Despite the fact that the contours of the Christian canon were decided by the fourth century, vibrant and vigorous discussion about the authenticity of the books has persisted into our day. Indeed, for many years now, the New Testament canon has been a subject of research and dispute. When and how these 27 books became recognized as a new scriptural deposit has been a chief source of contention. More importantly, why did the new Christian sect perceive the need for a new canon at all? Does the New Testament exist because of some action done in the second or third century church, or did it arise more naturally from within the early Christian faith itself? Was it an extrinsic phenomenon, or an intrinsic one? Were the books written as Scripture, or did they become Scripture by a decision of the second-century church? These are the types of questions that led Michael J. Kruger to challenge modern scholarship’s dominant view that the New Testament is a late creation of the church imposed on books which were originally written for another purpose.

Michael J. Kruger is President and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary Charlotte.

Calling into question the commonly held extrinsic (or “from without”) view, which holds that the New Testament was an ecclesial product designed for ecclesial needs in the later Church, most directly to address the rise of Marcionism in the early church, Kruger tackles the five most prevalent objections to the classic understanding of a quickly emerging, self-authenticating collection of authoritative scriptures – he refers to his model as an “intrinsic” one. This framework recognizes the canon as the product of internal dynamics evolving out of the historical situation in which Christianity found itself, not a development retroactively imposed by the church upon books written hundreds of years before. He argues that the makeup of first-century Christianity created a favorable environment for the growth of a new revelational deposit. Kruger stipulates that the extrinsic model is correct as far as it goes, but that we should not rule out other definitions that bring more balance to our understanding of canon, and that therefore there is no sharp delineation between “Scripture” and “canon,” the latter of which only applies to the final, closed list of books. Moreover, he argues that there was a matrix of theological beliefs held by early Christians that would have resulted in a canon developing quite naturally, even if the early church did not recognize it formally. Third, he argues that while most Christians were illiterate, they were nonetheless characterized by a robust textuality – that is, the knowledge, use, and appreciation of written texts. Furthermore, he asserts that the New Testament authors, contrary to the interpretation of the extrinsic model, provide substantial indications that they understood their message as authoritative, showing this often quite plainly. If the extrinsic model were true, Kruger contends, we would expect that it would have taken quite a while for the New Testament writings to be attain Scriptural status, but in fact the Scriptures were deemed to be such at a much earlier time than commonly allowed by scholars.

While The Question of Canon scrutinizes today’s popular scholastic view, it also offers an alternative concept that is, in some respects, a better empirical foundation for canonical studies. He does not deal with the standard questions about the canon. For example, how do we know we have the right book? Instead, he asks more fundamental questions about where the canon comes from. I recommend this text to those who have interests in knowing how, when, and why the Scriptures became “the Scriptures.” Kruger has offered the church a service with this volume.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

Publisher’s page: http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=4031

Companion website: http://michaeljkruger.com/tag/the-question-of-canon/

Preview The Question of Canon: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Question_of_Canon.html?id=eYgMAgAAQBAJ

Doug Beacham, General Superintendent of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, shares a timely challenge about giving an answer for the hope within us.

The year 2008 is shaping up as an unusually violent period of natural disasters around the world. In the United States tornados are destroying homes, business, and in some cases, entire towns, at a record pace. Myanmar (Burma) had the double calamity of a devastating typhoon and a paralyzed police-state response. China continues to crumble from the effects of the earthquake in Sichuan province that left over 60,000 dead and thousands more injured and homeless.

I’ve wondered what the Christian response will be to these contemporary natural problems, as well as our continued response to the front page issues of terrorism, war, poverty, AIDS, malaria, and a host of other issues confronting our troubled world. I pray our response will be similar to what Rodney Stark describes in how Christians in the first three centuries of our era responded. In The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, Stark showed that when epidemics, fires, earthquakes, and ethnic violence spread through densely populated cities, the Christian commitment to love one’s neighbor gave Christians a reason to stay in the mess, while rulers, philosophers, and pagan religious leaders fled to the countryside. Yes, many Christians died nursing their neighbors, but others became immune and established networks of care, love, and faithfulness.

Stark wrote, “To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.”¹

Image: Thomas Lefbvre.

My name is Rolf and I’m from Canoas, Brazil. I’m from a Partners in Harvest fellowship: www.comunidadevinde.com.br

My personal ministry is with teaching.

I was searching for articles about inner healing and I found that William De Arteaga, author of Quenching the Spirit (which I have) believes (or believed) in reincarnation (he wrote a book about this in the 80’s). Another article says that Agnes Sanford also believed in something like that.

Could you send me information about this? What do you think about this subject?

God bless you

— Rolf F.

Response

Thank you for writing, Brother F.

I sent along your question to William De Arteaga and he responded:

The quick answer is that I no longer affirm anything I said in Past Life Visions (1983). Someday, like St. Augustine in his old age, I may write an article called “retractions and reconsiderations.” Sealed Orders shows that Agnes Sanford believed in the pre-existent spirit, which is actually biblical, but only now coming into orthodox consciousness. There is nothing in her writings indicating she believed in the doctrine of reincarnation, on the contrary she would often call it a “dreary doctrine.”

The Pneuma Foundation [parent organization for PneumaReview.com] does not believe that reincarnation is a biblical teaching, on the contrary we find the Bible saying that “it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27 NKJV). Many of the editors and writers for the publications of the Pneuma Foundation may disagree with the concept of the pre-existent spirit of man.

Thank you again for writing and bringing up this important question.
In the love of the Father,

Raul Mock

Executive Editor, Pneuma Review

Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life (New York, NY: Free Press, 2002), 295 pages, ISBN 9780743247856.

On Easter Sunday, 1886, Sigmund Freud began private practice in the area of neuropathology in Vienna, the first step in the creation by Freud and his followers of what could be called “the Psychological Century.” Through his considerable self-promotion skills, writings, and lecture tours, Freud established himself as the leading thinker and theorist in the field of psychology; all others wrote and theorized either within his thought or against it. 65 years after his death in 1939, Freud’s theories and teachings still define both the field and image of psychology.

Some 45 years later after Easter 1886, a young English tutor at Magdalen College in Oxford, England, named Clive Lewis, set out in the side car of his brothers motorcycle to visit Whipsnade Zoo. He was as yet unknown and unpublished, apart from one volume of poetry, and still little more than a theist with serious doubts about the claims of Christ. But somewhere along the route to the Zoo, without having seriously thought about the subject, Lewis crossed the line to put full faith and trust in Jesus Christ. He would go on to write thousands of letters, articles, and books and give dozens of lectures until his death in 1963, becoming in the process the most articulate and convincing apologist for Biblical Christianity in the 20^th century—a fact that would have driven Freud to distraction.

Entrance to the Whipsnade Zoo.
Image: Lumos3 / Wikimedia Commons

Both Freud and Lewis had shared the same doubts and arguments against the claims of Jesus Christ, and religion in general, finding both to be irrational and imprisoning to the soul and the intellect of human beings. Both had been comfortably convinced that the path to the happy life and rational existence lay through the uncompromising rejection of foolish religious belief. One died still convinced, the other died converted. Why? And what does their personal story tell us about the general consequences of belief and unbelief, particularly in Jesus Christ?

That is the story that Nicholi tells in his book, presenting a fascinating dual conversation between men who never met, culled from letters, writings and family anecdotes, and pulled together in a compelling way by a master teacher from Harvard. In the US, PBS will be airing a series based on the book this coming October (2004).

Nicholi is well equipped to take us on this journey; a practicing psychiatrist, teacher at Harvard’s Medical School and editor of the Harvard Guide to Psychology, he also spent time personally visiting and talking with Freud’s daughter Anna, and other friends of the great psychologist. The book and the coming PBS series grew out of a seminar on Freud that Nicholi has taught at Harvard’s undergraduate school since 1972, and it is clear that Nicholi has refined the subject matter considerably over the years. The great achievement of the book is that Nicholi has managed to sympathetically present the views of both Freud and Lewis without demeaning either one; such an accomplishment should serve as a model for all apologists for the kingdom of God. Because Nicholi does not interject his own views into the discussion, the reader is left to choose which person’s worldview really did produce a life worth living, and a legacy worth dying for. As Nicholi put it, “Their arguments can never prove or disprove the existence of God. Their lives, however, offer sharp commentary on the truth, believability, and utility of their views” (p.5). It is the lives lived as a result of either the spiritual or the scientific worldview which Nicholi focuses on in the course of the book. “Whether we realize it or not,” Nicholi writes in the prologue, “all of us possess a worldview…we view the universe as a result of random events and life on this planet a matter of chance; or we assume an Intelligence beyond the universe who gives the universe order, and life meaning…Our worldview tells more about us perhaps than any other aspect of our personal history” (p.7). How did the worldview of each man affect how they lived their lives, and what does it tell us about each one?