Background: Questions # 7 (p. 29-31), 10 (p. 40-45), and 28 (p. 113-117) in Banned Questions about the Bible by Christian Piatt.
Scripture: John 21:24-25
A recently discovered scrap of papyrus believed to have been written some 300 years after Jesus was alive includes the phrase: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" Although it’s not a complete sentence and there’s no way of knowing the full context of the eight fragments of text on that papyrus, the historian who translated the writing has called it “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”
Was Jesus married and, if he was, why would the Bible hide it and what does it mean for us? We’ll explore that later this week. First let's look at another set of questions that come out of this: If this was part of a larger gospel account of Jesus (it’s hard to tell from a small scrap), why wasn't it included in the Bible? In the last century, a number of documents dating back to the early church have been found, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and a collection of Gnostic gospels. Why weren't they included in the Bible we have today? Who decided what would be included and why? Why haven’t we added any of these later documents to the Bible?
Banned Questions About the Bible includes three questions related to this subject:
- Why are the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, and Dead Sea Scrolls considered sacred to some but not to others? (p. 29-32)
- Who got to decide which books would be included in the Bible, and what rules did they use to decide? (p. 113-117)
- Is there a chance any new books will ever be added to the Bible? (p. 40-45)
How some books were included in the Bible while others were excluded has been fertile ground for discussion, debate, conspiracy theories and fiction (see The Da Vinci Code). The responses to the questions above give a brief overview of the creation of the New Testament canon (the standard on which our faith is based). While the New Testament was not finalized until the late fourth century, that doesn't mean it was created from scratch some 400 years after Jesus was on earth. The texts in our Bible today had been in common use since the first century.
Marcia Ford described the process as a “grassroots effort” rising up from the individual churches that had pretty much settled on a collection of books they considered to be authentic (p. 114). The early church leaders who established the canon used several guidelines to determine whether a book was authentic. The book had to be:
- written by one of Jesus’ apostles or by someone associated with an apostle
- accepted, used, and relevant by the larger Christian community
- reflective of “a view consistent with accepted doctrine and moral value” of the larger Christian community [p. 114]
But if there was universal acceptance of these books as central to Christian faith, why formalize a canon? Unless you believe the Bible was handed down by God dictated, bound, and translated for all to understand unambiguously, then the possibility of conflicting interpretation and viewpoints exist. The more time that passed, the more removed people were from the perspectives of those who were alive with Jesus. We certainly don’t have the same perspectives as those of the early church.
Gnostics held to a viewpoint that ran counter to accepted doctrine. I’m not an expert, so I’m deferring to responses in Banned Questions… Gnostics “tend to question Jesus’ humanity, suggesting that he was a divine or spiritual being who only seemed to be human” (Marcia Ford, p. 29). That conflicts with our belief that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. The Gnostics also believed we could reach a more fulfilling existence “through the attainment of secret knowledge (gnosis)” (Brandon Gilvin, p. 30). Contrast that with our understanding that grace is a gift given to us by God through Jesus and not some secret we have to discover.
However, some argue that the male leaders of the early churches also rejected the gnostic gospels' “more powerful portrayal of women” (Marcia Ford, p. 29) and that the net effect of focusing on what the “mainstream” church considered correct doctrine was to marginalize “sincere Christians (e.g., the Gnostics) who disagreed with them” (Jose Morales, Jr, p. 115).
Do you believe that, in the existing Bible, “God has provided all that we need to know to believe in God and to guide our lives” [p. 43]? Or do you believe that, in excluding books that ran counter to the mainstream church’s view of correct doctrine, the early church leaders have left us with an incomplete picture of God?
Do you believe there’s something to be learned in the Gnostic gospels that have not been included in the Bible? Have you read any of them? Examples include the gospels of Thomas, Mary, and Judas.
Today we have some denominations claiming that anything that deviates from their church doctrine or understanding of the Bible is heresy. How do we know that something is “heretical” to our understanding of God? Do we (or should we) accept that a book or a thought is heresy because a church leader says so or should we decide for ourselves? How do we keep this from turning into a chaos in which anything goes depending on our perspective?
On Wednesday, we’ll explore the second part of the question: Was Jesus married? In the meantime, please click on “Comments” below to share your thoughts and to read what others are saying. Come back often to continue the conversation!
1. The three criteria you laid out for deciding what goes into the Bible checks with everything else I’ve read and were used at the councils of Nicea in 325 and Carthage in 397. I think that they’re pretty good criteria. I suppose that new material could be added to the Bible if it was discovered and met those three criteria. Perhaps not every single church would accept it, but even some variation is accepted today, and we still call each other Christian.
ReplyDeleteI’ve read that biblical scholars have a hypothesis that there was a source document composed mostly of the sayings and teachings of Jesus that was used to write some of the four gospels. It is referred to as “Q”, short for “quelle”, which is German for “source”. I suppose that if Q were found and authenticated according to the three criteria mentioned earlier, it might be added to the Bible.
2. If the Bible provided all we need to know to believe in God there wouldn’t be so many atheists and agnostics. Adding material of dubious veracity doesn’t help anything though, and it probably would detract from knowing the truth. On the other hand, I’m not sure how we would know if there was something else, maybe some final proof, that God has intentionally kept from us so far as part of His plan. There is no way for us to know as humans, but it’s something to at least be open to.
3. The Gnostic gospels were known and considered at the time of the councils. I think that the councils were right in rejecting them on the basis of the three criteria. The Gnostic gospels do provide a historical perspective on the thoughts and movements rolling around at the time of the early church and thus have scholarly value.
That's an interesting point in #2. I hadn't considered it from that perspective. Thomas needed to touch Jesus' wounds to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. Jesus didn't scold him for his doubts, but also said, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” [John 20:29] John then goes on to say that Jesus performed many more signs that were not recorded, but what was in the gospel was written so others may believe [Jn 20:30-31].
DeleteI know folks who are atheists because what they've heard about God and Jesus conflicts with their understanding of science, knowledge, and reason. They place their faith in the known/provable over the not-so-easily-explainable. In their case, would there be anything else that could be added to the Bible that would lead them to believe in God?
I don't know, but I believe some people need some kind of physical/ spiritual affirmation that goes beyond the Bible, like Thomas. Does that mean some people are destined never to believe? I prefer to hold on to the passage, "Nothing is impossible with God." I've often wondered why God doesn't provide more substantive evidence of God's existence, but maybe that's a question for another day.
If the main thing God wants from us is a relationship, perhaps the ambiguity the Bible leaves us with is intentional. If everything was laid out for us and we just automatically followed it, could the relationship be love, or would it have to be something less? Maybe that’s also why God chose to give us free will.
DeleteFor followers of science, the lack of direct empirical proof of God is problematic; however, if God exists outside space and time, then empirical science goes out the window. Aside from the fact that science is changing all the time and the empirical method dates from about 1750, there is strong indirect evidence of God’s existence. That gets us into apologetics, and the best (and also the hardest to understand)science/knowledge/reason apologist I know is William Lane Craig.
So much to respond to here. Don't know where to start. Have been discussing such things with my sons over the past year or so. I have been led very much into the realm of philosophy: philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and epistemology (or the study of knowledge). I've spent a lot of time trying to wrap my head around Plato's definition of knowledge as "justified true belief." I've read theologian/philosopher Dallas Willard's book "Knowing Christ Today--Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge." He confronts the problem, "Serious and thoughtful Christians today find themselves in a quandary... In the context of modern life and thought, they are urged to treat their central beliefs as something other than knowledge. Those beliefs are to be relegated to the categories of sincere opinion, emotion, blind commitment or behavior traditional for their social group." I think there are serious, thoughtful Christians just as there are emotion-led, opinionated, unthinkingly committed, and tradition-bound Christians. Much could be gained, I think much could be gained by focusing on the evidence upon which we, individually and collectively, base our faith, and trying to determine what is more or less "substantive", to borrow from Nelson's usage above.
DeleteWow, What great thoughts from everyone. If God's existence were truly black and white in the scientific sense, it wouldn't be a choice of the heart or really much of a choice at all, it would simply be truth.
ReplyDeleteRob, good point.
DeleteI'll get back to the original focus in a roundabout way, but here's another question to consider: Is the Bible the most important means we have to encounter God? The Bible as we know it has been available widely for only a relatively short period in the span of Judeo-Christian history. Before the printing press, and even afterward, most of the populace encountered the Bible through the reading, proclamation, and interpretation of others (priest, minister, rabbi, other religious leaders). Even today, those who have read the Bible or read it regularly are probably a minority.
ReplyDeleteHow important is the Bible in relation to the witness of others or to the work of the Spirit or even to the loving actions of others? The seeds of my faith were being planted before I ever read a single book in the Bible. Granted, what I encountered was filtered through the perspective (and bias) of others. I heard a lot about the love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness of God through some people. Others insisted that, with that grace, comes certain obligations - either to obey the commandments and live a moral life or to be compassionate toward others as Jesus was.
If I had been satisfied in asking only one person which perspective was right, the issue may have been settled in my head. But I asked many people, and got different answers. It's enough to make you wonder how humans ever settled on a core group of books of the Bible that adequately set the standards for our faith.
Maybe the key is that if you go to the Bible to find God (and not to search for passages that support what you already believe), you're more likely to encounter an ongoing conversation and debate that spans time rather than a single definitive answer. I like what Jose Morales, Jr, said in "Banned Questions...":
"We received these sacred texts, however assembled, as a gift from ancients of our respective traditions - an imperfect yet wonderful gift to guide us in our journey." [p. 42]
I love that last quote Nelson. I think that really sums it up for me. The Bible is a guide but doesn't hold all of the definitive answers. As I child I took all the stories as fact. As my faith has matured there has been more questioning, more doubts but eventually a stronger faith and a much closer relationship with God. Maybe the point is that without all of the answers laid out for us; it's up to us to question, to grow and reach out to God in Faith. I also truely believe that the Bible is only one of many ways to God reaches out to us. Why would God be that limited? When your heart is open, answers may come in the words of a friend, the kindness of a stranger, a song on the radio or even a really great blog :-)
ReplyDelete