What do you think? Are you convinced we have the "right books?" Or is there more to this discussion than meets the eye? Corrections from the video - "Acts of John" - is not pseudepigraphic. It doesn't claim to be written by John. - 3 Corinthians doesn't show up in "many" Latin manuscripts. --it occurs in other languages too. Comment below! 👇👇👇
@@cjohnyrun I listened to the video three times. I have so many thoughts. To me the most salient point I heard was this: when church fathers established the current NT canon (that we use in western protestant Christianity), their apparent agenda to restrict the plurality of Christian theologies? That agenda really worked! (I wonder if there's an academic term for the process that occurs when a hegemonic system/organization proclaims the sole take on what did and did not happen before their moment in history, and in so doing restricts diverse practices and understandings from that point forward? I've heard this process described in various contexts as having happened historically at different times, but I don't know if there's a shorthand term for it.) Having been raised in a church tradition that prides itself on recreating "the" first century version of Christianity, I'm learning there was no such thing! For starters, if a church wants to be a full reflection of first century Christianity, the "right" thing to do would probably not be to use a canon that did not even exist until the third century. 🤔 Thanks for the info, Chris.
@ 100%! well said. We're always looking back through the lens of canon. Even the protestants who think they're using the Bible to just "get back to basics" are swimming in the sea the Catholics made for them--which is sort of ironic.
@@CBlake-xy5cm These are logical arguments, not facts The New Testament canon was initiated by the heretic Marcion, who also introduced the term canon. Although he is considered a Gnostic, there are no Gnostic books in his list. Valentinus - the founder of Roman and Alexandrian schools of Gnosticism, cited the 4 gospels, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Peter, I John, Revelation of John. He only regarded 2 other Gnostic books as scripture: Gospel of Truth (Irenaeus claimed that the Valentinians wrote it) and Preaching of Peter. Very influential figures considered experts in the field of scripture were Tatian, Tertullian, Origen - all very respected, but late in their lives or afterwards declared heretics. Origen cited all the books of the New Testament, though he expressed some reservations concerning: James, II Peter, II John, and III John. Same for Tertullian, but he prefered not to cite these books. Books that were widely discussed but not included in the canon would not have affected the basic doctrines. In fact, most of them like the Shepherd of Hermes, the Didache, I Clement, Epistle of Barnabas were recommended as guides, but simply did not meet the criteria for scripture. And the Oriental Orthodox churches separated and initially did not include all the New Testament books (they hesitated mainly about I Peter, II John, III John, Jude, Revelation of John), but eventually after centuries they came to the same canon.
Given that the process of establishing the NT canon was from a list of fewer to a list of more books, and that books that were widely discussed but not included in the canon were recommended for reading, the canon does not seem to serve the dogmas of the Orthodox church. And in the 4th and 5th centuries there were still large groups of heretics who shared the same view of the biblical canon. On the contrary: - although the cult of the Virgin Mary developed strongly, the gospels that maintain the perpetual virginity of Mary were not added (although their narrative was accepted as true) - although the Old Testament books, which were not part of the Hebrew canon, played a key role in doctrines such as prayer for the dead, purgatory and other essential understandings for the Catholic Church, Athanasius and Jerome refused to recognize them as canonical and only recommended them for reading (Jerome initially refused to include them in the Vulgate at all). Using this argument, the Slavonic Eastern Orthodox churches (which represent the majority of Eastern Orthodox) refused to comply with the decision of the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 (which decreed the Greek Orthodox canon) and instead decided to include 11 additional books in the composition of the Old Testament, but to define them as non-canonical - although the Book of Enoch perfectly serves the doctrine of praying to angels, it was rejected
This is the kind of argument you could make if you remove the idea that Jesus established a Church and that the Church has divine authority through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Without that, any criteria for determining the canon of scriptures would be fallible.
It’s hard to describe the joy I feel being unshackled by the soul crushing and mind destroying limitations of Evangelical Fundamentalism. Now I’m getting answers to decades of endless questions instead of decades of endless apologetic lies. Thanx for the knowledge you’re sharing with inquiring minds.
Thank you! This information is such an amazing revelation for me. I’m 65, and over the last 35 years, my confidence in the “inerrancy” of the Bible has been eroding as I learn the history of Christianity. My doubts made me feel like a heretic amongst my fundamentalist Christian peers. It was bondage but this information is setting me free.
When someone first explained to me how we got the NT canon, he presented it as a divinely-inspired process in which church leaders carefully discerned which of the writings were truly God-inspired. Through this process the "real" word of God was collected into a canon. But since that time, I've seen how it was much less divinely driven and more humanly driven.
Very interesting material Chris. Thanks. I heard exactly none of this growing up in the Plymouth Brethren church in Southern Ontario. I've since moved on to an agnostic (with Christian sympathies) worldview.
Really enjoying your work, Chris. When I was an Evangelical, it really shook me up when I realized that most Christians in the world did not recognize the same canon that I had been told was "The Bible". It's an amazing thing that some 2,000 years later, Christianity still isn't in agreement about canon, one of the most fundamental aspects of the faith.
It's so hard when we just take it for granted. I always found hanging out with different Christian traditions a very good kick in the pants for my assumptions
Martin Luther wanted 4 NT books removed from the official canon and moved to another location in the Bible as being lesser inspired scripture: Epistle of James, Epistle to the Hebrews, Epistle of Jude, and Revelation.
"Epistle of straw" I believe he called James. But again, not because he had a unique insight on authenticity. Just because he wanted the bible to uphold his theology better. Which is the tale as old as time
Great stuff, Brother! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise! I consider myself an Anti-Dogma Follower of Good Jesus, etc. And I am grateful for the decent precepts that I learned from Christianity. Here is how I sum up my Theology; Rm 12:9 ..."Abhor that which is Evil, cleave to that which is Good" I think we do this by looking for the Devine in everything and if we don't find it, we should look elsewhere but we should Never stop looking!❤
As a former "PB," I'd be really interested in a video where you expand on how you describe yourself as christian, agnostic, atheist, and anri-fundamentalist.
An interesting book that recently came out is "The Key to the Keystone" from Jonah Barnes. He looks at the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon and Apocryphal Books that have come out since the Book of Mormon and tries to piece together what the Brass Plates were that the Book of Mormon writers had access to. It's a fascinating study.
Also Luke in his prologue mentioned may Gospels in circulations. He did not say they were wrong, he thought his gospel was more refined and perhaps complete. For example the Gospel of Thomas did not include resurrection and appearances. Or maybe he meant Mark from which he copied a lot. That shows the Holy spirit was not involved and they were just a human product.
The holy Spirit thing is beyond my scope as a scholar, but you can certainly see a lot of humans at work ;). I think a lot of modern Christians fall back on the Holy Spirit to say we have the right books, theologies, etc. But I find it hard to see as a historian. It's fascinating to wonder what Luke is referring to with his use of the word "many". Because we really only know of Mark and Q (maybe Matt) that precede him. What else was he reading? so fascinating
I used to make the Holy Spirit do a tonne of heavy lifting re the canon. Now my mind is way more open to truth, and seeing that emergent Christianity (bit like Dead Sea scrolls) was endlessly creatively riffing on central themes and echoing local concerns .. so that all manner of literature sprung up organically, without any central organisational body to approve & filter. I grew up in remote village in Scottish Outer Hebrides islands, where without cars or tech you basically had locally entrenched cultures developing because travelling 6 miles to next village was a big undertaking. That early Christianity was spawning all manner of different variations is now to me so cool and natural, where before I held the Holy Spirit to have smashed them out of existence for “purity”. Loving your channel so much, just recently discovered yours and Justin “Deconstruction Zone” and it’s so helpful in untangling decades of bad hurtful thinking ❤
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I have always found the outer Hebrides fascinating. We even studied a famous "revival" there once. I love your summary of the canon, totally on point.
@ yep Barvas revival 6 mile up from my village. I met genuine participants of that revival, and they were so warmly spiritual, it was without doubt something special and spiritual meaningful. BUT having recently woken up from evangelical 30 years, I’m well up to call out human manipulation which evangelicals would do regards other cults
‘Kanon’ means ‘rule’ or ‘measurement’ and has just as much to do with ‘creeds’ as it has to do with lists of ‘books which defile the hands’ (sacred scripture) but even if you have a list of ‘sacred holy authoritative book titles’ there is no guarantee you will be able to land on an early un-redacted hand written copy that is ‘more authoritative’ than others (over 226 copies of ‘Matthew’ in mss prior to the 9th century CE (whoever he was) and no two copies are exactly alike ! So translators have to apply the ‘eclectic’ method of choosing between ‘readings’ sometimes outwardly rejecting entire codices such as what modern translators have to do with Codex Ephraemi palimpsest (which gives the ‘number of the beast in Revelation chapter 13 as 616 !!) and other times supporting Sinaiticus with Mark ending in mid-sentence at 16:8 … So ‘picking and choosing’ between contradictory manuscripts is the biggest issue with ‘modern biblical ideas of inspiration’ About quoting non-canonical phrases such as James 1:14-16 which quotes as scripture a passage from the opening of ‘the Scroll of the book of the words of Henoch 7th from Adam to all the sons of light in the last days’ we also see Jesus misquoting the ‘Testament of Naphtali’ chapter 13-‘For as it is written, the Salvation of Yisroel shall come from the Judaeans’ (John 4:22) which was widely copied in the Dead Sea scrolls (c. BCE 154 to 68 CE) along with Henoch and other books copied into bibles before 500 CE such as ‘The Wisdom of Ben Sirach’ & ‘the Wisdom of Solomon’ & ‘The epistles of Clement’ and ‘The Shepherd of Hermas’ & ‘the Apocalypse of Peter’ ‘The Epistle of Barnabas’ & ‘the Didache’ etc.
Interesting, I found I was more challenged by canon formation than textual criticism, but both are problems for the way that so many moderns read the Bible. Also, I didn't know about that similarity with T12 there- thanks for that. I'll look it up. Couldn't it have got the other way? I know there's a lot of debate about its dating
@ - the ‘Scroll of the Book of the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs being the sons of Yakkov to all the Sons of Light in the Last Days’ was found in several (fragments) copies in Aramaic at Qumran at least one copy carbon-dated to before c. 170 BCE (long before the 4th gospel was even thought of c. 90 CE) suggesting it was brought INTO the Qumran enclosure from the outside [possibly the real Damasq in Syria] before re-locating to the Fortess of Seccacah as a ‘group of End of Days Covenanter break-away Tzadukkim’ (‘sons of Zadok’ = Saducees = but ones who DID believe in the two messiahs of Aaron & Israel, Satan-Beliar, The resurrection of the dead & Final Judgement and in the existence of interactive angelic beings, unlike their parent Saducees in Jerusalem) nestled as it were amongst the Dead Sea rock caves outside of Jericho (as well as forming part of the larger 88-book Aethiopic Bible canon - which also includes ‘apocryphal books’ e.g. The Wisdom of Ben Sirach, as well as another very popular 1st century scroll nicknamed ‘Jubilees’ (to which ‘ho Iesous’ also seems to refer when the gospel writers place specific Greek words & catch-phrases into his mouth using snippets of its language v.g. ‘the times of the gentiles are over’ ‘these are the Days of Vengeance of our god’ and other such ‘calendar type’ language echoing pieces of Torah (especially against hagoyyim) & e.g. trito-Isaiah 60 through 66 is often employed …) And this process of referring to these OTHER BOOKS goes a lot further than ‘Bible believing Christians’ are ever told about : v.g. ‘The Wisdom of Jesus ben-Sirach from c. 195 BCE which is gently brushed over by ‘Mark’ (whoever he was…) when in the passion narrative upon finding Judas ‘missing’ on the mount of olives has the following words placed into the mouth of a Greek speaking iesous : ‘the son of man (from an Aramaic section of Daniel chapter 7:13-28, ‘bar Enasha) IS SORROWFUL UNTO DEATH’ which is a clear reference to Ecclesiasticus/Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach found word for word in Greek See Sirach chapter 37:1 ‘Sorrowful unto death is that man whose closest (best ?) friend hath betrayed him …’ and the NT including Paul quote many many other apocryphal books (e.g. Jude 1:17-18 which quotes the ‘Scroll of the Book of the Assumption of Moses’ or otherwise making use of alternative Aramaic readings (often in line with the Targums) that ‘Protestants’ beginning with Luther have consciously removed from their bibles’ own ‘skinny canon’ (but who stubbornly still add/retain ‘Apoc.Yohan.’ aka ‘book of Revelation’ …despite bishop Athanasius of Alexandria’s c. 376 CE canon list letter which clearly does NOT include it into his own late 4th century ‘Canon of Scripture…’ which Protestants cling to despite that single book being missing (some of the hand copied 4th & 5th century Greek codices of that book attach it to ‘the Epistle of James’ or other books just to sneak it into the text & thus got round any restrictions especially the eastern churches who despised the book for some reason…
Therin lies the strange relationship that those that hold the absolute perfection and inerrancy twisted into the thorny crown that has a brutal, unintentional effect. It means that the slightest "chink" in that armor leads to absolute shipwreck of faith. I see now that I had faith in the presentation of God having his very existence dependent upon a view of Scripture that even Jesus Christ himself did not hold to. Presentation of the Bible being this strange magical book of perfections makes a very dangerous idol. So, to answer your question... you must have FAITH in God that is bigger than the fundamentalist demand placed upon the situation: perfection based upon an unstated bias that leads to shipwreck of a false faith when the truth comes out, namely that the Bible came to us in history. We can go and look into claims made about the Bible and test them. If we say we care about Truth, then we must respond with the fruit of our profession. God is not at risk... but a foundation upon sand, unicorns, or hopeful wishes IS NO FOUNDATION TO BUILD YOUR LIFE UPON! I have found the Lord more sweet having opened my eyes to what I was doing to both myself and others using the Bible to justify bad behaviors encased in my beloved doctrines. My doctrines divided the body of Christ. I literally missed the forest for the trees and had my orthodoxy to 1689 LBC levels but love for both God and neighbor at almost zero. It took me getting into the lonely desert to figure this all out. It was utterly painful... and it has been 5 years out. Not one of my former Reformed Baptists ever came looking for me to rescue me. Just ghosted... like I did to others that left the true faith. God is bigger than the demands I put on the 66 books of the Bible and on God to be who I made the Bible be. At the end of the day I was just like the Mormon or JW. And you thought following God would be easy?
Production note: OK, vocal audio has improved vice earlier vids. I note that this vid uses a head-shot framing so we do loose that earlier body language from your hand expressions. The vocal still needs work. Re-listen to this vid and note how there is a weird reverb and that the reverb comes and goes with slight variation in your head position. I say weird reverb as it sounds exaggerated from what I can see of the room. Mostly hard surfaces which encourage reflection reverb, but still... maybe you are close to a hard-surface wall behind the camera? If so, try hanging a blanket behind the camera. If you have automatic volume control enabled and turned up in the audio path that could be interacting with the reverb to create the uneven vocal. The AVC flops around trying to compensate for both the changing reverb and you moving mouth position to/from the mic and on/off axis to the mic. Ahhh... and I now I see peeks of your hands waving, so still possible you are waving close in front of the mic so that more likely a contributor to the uneven quality. It is possible some post-processing of the audio with a DAW could reduce the reverb. Your face is well-lit with diffuse light, no hot spots. Looks like natural light coming in from stage left. Be aware of specular (mirror-like) reflections or hot-spot light sources in the background as they can be visually distracting for the viewer. That table lamp stage right in the back is not bad but does it really need to be on? But then catch the specular reflection coming off of its base. Easy to fix with a dark cloth drape. A small reflection is coming off the object on the second shelf stage left. Regards.
The certainty (yes certainty) that there are forgeries in the New Testament is one of the most compelling reasons to reject the Christian faith. If 2 Peter and the Pastorals, both second century works had not made it in - the validity of the faith would increase tenfold. (and that's with anonymous Gospels and heavy visible editing of Luke, Acts, John, etc)
interesting, I think there are some Christians that are fine with it. There's also a question of how "serious" pseudepigrapha is as a crime. Some have argued that these writers were carrying on "schools of thought" or writing in honor of a teacher. Although Bart Ehrman's famous book "Forged" argues that the practice was really hated in antiquity too. It also depends on where the bible fits within one's Christian theology. Learning this certainly made me reject the inerrancy I was raised with
Why should we be certain they are pseudipagraphical. I think that they are but why should we be certain. And why would that be a reason to reject the Christian faith. Many of those scholars who admit they are pseudepigraphal are devout Christians.
The christian faith is broad (even today), and there is room within it for a range of relationships with the biblical texts. It is true that pseudopigraphy breaks the chain between Christ -> Named Apostle -> Us. But if we accept the looser view that the bible canon formed out of a fuzzy process involving (1) general commmunity use, and (2) unity of doctrine, then the authorship matters less. As long as the broad community tradition that we participate in used these books and found them helpful, we can too. From this position we can ask the question of authorship more openly - the answer doesn't matter to current pastoral use. I acknowledge this position means the bible cannot stand alone as an independent authority, but simply as a source of teaching we dialogue with.
thanks Chris. the history of this is fascinating. I was wondering about the book of enoch. i know its old testament and this video is about the new one, but you mentioned it. ive seen a lot of claims that the book of enoch is not cannon, therefore it is no bueno. what do you think about the book of enoch? this is one that the billy carson types love to point to as proof of aliens hehe.
The book of Enoch was just as sexy then as now I think. Although I'm skeptical of the aliens :P I suspect it influenced the world of the NT to some extent, esp. the cosmology. It has similar themes (ie. the use of "son of man"). And the quote in Jude. I think Dan McLellan did a vid on it recently? Might be worth a look. And there's a great collection of OT Pseudepigrapha you can access online--a bit dated, but a good intro to the genre. archive.org/details/the-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-vol.-1-charlesworth-1983/page/n5/mode/2up
@@SamDupree-bw4rt Enoch contradicts other part of the NT in ways that aren't easily reconcilable (In contrast, most christians can fudge their way through the differences between Pauls letters and James), and the book was clearly not written by Enoch (obvious to even ancient readers). This all meant that it wouldn't make the final canon lists regardless of whether it was quoted by Jude or had a forming role in the cosmology of the time.
Old testament revield spiritual truths that became a carnal ritual to submit to the God who gave them.... new testament exposes the carnal mind to become the spiritual mind intended in the beginning. Becoming eye to eye tooth for tooth is a mutual balance between the two minds, communicating with each other without the need to rip apart our adversary, but to shine the light of the divine self.
@ziploc2000 In other words, you don't have a damn clue. That number is completely bogus and a particularly egregious example of how to lie with statistics.
@@ziploc2000 Yeah. And when a denomination has a presence in more than one country they count each one as a separate denomination. So for example the Catholic Church is found in every country so they count that as almost 200 denominations when in reality its only one. Do that for everyone else and count every "non denominational" church as it's own denominations when in reality they're just Baptists or Pentacostals with a light show and a smoke machine and you can see how the numbers get inflated exponentially.
No. It was bt Apostolic succession that the Church (Body of Christ) established bt Christ in 33 AD, discerned which writings were to be include in the list of the Sacred Books. This complete list is called the Canon of Scripture. It contains 46 books for the Old Testament and 27 books for the New Testament.
Given the teachings and traditions of the first true Church, there's no getting away from the fact that based on those teachings and traditions, predating the Bible books, only that church could have any authority, through the Holy Spirit, to declare which books were canonical and which weren't. That's all there is to it. Claiming that 'various' early groups believed they had the truth is avoiding the fact that only the Apostles had the true teachings which they passed on worthy men and these men continued doing the same. So there may have been many false groups, that doesn't mean the the true Church wasn't the one to survive and spread the true gospel. If you know better, than prove it. Conjecture is only that and therefore irrelevant. God bless, V
So, your stance requires faith because there is no way to demonstrate that the teachings and traditions you deem to be correct are correct. The 'evidence' of things not seen.
Isn't the reality that you are seeing the debate through the lens of the present. That is that the Bible is the central core of Christianity? Christianity went for 300 years with no Bible. Books were expensive and literacy low. The way the Church operated in it's early years would have been by meetings of believers in homes. Shared sacred meals and discussion. It would be later that there would be the building of Churches staffed by literate clerics armed with written books. There would have been Christian writings. The history of the Church. Various gospels things now no longer part of the cannon. The development of the Bible is something which evolved when Christianity became a state religion was protected and wealthy enough to have Church buildings and be able to afford to purchase libraries
yup, that's pretty much what I think happened in a nutshell. Although I think we even romanticize the whole "house church" thing--I'm guessing the house meetings looked more like a graeco-roman house collegia.
We know there was many versions and oral traditions, without doubt all adopting various other belief tropes. legends, mythologies and stories. Eventually the coalesce into most popular, from those competition reduced the number even more. Of course, once established as there is evidence of the erasure of previous versions and documents was done by ongoing purge. No one can know what part was ever. What we have now is over 40,000 versions. Nothing can be pointed to as truth. Either way, no matter how it is spun, it is still a man-made fiction, another apocalyptic death cult.
What do you think? Are you convinced we have the "right books?" Or is there more to this discussion than meets the eye?
Corrections from the video
- "Acts of John" - is not pseudepigraphic. It doesn't claim to be written by John.
- 3 Corinthians doesn't show up in "many" Latin manuscripts. --it occurs in other languages too.
Comment below!
👇👇👇
@@cjohnyrun I listened to the video three times. I have so many thoughts. To me the most salient point I heard was this: when church fathers established the current NT canon (that we use in western protestant Christianity), their apparent agenda to restrict the plurality of Christian theologies? That agenda really worked!
(I wonder if there's an academic term for the process that occurs when a hegemonic system/organization proclaims the sole take on what did and did not happen before their moment in history, and in so doing restricts diverse practices and understandings from that point forward? I've heard this process described in various contexts as having happened historically at different times, but I don't know if there's a shorthand term for it.)
Having been raised in a church tradition that prides itself on recreating "the" first century version of Christianity, I'm learning there was no such thing! For starters, if a church wants to be a full reflection of first century Christianity, the "right" thing to do would probably not be to use a canon that did not even exist until the third century. 🤔 Thanks for the info, Chris.
@ 100%! well said. We're always looking back through the lens of canon. Even the protestants who think they're using the Bible to just "get back to basics" are swimming in the sea the Catholics made for them--which is sort of ironic.
@@CBlake-xy5cm These are logical arguments, not facts
The New Testament canon was initiated by the heretic Marcion, who also introduced the term canon. Although he is considered a Gnostic, there are no Gnostic books in his list. Valentinus - the founder of Roman and Alexandrian schools of Gnosticism, cited the 4 gospels, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Peter, I John, Revelation of John. He only regarded 2 other Gnostic books as scripture: Gospel of Truth (Irenaeus claimed that the Valentinians wrote it) and Preaching of Peter.
Very influential figures considered experts in the field of scripture were Tatian, Tertullian, Origen - all very respected, but late in their lives or afterwards declared heretics. Origen cited all the books of the New Testament, though he expressed some reservations concerning: James, II Peter, II John, and III John. Same for Tertullian, but he prefered not to cite these books.
Books that were widely discussed but not included in the canon would not have affected the basic doctrines. In fact, most of them like the Shepherd of Hermes, the Didache, I Clement, Epistle of Barnabas were recommended as guides, but simply did not meet the criteria for scripture.
And the Oriental Orthodox churches separated and initially did not include all the New Testament books (they hesitated mainly about I Peter, II John, III John, Jude, Revelation of John), but eventually after centuries they came to the same canon.
Given that the process of establishing the NT canon was from a list of fewer to a list of more books, and that books that were widely discussed but not included in the canon were recommended for reading, the canon does not seem to serve the dogmas of the Orthodox church. And in the 4th and 5th centuries there were still large groups of heretics who shared the same view of the biblical canon.
On the contrary:
- although the cult of the Virgin Mary developed strongly, the gospels that maintain the perpetual virginity of Mary were not added (although their narrative was accepted as true)
- although the Old Testament books, which were not part of the Hebrew canon, played a key role in doctrines such as prayer for the dead, purgatory and other essential understandings for the Catholic Church, Athanasius and Jerome refused to recognize them as canonical and only recommended them for reading (Jerome initially refused to include them in the Vulgate at all). Using this argument, the Slavonic Eastern Orthodox churches (which represent the majority of Eastern Orthodox) refused to comply with the decision of the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 (which decreed the Greek Orthodox canon) and instead decided to include 11 additional books in the composition of the Old Testament, but to define them as non-canonical
- although the Book of Enoch perfectly serves the doctrine of praying to angels, it was rejected
This is the kind of argument you could make if you remove the idea that Jesus established a Church and that the Church has divine authority through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Without that, any criteria for determining the canon of scriptures would be fallible.
It’s hard to describe the joy I feel being unshackled by the soul crushing and mind destroying limitations of Evangelical Fundamentalism. Now I’m getting answers to decades of endless questions instead of decades of endless apologetic lies. Thanx for the knowledge you’re sharing with inquiring minds.
Thank you! This information is such an amazing revelation for me. I’m 65, and over the last 35 years, my confidence in the “inerrancy” of the Bible has been eroding as I learn the history of Christianity. My doubts made me feel like a heretic amongst my fundamentalist Christian peers. It was bondage but this information is setting me free.
Thank you so much! That really encourages me to keep going as it is a main goal of mine
Love your content brother! Keep up the good work 👏🏼
Appreciate it!
You should give CJ a shoutout to help him grow dude!
When someone first explained to me how we got the NT canon, he presented it as a divinely-inspired process in which church leaders carefully discerned which of the writings were truly God-inspired. Through this process the "real" word of God was collected into a canon. But since that time, I've seen how it was much less divinely driven and more humanly driven.
Yoo,your channel's growing very fast
Happy for you sir 🎉🎉
Very interesting material Chris. Thanks. I heard exactly none of this growing up in the Plymouth Brethren church in Southern Ontario. I've since moved on to an agnostic (with Christian sympathies) worldview.
Really enjoying your work, Chris. When I was an Evangelical, it really shook me up when I realized that most Christians in the world did not recognize the same canon that I had been told was "The Bible". It's an amazing thing that some 2,000 years later, Christianity still isn't in agreement about canon, one of the most fundamental aspects of the faith.
It's so hard when we just take it for granted. I always found hanging out with different Christian traditions a very good kick in the pants for my assumptions
Martin Luther wanted 4 NT books removed from the official canon and moved to another location in the Bible as being lesser inspired scripture: Epistle of James, Epistle to the Hebrews, Epistle of Jude, and Revelation.
"Epistle of straw" I believe he called James. But again, not because he had a unique insight on authenticity. Just because he wanted the bible to uphold his theology better. Which is the tale as old as time
Once again, very interesting! Thank you for this analysis.
thanks for watching!
So to summarize: the Bible is a book put together by humans. Period.
Great stuff, Brother! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise! I consider myself an Anti-Dogma Follower of Good Jesus, etc. And I am grateful for the decent precepts that I learned from Christianity. Here is how I sum up my Theology; Rm 12:9 ..."Abhor that which is Evil, cleave to that which is Good" I think we do this by looking for the Devine in everything and if we don't find it, we should look elsewhere but we should Never stop looking!❤
Good Morning, Chris! Looking forward to watching this video! 🙂
Hope you enjoyed it!
As a former "PB," I'd be really interested in a video where you expand on how you describe yourself as christian, agnostic, atheist, and anri-fundamentalist.
Thanks for your interest! That's a common request and it's coming. Stay tuned
Very interesting. Keep up the good work,
Thank you!
A very clear and concise treatise on the subject. Great video!
Glad you liked it!
An interesting book that recently came out is "The Key to the Keystone" from Jonah Barnes. He looks at the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon and Apocryphal Books that have come out since the Book of Mormon and tries to piece together what the Brass Plates were that the Book of Mormon writers had access to. It's a fascinating study.
Crisp video. What model of camera do you use? Great video as usual.
hmm it's just my phone. TBH I didn't think they look that great, so I appreciate this lol.
Also Luke in his prologue mentioned may Gospels in circulations. He did not say they were wrong, he thought his gospel was more refined and perhaps complete. For example the Gospel of Thomas did not include resurrection and appearances. Or maybe he meant Mark from which he copied a lot. That shows the Holy spirit was not involved and they were just a human product.
The holy Spirit thing is beyond my scope as a scholar, but you can certainly see a lot of humans at work ;). I think a lot of modern Christians fall back on the Holy Spirit to say we have the right books, theologies, etc. But I find it hard to see as a historian. It's fascinating to wonder what Luke is referring to with his use of the word "many". Because we really only know of Mark and Q (maybe Matt) that precede him. What else was he reading? so fascinating
@@cjohnyrun Yes it is a matter of faith, like miracles, it can't be proven or disproven.
I used to make the Holy Spirit do a tonne of heavy lifting re the canon. Now my mind is way more open to truth, and seeing that emergent Christianity (bit like Dead Sea scrolls) was endlessly creatively riffing on central themes and echoing local concerns .. so that all manner of literature sprung up organically, without any central organisational body to approve & filter.
I grew up in remote village in Scottish Outer Hebrides islands, where without cars or tech you basically had locally entrenched cultures developing because travelling 6 miles to next village was a big undertaking.
That early Christianity was spawning all manner of different variations is now to me so cool and natural, where before I held the Holy Spirit to have smashed them out of existence for “purity”.
Loving your channel so much, just recently discovered yours and Justin “Deconstruction Zone” and it’s so helpful in untangling decades of bad hurtful thinking ❤
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I have always found the outer Hebrides fascinating. We even studied a famous "revival" there once. I love your summary of the canon, totally on point.
@ yep Barvas revival 6 mile up from my village. I met genuine participants of that revival, and they were so warmly spiritual, it was without doubt something special and spiritual meaningful.
BUT having recently woken up from evangelical 30 years, I’m well up to call out human manipulation which evangelicals would do regards other cults
‘Kanon’ means ‘rule’ or ‘measurement’ and has just as much to do with ‘creeds’ as it has to do with lists of ‘books which defile the hands’ (sacred scripture) but even if you have a list of ‘sacred holy authoritative book titles’ there is no guarantee you will be able to land on an early un-redacted hand written copy that is ‘more authoritative’ than others (over 226 copies of ‘Matthew’ in mss prior to the 9th century CE (whoever he was) and no two copies are exactly alike ! So translators have to apply the ‘eclectic’ method of choosing between ‘readings’ sometimes outwardly rejecting entire codices such as what modern translators have to do with Codex Ephraemi palimpsest (which gives the ‘number of the beast in Revelation chapter 13 as 616 !!) and other times supporting Sinaiticus with Mark ending in mid-sentence at 16:8 …
So ‘picking and choosing’ between contradictory manuscripts is the biggest issue with ‘modern biblical ideas of inspiration’
About quoting non-canonical phrases such as James 1:14-16 which quotes as scripture a passage from the opening of ‘the Scroll of the book of the words of Henoch 7th from Adam to all the sons of light in the last days’ we also see Jesus misquoting the ‘Testament of Naphtali’ chapter 13-‘For as it is written, the Salvation of Yisroel shall come from the Judaeans’ (John 4:22) which was widely copied in the Dead Sea scrolls (c. BCE 154 to 68 CE) along with Henoch and other books copied into bibles before 500 CE such as ‘The Wisdom of Ben Sirach’ & ‘the Wisdom of Solomon’ & ‘The epistles of Clement’ and ‘The Shepherd of Hermas’ & ‘the Apocalypse of Peter’ ‘The Epistle of Barnabas’ & ‘the Didache’ etc.
Interesting, I found I was more challenged by canon formation than textual criticism, but both are problems for the way that so many moderns read the Bible. Also, I didn't know about that similarity with T12 there- thanks for that. I'll look it up. Couldn't it have got the other way? I know there's a lot of debate about its dating
@ - the ‘Scroll of the Book of the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs being the sons of Yakkov to all the Sons of Light in the Last Days’ was found in several (fragments) copies in Aramaic at Qumran at least one copy carbon-dated to before c. 170 BCE (long before the 4th gospel was even thought of c. 90 CE) suggesting it was brought INTO the Qumran enclosure from the outside [possibly the real Damasq in Syria] before re-locating to the Fortess of Seccacah as a ‘group of End of Days Covenanter break-away Tzadukkim’ (‘sons of Zadok’ = Saducees = but ones who DID believe in the two messiahs of Aaron & Israel, Satan-Beliar, The resurrection of the dead & Final Judgement and in the existence of interactive angelic beings, unlike their parent Saducees in Jerusalem) nestled as it were amongst the Dead Sea rock caves outside of Jericho (as well as forming part of the larger 88-book Aethiopic Bible canon - which also includes ‘apocryphal books’ e.g. The Wisdom of Ben Sirach, as well as another very popular 1st century scroll nicknamed ‘Jubilees’ (to which ‘ho Iesous’ also seems to refer when the gospel writers place specific Greek words & catch-phrases into his mouth using snippets of its language
v.g. ‘the times of the gentiles are over’ ‘these are the Days of Vengeance of our god’ and other such ‘calendar type’ language echoing pieces of Torah (especially against hagoyyim) & e.g. trito-Isaiah 60 through 66 is often employed …)
And this process of referring to these OTHER BOOKS goes a lot further than ‘Bible believing Christians’ are ever told about :
v.g. ‘The Wisdom of Jesus ben-Sirach from c. 195 BCE which is gently brushed over by ‘Mark’ (whoever he was…) when in the passion narrative upon finding Judas ‘missing’ on the mount of olives has the following words placed into the mouth of a Greek speaking iesous : ‘the son of man (from an Aramaic section of Daniel chapter 7:13-28, ‘bar Enasha) IS SORROWFUL UNTO DEATH’
which is a clear reference to Ecclesiasticus/Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach found word for word in Greek
See Sirach chapter 37:1
‘Sorrowful unto death is that man whose closest (best ?) friend hath betrayed him …’
and the NT including Paul quote many many other apocryphal books (e.g. Jude 1:17-18 which quotes the ‘Scroll of the Book of the Assumption of Moses’ or otherwise making use of alternative Aramaic readings (often in line with the Targums) that ‘Protestants’ beginning with Luther have consciously removed from their bibles’ own ‘skinny canon’ (but who stubbornly still add/retain ‘Apoc.Yohan.’ aka ‘book of Revelation’ …despite bishop Athanasius of Alexandria’s c. 376 CE canon list letter which clearly does NOT include it into his own late 4th century ‘Canon of Scripture…’ which Protestants cling to despite that single book being missing (some of the hand copied 4th & 5th century Greek codices of that book attach it to ‘the Epistle of James’ or other books just to sneak it into the text & thus got round any restrictions especially the eastern churches who despised the book for some reason…
Right. Thank you for that. Now the question is, where does that leave us who preach and teach that the Bible is God’s supreme truth and authority?
Up the river without a paddle and headed to capsize in the rapids
Therin lies the strange relationship that those that hold the absolute perfection and inerrancy twisted into the thorny crown that has a brutal, unintentional effect. It means that the slightest "chink" in that armor leads to absolute shipwreck of faith.
I see now that I had faith in the presentation of God having his very existence dependent upon a view of Scripture that even Jesus Christ himself did not hold to. Presentation of the Bible being this strange magical book of perfections makes a very dangerous idol.
So, to answer your question... you must have FAITH in God that is bigger than the fundamentalist demand placed upon the situation: perfection based upon an unstated bias that leads to shipwreck of a false faith when the truth comes out, namely that the Bible came to us in history. We can go and look into claims made about the Bible and test them. If we say we care about Truth, then we must respond with the fruit of our profession. God is not at risk... but a foundation upon sand, unicorns, or hopeful wishes IS NO FOUNDATION TO BUILD YOUR LIFE UPON!
I have found the Lord more sweet having opened my eyes to what I was doing to both myself and others using the Bible to justify bad behaviors encased in my beloved doctrines. My doctrines divided the body of Christ. I literally missed the forest for the trees and had my orthodoxy to 1689 LBC levels but love for both God and neighbor at almost zero. It took me getting into the lonely desert to figure this all out. It was utterly painful... and it has been 5 years out. Not one of my former Reformed Baptists ever came looking for me to rescue me. Just ghosted... like I did to others that left the true faith.
God is bigger than the demands I put on the 66 books of the Bible and on God to be who I made the Bible be. At the end of the day I was just like the Mormon or JW.
And you thought following God would be easy?
Nice job!
Thanks!
Context! No one likes this word. It means you have to do a little extra studying. Great video!
Yes! Thank you!
When there's a problem with the canon, everything surrounding it is likely to blow up.
it is really foundational. I found it really hard to get past once I got it (as a biblical inerrantist at least)
I agree with Luther. A lot of Christian BS could be eliminated by removing Revelation from the NT. :-)
I certainly would have been a less anxious kid
Luther does not have authority over the Bible.
Production note: OK, vocal audio has improved vice earlier vids. I note that this vid uses a head-shot framing so we do loose that earlier body language from your hand expressions. The vocal still needs work. Re-listen to this vid and note how there is a weird reverb and that the reverb comes and goes with slight variation in your head position. I say weird reverb as it sounds exaggerated from what I can see of the room. Mostly hard surfaces which encourage reflection reverb, but still... maybe you are close to a hard-surface wall behind the camera? If so, try hanging a blanket behind the camera. If you have automatic volume control enabled and turned up in the audio path that could be interacting with the reverb to create the uneven vocal. The AVC flops around trying to compensate for both the changing reverb and you moving mouth position to/from the mic and on/off axis to the mic. Ahhh... and I now I see peeks of your hands waving, so still possible you are waving close in front of the mic so that more likely a contributor to the uneven quality. It is possible some post-processing of the audio with a DAW could reduce the reverb. Your face is well-lit with diffuse light, no hot spots. Looks like natural light coming in from stage left. Be aware of specular (mirror-like) reflections or hot-spot light sources in the background as they can be visually distracting for the viewer. That table lamp stage right in the back is not bad but does it really need to be on? But then catch the specular reflection coming off of its base. Easy to fix with a dark cloth drape. A small reflection is coming off the object on the second shelf stage left.
Regards.
The certainty (yes certainty) that there are forgeries in the New Testament is one of the most compelling reasons to reject the Christian faith.
If 2 Peter and the Pastorals, both second century works had not made it in - the validity of the faith would increase tenfold. (and that's with anonymous Gospels and heavy visible editing of Luke, Acts, John, etc)
interesting, I think there are some Christians that are fine with it. There's also a question of how "serious" pseudepigrapha is as a crime. Some have argued that these writers were carrying on "schools of thought" or writing in honor of a teacher. Although Bart Ehrman's famous book "Forged" argues that the practice was really hated in antiquity too.
It also depends on where the bible fits within one's Christian theology. Learning this certainly made me reject the inerrancy I was raised with
Why should we be certain they are pseudipagraphical. I think that they are but why should we be certain.
And why would that be a reason to reject the Christian faith. Many of those scholars who admit they are pseudepigraphal are devout Christians.
The christian faith is broad (even today), and there is room within it for a range of relationships with the biblical texts.
It is true that pseudopigraphy breaks the chain between Christ -> Named Apostle -> Us.
But if we accept the looser view that the bible canon formed out of a fuzzy process involving (1) general commmunity use, and (2) unity of doctrine, then the authorship matters less. As long as the broad community tradition that we participate in used these books and found them helpful, we can too. From this position we can ask the question of authorship more openly - the answer doesn't matter to current pastoral use. I acknowledge this position means the bible cannot stand alone as an independent authority, but simply as a source of teaching we dialogue with.
thanks Chris. the history of this is fascinating. I was wondering about the book of enoch. i know its old testament and this video is about the new one, but you mentioned it. ive seen a lot of claims that the book of enoch is not cannon, therefore it is no bueno. what do you think about the book of enoch? this is one that the billy carson types love to point to as proof of aliens hehe.
The book of Enoch was just as sexy then as now I think. Although I'm skeptical of the aliens :P I suspect it influenced the world of the NT to some extent, esp. the cosmology. It has similar themes (ie. the use of "son of man"). And the quote in Jude. I think Dan McLellan did a vid on it recently? Might be worth a look. And there's a great collection of OT Pseudepigrapha you can access online--a bit dated, but a good intro to the genre. archive.org/details/the-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-vol.-1-charlesworth-1983/page/n5/mode/2up
thank you sir.
@@SamDupree-bw4rt Enoch contradicts other part of the NT in ways that aren't easily reconcilable (In contrast, most christians can fudge their way through the differences between Pauls letters and James), and the book was clearly not written by Enoch (obvious to even ancient readers). This all meant that it wouldn't make the final canon lists regardless of whether it was quoted by Jude or had a forming role in the cosmology of the time.
Old testament revield spiritual truths that became a carnal ritual to submit to the God who gave them.... new testament exposes the carnal mind to become the spiritual mind intended in the beginning.
Becoming eye to eye tooth for tooth is a mutual balance between the two minds, communicating with each other without the need to rip apart our adversary, but to shine the light of the divine self.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has still a NT canon with 35 books. No universally accepted NT canon so far.
There's over 47,000 Christian denominations today and growing. I don't think there were that many individual Christians in the early days.
Where does that number come from and how was it arrived at?
@byrondickens It's on the internet, they counted.
@ziploc2000 In other words, you don't have a damn clue.
That number is completely bogus and a particularly egregious example of how to lie with statistics.
@byrondickens The data comes from Center for the Study of Global Christianity.
@@ziploc2000 Yeah. And when a denomination has a presence in more than one country they count each one as a separate denomination. So for example the Catholic Church is found in every country so they count that as almost 200 denominations when in reality its only one. Do that for everyone else and count every "non denominational" church as it's own denominations when in reality they're just Baptists or Pentacostals with a light show and a smoke machine and you can see how the numbers get inflated exponentially.
What if they all are forgeries?! 🥵
they could be. But there's general agreement on the core letters of Paul. But if you want to write the dissertation, I will read it!
I don't think there are any "right books".
No. It was bt Apostolic succession that the Church (Body of Christ) established bt Christ in 33 AD, discerned which writings were to be include in the list of the Sacred Books. This complete list is called the Canon of Scripture. It contains 46 books for the Old Testament and 27 books for the New Testament.
Given the teachings and traditions of the first true Church, there's no getting away from the fact that based on those teachings and traditions, predating the Bible books, only that church could have any authority, through the Holy Spirit, to declare which books were canonical and which weren't. That's all there is to it.
Claiming that 'various' early groups believed they had the truth is avoiding the fact that only the Apostles had the true teachings which they passed on worthy men and these men continued doing the same. So there may have been many false groups, that doesn't mean the the true Church wasn't the one to survive and spread the true gospel. If you know better, than prove it. Conjecture is only that and therefore irrelevant.
God bless,
V
So, your stance requires faith because there is no way to demonstrate that the teachings and traditions you deem to be correct are correct. The 'evidence' of things not seen.
@@lesdickson3169 Indeed - but based on the witness of many others though ultimately faith is a gift of grace.
God bless,
V
Isn't the reality that you are seeing the debate through the lens of the present. That is that the Bible is the central core of Christianity?
Christianity went for 300 years with no Bible. Books were expensive and literacy low.
The way the Church operated in it's early years would have been by meetings of believers in homes. Shared sacred meals and discussion. It would be later that there would be the building of Churches staffed by literate clerics armed with written books.
There would have been Christian writings. The history of the Church. Various gospels things now no longer part of the cannon. The development of the Bible is something which evolved when Christianity became a state religion was protected and wealthy enough to have Church buildings and be able to afford to purchase libraries
yup, that's pretty much what I think happened in a nutshell. Although I think we even romanticize the whole "house church" thing--I'm guessing the house meetings looked more like a graeco-roman house collegia.
canon fodder
We know there was many versions and oral traditions, without doubt all adopting various other belief tropes. legends, mythologies and stories.
Eventually the coalesce into most popular, from those competition reduced the number even more.
Of course, once established as there is evidence of the erasure of previous versions and documents was done by ongoing purge.
No one can know what part was ever.
What we have now is over 40,000 versions. Nothing can be pointed to as truth.
Either way, no matter how it is spun, it is still a man-made fiction, another apocalyptic death cult.