Earlier I suggested that the only way a significant movement to include a new document in the New Testament would get started was if we found something that looked like an authentic, first century apostolic epistle, gospel, or proto-gospel.
Let me clarify what I mean by the latter.
It is standardly assumed that there are lost sources behind the four gospels as we have them. The most talked about is a source called "Q," which is allegedly where a bunch of the material in Matthew and Luke comes from. It is not clear whether Q was an oral source or a written source, but many assume the latter. It also is not clear if Q even existed (there are other ways to account for the material besides positing Q and there are arguments against Q), though this is the standard claim these days. (Personally, I’m not convinced, though I’m open.)
Luke, at any rate, mentions that he used written sources in composing his gospel, and unless he’s referring exclusively to Matthew and Mark, that means there’s a lost source.
If we turned up Q or something else that looked like it might be a source behind the canonical gospels, that would be what I’m calling a "proto-gospel," and it would really set the cat among the pidgeons. The scholarly debates would be endless.
And it would be one of the few things that could conceivably spartk a New Testament inclusion movement.
How would that play out?
First, there’d be a buncha folks going "Ooo! Aaaah!" over the document in an uncritical manner and it would sell a bazillion copies.
Then there’d be a buncha folks going "I’m very favorably impressed, but we mustn’t be hasty."
Then there’s be a buncha folks going "Hey, let’s reserve judgement on this thing."
Then there’d be a buncha folks going, "This looks fake to me."
And finally there’d be a buncha folks going "This new document is of the devil!"
There’d be a big fight that would remain inconclusive for some time, probably generations.
Eventually, some publisher might decide to stick the document in Bibles it’s printing. Then there would be another huge controversy over this. (To mitigate it, the publisher might print the document as an appendix, not claiming it to be authentic or inspired but merely "useful," but that would still start a huge controversy.)
In the end, though, standard Bible would continue to outsell the ones that had the document in it. A few Christians (in newly-created denominations following denominational divides over the new book) might use it, but traditional Christians–who would be and would remain the great majority–would not include it in their Bibles, however fascinated or perplexed they might be by it.
What would the Catholic Church do?
Nothing.
Certainly in the beginning.
In our lifetimes we might get a few cautionary statements, but the attitude of the Church would very much be a "Let’s wait and see" attitude. The Church is not about to preemptorially endorse a work of such a sensitive nature if it might turn out to be fake. Neither is it about to preemptorially condemn such a work if it might turn out to be genuine. We’d get cautionary statements telling Catholics not to regard it as Scripture but to otherwise reserve judgement on it, and that would be about it.
And that’s probably the way it would stay.
Forever.
Hypothetically, the Church could use its infallibility to make a determination that the document falls into one of the following classes:
- Fake
- Authentic but not inspired
- Authentic and inspired but not to be included in the New Testament
- Authenatic and inspired and to be included in the New Testament
But the odds of any such determination at any date, even long after our lifetimes, would be very, very low.
The reason is that not making a determination would be so much easier than making one. It would be hard to prove it fake since, per supposition, we’ve already said that it appears authentic.
It would be hard to prove it authentic but not inspired since (a) we have no independent test for inspiration besides Tradition (which is absent here) and (b) we have no precedent for an authentically apostolic work that is non-inspired.
It would be hard to prove it authentic and inspired but not to be included among the Scriptures because of (a) the lack of a test for inspiration apart from Tradition and (b) we have no precedent for an inspired work that is not to be included in the Scriptures.
It would be hard to prove that it should be put in Scripture because (a) again, no independent tst for inspiration and (b) we have no precedent for including new works in Scripture.
The Church would thus find it much easier to simply downplay the matter, to be open to what value the document might have historically, but not to do anything to encourage folks to think of it on the same plane as the known Scriptures.
The only way I can see an infallible determination being made would be if, probably after centuries, a huge controversy was tearing the Church apart and one was needed for pastoral reasons.
In that case the likelihood would be that the decision would come down this way:
While this document may have many useful and instructive things to tell us, the Holy Spirit did not choose in His providence to shepherd it into the New Testament at the time it was codified. He did not choose to have it be part of the patrimony of Christendom down through the ages. Consequently, since the Scriptures as they have been historically known form the patrimony of the Church that God intended it to have uniquely in all ages of its development, it is hereby infallibly defined that the new document–whatever value it may have–is not to be placed in the canon of Scripture.
Only it’d be said more flowery than that.
Wouldn’t it be… interesting, if it documented the Assumption.
Cat – meet pidgeons. 🙂
Jimmy, I’m a simple man, talk to me as you would to a simpleton, and tell me, A) the basic canon of Scripture is closed (pace finding better versions of accepted texts) or B) the canon is NOT closed, or C) we don’t know.
It would be hard to prove it authentic but not inspired since (a) we have no independent test for inspiration besides Tradition (which is absent here)…
Ah, but Jimmy, you have forgotten Fundamentalism, the dowsing rod of God. All we’d really need is a blood-bought, regenerate, Spirit-baptized Christian to get his paws on the text and wait for the Inner Tingling of Infallible Conviction Free From the Aid of Papist Traditions (TM). Then he’d just Name It and Claim It for all true believers. 😉
You laugh, but, in all seriousness, it’s pretty much how Fundamentalists (and numerous mainstream Protestants) “verify” inspiration anyway, right? I’ve never understood how Calvin can defend the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit for an individual Christian without at least countenancing God can and does do the same thing for the whole Church (and confirm that decree with an individualized internal testimony).
A question I’m more interested in is if we found copies of the canonical works that significantly *alter* their contents. It would not then be a question of changing the canon (the formal bounds of Scripture), but of changing parts of its content (its material bounds). I mean, we already “update” biblical editions in light of new papyri, so obviously there is in principle nothing wrong with changing the Bible. What is the line between a principled, intra-canonical, textual revision and an outright, extra-canonical addition?
Elliot B,
As an adult convert, I doubt you would see a race to embrace a “new” letter of Paul among most protestants. They are more bound by tradition than they realize, they just don’t call it that.
However, I think you would see some latch on to it, to promote some pet doctrine that they think they see supported in the new book. You also would have whole new movements sprout up around it:
“Jenny, have you read the book of Norman?”
“No, what’s that”
“It’s a companion to the Bible. Yet another testament of Jesus Christ…”
Jimmy:
Do we have any current examples of “[a]uthentic and inspired but not to be included in the New Testament”?
Just curious–thanks.
The real question is: if CBS found a letter of Paul and it repudiated the divinity of Christ, but it looked like it was written using MS Word 2003, would they present it as authentic?
The Jimmy of Akin,
The Quasimodo asks the same question as the Ed Peters. Quasimodo thought Trent (and Florence?) closed the canon. Infallibly. No?
I would say that the answer to Dale’s question is, no. We don’t consider anything inspired except that which already is in the Bible. By definition, if it’s inspired, it belongs in the Bible, so, by definition, if we haven’t put it in the Bible, we don’t regard it as inspired.
And I suspect pretty strongly that the canon is closed – that it’s sensible to hold that the fact that nearly 2000 years after the apostolic age we haven’t yet discovered hypothetical text X is a strong sign from the Holy Spirit that X is not inspired and doesn’t belong in the Bible.
Quote: “The real question is: if CBS found a letter of Paul and it repudiated the divinity of Christ, but it looked like it was written using MS Word 2003, would they present it as authentic?”
LOL!!! That’s a great question! 🙂
Yeah, I can’t see any way that, after all this time and all those councils repeating the canonical list of scriptures, that there could ever be an addition to the biblical canon.
This talk of adding books to the Bible reminds me of something from my own religious upbringing. Before my conversion to Catholicism, when I was in the Worldwide Church of God (which was a fundamentalistical, heretical seventh-day adventist sort of sect), I was taught that there was something significant about the fact that in the King James Bible, a few of the New Testament books do not end with the word “Amen.” Acts is one of them, and so is III John. The WCG took that to mean that the Bible was incomplete, and would be completed when Christ returned, when He would supposedly authorise the writing of additional inspired scripture that would complete the “unfinished” New Testament books. In particular, we talked of the day when the Book of Acts would be completed, with the story of the Church being taken up from the point where St. Luke abruptly left it and being brought up to date.
Of course, the fact that the KJV doesn’t end a few New Testament books with “Amen” doesn’t mean that those books may not exist in versions that do end with “Amen.” For all I know, there are copies of III John that end with “Amen,” etc. There doesn’t seem to be anything necessarily significant in whether or not a New Testament book ends with “Amen.”
I don’t see how a book could be divinely inspired and not become a de facto part of the Bible. You may not call it “New Testament” but it is what it is: the Word of God.
Anything new like that would unlikely be included in an edition of the Bible. It would probably be sold in its own volume by the same small press that gets its books sold in vast discounts in the cheap racks at Barnes & Nobles just like how you can buy the Gospel of Thomas today.
I don’t think it would ever be included in the Bible unless some Church authorized its inclusion. It’s the same reason that Sherlock Holmes stories not written by Arthur Conan Doyle are never included in Omnibus editions of Holmes. Only Doyle stories are canon, not anyone elses.
Anyone remember an early ’70s book called The Word by Irving Wallace? It was the DaVinci Code of it’s time. A supposed lost Gospel of James (younger brother of Jesus, per this book) is found & the ensuing chaos rocks the worlds of religion & publishing now that the *truth* is finally out. Of course, like Dan Brown, Wallace had an agenda in writing this book because, in the end, the “lost” gospel – one that contradicts the accounts of the existing inspired Gospels & paints Jesus in a very different light & is taken as *inspired* by Christians everywhere – turns out to be . . . wait for it . . . a fake! And, of course, the only person left alive who knows that is the book’s hero, who’s lost his faith as a result of the finding of this “new” gospel & the reaction to it by believers & publishers. Another treatise along the “God does not exist so man must create Him” line of thought. I was just a kid but I remember the book being a huge bestseller & that it was turned into a mini-series starring David Jansen, who was in every ’70s mini-series I can remember. I can’t remember how Catholics & Sacred Tradition were treated in this story but, even with the felt banners & Jesus Christ Superstar catechisis I received as a kid, I remember thinking the whole thing was totally silly.
Actually, at one point a Apocryphal story was included in the Canon of Sherlock Holmes. A pastiche found among Doyle’s papers was thought to be a long lost Holmes story, until its writer emerged to claim ownership (not to mention moolah from publication in major magazines of the day). (I’m sorry I can’t recall the name of the story, especially as I believe it’s on the Web.)
Um, Ed Peters is a simpleton? Okay, I’m a downright babbling idiot. Don’t even bother trying to explain anything to me, Jimmy. I won’t understand it.
(I mean seriously, Ed P? A simpleton? 🙂
Of Wallace and his Word, I know nothing. But as for The Da Vinci Code of the 80’s, I give you: The Da Vinci Legacy!
Wow, between the Holy Blood, Holy Grail dudes suing Dan Brown for nabbing their esoteric goodies and this Purdue guy coming back from the hack-conspiracy-theory grave, Brown’s cup runneth over, his code is cracked, his legacy is exterminated, his word, silenced. (C’mon, I had to try.)
As for the canon-plus question, I think a crucial point is that Scripture is not exhaustively coterminous with the Word of God. This is the whole basis for revering and following Tradition and Scripture TOGETHER AS the Word of God. God’s Word is larger than Scripture, but Scripture is God’s Word FOR THE CHURCH. Even a totally authentic apostolic writing would not need to be added to Scripture, since 1) the canon is closed [yes, I know that’s a big question still on trial here, but indulge me] and 2) it could still function as God’s Word by becoming a living ALBEIT EXTRA-/NON-CANONICAL element of the Tradition. Just as the Fathers, Doctors and Popes of the Church became (and comprise) a living, formative element of the Faith, even without being canonical Scripture, so too would this apostolic “late comer” become formative, canonized or not.
Having said all that, since I think my quandary about significant textual/material revisions to the canon does leave a window open for effectively altering the canon, I think it’s important to consider how Trent decreed the canon. Did Trent negatively (descriptively) set the canon, as against Reformed rejections of certain books? Or did Trent positively (prescriptively) define the canon, as against any possible additions whatsoever? In the former case, which I think better accords with the language in the pertinent decrees, Trent defended the fact that the OT, Deuterocanonicals and NT all really ARE inspired and that efforts to remove or suppress them are anathema. In the latter case, which accords with our instinct of “finality” on this point, Trent set ironclad boundaries around what is Scripture, and THEREFORE established that nothing else could ever be Scripture too.
I’m inclined to believe the former (although Trent’s defense of the Vulgate is harder to square with certain advances in biblical studies and promulgations in the last half-millennium). I see the same kind of negative dogmatism at work in the decrees on Transubstantiation. As the Pontificator has pointed out very well on many occasions, Transubstantiation defines the doctrine of Real Presence – it does not exhaust the dogma of the Real Presence. Trent, in effect, declared there can be no orthodox “theory” or theology of the Eucharist without at least affirming what Transubstantiation affirms: that Christ is really and truly present in the bread and wine, and that his offering is substantially mingled with any thing else (incl. bread and wine). As far as the metaphysical and semantic modes/means of expressing and understanding that truth, well, that’s not really a matter of dogma (i.e., changes in accidents/essence metaphysics open new vistas of faith without denying the older meaning of the dogma). Point? I see the same kind of negative dogmatism with the canon. There can be no orthodox canon of Scripture WITHOUT the Catholic canon, but advances in archaeological and textual studies can and may expand upon that dogmatic basis without incurring anathemata.
Screeech! By “and that his offering is substantially mingled with any thing else…” I of course mean “that his offering is substantially mingled with any thing else”!
Elliot, I think Trent and other instances of the magisterium speaking to this issue show us that the canon is closed. Whenever the Church has formally listed the books of the Bible, she has always given the same list of books. Yes, that means that the canon cannot have less than that number of books, but if it leaves open the possibility of additional books someday being added to the canon, why has the Church never, ever, ever even slightly and most tentatively suggested any such thing. I don’t recall ever finding the magisterium say that there might be other books of the Bible we don’t currently know about.
Now, as for the actual textual forms of the canonical books, that’s another question altogether. In her history, the Church has used as Holy Writ both the original short recension of Jeremiah (Septuagint) and the later long recension of Jeremiah (Masoretic/Vulgate). She has also used two or more recensions of Tobit (Sinaiticus, Old Latin, Vulgate, etc.). By implication, that *could* suggest that the Church believes God inspired more than one form of some books — or more cautiously, that various Christians and individual churches often have not had access to the best copies of various biblical books.
Wouldn’t it be great if we found Paul’s missing letter to Peter in Rome:
Chapter 1:
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, to Peter, Vicar of Christ, called the Rock, on whom the Lord has built His Church (that is, Peter and his successors), in Rome, seat of the supreme apostolic see of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church (i.e. the Catholic Church) from which He has promised no error can ever be promulgated. Peace and the blessings of the Holy Spirit, who clearly proceeds from both the Father and the Son.
Chapter 2:
These days, as I make my journey to visit you in Babylon (which is code for Rome, Italy), a visit I have desired to make, yea even from the moment of the creation of my soul at conception, I ponder the many wonders of our dear holy, mother church. I marvel at the transubstantiation that takes place during the holy sacrifice of the mass, when the bread and wine become completely the real literal body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, two natures yet one person, who never even once considered having sexual relations with Mary Magdalene.
Chapter 3:
I rejoice in the divinely inspired scriptures that have been handed down to us, including especially 1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, Tobit, and Judith, and parts of two others, Daniel and Esther. Or course, let there be no doubt that I rejoice also in the Tradition and Magisterium of our visible institutional Church. Give me that old time organized religion.
Chapter 4:
Pray for me, Pope of the Catholic Church, baptizer of even the small babes, that I, who have been made born again when I myself was baptized with the spirit when I had water sprinkled on my forehead, may continue to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, since I could surely lose that salvation if I am not careful. Pray that I might have faith and also works and the grace from God that allows both if I cooperate with it. Pray also that the faithful may not contracept, which is gravely evil, everywhere and always.
Chapter 5:
May Mother Mary, the Immaculate Conception, co-mediatrix of all graces, whom our Lord miraculously preserved from even the slightest stain of original sin, who was assumed body and soul into heaven, and who was not made a priest because women can’t be priests, continue to pray for us and intercede for us in heaven, where she can surely hear our cries for help.
I can’t wait to see you again, Peter the Rock, whom I have met many times before, along with the other apostles, especially James, and who has the exact same theology and vision of the Church that I do, that we all do.
I shall conlude this letter now as I must go confess my sins to a man, so that I may be forgiven by God.
Amen.
And of course the above letter is to be found written in its original Latin.
🙂
Whew! Wouldn’t that clear up a few misconceptions? LOL!
Quote:
Ah, but Jimmy, you have forgotten Fundamentalism, the dowsing rod of God. All we’d really need is a blood-bought, regenerate, Spirit-baptized Christian to get his paws on the text and wait for the Inner Tingling of Infallible Conviction Free From the Aid of Papist Traditions (TM). Then he’d just Name It and Claim It for all true believers. 😉
End quote:
It really depends on what the supposed scripture contained. If the fundamentalist embraced a new book of the Bible that contained several new pieces of information then one could point out the flawed theology of sufficiency of the original cannon.
However, if the new book contained the words ‘not by faith alone’ or something of a nature that really solidified their theology then they may well embrace the new book as inspired no matter how much new information it contained.
Keep in mind this comment is coming from a current Lutheran.
“again, no independent tst for inspiration and”
No proof of inspiration? How about this?
http://www.bereanpublishers.com/Apologetics/computer_proof.htm
Muslims claim the same type of “proof” for the Qu’ran. http://www.submission.org/miracle-history.html
“But for the authority of the Church, I would not believe the Gospel.”-St. Augustine
“Muslims claim the same type of “proof” for the Qu’ran. ”
Thanks for the link. Interesting (and at the same time boring coz you know it ain’t true. Same with the bereans stuff).
Quote:
However, if the new book contained the words ‘not by faith alone’ or something of a nature
Endquote:
Sorry this should have read ‘by faith alone’ – I am too used to quoting James.
+J.M.J+
If anyone is still reading this, allow me to throw a wrench in the discussion (sort-of).
If the canon is closed, meaning no more books may be added, but different versions (long and short) have been recognized before, then what about the extra psalms that occur in Eastern Christian Bibles?
The Eastern Orthodox have Psalm 151 in their Bible, and the Syriac Psalter contains Psalms 151-155 (I think Psalm 152 is identical with the Prayer of Manasses). Also, Psalms 151, 154 and 155 occur in the Dead Sea Scrolls intermixed with canonical Psalms!
Could these five extra psalms also be inspired, as some Eastern Christians believe? That would mean a longer Book of Psalms, not the addition of new books to the canon.
In Jesu et Maria;
Good question. Certainly those psalms at the very least qualify as “apocryphal” if not “deuterocanonical.” The general consensus puts the limit at 150 psalms — even the Septuagint identifies Psalm 151 as “outside the number.” So I would favor the view that the canonical psalms number 150. That doesn’t mean those other psalms are worthless, or even inauthentic, just not inspired and therefore not canonical.
Great boys
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