, too.

And there are actually churches today, I mentioned,

that don't technically have a ratified canonical list of New Testament.

But if you go to their church, the New Testament that they have printed

is the 27-book New Testament.

All right, thank you guys so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.