"If one of Paul's letters to the Corinthian church were to be found, to be sure, the question on whether or not it should be included in the canon would be a weighty one. The hypothetical situation, however, allows us to think about difficult subjects and form real opinions without any real consequence. While I can appreciate others' point of view of including it in the canon, I feel that the author is correct in that it should not be included.
First, we must consider the valid points made by the author. If Paul was indeed the one that put the collection of his letters together, then the fact that he, himself, did not keep it in his collection should give us a solid reason to not include it. Additionally, God did not see fit for it to be in our canon. We must recognize that the church did not decide what books were Scripture and what books were not, but they recognized that certain books were Scripture and merely affirmed the books that revealed themselves as canon.
Secondly, we must consider some additional points. One of the conditions of a book being considered for part of the canon was widespread acceptance by the early church. Since the early church did not have access to this letter, there was no widespread acceptance and therefore the letter would not meet that condition. Additionally, it is my opinion that the "lost" letters, at least in part, are actually in our canon. The whole reason that we know of Paul's "lost" letters is because of the fact that he mentioned them in the letters that are in Scripture. The parts that he (and ultimately God) saw fit for inclusion in Scripture have been preserved as part of 1 and 2 Corinthians. From what was preserved we see that Paul addressed sexual immorality in the "previous letter" and other failures in the "painful letter". 1 Corinthians contains the equivalent of 5 verses summarizing or further emphasizing the "previous letter". Though not as detailed as the information in 1 Corinthians about the "previous letter", we see in 2 Corinthians that the "painful letter" did cause the church "godly grief" that lead them to repentance.
Finally, we must again consider a valid point by the author. It would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to prove, with certainty, that the "lost" letter is authentic. Given the importance and power of Scripture, if something cannot be verified without a doubt, then it certainly should have no place in Scripture.
Simply put, if the "lost" letters of Paul were to be found, they should be held as informative and beneficial, but they should not be considered as part of Scripture."
Should it be included in Scripture? or merely viewed as informative and beneficial?
(A 2-part response from my friend Stephen that can be found in its entirety on his blog at www.religiouslyincorrectblog.blogspot.com)
ReplyDelete(part 1)
A Hypothetical Question and a Little Bit About Canonicity
I found this post on Facebook and wanted to take a moment to offer a response and talk a little bit about canonicity. Here is the Hypothetical Question:
As part of my New Testament class this semester, we were asked a question about the "lost" letters of Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. The question was meant to get us to interact with an assertion made by the author of our textbook that if the "lost" letters were found, they should not be included in scripture. My answer is below. I was on the side of it shouldn't be included in Scripture. Some in my class said it should. What do you think?
If we were to find a verifiably authentic lost letter from the apostle Paul, I would personally accept it into my canon almost immediately without hesitation. Jonny Peters’ post goes on to say:
One of the conditions of a book being considered for part of the canon was widespread acceptance by the early church. Since the early church did not have access to this letter, there was no widespread acceptance and therefore the letter would not meet that condition.
Yes, it’s true that widespread acceptance was one determining factor. But another condition was that of authorship. For example, Paul in the New Testament argued that his message was authoritative because he was an apostle, “not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father” (Gal. 1:1). When deciding which books to canonize, authorship must play a role.
In the patristic period of church history Irenaeus argued that to reject the apostles and their writing was to reject the One who sent them, namely Christ. To reject the apostolic teaching, for Irenaeus, was to reject God. At this point, he was merely echoing the words of Jesus when He said to His apostles that whoever received them received Him and whoever rejected them rejected Him.
Jonny said:
Additionally, God did not see fit for it to be in our canon. We must recognize that the church
did not decide what books were Scripture and what books were not, but they recognized that certain books were Scripture and merely affirmed the books that revealed themselves as canon.
Yes, this is also true (if I understand him correctly). But unless he is asserting that the church is infallible, when recognizing which books were Scripture it could have made mistakes. God did not personally come to earth and tell us which books to canonize. Those decisions were made by fallible men.
Indeed, the Roman Catholic view is that the Bible is an infallible collection of infallible books. The Protestant view (and mine) is that the Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books. The distinction in view here refers to the Catholic Church’s conviction that the canon was declared infallibly by the church. In contrast, the Protestant view is that the church’s decision regarding which books make up the canon was a fallible decision (not to say the church definitely erred, but that they could have).
(part 2)
ReplyDeleteCase in point, I’ve heard a lot of criticism about Martin Luther rejecting, for a temporary period of time, the inclusion of the book of James into the New Testament canon. But Luther was unambiguous in his conviction that all of Scripture is inspired and infallible. His question about James was not a question of the inspiration of Scripture but a question of whether James was in fact Scripture. So even though Luther did not challenge the infallibility of Scripture, he most certainly challenged the infallibility of the church. He allowed for the possibility that the church could be wrong even when the church ruled on the question of what books properly belonged in the canon.
What most people are not told is that Martin Luther did not always reject the book of James and question its authority. Later in life, when he saw how it was harmonious with the rest of Scripture, Luther changed the foreward to his commentary on James and accepted it into his canon. We have to remember that one of the main sins of the Roman Catholic Church was its emphasis on the authority of the church. They believed in the inerrancy of the church. Luther emphasized the authority and inerrancy of Scripture and believed that the church was flawed, being composed of flawed human beings. And since it was flawed human beings (the church establishment) that decided which documents to canonize, it’s therefore possible that they erred in the process.
Did they err? I don’t know. Luther eventually concluded that they could have erred, but they did not. I am 100% confident in every book in the Bible. The only thing I would question, other than a long-lost Pauline epistle, is the absence of the book of 1 Enoch from the Old Testament canon.
I have often pondered since the book of Enoch was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, how highly it must have been regarded by Judaic priesthood. Also, the book of Jude quotes from 1 Enoch in verse 14, saying:
It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord
came with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
It seems that Jude was saying that the Enoch mentioned in Genesis, the seventh from Adam, was a prophet and this is what he prophesied. His quote comes nearly verbatim from 1 Enoch 1:9. So if Jude was inspired, and Jude says Enoch was a prophet and even uses Enoch's own words to convince us of things in the last times, doesn't that kind of validate the testimony found in 1 Enoch? I've personally read 1 Enoch and have never found anything in it that contradicts any other part of scripture. Isn’t that kind of passing the smell test? How could it not be a serious candidate for canonization? At the very least, couldn't it at least be read as a historical document, similar to how Protestants today read the Apocrypha? Shouldn't that be a conversation to debate?
But Protestants don’t discuss the canonization of 1 Enoch because Protestants don't read it. Almost no one reads it.