Open closed canon

[Daniel_Marsh]

Many cults like Christian Science and Latter Day Saints have extra-biblical revelations and claim that the canon of scripture is/was still open. However, groups like the Baptists claim that the canon is closed.

Is the canon closed?

What are the arguments for the canon being still open or closed?

 

[BrianH]

Thats a very good question. Lets say that someone found a gospel, not like a Gospel of Thomas either, but something most scholars attested as legit, or maybe solved the synoptic problem!!
For you guys, I would think it would be easier to incorporate it.
Sola Scripture would have more difficulty. People like myself, non-literalist or those who are not innerantists, would embrace it…if…a lot of ifs.

 

[Lazerlike42]

See here and here.

 

[kleary]

Daniel Marsh:

Many cults like Christian Science and Latter Day Saints have extra-biblical revelations and claim that the canon of scripture is/was still open. However, groups like the Baptists claim that the canon is closed.

Is the canon closed?

What are the arguments for the canon being still open or closed?

The Canon of Scripture was defined at the Council of Trent in 1545 AD.

No books can ever be added or taken away the same that all decrees from Trent concerning faith and morals can never ever be changed.

{Yea… I am one of those people who Jimmy Akin would say “They say it is of the Devil”}

Ken

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

It would be interresting to see what would happen if we found Q source document some day.

 

[tjmiller]

There is no Q document.

Never was.

 

[Lazerlike42]

tjmiller:

There is no Q document.

Never was.

Please give me some good, Catholic evidence for this. I really would love to refute some of the folks whom mention it.

 

[MrS]

Lazerlike42:

Please give me some good, Catholic evidence for this. I really would love to refute some of the folks whom mention it.

how can one give evidence that something does not exist???

 

[Lazerlike42]

MrS:

how can one give evidence that something does not exist???

Well, it is no doubt more difficult (and the evidence is of course incapable of proving nonexistence), however evidence can be given to support the idea that it does not exist.

 

[tjmiller]

You don’t have to have “good Catholic evidence” for the non-existence of Q.

Anyone who knows whereof they speak - even atheistic liberal “bible scholars” - have no choice but to admit that the concept of Q is simply a rationalistic hypothetical construct.

 

[asteroid]

If we don’t find Q, we won’t find M or L either. At college we were taught that Matthew and Luke based their gospels on Mark and Q, and the left over bits came from another source they had - Matthew had M, and Luke had L.

Ho hum.

 

[asteroid]

Lazerlike42:

See here and here.

Thanks for that. Very interesting.

Everyone should read the response from the ex Worldwide Church of God member about their teaching. Amazing. A theory that the canon of the NT is incomplete because some of the books don’t end in amen is pretty wild. The “lost” letter of Paul is good too.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

But, I seen Q on star track, surely he must have wrote something.



SAYINGS OF JESUS: SOURCE (Q) IN RECENT RESEARCH A REVIEW ARTICLE, THE
Trinity Journal, Spring 2005 by Keylock, Leslie Robert
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3803/is_200504/ai_n13643146

NEW TESTAMENT
DIVINITY LIBRARY

---

Source
Bellinzoni, Arthus J., ed. The Two-Source Hypothesis: A Critical Appraisal. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985.
Collection of Essays which grew out of a SBL Consultation on the Relationship of the Gospels. Covers the Marcan priority and the Q hypothesis and sets out arguments for and against the two-source hypothesis.
BS2555.2 .T86 1985

Boismard, M. E. “The Two-Source Theory at an Impasse.” NTS 26 (October 1979): 1-17.
Shows that the many Mt/Lk agreements against Mark which cannot be accounted for by the two-source theory call for a synthesis of both the Griesbach, and two-source hypotheses.
BS410 .N5 v. 26

Butler, B. C. The Originality of St. Matthew: A Critique of the Two-Document Hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951.
Argues for the priority of Matthew and dismisses the theory that Mark and Q are earlier sources.
BS2575 .B87

Farmer, William R. The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis. Dillsboro, NC: Western North Carolina Press, 1976.
Argues for a return to the Matthean priority. Book is now reissued by Mercer University Press in the wake of new converts to the Matthean priority, which is really a rehash of the old Griesbach hypothesis.
BS2555.2 .F3 1976

________, ed. New Synoptic Studies: The Cambridge Gospel Conference and Beyond. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983.
Collection of essays representing three positions on source theory: Marcan priority with Q, Marcan dependency on either Matthew or Luke, and none of these. A very fine source for understanding different arguments on the problem.
BS2555.2 .N483 1983

Orchard, Bernard. Matthew, Luke & Mark. 2nd ed. Manchester, Eng: Koinonia Press, 1977.
Adheres to what the author calls the Griesbachian principles, i. e., recognition of the Matthean priority. Here, even Luke comes before Mark.
BS2555.2 .073 1977 v. 1

________, and Riley, Harold. The Order of the Synoptics: Why Three Synoptic Gospels? Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987.
An Anglican and a Roman Catholic scholar join the band of NT scholars who challenge various forms of the Marcan priority hypothesis by presenting their own Two-Gospel hypothesis.
BS2555.2 .074 1987

Parker, Pierson. The Gospel Before Mark. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.
One of the first published arguments in North America challenging the Marcan priority hypothesis.
BS2555 .P27

Reicke, Bo. The Roots of the Synoptic Gospels. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.
Concerned with the origin and formation of the traditions which lie behind the synoptic gospels but concentrates more on reconstruction of literary sources, thereby avoiding much of the polemicized debate regarding the documentary hypotheses.
BS2555.2 .R39 1986

Stein, Robert H. The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker House, 1987.
The author argues cogently for the two-document hypothesis in the first part of the book, then deals with form-criticism and the pre-literary period, and finally gives a fine discussion of redaction criticism.
BS 2555.2 .S728 1987

Vassiliadis, Petros. “The Nature and Extent of the Q-Document.” NovTest 20 (January 1978): 49-73.
Argues for the existence of the Q-Document originally written in Greek, and used much by Luke and Matthew.
BS410 .N94 v. 20

Walker, William O., ed. The Relationships Among the Gospels: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1978.
Essays presented at a colloquy at Trinity University, Texas and concerned with airing the problems which still attend the various hypotheses in NT source criticism.
BS2555.2 .R43

vanderbilt.edu/AnS/religious_studies/NTBib/source.html

1. The Q document is not a surviving source hid by the Vatican, nor is it a book allegedly written by Jesus himself. It’s a hypothetical document that scholars have posited as having been available to Matthew and Luke, principally a collection of the sayings of Jesus. Roman Catholic scholars think the same of it as non-Catholics — there’s nothing secretive about it.

atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/TruthDaVinci_2.htm

 

[MrS]

Daniel Marsh:

But, I seen Q on star track, surely he must have wrote something.

Wasn’t that James Bond ???

and “M” was there too.

 

[Fidelis]

Lazerlike42:

Well, it is no doubt more difficult (and the evidence is of course incapable of proving nonexistence), however evidence can be given to support the idea that it does not exist.

The best evidence that it does not exist is that there is no extant copy. Until that turns up, it is merely a hypothesis – and a flawed one at that.

 

[tjmiller]

Having lambasted Q, I should state for the record that, over the course of two decades of higher-critical biblical studies, I have concluded that there IS a Q!

But it is not, as is commonly supposed, some proto-evangelical documentary source used by SS. Matthew and Luke, alongside the Gospel according to St. Mark, to compose their Gospels. Rather, Q is best seen as a shorthand method of describing the material common to Matthew and Luke which is not also to be found in Mark.

How that came to be is another question entirely…

 

[anawim]

Another thing to consider is that Q was not considered an idea until the 19th. century. If it existed, there would have been at least something before then.

 

[tjmiller]

The question of Q really centers upon the theory of Marcan Priority. There is sufficient internal evidence to believe that Saint Matthew’s Gospel exhibits a textual dependency upon Saint Mark’s Gospel.

We have to ask, then, why would an eyewitness of the life and teaching of Christ as was Saint Matthew, depend upon the narrative of someone who was not an Apostle like himself? The answer is an implicit argument for Petrine supremacy: Matthew relied upon Mark’s Gospel, because it was the recorded testimony of Saint Peter, Prince of Apostles…The tax-collector gave way to the fisher.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

anawim:

Another thing to consider is that Q was not considered an idea until the 19th. century. If it existed, there would have been at least something before then.

I have seen somewhere before someone use quotes about a hebrew edition of Matthew as pre-19th century existence of Q.

Also, there is the Testimonia too that has been used for pre-19th century evidence for Q too.

I simply forget the authors that made those claims, but they were scholars in the mainstream.

google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Testimonia+hebrew+gospel+Q

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

MrS:

Wasn’t that James Bond ???

and “M” was there too.

Great, now I am going to have to make up a M document.

I know Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Four Gospels : A Study of Origins (1924) can bail me out,

I have heard of M. It is an extension of the two-source hypothesis. Basically, M=the bits not in Q or Mark. Likewise L exists for luke. It is essentially whatever the source for things like the infancy stories was. Whether it existed as a text or just as oral heresay, or was just made up totally, is a different matter, but essentially it is extending the principle. M is widely known in the theory, it isn’t a wierd thing, its just a bit pointless as its like saying “that source that isn’t Q or Mark, and has the random bits matthew adds” - it hasn’t got much to distinguish it, unlike Q, which is unusual in being mostly just sayings, and it was only used by Matthew, so isn’t that significant. If you check out google, there is hardly anything about the “Acts of Thecla and Paul”, but it is known to exist.

Well, the statement stands above, though I’ve removed it from the article now. To judge from his talk page the original contributor seems to have been disaffected with Wikipedia. --Wetman 00:32, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
People talk about an M that’s a hypothetical source for what’s unique to Matthew, just as they talk about an L that’s behind what’s unique to Luke. Sometimes people refer to the “Four-Document Hypothesis”–Mark, Q, L, and M–rather than the “Two-Document Hypothesis”–Mark and Q. Josh Cherry 01:44, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gospel_of_Matthew#That_.22M_Source.22.2CStreeter