How We
Got The
New
Testament
Jesus
severely rebuked the Pharisees for setting aside the word of God for the
teaching of men (Matthew 15:6). They
are by no means unique; throughout the ages traditionalists have wanted to elevate
human tradition to God's word. Jesus also severely rebuked the Sadducees in
Matthew 22:23-33 and Mark 12:18-27. They believed all the Old Testament
except the Torah was just human tradition. Jesus told them they did not know
the scriptures nor the power of God. How did we get the New Testament? What of the claim that it too
is just human tradition? We will
look at that question and the very foundation of our faith. THE FOUNDATION OF OUR
FAITH
SCRIPTURE'S CLAIM OF AUTHORITY 2
Tim 3:16 says, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," Peter in
2 Peter 3:15-16 says some people distort Paul's letters, just like they do
the other scriptures. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:4 that "we"
are entrusted with the gospel. 1 Thessalonians 2:13: "... you accepted
it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God..." 2
Peter 1:20-21: "Above all, [that's very high] you must understand that
no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For
prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as
they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." THREE TESTS FOR SCRIPTURE In trying to recreate how the early
church recognized what was scripture, we see three tests. 1.
Authorship: Was the author an eyewitness or a "secretary" for an
eyewitness? See Luke 1:1-3, 2.
Truth: Does the book contradict what the Bible says anywhere else? If so,
throw it out. See Hebrews 6:18, John
10:35, 17:17, John 17:8, Proverbs 30:5, Numbers 23:19, and Psalms 119:42-43,
86, 137-142, 151, 160. 3.
Widespread Confirmation: Did Christians every-where generally accept the book
as scripture? WHO WROTE WHAT Matthew
- Matthew the apostle SO WHAT ABOUT HEBREWS? True or false: The Book of Hebrews could
not have been evaluated by the authorship test. Today we do not know the author of Hebrews.
However, the original readers of Hebrews knew the author, as can been seen by
Hebrews 13:18, 23. Thus the correct answer is false. This highlights an
important fact: we are dependent on the judgment of the early (130 A.D.)
Church. So who do we think wrote Hebrews? Clement of Rome (97 A.D.) alludes
to it nine times, so it must have been written before then. Best guesses are
Barnabas and Apollos. Clement of Alexandria,
Jerome, and Augustine believed it was written by Paul in Hebrew. Tertullian
stated it was written by Barnabas. In fact in the Codex Claremontanus,
Hebrews is called "Epistle of Barnabas." (Barnabas was called an
apostle in Acts 14:4,14) Martin Luther guessed the author was Apollos. WHAT ABOUT JAMES? James was not James the disciple but Jesus'
half-brother. He was an apostle based on these verses: •
Called an apostle by Paul: Galatians 1:19 WHAT ABOUT JUDE? We do not know as much about Jude the
Lord's brother as James. While it is easy to prove Jude was an apostle,
because an apostle's teachings are God's direct word, and Jude is in the
Bible, that is a circular argument. He was certainly an eyewitness, but we
rely on the judgment of the early church Fathers to recognize that it
belonged in the Bible. DID THEY INCLUDE THE RIGHT BOOKS? The
previous discussion does not "prove with certainty" we have the
right books, but it gives us good reasons to trust that God knew and made
sure Christians got the right books. Almost every other book written at that
time totally fails these three tests: authorship, truth, and widespread
confirmation. The two that are closest are First Clement and The Gospel of Thomas. First
Clement, written 97 A.D., is an excellent book to read that some in Antioch
and Alexandria thought should be scripture.
Its problem is that Clement was not an eye-witness but was in the next
generation. It also has a few small errors (i.e. phoenixes do not really live
in Arabia). Whether or not the Apostle Thomas wrote a gospel we may never
know until heaven. A book called the Gospel of Thomas was circulated among
Gnostics (only), but Gnostics often altered their scriptures and not surprisingly,
their Gospel of Thomas teaches Gnosticism and contradicts the Bible. INFALLIBLE PRESERVATION OF THE BIBLE It
would do no good for God to accurately give us what was correctly recognized
as His Word, if as Mohammed has accused, He failed to ensure its
preservation. A God who would do such a thing is not the God who wrote
Jeremiah 1:12, Luke 21:33, and Isaiah 55:11. (Also, if He allowed His Bible
to be corrupted, then why would He preserve the Quran?) Faith in God's
watching His word is an adequate answer, and it is the only answer we had
until the mid-twentieth century. Now however, with early manuscripts and
Carbon-14 dating, we have documents that prove historically the reliability
of today's scripture. They are: •
John Rylands Manuscript: part of John 130 A.D. For more on
its accuracy and reliability, read F. F. Bruce's Book, The New Testament
Documents: Are They Reliable? FALSE BELIEFS ABOUT SCRIPTURE Christian
liberalism: It is not all the word of God but contains the word of God. The
parts we accept become God's word for us.
Rev. Moon: It was fine 2,000 years ago, but we need something more
advanced today Mohammed: It was originally ok, but it was totally corrupted
later. Mormonism: The official
teaching of the church leader today has priority over scripture. CULTURE AND THE BIBLE What
in the Bible is merely cultural and for that time? An "easy" answer
is that if you do not like a verse, then it must be cultural! Christ's servants must not settle for
"easy" answers. A few things in the Bible are indisputably for that
time, because the Bible says so.
Examples are 1 Corinthians 7:25-26 and Acts 10:9-18. To call anything
cultural in the Bible, there have to be verses saying or implying so. TO BE OBEYED The
Bible may be talked about, speculated about, but it was really written to be
obeyed. See John 14:23, 24 and Psalms 119:4-5, 17, 67, 101, 134,167,168 among
others. The Bible never tells us to do
evil or unwise things. What if the Bible said for you to do something you thought
was not the best? What would you do? After prayer and discussion with other
Christians, would you trust God's judgment more or your own judgment? We are
indebted to the early Church and the early Church fathers, not for deciding,
but for recognizing the New Testament. We have solid reasons
to believe it was: a)
meant to be taken as scripture PEOPLE MUST CHOOSE IF THEY WILL OBEY GOD FOR
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