Customer Reviews

The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon

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McDonald's book provides an excellent overview of the topic at hand. Reads a lot like a textbook, which I suppose is how it's often used. He does a very good job of bringing in all appropriate evidence, but staying very methodical in his assessments and in getting his points across. You'll probably wish for more depth in some areas, less in others, but this book should at the very least point you in the right direction toward more in-depth research.

Perspective is always important when you're talking about books on this subject. The field seems to be dominated by highbrow apoligists (like Metzger and Bruce), whose glossing over of problematic (to the orthodoxy) canonical issues makes for limpwristed scholarship, or by the more deconstructionist liberal school of the Jesus Seminar and such. Motives and scholarship often become difficult to differentiate. McDonald, however, is a Baptist minister, and a scholar, and, in my opinion gleaned from this book, he wears both hats with aplomb and distinction. Hard core fundamentalists (like a previous reviewer) may find his conclusions troubling. I'll let McDonald respond in his own words, from the last paragraph of his "Final Thoughts":

"My aim in this study has not been to destroy the church's Bible, as if that could be done, but to bring some light to the often dimly lit corridors that led to the formation of our Bible and, in that process, to remind the reader of the true canon of faith for the church: our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible is still the church's book without which the Christian faith would be a blur. I believe that a careful study of the biblical message in its historical environment and in the community of faith where it was first acknowledged as scripture and canon will prove invaluable to the church. Lessons learned from this approach will not only free the church from inappropriate loyalties but also will help the church to focus more clearly on the true object and final authority of its faith: Jesus Christ."

This book provides a good overview of the developement of the entire Christian canon - both testaments. While this book does not go deeply into the arguments in favor of its positions, it does provide a general overview of the opinions of various scholars and presents basic but adequate reasons for choosing the positions it does.

This is a good introduction to canonical studies. For lay people like myself it will be enough, but scholars will use this as simply a good starting point for deeper research.

McDonald's "The Formation of Christian Biblical Canon" should be on every bookshelf. McDonald has provided a well-documented history of how several OT and NT canons were filtered before the presently accepted canons came into being after several centuries. Many will be surprised to learn there were several different canons in use by early Christians, and that the Scriptures of the apostolic era were more inclusive than those ultimately selected for inclusion in modern Bibles.

Aside from a few howlers, this book is a balanced and thorough investigation to the context and mindset of the church that formed the present biblical canon. McDonald interacts with the doyens of biblical studies and their best arguments. He is always cross-examining weak arguments and asking questions that many evangelicals have ignored (or prayed their students didn't ask).

The notion of Scripture as "canon" is a tricky one. In our post-enlightenment era, we think of any mention of a list of writings a proof that ancient cultures have the same view of canon as 21st century Protestants. There are several problems with this line of reasoning: 1) with the possible exception of Josephus, ancient men usually defined a canon not as a list of writings; and 2) there are numerous lists of books in ancient sources (and the bible) that are not recognized as proto-canons.

This leads into what will be McDonald's thesis: Jesus is the canon! The early Christians' faith was not in a codified set of writings but in the Risen Lord. The message of this Risen Lord was passed down from the apostles to the bishops to the elders: it was tradition. This tradition testified of Christ.

This leads to McDonald's next point: he takes aim at Roger Beckwith's thesis that the OT Scriptures at the earliest were defined a few centuries before Christ and at their latest at the council of Jamnia in AD 90. Many point to an earlier dating of OT canonization because of claims by 2 Maccabees that prophecy had ceased in Israel, presumably pointing to the last prophet around the time of Malachi. But as McDonald points out, entrance to the canon was not a matter of whether or not a prophet was inspired, but whether this particular writing was used in liturgy (53).

McDonald's most pointed question is that if the Church received a completed OT canon it nowhere identified it. If, as Beckwith says, it was so obvious and universal and did not need to identify it, this is a huge argument from silence and assumes a lot of what it needs to prove. True, the church did receive the story of Israel and was likely familiar with most of the present OT canon, but that does not mean that ALL of the OT canon was there. This is yet to be proven, and McDonald scores huge points on this issue.

Conclusions:

McDonald makes a few howlers in his final chapter. He stared modernity in the face, and like all men of Fuller Seminary, suffered a failure of nerve. He blames the Bible for the continuance of slavery and not speaking clearly about civil rights and ecological irresponsibility. Umm...yeah.

But he does make other good points.

"Should the Church be limited to an OT canon to which Jesus and his disciples were clearly not limited? Also, we have seen that the final limits of the OT canon used by Protestants was in part shaped by a Judaism in polemic against the Church" (255).

McDonald, although coming from flawed presuppositions (and certainly to wrong conclusions), asks a very loaded, very poignant question:

"Those who would argue for the infallibility or the inerrancy of scripture logically should also claim the same infallibility for the churches in the fourth and fifth centuries, whose decisions and historical circumstances left us with our present canon. This is apparently what would be required if we were to only acknowledge the twenty-seven NT books that were set forth by the church in that context. Was the church in the Nicene and post-Nicene eras infallible in its decisions or not" (256)?

Very well written. Indepth, with plenty of references.
May be a hard read for the novice though.

There seems to be a tendency toward anachronistic uses of terms such as "canon," "scripture," and "tradition." It seems a particular malady from the perspective of the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (scripture alone). So eager are they to hold fast to their views that they find it difficult to accept any historical evidence that would weaken that view. Professor McDonald seems to have avoided most of those anachronisms. But his honest and detailed study may raise the ire of some fundamentalists who seem to favor pet doctrines over objective truth.

Though one should supplement this work with others like, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible or the work of another Protestant scholar, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future). In addition, the astute student should also take the time to study two works from Dr. Scott Hahn: Letter and Spirit: From Written Text to Living Word in the Liturgy for an overview of the importance of liturgical use in the formation of the canon, and The Bible Alone for the most biblically sound treatment of the sola scriptura doctrine. In addition, the classic work, The Meaning of Tradition would be very highly recommended.

Overall a fair and balanced study.

Perhaps the book might be more aptly named "Doubter's Guide to the Bible". He not only puts forward many of the more radical modernist theories, he basicly puts his stamp of approval on most of them. For example, that Paul didn't write the Pastoral epistles, and many of his other epistles like Colossians, Ephesians and others are also doubtful. That John didn't write all the books in his name. That neither did Peter write 2 Peter, or James write James, perhaps Jude either.

Furthermore, that the bible does by no means present a coherent consistant theology. Rather every book has a somewhat different theology that can't be reconciled. Rather we have to prioritise the more important ones. Furthermore, we need to read the gnostic writings to really get as close as possible to what Jesus actually taught.

I suppose if you want to know what the modernists are thinking, this gives some insight, but is this the Christian point of view?

Keep in mind that while the author claims to be a Christian, he is not a Christian who believes the bible. He does not for example believe that 2 Peter is written by Peter, nor that the pastoral epistles are written by Paul. This is the kind of unbelief that undergirds all the arguments set forth.

And make no mistake, the whole book is an argument in favour of the author's theory. His theory is not so much that there is an open canon, but rather there isn't really a canon at all, books can go in and out of the "canon" as per the community's practices. It's all very wishy-washy thinking.

That's not to say that there is no truth in his viewpoint, nor is it to say that there is not quite a bit of interesting information in the book, but every piece of information is moulded and shaped to fit the author's theory, it is by no means an unbiased approach to the topic. And frankly, the author's unbelief show's through in the conclusions he draws from every piece of evidence. The book is more worthy of an athiest than a Christian. As one reads the book, it seems like the most bold and interesting of his claims are the least well supported. There is a lot of general information that makes it seem like he knows what he is talking about in a scholarly way, but then he slips in these fairly unsupported claims that pretend to rest on the rest of the scaffolding. And when the historical record is silent or incomplete, it really shows through the author's unbelief in what he reads into that silence.

All in all, this is not a book that I can commend to the church.