Canon
For the first decade of my life, I worshiped in an independent Baptist church in Smyrna, Georgia. I owe much to that church. It is, after all, where I came to profess Christ as my Savior and was baptized. […]
“Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels” by Craig S. Keener
Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels by Craig S. Keener Eerdmans, 2019 743 pages (hardcover), $37.99 The question of the reliability of the canonical Gospels has been a central debate in New Testament studies since the advent of the German higher critical movement. Every twenty years or so, the debate resurfaces with […]
Just the other day I was asked why I thought the Bible—specifically, the New Testament as we have it today—is too small. “Too small?” I asked. “What do you mean?” My acquaintance had some vague recollection of watching a History Channel documentary that apparently showed that the mighty church (male dominated, of course) sought to […]
With dozens of books on the reliability of the Gospel accounts on the shelves, Can We Trust the Gospels?—by Tyndale House principal and Cambridge University lecturer Peter J. Williams—distinguishes itself by its mastery of materials, high accessibility, and relevance. Williams is a world-renowned expert on New Testament texts and manuscripts (debating to considerable effect the […]
The old proverb “God is in the details” means that it’s in the small and seemingly insignificant minutiae of an event that we see the truth and intent behind it. (This why graduate students painstakingly work their way through five-inch-thick books in the stacks of the university library!) There are certain details—the color of the […]
It has almost assumed the status of “a truth beyond reasonable doubt” in Christendom that the Gospel of John is the most theological of all the Gospels.1 What is not argued, however, is that the Gospel of John is also the most apologetical of all the Gospels. It is literally stuffed from stem to stern, […]
There once was a man who claimed to be in possession of a lost painting of Leonardo da Vinci. Upon hearing this claim, the curator of a prestigious museum asked him if it had ever been appraised. “No,” said the man. “No one outside my family has ever seen the portrait, but all of us […]
One of the first lessons you learn in Sunday school is that there are four Gospels—four different accounts of the life of Jesus. What we sometimes forget, however, is that only one of them, the Gospel of John, claims to be an eyewitness account. John’s recall of his participation in the ministry of Jesus, his […]
Can We Still Believe the Bible? An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions By Craig L. Blomberg
In the introduction to Can We Still Believe the Bible? Craig Blomberg lays out his agenda for the chapters that follow: “The six areas of scholarship that this book presents ‘¦ debunk widespread misconceptions about what [twenty-first-century] belief [in the Bible] entails, and they present exciting recent developments in scholarly arenas that are not nearly […]
Since Bart Ehrman, textual critic and former evangelical, has been issuing his broadsides at the notion of biblical inerrancy, two kinds of response have appeared on the American theological scene. On the one hand, it has been correctly noted that Ehrman does not give the benefit of the doubt to the best textual readings of […]
"Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books" by Michael J. Kruger
This is a massively important and timely book. We face an unexpected foe today that, unless reversed, will harm the evangelical gospel witness, perhaps even destroy that witness within the next generation or two. Admittedly, in pop culture, mass media, and the mainstream academy, the Bible (and therefore the gospel) seems to have lost all […]
Behind the familiar list of writings that make up the Christian Bible lie struggles over major issues of religious beliefs. In the earliest period of Christianity, particularly the second century CE, the shape and contents of the Christian Bible were neither inevitable nor uncontroversial matters, but instead reflected influential decisions on major struggles. The results […]
"Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?" is one of those questions signaling an unanswerable conundrum. This issue takes up the question of the formation of the Bible or "canon," meaning the official list and "rule" of Old and New Testament books. Readers may come to this topic from different starting points, but here […]
It is increasingly common even in evangelical circles today to hear traditional Roman Catholic arguments for the Bible as "the church's book" and the church as "the mother of Scripture," as if the community created its own constitution. We are engaging sola Scriptura in a variety of ways in this issue, but this article focuses […]
This sovereignty of Scripture over the church may be defended not only from the New Testament but secondarily from the actual process by which the post-apostolic church arrived at the canon. Our twenty-seven books in the New Testament canon were first codified in an official list at the councils of Carthage (393) and Hippo (397). […]
