R
RedFan
Guest
I wonder how you sola scriptura denizens out there view the interstitial period between Pentecost and the publication of the various books of the NT between roughly 40 and 100 C.E. Does it weaken your thesis at all?
For its first 20+ years Christianity spread through Paul’s missions and through the preaching of the original apostles and others – but with no NT writings to point to. Paul starts to write letters to particular churches in the 40’s C.E., but they don’t get instantly copied (think about how tedious the copying process was back then!) nor instantly shared throughout the Mediterranean world (think about how long it took to travel from, say, Antioch to Rome in those days!). We don’t have any evidence that his letters were circulated widely until decades after they were penned.
Slowly, gospel-like stories begin to emerge, first as written collections of “sayings” (it would have been quite natural for the earliest Christians to write down the teachings and sayings of the Lord, particularly hortatory sayings like that referenced in 1 Tim. 5:18 or in Acts 20:35, which would have been useful even in the immediate aftermath of Pentecost). The Sermon on the Mount may not have been preserved in exactly the canonical form now found in Matthew, but it would not surprise me if some such collections were around quite early simply because of their utility as a manual for how to live while awaiting the Second Coming.
Later come the biographies and narratives of Jesus’s deeds, as those who were promised eternal life started physically dying with regularity (the “scandal” that may have sparked First Thessalonians, perhaps the earliest NT writing we have), which led to the emerging realization that the parousia might not be imminent and there could indeed be future generations to “save” – likely the impetus for the gospel genre. Narratives like the synoptics began to spring up in order to preserve eyewitness accounts. We don’t know how many were penned, although I presume that Luke 1:1 used the word “many” (Gk. polloi) properly.
My point is simply that for more than a generation, all that Christians had as inspired “Scripture” (graphē) was the OT. And chances are that they viewed it pretty much the way 2 Tim. 3:16 does – as useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, but not as salvific. The gospel of salvation through Christ was a matter of oral transmission alone, premised on the authority of eyewitness apostles long before they were declared by the four canonical gospels to possess such authority, and premised on the authority of those they commissioned to carry on their preaching.
Question: why should the writing of the NT end that authority? Whether you challenge the RCC as the repository of that authority today is a separate matter and not of any particular interest to me – but I am curious to understand your thinking regarding the replacement of apostolic authority with the NT canon.
For its first 20+ years Christianity spread through Paul’s missions and through the preaching of the original apostles and others – but with no NT writings to point to. Paul starts to write letters to particular churches in the 40’s C.E., but they don’t get instantly copied (think about how tedious the copying process was back then!) nor instantly shared throughout the Mediterranean world (think about how long it took to travel from, say, Antioch to Rome in those days!). We don’t have any evidence that his letters were circulated widely until decades after they were penned.
Slowly, gospel-like stories begin to emerge, first as written collections of “sayings” (it would have been quite natural for the earliest Christians to write down the teachings and sayings of the Lord, particularly hortatory sayings like that referenced in 1 Tim. 5:18 or in Acts 20:35, which would have been useful even in the immediate aftermath of Pentecost). The Sermon on the Mount may not have been preserved in exactly the canonical form now found in Matthew, but it would not surprise me if some such collections were around quite early simply because of their utility as a manual for how to live while awaiting the Second Coming.
Later come the biographies and narratives of Jesus’s deeds, as those who were promised eternal life started physically dying with regularity (the “scandal” that may have sparked First Thessalonians, perhaps the earliest NT writing we have), which led to the emerging realization that the parousia might not be imminent and there could indeed be future generations to “save” – likely the impetus for the gospel genre. Narratives like the synoptics began to spring up in order to preserve eyewitness accounts. We don’t know how many were penned, although I presume that Luke 1:1 used the word “many” (Gk. polloi) properly.
My point is simply that for more than a generation, all that Christians had as inspired “Scripture” (graphē) was the OT. And chances are that they viewed it pretty much the way 2 Tim. 3:16 does – as useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, but not as salvific. The gospel of salvation through Christ was a matter of oral transmission alone, premised on the authority of eyewitness apostles long before they were declared by the four canonical gospels to possess such authority, and premised on the authority of those they commissioned to carry on their preaching.
Question: why should the writing of the NT end that authority? Whether you challenge the RCC as the repository of that authority today is a separate matter and not of any particular interest to me – but I am curious to understand your thinking regarding the replacement of apostolic authority with the NT canon.
