When we come to the New Testament, once again the evidence for the canon is even greater than that for the Old Testament. By the time of Peter’s death, which occurred no later than A.D. 68,g some of the writings of the apostles were already being accepted as Scripture. This can be seen in the second letter written by Peter when he states:
Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Here Peter clearly sees the writings of Paul on an equal footing with the “other Scriptures.” The apostle Paul, writing at about the same time, refers to a passage in the Gospel of Luke as Scripture.h
Through the writings of the church fathers during the first 300 years of church history, one can trace the development of the canon. Most of the books were accepted very early and were not seriously questioned afterward. By the end of the first century, the letters of Paul were being collected. Around A.D. 160 the four Gospels were combined into a single unit called the Diatessaron.
Much of the push to establish a canon came about as a reaction to Marcion, a wealthy ship-owner who moved to Rome in A.D. 140 and joined the Christian community there. Marcion was extremely anti-Semitic and rejected anything Jewish. Around A.D. 140, he decided to produce his own version of the canon. He threw out the entire Old Testament, along with three of the four Gospels. The Gospel of Luke was acceptable to him, but only after it had been ”cleaned up” to remove all references to Judaism.
Marcion’s version of the canon was clearly unacceptable and self-serving, but it raised the question: If his canon was wrong, which books made up the true canon? A manuscript from about A.D. 170-180 gives us a description of the canon as it was then beginning to take shape. Called the Muratorian Canon, after its discoverer, Lodovica Muratori, the manuscript contains a description of the books that were considered to be Scripture. The list is very close to the books we find in the New Testament today. The books of Hebrews, 1&2 Peter, and 3 John were not mentioned. The Revelation of Peter is noted as questionable, while The Shepherd of Hermas was rejected.15
The discussion within the church concerning the contents of the canon continued. While the majority of the books were accepted, a few books were still being discussed. Around the year A.D. 300, Eusebius compiled a list of books that were under consideration at that time. He divided the books into three categories. In the category of Homologoumena — those books accepted by all — he placed most of the books that are in the New Testament (the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John, and the book of Revelation). The remaining books of the New Testament, Eusebius placed in the category of amphiballomena — books disputed by some but “recognized by most churchmen.”16 All other books that had at one time been considered but that do not appear in the New Testament, Eusebius placed in the category of notha — spurious writings. By the time of the council of Carthage in A.D. 397, the Western church had reached enough of a consensus over the form of the canon to approve a list of books identical to that used today.
The Gospel of Thomas
Recently, many have renewed the charge that some books were left out of the Bible. The book most frequently referred to along these lines is the Gospel of Thomas which was found among a whole library of Gnostic documents discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1954.
Gnosticism refers to a variety of religious movements that were popular during the 2nd century. They get their name from the Greek word gnosis which means ’to know.’ Most of these religions claimed special or secret knowledge which led them to the truth. Gnosticism was strongly opposed by the early Church and the letters of John (the last New Testament letters) were written in opposition to early Gnostics.
The Gospel of Thomas is clearly gnostic in origin. Unlike the other Gospels which record many details of the life of Christ, the Gospel of Thomas is really just a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus which supposedly were secretly revealed to Thomas. As Craig Blomberg has pointed out, “Many of the sayings have a patently Gnostic flavor.”17
While clearly gnostic in origin, over half of the sayings are very similar to sayings that are found in the Bible. Since there are no details of Jesus’ life, some have suggested that Thomas may be earlier than the four Gospels found in the Bible and may have even served as a source for them. Some have even argued that Thomas is an authentic Gospel and it was recently published by the Jesus Seminar along with the other Gospels.
In spite of its recent popularity, there are strong reasons to question the authenticity of Thomas. First and foremost would be its gnostic teachings, which are incompatible with the teachings of the New Testament. While some might claim that perhaps Thomas represents the true teachings of Jesus, there are problems with this. First, unlike the Gospels found in the New Testament, no scholar would argue that the Gospel of Thomas was really written by Thomas. In addition, it would appear that the writer of Thomas used the Gospels as sources. As Blomberg points out:
Where Thomas parallels the four gospels it is unlikely that any of the distinctive elements in Thomas predates the canonical versions. In a number of cases these distinctives reappear in the Coptic translations of the New Testament, which no one would claim reflects independent sources of information about Jesus. . . It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the author of the Gospel of Thomas knew the New Testament Gospels as they now stand, even if he may have quoted them fairly loosely.18
Thus, there would appear to be little to argue in favor of the Gospel of Thomas as being part of the canon. One thing is clear from the writings of the early church fathers: they considered Scripture to be a very narrow classification of books. Only those books that could meet the strict standards were considered. They did not simply pick the books they liked and rejected those they didn’t. The Shepherd of Hermas, for example, was not only a book that many in the early church praised, but they encouraged people to read and study it. Yet, while they liked the book, it did not qualify as scripture, and thus was not included in the canon. Thus the question is not why was Gospel of Thomas rejected, but why should it be accepted as Scripture?
Conclusion
There is no evidence to support the claims that the Bible has been changed or altered by church councils, or that it has been corrupted by the process of translation. In light of the evidence, it becomes very difficult to hold any position other than the one which affirms that the text which we have today is essentially the same as that penned by the authors. As for the development of the canon, we find that the canon developed quite early, not behind the closed doors of some church council, but among an open discussion of the church as a whole, long before the councils even began. Once the councils began, they only ratified the canon, they did not create it, for it was only after the church had agreed on the canon that the church councils even took up the issue. When we begin to examine the Bible, we can do so with the confidence that it is complete. Nowhere do we find evidence of any changes, additions, or omissions which would, in any way, affect the teachings of the Bible.
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