The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Canon Fodder

A professor of New Testament at RTS (Charlotte, NC) who specializes in studies of the Canon is publishing a new series of blogs regarding the Canon. This is his particular passion and area of expertise.

If the canon is defined as a closed, final, fixed list of literature from the beginning, then you can have “Scripture” prior to this time, but not a “canon.”


The professor's blog suggests that allowing for multiple definitions of the word - or at very least not insisting on the single, closed list definition of the word "canon" may be wiser because defining the closing of the canon is problematic. Was the canon so greatly different in say, the fourth century before it was "closed" (and when exactly in church history was that?) than it is now? What happened in the 4th century that either changed the status of some books or gave them more authority?

What about a "functional" definition of the canon which suggests that when a book came to be used "as Scripture" it became part of the canon? Or what would it look like from God's perspective?

It's interesting stuff, considering that debate on the canon can certainly shape the whole future of orthodoxy in generations to come.

Please comment on Professor Michael J. Kruger's first blog post of the series. I'd love to hear from some of you seminary grads on this topic.

The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament by B.B. Warfield would be a helpful article to read.
"That is, that the Christian church did not require to form for itself the idea of a “ canon,” — or, as we should more commonly call it, of a “Bible,” — that is, of a collection of books given of God to be the authoritative rule of faith and practice. It inherited this idea from the Jewish church, along with the thing itself, the Jewish Scriptures, or the “ Canon of the Old Testament.” The church did not grow up by natural law: it was founded. And the authoritative teachers sent forth by Christ to found His church, carried with them, as their most precious possession, a body of divine Scriptures, which they imposed on the church that they founded as its code of law. No reader of the New Testament can need proof of this; on every page of that book is spread the evidence that from the very beginning the Old Testament was as cordially recognized as law by the Christian as by the Jew. The Christian church thus was never without a “Bible” or a “canon.”

When I have a little more time, perhaps today, I'll try to read through some of what may be on that website. IE9 doesn't like the site so I'll have to use Firefox; quite a humiliating decision on my part

To be honest, I am not sure I even like what this man is proposing, assuming I am understanding what is going on with it correctly. A red flag shot straight up the pole when reading your post. You see, I have this 'feeling' that the authority of what we call Scripture is being jeopardized by making "Canon" the standard (pun intended) and thus before the canon was officially decided upon, there was no real authoritative, absolute Word of God. But that would be nonsense since all that was being taught by the apostles and eventually written down by them was already believed and authoritative by the very fact that they were commissioned by Christ to deliver what was to become Scripture.

Anyway, I'll know better if the 'red flag' was flying true or if it is a false alarm. There are too many individuals, particularly SCHOLARS who have of late been messing around with Scripture and its interpretation, inspiration, etc., e.g., Peter Enns, just to name one.