Summary of The Formation of The New Testament Canon
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ScribdTranslationsSUMMARY
THE FORMATION OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT by Donald A. Carson
Wirlan Pajeú de Moraes1
If we think of the canon of the New Testament as a 'closed' list of books
recognized, the main events are well known and are generally not
questioned. The first of these closed lists that we know of is that of Marcion.
It is undeniable that the work of Marcion and other heretics led the church to
publish broader and less biased lists. In a similar situation, the movement
mountaineer, who sought to elevate the voice of prophecy to a level of supreme authority in the church
it also served to force the church to make public decisions regarding the standard of orthodoxy.
Around the end of the 2nd century, the Muratorian list, although practically worthless as
guidance regarding the origin of the books of the New Testament to which it refers reflects the
opinion of the universal church that recognizes a canon of the New Testament not very different
of our.
In this introduction, it has been quickly observed how these or other countries mention.
the various books of the New Testament as Scripture; but this standard does not establish when
there was the recognition of the canon of the New Testament as a closed list.
When addressing the canon of the New Testament, Eusebius develops a tripartite classification:
the recognized books (homologoumena), the questioned books (antilegomena) and the books
introduced by the heretics in the name of the apostles, but rejected by those whom Eusebius
he considers orthodox. In the first category, Eusebius includes the four gospels, Acts, 14
Pauline epistles (Eusebius includes Hebrews, although he is aware that the church in
Rome did not consider that Hebrews had been written by Paul), 1 Peter, 1 John and,
apparently (albeit with certain reservations), Apocalypse. In other words, the four
Gospels, Acts, the 13 Pauline epistles, 1 Peter, and 1 John are universally accepted already
early on; most of the rest of the New Testament canon is already established at
Eusébio's time.
The first list that includes all and only the 27 books of our New Testament
It is the Easter letter written by Athanasius in 367 to the Alexandrian church. The sixtieth canon
the Council of Laodicea (c. 363) includes all 27 books except for the Apocalypse, but
The indications of the manuscript suggest that this canon may have been a later addition.
1Student of the graduate course in Theological Studies at CPAJ.
Third Council of Carthage (397), in which Augustine was present, recognized the 27
books of the New Testament and, after that, in the West there was practically no one who
step away from that position.
It is important to note that, although there was no ecclesiastical power like the
medieval papacy to impose decisions, thus the church worldwide came almost
universally accepting the same 27 books. The issue was not so much that the church made the
selection of the canon, but the canon having made the selection of itself.
There were basically three criteria that the church employed in the debates to determine
which books were canonical:
A basic requirement for determining canonicity was conformity to the 'rule of faith.'
conformity between the document and orthodoxy, that is, the Christian truth recognized as
regulations in churches.
2) In our country, the most commonly mentioned criterion is perhaps apostolicity, which, as
criterion, came to include those who were in direct contact with the apostles. In this
the Gospel of Mark was understood as linked to Peter; that of Luke was linked to
Paul.
3) An almost equally important criterion is the widespread and ongoing acceptance of a document and
its use by churches everywhere. This is how Jerome insists that it doesn't matter who
He wrote Hebrews because in any case, this book is the work of a "church writer". If
the Latin churches were slow to accept Hebrews and the Greek churches were slow to accept
Apocalypse, Jerome accepts both, in part because many ancient writers had
accepted both as canonical.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The debate about the canon is about a closed list of authorized books. The very
Books were necessarily circulating long before, as most of them were
officially recognized by the entire church and all of them were accepted in large segments of the
church.
The revelation of the good news, the gospel of the beloved Son of God, has been so
intimately connected to the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus that the accounts of this "good
The news came to be called gospels.
Three other elements of evidence are important:
1) In the early stages of the transmission, before efforts were made to provide records.
writings (see Luke 1:1-4), the 'tradition' was transmitted orally. As it often is
admitted, in the New Testament the word 'tradition' (paradosis) does not necessarily bring
negative nuances.
The only passage that everyone quotes to justify the notion that oral tradition was held
The highest degree of esteem is a statement by Papias recorded by Eusebius. It has been
allegedly convincingly that Papias emphasizes the importance of oral tradition to privilege
your comment about the words of the Lord, not the content of those words themselves.
3) If we investigate when and how the first collections of at least some of the
books of the New Testament, the direct answer is that we do not know. We certainly know that
By no later than the middle of the second century, the four canonical gospels were circulating.
together in the form of the quadruple gospel 'according to Matthew', 'according to Mark' and so on
likely still before the Pauline epistles were widely circulated. The
the process of promoting the circulation of these materials undoubtedly received the boost
of the widespread use by Christians of books in the form of codices.
Finally, it is necessary to quickly note four contemporary perspectives of the
importance of the canon.
1) Some have argued that the notion of a canon should be abolished. They say that there is no
qualitative differences between the books of the New Testament and other ancient Christian texts.
It becomes clear that this theory only becomes viable if one rejects not only the notion of canon
like a closed list of officially recognized books, but also the notion of
Writings.
Currently, a complex debate is taking place about a possible 'canon within the canon'.
We all tend to rely more on certain parts of the canon than on others - from
the same way that Luther and Calvin highlighted Romans and Galatians more than, let’s say, 1
Peter or Apocalypse. Some parts of the New Testament can continuously exert
a greater influence because they are longer and more comprehensive.
3) Sometimes traditional Roman Catholic theology has addressed the role of the church in formation.
(or establishment) of the canon, and this, in turn, has given rise to a point of view on
the authority of the church is very different from that found in Protestantism. This situates in
Writings or deposit of the gospel; conservative Catholicism places the deposit of faith in the church,
of which the Scriptures are only one of the components.
4) There has been considerable interest in what is called canon criticism. There are many things
beneficial in this movement. It represents an effort to read the Bible as a whole and to read
biblical books as finished products. In practice, however, some advocates of criticism of
canons tend to defend abstract truths that can be inferred from the text as a whole,
but reject numerous biblical claims that have historical references.
In short, the fact that God is a God who reveals Himself, speaks, and is faithful to the covenant, having ...
revealed in a supreme way in a historical character, the Messiah Jesus, establishes the
the necessity of the canon and, implicitly, its closure. The notion of canon prohibits all
the conscious attempts to choose only a part of the canon as the standard of government of the
Christian church: this would be to desacronize the canon, a contradiction in terms.
