Attacks on The Canon of Scripture

The Church of the Latter Day Saints believes that the Book of Mormons was inscribed on golden plates in some form of the Egyptian language, described as Reformed Egyptian by Joseph Smith. The golden plates were buried in the hills of Manchester, New York by the last of their prophets, Moroni. Later, Moroni, the prophet returned as an angel and informed the prophet Joseph Smith where the golden plates were located. On September 22, 1827, Joseph Smith started translating the Book of Mormons and three years later the Book of Mormons went on sale.

Critics of Mormonism don’t believe this story. Critics of Christianity, however, don’t believe the process of how we got our Bible because it is so unlike how the Mormons received their sacred book.

  • Our process did not take three years but 2000 years to receive and record both the Old and New Testaments.

  • Our Bible was not given to one prophet, but to forty different authors who wrote God’s inspired Word. God’s Word did not originate in one location but from three continents.

  • The Bible was not given in one language, Egyptian, but in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The end result of this incredible process is the canon of sixty-six books.

In this study, we are going to examine the way the canon was formed. Wayne Grudem (1994) defines the canon:

“The canon of Scripture is the list of books that belong in the Bible” (p. 54).

The word canon (Gk. kanon) in Galatian 6:16 means a measuring instrument. The word came to mean, a rule of action, which applied to the list of books in the Bible meant the sixty-six books of the Bible met certain tests or rules. Canon also came to mean a collection of books that became our rule of life.

There are two sources of attacks on the canon of Scripture. Theological liberals and Roman Catholics deny the biblical view of canonicity. 

Attacks on the canon of Scripture by theological liberals

There were problems along the way in recognizing which books belonged in the canon that the liberal critics delight in highlighting. 

1. There was the problem of forgeries.

All of the New Testament was written in the first century by the apostles or men approved by the apostles. But in the second century (some say even the late first century) there were books written that claimed to be written by the apostles, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Gospel of Philip. The Da Vinci Code referred to the Gospel of Philip to allegedly prove Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.

Even before the second century, there were forgeries to which Paul refers in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2. Someone had written a letter in Paul’s name to the persecuted believers at Thessalonica saying they were already suffering in the seven-year Tribulation Period. Paul wrote two letters to the Thessalonians that are included in the sixty-six books of our Bible. Here, however, was one book claiming the same authority that was recognized as not belonging to the canon. Forgeries posed no threat to God forming the canon.      

2. There was the problem of lost letters.

The critics like to bring up the lost Corinthian letter that Paul referred to in 1 Corinthian 5:9. Was this letter inspired? Should this letter have been in the sixty-six books that make up the canon of Scripture? No! If this letter were inspired, it would have been preserved. Another possible example is the letter from Laodicea that Paul refers to in Colossians 4:16. Some Bible scholars such as Thomas Constable believe this is another lost letter. If so, then like the letter in 1 Corinthians 5:9, it was not inspired. This is no threat to the canon of God’s inspired Scripture. Everything the apostles wrote was not authoritative Scripture. The Scriptures were inspired, not the writers of Scripture.

3. There was the problem of debated books.

The critics also remind us that some of the books of the Bible were at one point debated among Christians whether they belonged in the Bible or not. Some of the debated Old Testament books were Song of Solomon, Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ezekiel.

Why was the canonicity of these books doubted?

  • Some of the Old Testament Jewish believers said the Song of Solomon was too sensual. This is not true. The Song of Solomon gives God’s theology of marriage. I ask couples I am premaritally counseling to read the book entitled “Solomon on Sex” by Joseph Dillow. Solomon talks about loving your soon-to-be spouse so much that you refrain from premarital sex. Good advice for today. Believers eventually saw the value of the Song of Solomon.

  • Esther was rejected at first because the name of God is never mentioned. But we know the providence of God is on every page preserving Esther and Mordecai and the nation of Israel from their anti-Semitic enemies.

  • Ecclesiastes was not accepted for a while because it was thought to be too secular with statements like 9:10 which was believed to teach the grave is the end of a person’s existence. Some Study Bibles and commentaries consider Ecclesiastes the atheist in the choir. All Ecclesiastes 9:10 teaches is that we must serve God now because the grave ends all earthly service. We should serve now the way we will wish we had served when our life is over. Ecclesiastes 12:1 and 12:13, 14 disprove Ecclesiastes is a book of man’s reasoning. Solomon writes Ecclesiastes as an old man just before death reflecting back on the number of wasted years he did not live for the Lord and he admonishes his younger audience of future leaders in Israel, “Remember or respond now to your Creator.” Live now for the Lord so you will not have regrets like me later.

  • In the New Testament, the book of James was rejected by Martin Luther.

Luther (1960) placed James at the end of the New Testament, saying, “I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle, and my reasons follow. In the first place, it is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works …. Therefore, I cannot include him among the chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him” (p. 396).

Some Roman Catholics, I have talked to love the book of James, because they wrongly think James 2:24 teaches justification by keeping the sacraments. Martin Luther battled the R.C.C. and perhaps this is part of the reason why he had a hard time with the book of James belonging in the canon. 

James 2:24 does not contradict Romans 3:20 where Paul writes “Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Paul teaches that believers are declared righteous once and for all by faith because only God can see our faith. James teaches that before men, believers are declared righteous by our works because that is all men can see. Paul taught the same truth as James in Romans 2:13: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” Both James and Paul teach justification by God by means of faith that results in works before men.

4. The problem of alleged confusion and division in first-century Christianity.

Michael Kruger (2012) accurately explains this supposed problem:

Ever since Walter Bauer published in 1934 his now famous Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity there has been a widespread obsession amongst modern scholars with the theme of early Christian diversity. Study after study has explored how different, contradictory, and divergent early Christian beliefs were. It is on this basis that the terms “heresy” and “orthodoxy” are declared to be unintelligible prior to the fourth century. After all, we are told, there was no Christianity (as we know it) prior to this time period, but only a variety of different Christianities (plural) all claiming they were the true and original version. Thus, on what basis could the earliest followers of Jesus have ever adjudicated such varied claims? How could they ever have known who was right and who was wrong? It wasn’t until the fourth century when a particular version of Christianity “won” the theological wars and declared their books were declared to be canonical, that we really can begin to speak of heresy and orthodoxy in a meaningful way.

This view charges that these different Christianities warred and competed until the Council of Nicea in 325 when Constantine ramrodded through the books of the Bible we have today. The critics say the New Testament canon was not decided until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD—under the conspiratorial influence of Constantine. Dan Brown (2003) espoused this myth in his The Da Vinci Code:

"Who chose which gospels to include?" Sophie asked.
           
"Aha!" Teabing burst in with enthusiasm. "The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great" (p. 231).

The canon of Scripture was not even discussed at the Council of Nicea. The issue discussed was how to articulate the full deity of Christ because of the heresy of Arius who denied Jesus was the eternal son of God.

Bart Ehrman takes up the torch of Walter Bauer’s view that early Christianity was a mess. Bart Ehrman attacks the canonicity of Scripture when he refers to Marcion, the heretic, who produced an actual “canon” of Scripture. Marcion’s canon consisted of only eleven books: there was no Old Testament, only one Gospel, and ten Epistles.

Irenaeus, who wrote around A.D. 180 a five-volume work against heretics such as Marcion and the Gnostics, had very clear ideas about which books should be considered among the canonical Gospels. In a frequently cited passage from his work Against Heresies, Irenaeus says that not just Marcion, but also other “heretics,” had mistakenly assumed that only one or another of the Gospels was to be accepted as Scripture. Ehrman (2005) summarizes Irenaeus:

Jewish Christians who held to the ongoing validity of the Law used only Matthew; certain groups who argued that Jesus was not really the Christ accepted only the Gospel of Mark; Marcion and his followers accepted only (a form of) Luke; and a group of Gnostics called Valentinians accepted only John. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout the world, and the pillar and ground of the Church is the Gospel… it is fitting that she should have four pillars. (Kindle location, 582-586).

Then Ehrman quotes a famous statement by Irenaeus (1913) with which Ehrman will take issue.

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground” 1 Timothy 3:15 of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying afresh (p. 428).

Ehrman doesn’t miss a chance to make light of any apparent weakness in Christian writings. Contrast D. Edmond Hiebert’s (1975) evaluation of Irenaeus’ comment: “We may feel that his argument is fanciful, but it is important since it testifies to the exclusive acceptance of our four gospels in the church” (pp. 23-24).

Michael Kruger (2013) also sees the value of Irenaeus’ observation:

Here Irenaeus not only affirms the canonicity of the four gospels but is keen to point out that only these four gospels are recognized by the church. Indeed, Irenaeus is so certain that the canon of the gospels is closed that he can argue that it is entrenched in the very structure of creation—four zones of the world, four principle winds, etc.

The arguments of the theological liberals do not hold up under scrutiny. They are easily answered. There is in addition to the attack of the theological liberal another source of attack on the canon of Scripture.

Attacks on the canon of Scripture by Roman Catholics 

You might be surprised that one of the debates over the canon of Scripture has to do with the Roman Catholic view of the canon. Some Protestants have joined the Roman Catholic Church over the canonicity issue. Stephen and Janet Ray, former Baptists, converted to Roman Catholicism over this debate. They write (1997): “Protestants are dependent on the tradition of the Catholic Church for the current New Testament” (p. 54).

Erwin Lutzer (1998) put it bluntly: "It is quite true to say that your opinion of the relationship between the canon and the church determines whether you are a Protestant or a Catholic" (p. 166).

We believe that the list of books is complete in obedience to Deuteronomy 4:2: “You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Of course, at the time of the writing of Deuteronomy, there were only five books but the same principle is repeated in Revelation 22:18, 19 the last book in the canon.

Not everyone agrees. The debate over the canon is heard in the question: What about the Apocrypha (7 additional books in the R.C.C. Bible)? Here is what the Roman Catholic Church believes about the canon. The R.C.C. at the church council at Carthage in A.D. 397 recognized the books of the Bible as canonical which included the Apocrypha. George Sim Johnston (1995) writes, “There is no list of canonical books anywhere…. Who, then, decided that it was Scripture? The Catholic Church.” Therefore, only an infallible church could produce an infallible list of canonical books.

The Roman Catholic reasoning is, that since there is no list of canonical books, there has to be an outside authority to determine which books belong in Scripture.

My refutation of this view is that God gave authority to the Scriptures, not a church, and each book was canonical the moment it was written. Also, goes the argument, if the R.C.C. is infallible it can give authority to church traditions.

This view is stated clearly in the following quote from the Roman Catholic Council at Trent. After listing the Old Testament books including the Apocrypha, The Council of Trent of 1545 declared (2016):

If anyone does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate Edition, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be anathema.  

Because of this attitude when you tell a Catholic, that the Bible doesn’t teach purgatory, their response is, “But our church tradition does!” If a council of men did not determine which books belong in the Bible, what or who did? The providence of God determined the Old Testament canon and not a council such as the synod of Jamnia around 90 A.D. As we will show in the next post, the canon gradually grew as succeeding prophets recognized the former books as the Word of God.

Works Cited

Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Misquoting Jesus [Kindle] Retrieved from HarperCollins e-books.

Grudem, Wayne. (1994). Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Johnston, George Sim. (1995). Catholic Education Resource Center. Scripture Alone. Retrieved from http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/scripture-alone.html

Kruger, Michael. (2012). Canon Fodder. 10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #7: “Christians Had No Basis to Distinguish Heresy from Orthodoxy Until the Fourth Century.” Retrieved from http://michaeljkruger.com/10-misconceptions-about-the-nt-canon-7-christians-had-no-basis-to-distinguish-heresy-from-orthodoxy-until-the-fourth-century/

Kruger, Michael. (2013) Canon Fodder. Ten Basic Facts about the NT Canon that Every Christian Should Memorize: #5: “The Four Gospels are Well Established by the End of the Second Century” Retrieved from http://michaeljkruger.com/ten-basic-facts-about-the-nt-canon-that-every-christian-should-memorize-5-the-four-gospels-are-well-established-by-the-end-of-the-second-century/#_ftn1

Luther, Martin. (1960). Luther’s Works: Words and Sacrament, Vol. 35. Theodore Bachmann & Helmut T. Lehman (Eds.), (p. 396). Philadelphia, PA: Fortress.

Lutzer, Erwin. (1998). Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust The Bible. Chicago, IL: Moody. 

Ray, Stephen and Janet. (1997). Crossing the Bar. San Francisco, CA: Ignatiuas.