January 24th, 2010 | 
Author: WHAT IS THE CANON?
This is an important question. And confusion over the answer results in some misunderstandings.
Those involved closely in the debate look at the canon from two perspectives. Both are needed.
The first perspective is that of an authority. It can be in either written or oral form. The Ten Commandments written in stone and the words of Moses were an oral and written tradition, and they were authoritative.
The second idea of canon is that it eventually “came to refer to a perpetual fixation or standardization” (McDonald, The Biblical Canon, p. 55).
A little consideration of these two ideas shows that they are not mutually exclusive. Again to quote McDonald, “the primary debate is over when this literature” took on the status as an authoritative-scriptural manner among the Jews and the Christians. In other words, when was a fixed collection of sacred writings formed, “and what writings were included or excluded by the believing communities” (p. 57)?
Why are these issues important? In my “Unequal Testaments” essay I suggest that the basis for the New Testament canon is crucial in determining what is the governing interpretative principle of the New Testament documents. Answering this question correctly provides the proper interpretive framework for accepting and understanding New Testament documents.
Was there a canon at the time of Jesus? Yes, there was a canon, but it does not appear to have been in the form of a fixed and standardized text as we have in our Bible. There were certainly writings and oral tradition.
So when Jesus says He did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, what was He referring to?
If you think this topic is going to be an easy one to deal with, consider this. Read Matt. 2:23 and you will see a quote that “was spoken by the prophets.” The words, alleged to come from the prophets, are “He shall be called a Nazarene.” In that form, according to F.F. Bruce, these words cannot be found in any prophetical book. (F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, p. 51.) Bruce goes on to list NT passages John 7:38, I Cor. 2:9 and James 4:5 as other “quotations” falling into this category. The origin of the quotation cannot be found, and it is evidently not in the OT that we have today. This indicates that the idea of Scripture has a wider reference than just to the books we have in our 20th century Bible. What were those other references? Where did they go? Why don’t we have them in our Bible?
I know, an essays like this should answer questions not ask them. But this time, I’m going to leave you with these questions.
God bless you in your desire to serve Him.
Posted in Theology
Ian, I got through just over half of it (the “Unequal Testaments” article. I think you are generally on the right track. Here are some comments:
* I am in my tenth year of doing Torah study. As I read not only the text, but the commentaries as well, I see where everything in the NT (probably better called the renewed testament) came from. The same can be said of the prophets. All of their writings reflect the Torah (Pentateuch) In fact there is what is called the Haftorah which corresponds with the Torah (though some times you need a good dose of drugs to see the connection). The haftorah reading are over 80% from the prophets. It originated when the Saleucids forbade the reading of just the Torah. Once you read the Torah cycle a few times you would probably conclude, as I have, there is nothing in the New that wasn’t first in the Old.
* I believe Paul is the most misunderstood character in the Bible. Christians and Jews alike say he denounced Judaism and embraced Christianity, or something like that. First of all Christianity was/is a sect of Judaism and would have been totally regarded as that in Paul’s time. So to denounce one would be to denounce both. We also see a time where Paul takes the Nazarite vow, which is decidedly Jewish and is one of the 613 Mitzvot (which by the way are better translated as directions and not laws). Finally if people would read approximately Romans 9-12 with an unjaundiced eye they would see where Paul in fact upholds Judaism. He says the Jews are the root and we (the gentiles) have been grafted in. He further warns against arrogance and self righteousness.
* There is definitely a continuity in the entire text. To say there wasn’t would be to deny who God is. He doesn’t all of a sudden change His mind and go in a different direction.
* What we are dealing with is called Replacement theology which probably originated with Constantine. It was/is an attempt to supersede God and His teachings in actuality.
* We have to remember Paul’s mission was to the gentiles not the Jews. God did not want them chased away by strict adherence to the guidelines simply for that purpose.
* There is no good explanation for why Jews are to practice dietary law (which by the way have much health value even today. However I am not ready to give up my shellfish) other than some of these directions were designed for the Jews only. Picture customs each of our own heritages have.
* Many of the sacraments and rituals in the Christian church can be traced directly back to Jewish practices. For instance Baptism is more than likely nothing more than the Jewish ceremonial bath (mikvah) which you see all over the OT. Douglas once wrote about the 300 at Pentecost actually being Jewish merchants from the diaspora. As you may know Jews are ordered up to Jerusalem three times a year for what are called the Pilgrim Feasts, Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (the Giving of the Torah or our Pentecost) and the great Feast every fall known as Booths, Tabernacles, Succot. It is the feast of ingathering. Recent studies have shown that in Jesus time if a Jew made it to Jerusalem once in their lifetime for one of the Feasts that was pretty normal. Anyway these 300 were in Jerusalem for Shavuot. When the Holy Spirit (Ruach H’kodesh) came on them they would have gone and take a purifying bath (mikvah). The only place large enough to hold this many would have been the Temple. More recently they have unearthed huge mikvahs around the steps of the Temple which probably would have held hundreds a piece, What a sight that must have been. Jesus also was doing a Mikvah in the Jordan. Baptism is decidedly a Christian term not used in those times.
* People rail against the Pharisaical system. In fact Jesus’ teachings were pharisaical in nature. The problems were not the Pharisees in general but the leadership in particular, some who were not Pharisees and some who were decidedly not pure Jewish.
* The scholars at the JSSR (which I mentioned in the earlier e-mail) have discovered at least two of the Gospels were originally written in Hebrew. The syntax, sentence structure, etc mirrors Hebrew not Greek.
* Jesus’ teaching was directly from the prophets and taking it a step further back the Torah. My contention is Jesus came primarily to correct bad teaching, let people know that the Kingdom was already here and that God was already reigning, not to primarily get up on “the old rugged cross”. The bulk of the pentecostal/fundamentalist teaching is not Jesus teaching. In fact he wouldn’t even recognize it. Jack Niclaus recently said of Tiger, “He plays a game I don’t even know”. In the same vein it could be said much of today’s teaching is teaching Jesus didn’t even know.
Marvin Wilson and the JSSR do this much better than I do. I will say there is much more legalism in Christianity today than there ever has been in Rabbinic Judaism. I read Orthodox and Chabad (Chasid) commentaries very week. There is much more freedom in them than is found in much Christianity.
A final story to illustrate my point. In the Torah it refers to leprosy. This leprosy is not what we know as leprosy today (Hansen’s disease). The first place we see it is when Miriam speaks ill, gossips (called Lashon Hara) about Moses and his wife. If you remember she was struck down with white spots and banished to the outskirts of the camp. This symptom is later detailed in Leviticus I believe. It is called tzaras (sp) and is a physical representation of a spiritual malady. It can be caused by a number of different things but is primarily the work of maligning tongues (Lashon Hara). There is a lot of detail I won’t go into but the people are banished to the outskirts of the camp for one or two weeks. Here they are isolated which causes them to reflect on the pain and isolation they have caused someone by speaking ill of them. Wonder what would happen if we had that in the church today? At the end of that period they go see the priest. If he determines the white “blotches” are going away they are cleansed of their sin and allowed to continue with regular activity.
Now forward to Jesus and the “lepers”. Remember his parting words to them? “Go show the priest”. This would indicate this was all about tzaras and not Hansens. They don’t go to the priest about Hansens. So now we have an example of 2000 years of bad teaching. Remember “I came not to abolish….”
Keep up the good work.
Bill