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Many think that the books of our New Testament was at first received and accepted by all. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
In Palestine the New Testament Books that first appeared were the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, James and possibly Hebrews (there is somewhat doubt about this). In Asia Minor we have first appearing John, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians 11 Timothy, Philemon, I & II Peter, I & II & III John, Jude, Revelation. In Greece we find I & II Corinthians, Philippians, I & II Thessalonians, and Luke. In Rome we find Titus and in Rome we find Mark, Acts, and Romans.
Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece and Rome were far apart. The Old Testament books had originated within the compass of one country; but the New Testament books in widely separated countries.
The earliest collections of New Testament writings were incomplete. It was not a world of like the world we live in today. Travel and communication were slow and dangerous. What is now a trip few hours would then have required months or years. Printing then was unknown, and the making of copies by hand was slow laborious work. Even more it was an age of persecution, when Christian writings had to be kept hid. And, there were no church councils or conferences, where Christians from distant parts could come together and compare notes on what writings they had, till the days of Constantine. So, naturally, the earliest collections of New Testament books would vary, in different regions; and the process of reaching unanimity as to what books properly belonged in New Testament was slow.
Beside the "canonical" New Testament books there were many others, both good and fraudulent, as noted in pages that follow: some so fine and valuable that were for a while, in some sections, regarded as Scripture; others, were unadulterated forgeries. The one criterion by which a book was judged before acceptance was whether it was of genuine Apostolic origin. Such investigation was not, in every case easy; especially less known books of a distant region.
We are privileged today to possess early writings of Gentile Christians whose lives overlapped the lives of the Apostles. These writings are few because of the perishable nature of the writing material, and because it was a period of persecution in which Christian writings were destroyed. But, though few, these “overlapped writings” bear their unimpeachable testimony to the existence in their day of a group of writings deemed “authoritative” by the Gentile Christians. It is these earliest “overlapped” writings which serve as the seedbed for the rejection of the Law and the Torah, and unfortunately, these writings would come to be regarded as new "Scripture." A Lawless faith (Torahless faith) is always easier to accept than one which presents the responsibilities of God to mankind. The Gentile Church, having slowly abandoned the Law, would gradually accept these new writings as “authoritative.” This was to become their “new gospel;” and their writings began to abound in quotations from, or references to, these new replacement writings.
For example:
Clement of Rome, in his Epistle to the Corinthians (A.D. 95 quotes from, or refers to, what was to become Matthew, Luke, Romans, Corinthians, Hebrews. I Timothy, and I Peter.
Polycarp, in his Letter to the Philippians (about A.D. 110), quotes Philippians, and reproduces phrases from nine other of Paul's Epistles and I Peter. He says, "I have letters from you, and from Ignatius. I shall send yours to Syria, as you request; and I am sending letter of Ignatius to you, with others, and the present one of own.'' This indicates that, in Polycarp's day, Gentile Christians had already begun to gather copies of Christian writings from outside the Torah and consider them authoritative..
Let us stop for a moment and recall what we have already learned: that calling Paul’s or another’s writings “Scripture” does not make authoritative such writings on par with the Law, the Prophets, or the Writings. So, just because the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas uses a formula ["it is written"] often found in Old Testament Scripture does not make his writings any more “Scripture” than if I used the same formula is this article.
As you can see such quotations by so many would go a long way in creating a New Scripture!
"If you are willing to exercise your curiosity profitably in business of your salvation, visit the Apostolic churches in which the very chairs of the Apostles still preside in their places; in which the very authentic Epistles are read, sounding forth the voice and representing the countenance of each of them. Is Achaia near you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi and Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus. If are near Italy, you have Rome."
From the above citations, and that of Eusebius (on the page following), it will be seen that, for a while, there was great variation by many as to what books were regarded as canonical.
There are two answers to this perplexing problem since we believe the Holy Spirit has promised to guide us into all truth. The evidence is factual….the greatest minds of the early Gentile Christian movement were not in unity about which books were to be included in the Gentile Canon. It would seem to me that if God desired to have a New Testament with an authority equal to the Torah this should not have been for “with God all things are possible.” Many say to me “God oversees His Word” and to this I wholeheartedly agree. But what is to be “His Word?”
There are others who try to get around the above obvious failure of the Holy Spirit for almost 400 years to come to unity upon the selection of books which were to be the foundation of this Gentile Christian movement. Many try to explain this obvious embarrassment by saying such disunity and agreement upon the selection of books for the New Testament Canon was due simply to the fact that account of slow means of communication over the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, and on account of three hundred years of incessant and unrelenting persecution, there was not one single chance for the churches to make a fair and open and reasonable effort to come to general unanimity as to what books were of genuine Apostolic Authority, till Constantine, at the beginning of the 4th Century, issued his Edict of Toleration.
Answer for yourself: Can God witness the same truth to two different people at the same time although they live in two different places?
There is your answer. Of course God can, but He didn't! This means that the selection of the canon by the Gentile Christian church was more dependent upon reasoning and rationalization based upon pre-formed theologies than any inspiration from God. This may be hard to swallow, but face the facts. The juxtaposition of books repeatedly in the canon and out of the canon, the inclusion of some to the exclusion of others, and the final decision as to which was to be included as made over hundreds and hundreds of years brings great difficulty to assigning any credibility for the selection of such books that comprise our New Testament today.
Now, please understand, I both preach and teach from these document, but not to the exclusion of the Torah, nor do I ascribe to them the authority I do to the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, and neither should you. For me, and others at Bet Emet, the New Testament is considered as Midrash, as commentary upon the life and times of Jesus. When materials within the New Testament line up with the Old Testament we have a witness to truth, but when teachings and doctrines within the New Testament diverge and contradict the Torah, then they are lies included among truth and the unscrupulous custodians of these documents (the anti-Semitic and anti-Judaic Gentile Catholic Church of the earliest centuries) are to be exposed for what they are in God’s sight….shameless beings who corrupted the Word of God by adding to and taking away from it! Such parts of the New Testament are to be rejected by the Christians today. The hard part is to discern what parts of the New Testament are fraudulent. Without capable and dedicated study on your part you will never know. But the good news for you is that there are in the Body of Christ today capable men and women, and ministries, devoted to recovering the truths about the real Yeshua and educating the Body of Christ to these truths in hopes that our obedience before God will be more pleasing. Such is our love for God and should be yours as well.
We must understand that such books were not "doubtful" in regions where they first appeared. The isolation of communities from others contributed to these books not becoming widely known for a while. The fact that the were slow in being generally received is a testimony to the carefulness of the churches against impostors.
Eusebius (A.D. 264 340), bishop of Caesarea, Church Historian, live through, and was imprisoned during Diocletian's persecution of Christians, which was Rome's final effort to blot out the Christian name. One of its special objects was the destruction of all Christian Scriptures. For ten years Bibles were hunted by the agents of Rome and burned in public market places. To Christians, the question of just what books composed their Scriptures was no idle matter.
Eusebius lived into the reign of (Constantine, who accepted Christianity. Eusebius became Constantine's chief religious adviser. One of Constantine's first acts on ascending the throne was to order, for the churches of Constantinople, fifty Bibles, to be prepared, under the direction of Eusebius, by skillful copyists, on the finest of vellum and to be delivered by royal carriages from Caesarea to Constantinople. He wrote, in his order to Eusebius:
"I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the Sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the church, to be written on prepared parchment, in a legible manner, and in a commodious and portable form, by transcribers thoroughly practiced in their art. You have authority also, by virtue of this letter to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance; by which arrangement' the copies, when fairly written, will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection. One of the deacons of your church may be entrusted with this service, who, on his arrival here shall experience my liberality. God preserve you, beloved brother”.
It my surprise you to know that by the later part of the fourth century the same books that now constitute the New Testament was also for Eusebius the same.
Eusebius, by extensive research, made himself informed as to what books had been generally accepted by the churches. In his Church History he speaks of four classes of books:
The Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), gave its formal ratification to the 27 books of the New Testament as we know them, expressing what had already become the unanimous judgment of the churches and accepted for itself THE BOOK that was destined to be MAN'S MOST PRECIOUS HERITAGE.
The Bible, with its 27-book New Testament canon, as accepted by the Early Christian Fathers, and finally ratified by the Council of Carthage, became, without further questioning, the recognized of Christendom for a thousand years.
With the rise of the modern critical spirit came a renewed in investigation into the origin and authenticity of the Bible books, as with all ancient books.
"Criticism," as applied to the Bible, is a rather unfortunate term although with many irreverent wiseacres it has been exactly that, in-somuch that the word is quite commonly regarded as being the name of the modern intellectual effort to undermine the Divine Authority of the Bible. So far as the word means critical and fair examination of facts, or alleged facts, in an honest search for historical truth is natural, reasonable and legitimate, and enlarges our knowledge of the Scripture.
Historical Criticism has to do with the genuineness authenticity of the Bible books: that is, who wrote each book when, and whether the book is historical or otherwise.
In relation to the New Testament books, it is merely the re-opening of the question settled by, and to the satisfaction of first Generations of Christian fathers. Modern critics have made no more determined nor scholarly effort to ascertain the genuineness of the New Testament books than was made by the generations in which the books were first published. Indeed they were in far better position to determine the nature of those books than later critics. It is not easy to wreck a train long after it has gone by. Literary fort are soon detected. Whether a book is historical or fictional is recognized on publication. If I were to write a history of the American Revolutionary War, and sign George Washington’s name to it, could I make anybody believe that Washington wrote it?
One of the unfortunate things about the critics who have discarded the traditional view of the origins of the Bible books is their presumption to themselves of a monopoly of "scholarship." To them their view is the "unanimous opinion of scholarship." Are they so narrow- minded as to think that only those who hold to their theories are true scholars? Viewpoint is not an indication of scholarship, but only of one's mindset and is not always dependent upon facts. The dear Old Book has worn out many anvils, long after the critics have been forgotten will go marching on loved and honored by unnumbered millions.
Textual Criticism is the comparison of various manuscripts to ascertain the exact original text from which they are copied. It has resulted in the Old Testament Masoretic Hebrew and New Testament Westcott and Hort Greek texts, which, in the main, are the exact original Bible words. Printing removed the danger of textual errors.
These are legendary and spurious Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and Epistles, which began to appear in the 2nd Century. They were mostly forgeries, and were so recognized from the first. They are so full of nonsensical stories of Christ and the Apostles, that they have never been regarded as divine, nor bound in our Bible. Deliberate attempts to fill the gaps of the New Testament story of Yeshua in order to further heretical ideas by false claims abound within them.
There are known to have been about 50 of the spurious "Gospels" besides many "Acts" and "Epistles." The great mass of these for writings made it very important for the Early Church to distinguish between the false and the true.
It is said that Mohammed got his ideas of Christianity largely from these books. They are the origin of some of the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church.
They are not to be confused with the writings of the "Apostolic fathers."
The main characteristic of these writings is that most, but not all, are fiction representing itself as history, but for the most part they are utterly absurd that their falsity is self-evident. But that cannot be said for all. For example the Gospel of the Ebionites and the Gospel of the Hebrews are exceptions which others have grouped as Apocryphal Gospels, yet they contain historical and theological truths.
These should not be confused with the false books, enumerated on the two preceding pages, in which the authors assumed names of Apostles to give credence to legendary tales.
The Apostolic Fathers (more exactly, the "Sub-Apostolic Fathers") were those whose lives overlapped the Apostolic generation. Their extant writings are few (how we wish there were more of them!) due to the perishable nature of their writing material, and to the persecutions of their day.
But they are extremely valuable, as they form the connecting link between the Apostles and later Church History. Some of them were so highly regarded that, in some localities, they were temporarily regarded as Scripture.
This Epistle was occasioned by a division in the Corinthian church in which some Elders were excluded by younger worldly men. It we written in the name of the Roman church, and is full of beautiful exhortations to humility, and dwells much on the resurrection. It was so highly esteemed that it was read publicly in many churches down to the 4th century. It was found, at the end of the New Testament in the Alexandrian manuscript of the Bible.
Answer for yourself: Could God be sharing important things intended for us in writings such as these, but which were unfortunately rejected by the Gentile Catholic Church when they collected writings that promoted their own Gentile replacement theology of the time? Shalom.
