I apologize in advance but I have a whole bunch of questions and I'm just going to throw them out there:
If the New Testament is inspired, is it Written Torah? What about the mitzvah to not add to or subtract from Torah? Does the New Testament violate this mitzvah? Why or why not?
There were several principal criteria that determined whether or not the early church considered a book to be canonical. The first was “authorship.” Was the book written by a prophet, an apostle or an accredited spokesperson of God? This stemmed from the view that God is the ultimate authority – not the Church (2 Peter 1:20-21). God was the one who determined who the real prophet was. God was the one who created the truth, not us.
ReplyDeleteImmediate contemporaries confirmed that a person was a true prophet through divine miracles or fulfilled prophecies (Exodus 3:1-3; 1 Kings 18:1; Acts 2:22; 2 Corinthians 12:12; Hebrews 2:3-4).
However, the ability to perform neat tricks was not enough. Their teachings had to mesh with God’s previous teachings (Deuteronomy 13:1-4).
The second criterion was “authority.” Did the book claim to be the Word of God? Between the Old and the New Covenants we find over 3,800 claims of divine inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21; 3:16).
Thirdly, there was “validation.” Did Christ and the other authors confirm that the book was scriptural? For example, in Luke 24:44-45 Jesus validated the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, essentially validating the entire Old Covenant as being Scriptural.
The fourth consideration could be called “contents” with the fundamental question being “does it agree with or contradict the rest of the Scriptures?”
The last criterion was that of “universality.” Were the writings accepted and received by the early Christians universally? This was not simply a popularity contest where a popular author like Max Lucado would have found his writings granted the status of Scripture. The work had to conform to the previous four criteria and the Christians looked to truly authoritative figures.
For example, though Augustine favored the Apocrypha, Josephus did not. Josephus’ view won out because the Jewish Christians knew that there were no prophets during the 400 years between the two Covenants. How could the Apocryphal books, which were written during that time period be authoritative?
We can be sure that the books we have in the Bible are clearly the inspired Word of God and that we have all of them.
That's interesting, the idea that authoritative writings from accredited Prophets which have been universally recognized can serve as the function of Torah--provided they do not contradict Written Torah.
DeleteI'd have to agree with all of that. And that would confirm my suspicion that the New Testament is equivalent in authority to Tanak. But I'm open to correction if anyone can show that my belief is mistaken.
The apostles were equal in authority to the Old Covenant prophets. They were made “competent to be ministers of a new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Paul argued, “if what was fading away was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious” (2 Corinthians 3:11). Accordingly, the apostles considered not only the gospel the delivered to be divine revelation, but also that they were preaching “by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Peter 1:12). It was not just the broad subject matter, in the modern sense of an “inspired work” meaning brilliant. They believed the very words were “not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:13). Their commands therefore carried divine authority (1 Thessalonians 4:2) and their writings were to be considered the depository of those commands (2 Thessalonians 2:15). As Paul stated it, “if anyone does not obey our instruction, take note of that person; don’t associate with him, so that he may be ashamed” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). Recognizing the divine authority of the Apostle’s work was considered a litmus test of being a Spirit-led person (1 Corinthians 14:37). Faced with these sobering claims, the talmidim considered the Apostolic writings to be equal to the Tanakh which they already possessed, and placed the Gospels and Epistles alongside the Writings as an additional part of the one torah of God. They were read as such in their meetings for worship – as was required by the Apostles (1 Thessalonians 5:27; Colossians 4:16; Revelation 1:3).
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