In your opinion, is there a difference between Canon and Scripture? Further, when was the canon closed - if at all?

I attended the ETS Eastern Regional conference and this was the topic - at WTS - you could cut the tension with the knife; Stephen Chapman from Duke was the plenary speaker. It was GREAT...GREAT...Great, I tell you.

John

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John
Evangelical Free Church, no offices held
Langhorne, PA

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I would say that Canon is what is recognised as scripture, as such the two are physically identical but conceptually slightly different.

The canon closed when all the inspired texts had been written. The church recognised that the cannon was complete at some later date. As Apostolic authority (among other things ) was necessary in order for a text to be inspired I am firmly of the view that the canon has closed.

That has always been my understanding.

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
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"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."

Hi:

F.F. Bruce has an excellent book on the subject: ISBN: 978-0830812585

Blessings,

-CH

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I think a difference between canon and what we consider to be Scripture would be that Paul evidently wrote other letters that, if they still existed, would have been incorporated into the canon as well...but God so ordained it so not to be.

The canon seemed to have closed with the death of the aApostles or close associates of those aApostles.

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Why? Is this not an argument from silence?

Okay, I'll ask you...after John wrote Revelation can you name anything else that should be added to the Canon? And if so, on what ground?

Apart from the apocrypha's claim to be scripture, which the church has rightly judged as unworthy of the canon, there is a strong argument from silence to consider. There has been no written revelation from God in approximately 2000 years. The church was founded on the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. A futurist would look at events in Revelation as supporting verbal and natural revelation but there is no mention of written revelation. If the canon could be added to today then we must believe that direct revelation is still possible. If direct revelation is still possible then there needs to be something worthy of revealing. How would new canonical writings be recognized? Who would have the authority to produce such writings? What would be the sign of their authority? We open up a huge can of worms. I suppose the Roman Catholics would have an easier time in proposing a living canon since they hold to apostolic succession, but you would be hard pressed to find that view among Reformed believers. In the abstract an open canon seems like a way to keep your options open. I'm sure that appeals to academics and theologians. No one likes to be boxed in. But I believe the argument is not one for the church to defend as much as it is for its adherents to prove.

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Bill Brown
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The Reformers held the canon was closed and identified it in their return to ancient catholic orthodoxy and rejected the Apocraphyl books on that basis. To the Reformers though the canon of Scripture is the text of Scripture and is received as a unified whole, God's word is to be found in the text of Scripture. And the canon is the final form in which Scripture is received, not the initial form. It is an explicitly theological approach to the Scripture which takes seriously the fact that each and every book of the Bible has come down to us as part of the canon.

This is in direct contradiction in which the Scripture is approached today in the critical school of thought which flows from Johann Semler's presuppositions. Semler approached the Scripture in a historical context and held that the Scripture cannot be identical to God's word, but that it only contained it. Hence, he held that the canon was fluid and was left up to individuals whereby each person could look into the Scripture and decide for themselves what was or was not canonical for them. This is the antithesis of Sola Scriptura and is the default position today in the quest to find the word of God independent from the canon of Scripture.

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Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana

There is a strong presumption, at this moment in time, that we should not expect any more divine revelation until the Second Coming. Word revelation accompanies act revelation, (sometimes) to predict it, and (always) to explain it.

Hebrews 1 really explains the completeness of New Testament revelation. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. His Son's spokesmen were the Apostles. They have spoken, and their ministry recorded for his abiding church in the New Testament. What else is there to say? "He who hears you, hears me," Christ told them.

When God speaks again (at the end of time, if we rightly understand the Bible's teaching on eschatology) his people will recognize--as they always have--the Voice of their God. God's asking Abraham for the "inexplicable" of sacrificing his son Isaac was not doubted by Abraham, though it seemed contrary to previous revelation. Why? He knew Who spoke it; the content was not determinative.

But aren't we supposed to judge the man who claims to speak for God against previous revelation? Yes, indubitably. Which is why we all keep rejecting the lies of the false prophets. But "he who has ears to hear, LET HIM HEAR."

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Dear Bill,

Please help me out here (sincerely), because I want to know if I've missed this in my readings...where does the aprocrypha, as a whole or as a part, make this claim for itself? Now, I am aware that others make this claim for the apocryphal books, but I'm interested in where it makes this claim for itself.

On another note, this is how I would distinguish, but not separate, the canon from Scripture. Scripture itself is inspired, or properly put, theopneustos; whereas the canon (the list of canonical books) is a by-product or artifact of that which is theopneustos. In other words, the identity of the canon, i.e. the list of canonical books should not be confused with revelation or theopneustos itself as the Roman communion has.

Thanks,
DTK

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Augustine (354-430): Therefore what He [i.e., Christ] has deigned to speak to us, we ought to believe that He meant us to understand. But if we do not understand He, being asked, gives understanding, who gave His Word unasked. NPNF1: Vol. VII, Tractates on John, Tractate XXII, §1.

I found Ridderbos' Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures to be a very helpful book on the topic of the canon.

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David, great question and thank you for catching my poor choice of words. The apocrypha doesn't make that claim, others do. I should have said, "Apart from the claim of some that the apocrypha is scripture..."

The question is, what would we do if we came across texts which are similar to the ones we have - like Paul's lost letter mentioned in Colossians?

Does it argue for Prophetic and Apostolic authority? If so, this is an assumption...and an argument from silence. We do not know who wrote the gospels, but accept them as a community of faith - as our forefathers.

Bill: You gotta read the canons of Vatican I where the Catholic church's stance on scripture was virtually identical to the reformers - this blew me away when I was introduced to it - of course, the question is, which canon.

There has been no written revelation from God in approximately 2000 years. The church was founded on the teachings of Christ and the Apostles.

Bill: How do we know?

Actually it is an argument from silence to assert that we do not know who wrote the gospels. It is the claim of Rome that we do not know who wrote the gospels apart from the testimony of Rome.

Bruce M. Metzger informs us that “in the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament the titles of several books are short and simple, e.g. ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΟΝ,” thus citing the Gospel of Matthew as an example. See Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, third, enlarged ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 26.

Moreover, it is pointed out by Carson, Moo and Morris that “we have no evidence that these gospels ever circulated without an appropriate designation κατὰ Μαθθαῖον (kata Matthaion, “according to Matthew”) or the like.” See D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), p. 66.

Guthrie likewise concurs, speaking of Matthew explicitly, “there is no positive evidence that the book ever circulated without this title.” See Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1970), p. 33.

To be sure, there is a strong tradition supporting Matthean authorship, but it is an argument from silence for anyone who would venture to assert that the four gospel accounts were ever circulated anonymously. In other words, the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew bear this inscription. Thus, the Roman allegation at this point is not only offered as an argument from silence, but against the earliest probable evidence as well. As a result of his investigations regarding the inscriptions of the Gospel manuscripts, Martin Hengel, Professor of New Testament and early Judaism in the University of Tübingen, has challenged the oft repeated assertion that “the inscriptiones and subscriptiones in the Gospel manuscripts are late.” (Martin Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), pp. 64ff.). He offers some nine considerations against the alleged theory that these accounts were first circulated anonymously. Recent scholarship has welcomed the results of his investigations. See D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, p. 66; and R. T. France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press), p. pp. 51-53, who concludes: “If the theory of anonymous circulation of gospels for a generation or two is to be established over against Hengel’s model, it must be supported by an equally careful demonstration that such a procedure could ‘make sense’ in first-century Christianity. In recent scholarship no such demonstration seems to have been offered.”

DTK

ok for tradition, but the textual evidence is silent - while I have a GREAT deal of respect for the authors you cite, the evidence is still absent from what is better called the autographs. Again, does knowing who wrote the texts matter at ALL.

Kindly,
John

Authorship mattered to the early Church when it recognised the canon, I really found "The Shape of Sola Scriptura" by Keith Mathison really helpful here. You cannot seperate any discussion of the canon without discussing the authority of the church. Not everything written by the Apostles was canon, if new writings were uncovered by Paul there is no reason to preume that they would be canonical, indeed there are very strong presumptions (to put it mildly) to the contrary.

John,

I don't claim to be a canonical scholar, but I'll take a risk and stay into this area. Vatican I was held in 1869. IMHO the Roman Church had already become an apostate church. Consider this quote from Vatican I:

Vatican I - imho - was held as a referendum on Pope Piux IX's infallibility. The fact that Rome validated the canon is interesting only from a historical perspective, not as a work of God. That is my opinion.

As far as Romes approach to canonicity; even though Rome was filled with errors and apostasies their traditions still held sway. Some traditions were more true than others. Let's remember - Rome wasn't always apostate.