367
That was the year that Athanasius first arranged the canon of the New Testament into the form that it is today, a fact that I just learned from the excellent course by Bart Ehrman: From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity. This surprised me for two reasons: the date, and the person. Let me explain.
I have, for some reason, never given much thought to the compiling of the New Testament into its present form, I had been led to believe (or not not led to believe) that it was a fairly natural process, with books finding their way in there that bore the stamp of authenticity - or should I say inspiration; from the various writers hands there was a short path into the book, shall we say. This collecting and compiling was done as soon as they were written, so I thought, by first and second century believers, from who we have our "scriptures" today.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It was not until 367 A.D. that the NT was arranged - 27 books were accepted, many books were rejected - into the form that we have it today. This seems to have been the first time, for example, that the disputed book of Revelation (of John) was included in the canon!
Now, if the Bible is the word of God, why did it take this long for it to be produced? Does this not seem like a distinctly human process, humans deciding what should be in (inspired) or out (not inspired)? If God was guiding these humans, surely it wouldn't have taken him over three centuries from Christ to clarify what his true word was? Why, he gave the ten commandments in a day!
If however, man is working alone here, this would make sense. In fact, the deciding of what became canon and even what Christianity was - what was orthodox belief - seems to have unfurled in a way that makes one wonder where God's hand was at all in the matter. Did you know that the version of Christianity we have today - broadly speaking - does not seem to be akin to the Christianity practiced by "early" (the truly fundamental) Christians? In fact, if we look at what the majority of Christians believed in the first and second centuries, at the writings they left behind, we have a very different interpretation of what it means to be Christian - and therefore orthodox. I would refer you to the above course, which relates the many forms of Christianity - Christianities! - which were then practiced - particularly interesting are the references to the views of Walter Bauer in his book "Orthodoxy and Heresy in earliest Christianity" which "revealed that many forms of Christianity deemed heretical were, in fact, the earliest forms that could found in most places". So why did a certain version win out?
It seems that orthodoxy came to be defined by those churches - especially in Rome - that had the money, and large Christian communities, to exert influence - more of an organizing influence - on what should be believed. Especially when Rome made Christianity the state religion, did the Roman version of the religion become dominant - in fact, even moving to suppress "heresies" against its version, its orthodoxy.
Do we not seem to have "survival of the fittest" religion here? What has that got to do with God? And coming on to my other point relating to Athanasius, which ties in nicely with the above: the religion of my youth bases its beliefs, not only on a Christianity which seems the work of men, but on a book which is compiled, effectively sanctified by an enemy to their beliefs! Mention Athanasius to any of my believing friends and they will call to mind the Athanasian Creed - a statement ascribed to the deeply Trinitarian, very much part of the evolved orthodoxy Athanasius, which affirms the trinity, the utmost heresy in relation to their beliefs!
The foundations of this house, this whole belief system, seem rocky - or should I say sandy?
I have, for some reason, never given much thought to the compiling of the New Testament into its present form, I had been led to believe (or not not led to believe) that it was a fairly natural process, with books finding their way in there that bore the stamp of authenticity - or should I say inspiration; from the various writers hands there was a short path into the book, shall we say. This collecting and compiling was done as soon as they were written, so I thought, by first and second century believers, from who we have our "scriptures" today.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It was not until 367 A.D. that the NT was arranged - 27 books were accepted, many books were rejected - into the form that we have it today. This seems to have been the first time, for example, that the disputed book of Revelation (of John) was included in the canon!
Now, if the Bible is the word of God, why did it take this long for it to be produced? Does this not seem like a distinctly human process, humans deciding what should be in (inspired) or out (not inspired)? If God was guiding these humans, surely it wouldn't have taken him over three centuries from Christ to clarify what his true word was? Why, he gave the ten commandments in a day!
If however, man is working alone here, this would make sense. In fact, the deciding of what became canon and even what Christianity was - what was orthodox belief - seems to have unfurled in a way that makes one wonder where God's hand was at all in the matter. Did you know that the version of Christianity we have today - broadly speaking - does not seem to be akin to the Christianity practiced by "early" (the truly fundamental) Christians? In fact, if we look at what the majority of Christians believed in the first and second centuries, at the writings they left behind, we have a very different interpretation of what it means to be Christian - and therefore orthodox. I would refer you to the above course, which relates the many forms of Christianity - Christianities! - which were then practiced - particularly interesting are the references to the views of Walter Bauer in his book "Orthodoxy and Heresy in earliest Christianity" which "revealed that many forms of Christianity deemed heretical were, in fact, the earliest forms that could found in most places". So why did a certain version win out?
It seems that orthodoxy came to be defined by those churches - especially in Rome - that had the money, and large Christian communities, to exert influence - more of an organizing influence - on what should be believed. Especially when Rome made Christianity the state religion, did the Roman version of the religion become dominant - in fact, even moving to suppress "heresies" against its version, its orthodoxy.
Do we not seem to have "survival of the fittest" religion here? What has that got to do with God? And coming on to my other point relating to Athanasius, which ties in nicely with the above: the religion of my youth bases its beliefs, not only on a Christianity which seems the work of men, but on a book which is compiled, effectively sanctified by an enemy to their beliefs! Mention Athanasius to any of my believing friends and they will call to mind the Athanasian Creed - a statement ascribed to the deeply Trinitarian, very much part of the evolved orthodoxy Athanasius, which affirms the trinity, the utmost heresy in relation to their beliefs!
The foundations of this house, this whole belief system, seem rocky - or should I say sandy?
posted by John Doran-Armstrong at 9:30 PM
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