I've been trying how to figure out how my readers can know if they should read Michael Kruger's newest book, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books. I think I've found a way.
Try to answer the following question:
Why are the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John included in the New Testament but those attributed to Peter, Thomas, and Mary Magdalene aren't?
If you honestly don't know or if your memory is a bit fuzzy, then you should pick up Kruger's book.
Kruger is a professor of New Testament and academic dean at Reformed Theological Seminary (in my good state of North Carolina). He wrote Canon Revisited to show Christians that they are justified in believing in the 27 books of the New Testament. To do this, Kruger looks at how people have tried to determine how the canon was established and the historical proof that the church had a core canon in mind early in its existence.
I'll give an overview of the book before moving on to what I did and didn't like.
(A note before the review. This is a complex topic to tackle, and I've done my best to fairly present Kruger's argument. If you've read the book and spot an error, please let me know so I can fix it.)
The Book
Kruger's first two chapters examine what he thinks are faulty methods of determining the canon.
The community determined model argues that the canon is made by the community (in this case, the church). The historically determined model argues that the 27 NT books can be verified through historical investigation. Kruger thinks both models have their individual problems, but he also sees a common denominator to them both: they appeal to sources outside of Scripture to verify the authority of Scripture.
This is a problem, as Kruger explains:
" .. as we have already noted, this approach overlooks the unique nature of the canon. The canon, as God's Word, is not just true, but the criterion of truth. It is an ultimate authority. ... If we try to validate an ultimate authority by appealing to some other authority, then we have just shown that it is not really the ultimate authority." (pg. 91)
Kruger instead argues for the self-authentication of Scripture, which he defines as "the way the canon itself provides the necessary direction and guidance about how it is to be authenticated" (pg. 91). He writes:
" ... for a canon to be the canon, it must be self-authenticating. ... Rather than looking only to its reception (community determined), or only to its origins (historically determined), this model would, in a sense, let the canon have a voice in its own authentication." (pg. 89)
According to Kruger, God has given us the proper epistemic environment in which we can know what books belong in the New Testament, and this setting involves three components:
1. Providential exposure - For the church to recognize a book as canonical, it must have had access to it.
2. Attributes of canonicity - The books bear the marks of divinity, were received by the church, and have apostolic origins.
3. The internal testimony of the Holy Spirit - The Spirit overcomes the effects of sin and produces belief in a person's heart that certain books are from God.
Says Kruger:
"These three components must all be in place if we are to have knowledge of the canon. We cannot know canonical books unless we have access to those books (providential exposure); we need some way to distinguish canonical books from other books (attributes of canonicity); and we need to have some basis for thinking we can rightly identify these attributes (internal work of the Spirit)." (pg. 94)
The following chapters explore the three attributes of canonicity, listed in #2 above. In his discussion of the divine qualities of the books, their corporate reception, and their apostolic origins, Kruger takes on what he calls "defeaters": arguments that could be used against these various components.
"The Divine Qualities of the Canon" examines the divine qualities of the canonical books--such as their power and theological harmony--and how the early church recognized these qualities. Kruger also addresses critics who insist that the New Testament is "a mix of contradictory and embattled theological camps" (pg. 146). Here, Kruger takes issue with people like Bart Ehrman, who have argued that the Christianity we have is the one that won the battle to be known as "orthodox". Kruger's response:
"If the current form of the canon includes the preferred books of the theological winners and thereby represents a loss of great diversity, how, at the same time, can one claim that the canon is composed of contradictory theological camps? One cannot argue that the canon is the `invention' of the proto-orthodox designed to suppress the opposition and then turn around and argue that the canon is a cacophony of diverse theological viewpoints that stand in opposition." (pg. 146)
In "The Apostolic Origins of the Canon", Kruger argues that the New Testament was a natural result of the new covenant established by God and the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ on behalf of all humanity. The books of the Old Testament were the documents of God's covenant with Israel. Through Jesus Christ, God had established a new covenant between Himself and humanity. Since the old covenant had its books, the new covenant would have a set as well.
"Thus, there would have been clear expectations that this new covenant, like the old covenant, would be accompanied by the appropriate written texts to testify to the terms of the new arrangement that God was establishing with his people" (166).
The "apostolic office" is "the guardian, preserver, and transmitter of the message of redemption" (pg. 174). The apostolicity of a book does not necessarily mean that it was written by an apostle, but rather, it looks at "whether a document was considered to bear authoritative apostolic tradition" (pg. 182).
"Early Christians not only had a framework for canon (covenant), and a compelling reason for a canon (redemption), but they also had agents from God as means to implement and disseminate that canon (apostles)." (pg. 193)
"The Corporate Reception of the Canon" is the main title for three chapters, which examine the emergence of a canonical core, the productions of Christian books, and problem books and canonical boundaries, respectively.
In "The Emergence of a Canonical Core", Kruger writes that we should expect the early church to have a predominant opinion in which books were canonical, even if there wasn't uniform agreement. Why was there disagreement? Kruger lists the following as reasons: false teachers, spiritual opposition to the church, people resisting the Holy Spirit because of their sin, and that not everyone who claims to be a Christian truly is one.
"Manuscripts and Christian Book Production" looks at our surviving copies of these books and how they were collected and categorized, and how those things can tell us a lot about how the early church used certain books. (More on this below.) "Problem Books and Canonical Boundaries" looks at books there were not in the "core" canon of the second century.
The final chapter is a summary of the book's arguments.
What I Liked
- The central strength of this book is that it gives plenty of ammunition against the repeated claims that Christians picked and chose what books suited them and left other, equally valid books out of the canon. From the discussions to the role of the codex to the examination of how the Patristics received certain books, a Christian looking to defend their reasons for having the correct New Testament would be well suited in picking up Kruger's book.
For instance, in "Manuscripts and Christian Book Production", Kruger refutes the idea that there were several different Christianities competing for theological dominance. He notes that the New Testament books were far more popular than the apocryphal ones (such as the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, etc.).
"... there are more manuscripts of the Gospel of John than there are of all the 'apocryphal' books combined" (238)
Why is this important? Because if the groups that wrote the apocryphal books were more than just a minority, then their production of their books would have been far greater than it actually was.
- I enjoyed the discussion on the codices. I didn't realize that the number of lines per page and how the sentences were written could indicate whether a work was designed for public or private settings. In this case, the codices show us that books were used for public worship settings. That books were being lumped together--and that certain books were being excluded from these groups--shows that there was a core canon being defended in the second century.
- Kruger deserves credit for taking such a complicated topic and writing about it in such a way that both popular-level readers and scholars could learn something. I see no reason why Canon Revisited couldn't be read by a Bible study or just someone looking to learn something.
What I Didn't Like
That said, I think the book has some weaknesses.
- When Kruger examines the community-based and historical-based canon models, he finds fault with both of them because they subject the New Testament to an authority outside of itself in order for the canon to be authenticated. The Bible is the final authority, according to Kruger, and cannot be subjected to an outside authority. If it were, then it would no longer be the authority.
Why is this a problem?
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