Monday, February 28, 2011

How we got the New Testament

Have you ever considered how it was that we ended up with a new Testament of 27 specific books?   I always thought a council was called during the early years to select those books considered to tell the story as it was.   However, I was far from the truth.   You will be aware of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered back in the late 1940s.   These, of course, included copies of original scrolls of a number of books we know from the Old Testament as well as some which gave us a snapshot of religious life at the time Jesus was about his ministry.   In addition to the New Testament books we know and love there were a number of books that were declared "beyond the pale".   You will remember that not long ago there was a massacre carried out near a Coptic Christian Church in Egypt.   In fact, this was the area where another young man discovered some ancient books in December 1945.   These were quite different from the Dead Sea Scrolls because they were concerned with the activities of Jesus.  
These books were papyrus and bound in leather.   The titles include "The Secret Sayings of Jesus", "The Gospel according to Thomas", "The Gospel of Philip", "The Gospel to the Egyptians" etc.   These and the others included in what we now know as the Nag Hammadi Library were books considered unacceptable by church leaders who would eventually represent orthodox Christians.   As a find they were very exciting but eventually scholars were able to dismiss some as forgeries and others as not truly representing Jesus and his ministry.   Some of them were clearly written to support the extreme views of small groups of believers who were at variance with mainstream belief.
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria  wrote a letter in 367CE to his churches that the 27 books that now form the New Testament were the texts that should treated as scriptures on which to base belief.   It was quite some time before the convention truly came about but the bishop was the very first to advocate the acceptance of only these documents to represent scripture.
Were any of the Nag Hammadi books to have found their way into popularity we should have a very different and, dependent on which books, possibly confusing scripture.   However, this is not to say that some of them did not creep into the new Testaments accepted by some Christian churches such as the Syrian Church and the Coptic Christians.   If, today, you or I were to attend a service in a church from either of these two branches of Christianity we should be probably quite alarmed to hear readings from these books of which we have little knowledge.
The scholars of the day persevered in their quest and finally arrived at the 27 books with which we are familiar today.   It is interesting to learn that although a number of the New Testament books appear to be attributed to certain authors such as St Paul, this is by no means certain.   It is only convention that ensures that some of the epistles are still attributed to Paul and others.   In the days when the books were in general acceptance there was disagreement as to their authorship.   In fact many of them were copies of copies of copies.   Not one original document has ever been held by a believer.   The entire new Testament is based on copies taken from earlier documents.   It is quite possible that the scribes who copied out these scriptures altered the wording in places where they thought amendments would give a better understanding of what was written.
During the first 300 years or so there were beliefs that today's Christians might find surprising.   It was when these off-centre beliefs were being advanced in scrolls and books that it was found necessary to apply the brakes and prevent them finding their way into "official" scripture.   For instance, there were some people who sincerely held to the view that Jesus was wholly divine and therefore did not suffer on the cross because he had no humanity in him.   You can imagine our problems if such beliefs found themselves in print today in our beloved book!   Throughout history the idea of how to understand the blend of humanity and divine status has been extremely difficult to thrash out.   People argued "How can Jesus be God and God too be God?"   Others asked, "How can a human being be called Son of God?"   I have no doubt these problems will beset us for many more centuries.   But just imagine our problems if the dodgy books had become part of the New Testament Canon!
When I first read the writings from Nag Hammadi a few years ago I was extremely confused and wondered if I was wrong in any of my beliefs.   What I had failed to see was that you cannot simply read a book and take it at face value in these circumstances.   You have to ask who wrote the book and what was their agenda.   When these questions are tested you tend to come up with a common sense answer.
I have to say that having studied these problems I am glad the scholars of old made good decisions.   I am sure they were good decisions because they were agreed by so many different scholars and scribes.   Having tested the ideas in the "other" books I am of the opinion that we are safe with the books we rely on to tell the story as it was.