A reader recently informed us of a guest appearance by atheist Frank Zindler at their local pool hall where he presented all manner of the usual diatribe from his quarter and even added some new diatribe to the effect that he was now considering a "Mohammed myth" as well as a "Christ myth". Way to go, Zindler. Keep up the good work. But as a favor to this reader we are putting together a response to a particular item by Zindler titled "The Real Bible: Who's Got It?" (hereafter TRB) which Zindler passed out in the pool hall, apparently concerned for the lack of Kleenex he observed. Veteran readers will find little or nothing new in this article; we will be incorporating material from past articles as a service to our requesting reader, and to serve as an example of how readily Skeptical claims may be addressed from material on this site. And now, TRB.

Zindler tells us he thinks we have three problems if we want to believe the Bible:

1. "How can one know which books are 'inspired' and should be part of the scriptural canon?"
2. "How can one know which one - if any - of the existing contradictory manuscripts (MSS) of a given book preserves the 'true' wording?"
3. "Assuming that one has the correct manuscript (MS) of a given book, how can one know what the particular Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic words mean?"

Zindler rises from his seat to collect applause as he presses the panic button, declaring, "there is no way these questions can be answered with absolute certainty. At best, believers must trust to the probabilities - not certainties - that arise from a scientific investigation of the facts surrounding the biblical texts and traditions."

My major reply: And what exactly is the problem?

Straightforwardly, Zindler is absolutely deluded if he believes that pressing these panic buttons will worry anyone but a huddled mass of extremist Church of Christ fundies with black and white undies. Do these questions cause me to panic? No. Should they cause you to panic? Absolutely not. The only quaking that will be done here is Zindler in his boots. Let's now delve into Zindler's primary panic theses.

Question 1: Which Books?

Zindler plays out the usual skein we have come to expect. There are many canons out there -- which one is right? The Catholic one? The Protestant one? The Samaritan one? There is some quite ignorant commentary alongside ("If to be 'saved' one needs to have information found, say, in Revelation, 2 Paralipomenon, or Baruch, isn't it odd of god to let so many people be born into environments deficient in books needed for salvation?" -- the last I checked, no variation of canon within the Christian church, at least, thought that the smaller canons were lacking any soteriological data not present in the larger ones) and after hauling out the spectre of diversity for the sake of panic by (accurately, we will assume) listing some of the different numbers of books in canons and different books listed by different persons, Zindler drags out councils and histories and opinions all the way up to the Reformation and leaves the matter at that, leaving the gullible reader to conclude that gosh darn this is a mess of confusion and there's no way to know what really is canonical.

To which we say: Frankie, cry us a river.

Are things really that bad? Hardly. When it comes to the OT, Zindler scratches hard to find some deviation among the Samaritans; he admits that their canon was inspired by ulterior motives, and that ends all viable use of their canon for his argument. If Aunt Hattie decides she doesn't like Ephesians because it uses the word "darkness" (she's afraid of the dark), and cuts it out, she does not form an independent and authoritative witness to a differing canon to be considered valid. Neither does Luther's opinion on James. The natural human tendency towards syncretism, and the application of personally-preferred truths to the minimization of those found less comfortable, is inescapable, especially in our modern, post-modern environment. Whether God had a hand in the selection and forming of the canon, or whether it was just a random assortment thrown together by the winds of history, the result will be the same: There will always be those, believer and non-believer alike, who will take mental pen in hand and "cross out" the parts of the Bible (or any set of ideas, for that matter) that they find uncomfortable, or add on things that will personally give them a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. In a sense, we each form our own canon of acceptable ideas; we each have our own "apocrypha" of marginal thoughts, and our own collection of ideas which we discard into the void, dismissing them from our canon of thought entirely. Resistance to a fixed set of ideas, perceived as limiting our freedom to do as we please, is as old a tendency as humanity itself. Zindler is pointing the fault arrow in the wrong direction to begin with.

Zindler also has an inflated idea of just how important a canon is to begin with. The idea of a "canon" did not originate with the Bible. The Israelites had a model to go on, one which was in circulation in Egyptian and Mesopotamian society. Vasholz, using the example of the Poem of Erra and other documents from the 12th to 8th centuries BC, notes these four core (commonsense!) steps:

• The deity speaks, and his words are recorded.
• The material is faithfully transmitted.
• Authenticity is established by means of blessings for honor, and curses for dishonor, in transcription.
• Materials are preserved in a sacred place.

These essential "canon concepts," then, were "there for the taking" at the time when the OT was being put together and involves no radical innovation or supposition of historical invention. The ancient "canonical" concept appears in its earliest form in the OT in Exodus 17:14 and Deuteronomy 31:24-6, where emphasis is made upon preservation of material as a memorial and as a witness. This is the seed from which an OT canon, or set of established books, grew.

Ideas about the earliest organization of the canon remain purely hypothetical. Some suggest that Ezra and/or Nehemiah were responsible for the first true organization, with Judas Maccabeaus being the one who put an "official" deposit of the sacred writings in the Temple.

The earliest "hard" indication we have of any sort of classification or categorization of OT books - aside from internal OT references to the books of Moses, and assuming that the reference is not a late interpolation, as some do - comes from the Wisdom of Sirach, a book dated to approximately 130 BC and written by Sirach's grandson. The classification scheme refers to the law, the prophets, and the "other" ancestral books. This does not reflect a "fixed" canon of books, merely a basic classification scheme, although it is known that most of what we call the OT today was indeed put into one of these three classes - indicating what Campenhausen calls, at this time, a "normative collection of sacred writings" as settled. The suggestion in Sirach is that the "law" and "prophets" were recognized bodies of literature, whereas "other ancestral books" seems to have been more fluid. In particular, the books of Moses are recognized as Scripture as early as the 2nd century BC, being named as such in the Letter of Aristeas.

At about the same time, though no titles are given, the Book of Jubilees indicates that there are 22 accepted books.

Of the "prophets," MacDonald asserts that there "seems to be little doubt that by ca. 200 BCE most of the Jewish people had recognized in some sense a collection of writings called the 'Prophets,' " that probably consisted of most of our OT prophetic writings, along with Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings books, although we cannot be certain of the exact content of the collection. (MacDonald diverges from the traditional view and dates some of the OT books, such as Daniel, quite late.) The third class, which Sirach calls "other," is to be equated with what was later called the "Writings" or "Hagiographa," and was not as restricted in content as the first two categories until after the time of the Council of Jamnia in the late first century.

Our next evidence of a threefold division comes from the work of the Jewish historian Philo. In his Contemplative Life, written early in the first century, Philo writes of "the laws and the sacred oracles of God enunciated by the holy prophets, and hymns, and psalms, and all kinds of other things" - perhaps a rough equivalence of Sirach's law, prophets and "other" categories. Again, however, we have no specific catalog of books to work with, nor even a number of books.

A more clear delineation of a threefold division comes from the New Testament. In Luke 24:44, Jesus refers to "the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms" - again, showing that while the first two sections seem to be stable, the third section has not yet been clearly defined; and as yet, there is no clear evidence of a "closed" canon for all three sections.

The next piece of data comes from Josephus' description of the Jewish holy books in Contra Apion 1.8, dated c. 93-95 AD. After clearly identifying the Pentateuch as the work of Moses, Josephus writes:

From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes...the prophets who followed after Moses recorded their deeds in thirteen books. The remaining four comprise hymns to God and rules of ethical conduct for men.

With that in mind, let us count together to reach a plausible assessment of Josephus' 22 books:

• Genesis - 1
• Exodus - 1
• Leviticus - 1
• Numbers - 1
• Deuteronomy - 1 (the 5 books of Moses)
• Joshua - 1
• Judges and Ruth, folded together on one scroll as they were in Josephus' time - 1
• 1 and 2 Samuel - also considered one book in Josephus' time - 1
• 1 and 2 Kings - Ditto. - 1
• 1 and 2 Chronicles - Ditto again. - 1
• Jeremiah and Lamentations - also considered as one book at the time - 1
• Isaiah - 1
• Amos, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, Jonah, Haggai, Habakkuk, Nahum, Micah, Hosea, Joel, Obadiah - all folded together, as noted above - 1
• Daniel - 1
• Ezekiel - 1
• Ezra and Nehemiah, folded together - 1
• Esther - 1
• Job - 1 (the 13 prophetic books)
• Proverbs - 1
• Psalms - 1
• Song of Songs - 1
• And my personal OT fave, Ecclesiastes - 1. (the 4 instructional books)

Leiman argues that Josephus' description here indicates a canon that has been decided upon and closed for quite some time, for he says: "...for although such long ages have now passed, no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable." Josephus' Roman readers would have been able to "check out" such an extraordinary claim.

The same number of books is testified to by the Bryennius List and the canon of Epiphanus, both dated to near the time of Josephus; and 4 Ezra (c. 100 AD) lists 24, likely having Ruth and Lamentations separated. (To be fair, we should note that some would argue that to combine Ruth and Judges, and Lamentations with Jeremiah, to reach 22, is without basis, other than these later witnesses such as Eusebius; and that it is rather bold to equate Josephus' 22 books with our present OT canon. However, MacDonald offers no better alternative; if nothing else, we may suggest that perhaps Josephus' 22 books comes from the exclusion of 2 of the OT's most disputed books, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs; and a bit inconsistently, MacDonald allows that the 24-book collection of 4 Ezra was "likely" to have been the same as our current OT, although he will not state that it was definitely those 24 books!)

Often cited as a concrete step in the OT canonization procedure is the Council of Jamnia, as Zindler also does. But this seems to have been more a discussion group or college confirming what was already known rather than a canon council. In terms of the canon, the most that Jamnia did was ratify "what the most spiritually sensitive souls in Judaism had been accustomed to regard as being Scripture." In the late second century AD, there is distinct evidence that the OT as we know it is fully formed, albeit with some debate being held over "whether Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes are inspired literature" and perhaps some idea of including Sirach (ibid., 81) or excluding Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Proverbs or Ezekiel (ibid., 82). However, "on the basis of the available evidence...the process of closing the Hebrew biblical canon began during the course of the second century CE and the beginning of the third." There did continue to be some variations in lists of sacred books into the fifth century, but the core of the OT canon had been well established before that.

And what about the Apocrypha of the OT? This section, which appeared in the Septuagint (LXX), is explained by MacDonald:

The best explanation for the larger collection of sacred writings in the LXX and later in the Christian canons is that the process of limiting the number of sacred scriptures in Palestine among the Jews began after the time when Judaism had a significant effect upon the Christian community...When the Jews of a Pharisaic bent met as a college at Jamnia ca. 90 CE and, among other things, discussed sacred literature, the Christians had already decided to use the wider collection of sacred Jewish writings they had inherited from pre-70 Judaism. George Anderson is no doubt correct, therefore, when he concludes that the third part of the Jewish canon, the Writings, was still imprecise before Jamnia and that it was left up to the churches to carry out the further definition of their Christian canon, and more specifically of the third part of the OT scriptures...

And Metzger adds:

How far some of (these books) were accorded a degree of authority in certain Jewish circles cannot now be accurately determined. Undoubtedly there was an interval during which their religious value was being appraised, along with that of some of the later books now included in the third division of the Hebrew canon.

This confusion resulted in a fluctuating OT canon on the part of the NT church. There was a lack of precise settlement in the Jewish community over the third division of their canon - although we note that the other two divisions, the Law and the Prophets, were sufficiently settled.

So is Zindler's panic button proclamation warranted for the OT? Hardly. And if this is so, it is even less warranted for the NT. His objections are no more than the usual, and easily flummoxed:

1. "Spectre of diversity" arguments. Zindler cites disagreements among believers concerning which books belong in the canon, with the implicit or direct conclusion that these disagreements are prime fodder for disproving the veracity of the canonical process. The conclusion is unwarranted, and involves overplaying the disagreements and their importance while ignoring the basic unity of canonical and doctrinal decisions. It is the sort of argument generally offered by the uninformed.

   Such objections, when encountered, should be taken seriously ONLY if the arguer can offer some reason why the competing view or book itself ought to be taken seriously. They should also demonstrate some knowledge of the form and content of the book in question. Simply throwing titles in the air and shouting, "Why was/wasn't THIS in the canon, huh???" is not a sufficient form of argument; nor is pointing to this or that church somewhere and asking why they include a particular book in the canon and others do not. Without knowing the history behind such inclusions or exclusions, the argument is little more than parade confetti.

2. Motivational arguments. It may be argued, as Zindler does, that some sort of bias, power play, or other motivational factor was at work in the formation of the NT canon by various church councils. Again, such arguments are generally advanced only by the uninformed. As we shall see, the councils did nothing more than confirm what was already believed by the church at large. The church was not dependent upon the decision of a council for the contents of the NT. As MacDonald points out, "(i)n the broadest definition of the term 'canon,' neither the Israelites nor the Christians were ever without a canon or authoritative guide; they always had a story that enabled them to establish their identity and give life to their community." And Sanders adds: "Canon functions, for the most part, to provide indications of the identity as well as the lifestyle of the ongoing community that reads it." The "Canon" with a capital C was merely a written codification of what had already been established for the Jews and the Christians.

What factors decided the formation of the NT canon? Far from being an arbitrary process, the formation of the canon was the result of carefully-weighed choices over time by concerned church officials and members. Later votes on the canon were merely the most definitive steps taken at the end of a long and careful, sometimes difficult, process. Grant notes that the NT canon was...

...not the product of official assemblies or even of the studies of a few theologians. It reflects and expresses the ideal self-understanding of a whole religious movement which, in spite of temporal, geographical, and even ideological differences, could finally be united in accepting these 27 diverse documents as expressing the meaning of God's revelation in Jesus Christ and to his church.

And what of those who happened to disagree with one or more choices of these councils, the "final arbiter," so to speak? Of course individual Christians are free to choose for themselves what books are infallible; but in doing so they should not demand that the church alter their own systems of belief to accommodate them. Any group or organization needs a set of rules or guidelines in order to function. To that end, attempts to change or significantly alter the rules should be put under careful consideration, and, if they significantly alter the purposes of the group, and are not acceptable to the majority, should be rejected. As with any group, of course, there are those who will protest the change or lack thereof; and (in a free organization) they are thereupon left with two choices: either take your lumps and live with the status quo, or leave. This should be kept in mind as we consider, later on, divergences in the early church, in particular those related to Gnosticism. For today, of course, we are free as always to choose what parts of the Bible we accept...Does the letter to the Ephesians offend thee? Pluck it out, and throw it away, and hope that it was not put there under divine guidance! Does the Shepherd of Hermas appeal to thee, or Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"? Get thee scissors and paste and add it in - and hope that the warning in Revelation about "adding on" to what has been written means something else other than adding to the Bible! Certainly no divine force stopped President Jefferson from clipping his own "Bible" from the original texts! At any rate, as we have alluded to earlier, if we believe that God had any part in the individual books of the Bible, then it is a necessary corollary that He also took a hand in the formation of the canon; and one who does believe in such influence by God should not take any choice of "which books they regard as infallible" lightly - unless they would care to proclaim themselves to be more "in" with God than those fourth- and fifth-century church councils; in which case, one might as well proclaim that all of us should prefer their choices to those of the councils! (Naturally, the councils should not be given absolute authority; however, given that they represent a voice of a community of the Holy Spirit, their decisions should be accorded very high weight, and require extraordinary evidence to overthrow. Council authority, as with scholarly consensus, has no authority by itself; but if I hold a contrary position I should develop at least two or three times the arguments and/or evidence I would need than if I had agreed with the council.)

The data indicates that while "problems" and disagreements did exist, there was remarkable agreement, as a whole, concerning the composition of the NT canon, and relatively quickly. To summarize in advance:

20 of the 27 NT books were accepted easily. Metzger tells us that:

Although the fringes of the emerging canon remained unsettled for generations, a high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of the New Testament was attained among the very diverse and scattered congregations of believers not only throughout the Mediterranean world, but also over an area extending from Britain to Mesopotamia.

And MacDonald adds, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole:

But this question, like most over which Christians disagree, is not the cutting edge of what Christianity is all about...there was division everywhere in the church on the books that might be called the 'fringe,' but there was very little disagreement over what was at the core of the matter...The division of opinion...was not over the core, but over the 'fringe.'

7 books had a more difficult time - a "fringe" Metzger and MacDonald write of:

...the determination of the canon rested upon a dialectical combination of historical and theological criteria. It is therefore not surprising that for several generations the precise status of a few books remained doubtful.(ibid.)

There were miscellaneous works that had their own unique histories. Single works such as the Shepherd of Hermas bounced in and out of favor rapidly, never achieving the level of acceptance over an extended period as the books eventually deemed canonical did.

We now move to issue of reasons for inclusion and/or exclusion from the canon.

Were books included or excluded because of their inspirational quality? It may come as a surprise to some - Christians and skeptics alike! - that the Church Fathers "did not seem to have regarded inspiration as the ground of the Bible's uniqueness." Rather , inspiration was just one of many aspects of the life of the church, and one could regularly speak and write under inspiration, as Jerome did. As MacDonald puts it:

There is no question that the early church believed that its scriptures were inspired by God, but...the canonical scriptures were not the only ancient literature that was believed to be inspired by God.

And Gamble adds: "...we nowhere find an instance of inspiration being used as a criteria of discrimination." So it is that Justin, for example, believed that "inspiration and the Holy Spirit's power were the possessions of the whole church." Inspiration was not a criterion of canonicity, but a corollary of it: something that was inspired COULD be canonical, but something NOT inspired could NEVER be canonical. In that regard, I am in agreement with the Church Fathers: Truth is truth, wherever you find it. Inasmuch as a writer, even an atheist or a pagan, repeats that which is true (even unwittingly), they reflect some level of inspiration.

The rule of faith criteria states that nothing shall be accepted which is at variance with accepted scriptures or that teaches false doctrine. To be accepted into the canon, a book mus conform with the community's rule of faith.

Once again, this is an objection generally made by the uninformed: Before being taken seriously, it should at least be accompanied by an exposition of heresies in the early church, their sources, their reasoning, how many Christians believed what, etc. The argument is circular only when one arbitrarily closes the circle by not pursuing further information!

Grant writes that such an argument, as above, from authority "is" circular; but only in that such arguments "lie of the edge of a circle drawn around the center, which is Christ." Gamble says: "By a fruitful synergy, scripture helped to mold the tradition of faith, and the tradition of faith helped to shape the canon of scripture" - and adds that, in any event, this criteria was NOT applied to the Gospels and the Pauline letters, which means that the circle had a solid center at any rate! Even MacDonald, who (wrongly, I believe) finds no unified view of orthodoxy in the NT, goes as far as saying that "If the NT has a theological core everywhere acknowledged or reasonably assumed, it is simply this, that 'Jesus-the-man-now-exalted' is worthy of faithful obedience and that the promise of the blessing of God awaits all who follow him." Us, worry? Zindler needs a vacation.

Here is what is, in our opinion, the primary consideration for acceptance of the a work into the NT canon: A work must have been authored by an Apostle or an immediate follower of an Apostle. And of course this is a sensible idea: the persons most qualified to write about a great teacher or leader, whether it be Jesus, Martin Luther King, or Gandhi, are usually either: a) family (as with James and Jude, who by virtue of their association with Jesus and decision to follow Him became de facto Apostles), b) immediate followers (the Apostles), or c) immediate followers of those followers (Mark, Luke).

We have previously noted our seven "fringe" books - the history behind these demonstrate the care which was taken to ensure that the criterion of apostolic authority was followed. These seven books listed gained access to the canon only after considerable debate over whether they could be attributed to the persons that bear their names (or in the case of Hebrews, to Paul or one of his close companions such as Barnabas, Luke or Apollos). It would be quite correct to say of the NT as a whole that those who doubted apostolic authorship of a particular book also denied that book's canonicity - and this was still a means of denying a book's canonicity thousands of years later!

One final criteria we will consider that may have acted for inclusion of certain books is usage in the church. It stands to reason, of course, that no book could be canonized unless the church used it! Thus, MacDonald :

Although a number of Christians have thought that church councils determined what books were to be included in the biblical canons, a more accurate reflection of the matter is that the councils recognized or acknowledged those books that had already obtained prominence from usage among the various early Christian communities.

However, let it not be said - and here we disagree with MacDonald - that "(w)idespread usage in the churches appears to be the best explanation of why some writings were recognized and preserved as authoritative..." We may agree that this played some role, but it cannot be the primary criteria, for there was surely some reason WHY these books became widely used! (I would argue that, based on the evidence, apostolic authority was the primary criteria, with the "rule of faith" as a corollary, though not in a secondary way.)

Now, let us consider the process whereby the NT was canonized.

As would be expected, in the earliest stage of church history (mid-to-late first/early second century) the words of Jesus Himself were considered to be authoritative: "The earliest canon of faith for the Christian community was Jesus himself, whose words and deeds were interpreted afresh in the numerous sociological contexts of the early Christians....what Jesus said, whether it existed in written or in oral form, was authoritative for the church and was held in the highest regard." (ibid, 138-9) As early as Paul, the words of Jesus "already have a fixed form and uncontested validity." Extant writings of the Apostolic Fathers (Clement, Ignatius, Papias, Polycarp) indicate a body of authoritative literature and sayings that was called upon, although this authority was not officially recognized as a "canon." In this stage, we find what Metzger calls "the warranty arising from the fact that these words are preserved in such and such books which deserve the readers' confidence." We also find a reliance on oral tradition, which relates in part, perhaps, to a "cultural presupposition" that writing was an unworthy means of transmission. As the Apostles pass away, authority is then vested in "apostolical men" like Papias and Polycarp who can still bring to the fore direct memory of the teachings of the Apostles.

The Epistle of 1 Clement (ibid, 41), for example, dated by some to c. 95 AD (we prefer a pre-70 date), exhorts readers to "remember the words of the Lord Jesus" and contains quotations from Jesus which are found in our present texts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 1 Clement also contains allusions to Romans, Galatians, Philippians, and Ephesians, as well as possibly Hebrews, Acts, James, and 1 Peter. The former "may presuppose the existence of a collection of Pauline Epistles." Paul's works, and therefore Paul himself, are clearly recognized as authoritative. (For more on this, see our Appendix at the end of this work.)

Per Metzger, NT works cited or alluded to - in actuality and in probability - by Apostolic Fathers are:

• All Four Gospels;
• Acts
• All Pauline epistles except three (see below)
• Hebrews
• 1 John
• 1 Peter
• James
• Revelation.

Not cited or alluded to are Titus, Philemon, and 2 Corinthians; 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John. However, no conclusions may be drawn from this for two reasons:

First, except for 2 Corinthians, all of these books are so short that it is possible that there was never any need to refer to them - especially in light of the fact that:

Second, as Metzger indicates, the total extant works of the Apostolic Fathers fits "a volume about the same size as the New Testament"! It would therefore have been very fortunate if we had indeed had witness to all 27 NT books.

At this stage, none of the NT books was recognized as Scripture (with the exception of a verse from Luke being recognized as Scripture in 2 Timothy - which of course requires defending the early date of that book, which we will not engage here, but will look at elsewhere); but they did function as Scripture in the means whereby they were used, for they were used authoritatively. MacDonald: "It is clear that the sayings of Jesus had a scripture-like status from the very beginning of the church."

From what I have seen so far - and I will note if I find out otherwise - NONE of the non-canonical works of the NT are recognized or quoted as authoritative in this stage! We DO have several quotations that were evidently preserved by means of oral tradition - but NONE that appear uniquely in the non-canonical works. This would point to the non-canonical works being of a later date than the canonical works (range of 50-100 AD), and would certainly move to destroy any claim that they were written by authoritative eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus!

All too soon, it seemed, the "honeymoon" was over. The syncretistic beast of Gnosticism was starting to breathe down the Church's neck, ready to absorb Jesus into its fold. Because of this, a need arose to ensure the "stamp of apostolic guarantee" on all materials - and at the same time, oral tradition lost its importance. To keep Gnosticism and other heresies from destroying Christianity, or else morphing it out of all recognizance, it was seen to be necessary to set things down "in stone" once and for all. In a perverse sort of way, heretics were partially responsible for the formation of the NT canon! They motivated the church to identify - and eventually canonize - the true works of the Apostles. These heretical movements, therefore, had a "collective" influence on the setting of the canon.

Let us consider briefly some of these heretics and what they stood for.

There were undoubtedly many heretics before Basilides, but he is the first major heretic for whom we have any significant evidence. His prime point was that he "denied that Jesus really suffered on the cross" - in line with the Gnostic idea that a divine being could not undergo such suffering. Instead, Basilides proposed that at the last minute, Simon of Cyrene was switched with Jesus, and as Simon was crucified, Jesus laughed at His enemies, and ascended into heaven.

Clearly, this view is antithetical to Christianity, which holds that Jesus' suffering on the cross paid for our sins. If there was no cross for Jesus, then there was no payment for sins. Basilides would have gutted Christianity and turned it into a form of Gnosticism, and that would have would have rendered it sterile for REALLY changing lives and for God's design for transforming the world.

One positive thing that was left behind by Basilides, however: he is known to have quoted the book of 1 Corinthians with the formula, "the scripture says" - the first recorded incidence of a NT quote by that formula (other than the reference in 2 Timothy to Luke).

With Valentinus, we have a heretic who not only tried to change Christianity - using a mix of his own teachings, genuine Christian ideas, and "Oriental and Greek speculations" - but also wrote his own Gospel, which he called "The Gospel of Truth." Now it is evident that there is a recognition here of the authority of a written work - and also, indirect evidence that Valentinus was aware that OTHERS made use of books that were considered authoritative; or else, he would not give his work such a bodacious name as "The Gospel of Truth"! He undoubtedly had to compete with the authoritatively-recognized works of Christianity, so he did what would approximate in our day to putting a label on his work that said, "New and Improved"! In any event, being that he was obviously creating his own material, and was not vested with apostolic authority, there was absolutely no reason to recognize anything he wrote or said as being authoritative for Christianity.

We come now to the heretic who is credited more than any other for forcing the issue of the creation of a canon - the man who "tabled once and for all the question of a new canon." This was the heretic Marcion.

Marcion was no slouch. He was a wealthy shipowner, and manifestly quite intelligent. But in July 144 AD, he was called upon by the clergy in Rome to expound upon some views of his that he had been promulgating - and what he said was so shocking that it resulted not only in his excommunication, but also in the return of a substantial amount of largesse that he had donated to the church. (Regardless of what any skeptic might say, the clergy were certainly men of principle in that regard!)

What did Marcion believe? His basic idea was that the God of the OT was incompatible with the Jesus of the NT - and so he sought to sever the connection between the two. He believed in a sort of Zoroastrian dualism (described by Blackman as "grotesque"), with the OT God being the just and severe Creator, and the NT God a god of love, combined with an "exaggerated Paulinism" [ibid., 103]. To the end of promoting his view, Marcion went through the Pauline epistles, choosing only some of them (Galatians, the Corinthian letters, Romans, the Thessalonian letters, Ephesians [as Laodecians], Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon) and "removed whatever he judged were interpolations - that is, anything that did not agree with his understanding of what Paul should have written." He also gutted the Gospel of Luke for his purposes, accepting only about 3/4 of it as authentic and with the sliced-and-diced Pauline epistles, created his own informal "canon." The result of his changes, which were in the main omissions with a few additions and substitutions, was a set of books completely emasculated of Jewish elements, "an anti-Jewish rejection of both the value of the OT scriptures and the Jewish influence on the Christian community". The Marcionite churches promoted a few other oddities: For example, Marcionism forbade marriage and children, so that (like the modern Shakers) all converts had to come from outside. No one was born a Marcionite - not legally in their view, at any rate!

Some things should be noted here:

• It is obvious that a collection of Paul's Epistles existed at the time for Marcion to pick apart: "Gamble is undoubtedly correct in assuming that Marcion took over an existing collection of Paul's writings." This is a sign of a literal "pre-canon," or an idea of a canon, quite some time before the fourth century, even if it was not a closed canon. Metzger therefore notes that Marcion did not create the idea of a canon, but did accelerate a process of fixing the canon that had already begun! (On the other hand, it seems that the Marcionite heresy caused some reactionary church officials, including Justin Martyr, to avoid quoting Paul for a while.)
• Marcion appealed to the authority of the writings of the Apostle Paul. Even though he conformed the texts to his own ideas, he clearly realized that only with apostolic authority could his ideas get anywhere; for heretics likely had to "justify their vagaries by appeals to acknowledged standards."
• Even with the riches of a wealthy shipowner, there was no way to change what was TRULY considered authoritative. A "political war" in the church was not won by whoever had the largest wallet and the greatest influence; else we might today be known as Marcionites rather than Christians!
• The above point is magnified when we read of Ireaneaus' complaint concerning Marcion: "He persuaded his disciples that he was more trustworthy than the apostles who transmitted the gospel." To have to persuade his followers of this presumes that Marcion was stepping on what was already regarded as authority - and thus we see "apostolic authority" as a criteria in action!
• It is an interesting question, too, as to WHY Marcion would have drawn up such a list, if other "lists" did not already exist. Where would Marcion have gotten the exemplar to argue as he did? Being that Marcion was manifestly a copycat, it seems quite likely that he got his idea for a list from somewhere else - and we have seen that a previously-established collection of Pauline epistles were at the core of his scheme.

In closing: While some have greatly overvalued Marcion's contribution to the formation of the NT canon (see particularly, he certainly did serve as a wake-up call for the church.

The Montanist heresy, which began either 156 or 172 AD, was perhaps not as destructive as other heresies, but like Marcionism, it spurred the church onwards to the fixing of a canon. The Montanists focused on "ecstatic utterances" and created "new scriptures" based on those utterances. (None of these works are today extant.) Obviously, there would be a need to ensure that none of these "uttered" works somehow became confused with those that had apostolic authorship!

At around the same time, a lesser group called the Alogi rejected the books of Revelation and John's Gospel, and Hebrews as well, arguing that the first two were not by John the Apostle, but by the heretic Cerinthus (ibid., 150-1), and the latter was not by Paul. Note again that it is apostolic authority that is being used as a criteria for acceptance!

The last major stage consists of final forms of the New Testament canon. Here we will find, as Metzger tells us, a striking agreement as far as the core of the NT, in spite of barriers of distance and doctrine. It is at this time, c. 200 AD, that Campenhausen tells us that the NT truly reached its final form and significance. This is not, we should point out in response to certain skeptics, due to any kind of influence or force being used or because of power plays by church officials. Rather, Von Campenhausen writes [ibid., 331-2]:

...official decisions by the Church are not involved. Synodal judgments and episcopal pastoral letters concerning the contents of the Bible become usual only in the fourth century, and at first are of only local importance. They encourage uniformity between the various areas of the church, but are unable to bring about a completely uniform canon until the Middle Ages.

Lert it not be said, then, that force was the prime mover behind acceptance of the NT canon!

Metzger divides his history between the Eastern and Western sectors of the Roman Empire; we shall follow suit for convenience.

Metzger notes these three significant developments in the Eastern half of the late Roman Empire in the late 2nd century AD:

The four Gospels became a sort of "mini-canon," a closed collection which would admit no other Gospels. "...the Gospels became part of the (final) canon as a collection and not individually."

The Pauline letters, Acts, and Revelation are accepted as divine Scripture. For the first, we have seen that Marcion evidently had some collection of Pauline letters; but the "final" set of 13 attributed to Paul, we may safely say was assembled as a corpus by the beginning of the third century.

Other letters are on the fringe of acceptance: Hebrews, James, Jude, and letters attributed to Peter and John.

The East saw the invention of the very first harmony of all four Gospels: Tatian's Diatessaron. Composed around 156 AD, this work demonstrates that the four Gospels we have today were considered authoritative; no other Gospels were included, other than an occasional phrase or clause.

In Tatian, incidentally, we see a perfect example of someone who "crossed out" things he did not like. He rejected the authenticity of 1 Timothy, and was the founder of the Encratites, a group that rejected marriage, meat, and wine - the latter of which is recommended for stomach disorder in 1 Timothy!

Somewhat later, Clement of Alexandria (180-211) is found quoting all of our current NT books as authoritative except Philemon, James, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John. Except for James, these books are so short that Clement may not have had cause to cite them. He also refers to the Gospels as "Scripture." At this point, aside from the Gospels, the canon is still "open."

Origen (185-250) is the first writer to use the name "New Testament" and to indicate a classification of its works. He divided the NT into two collections: Gospels and works of the Apostles. These he proclaimed as "divine Scriptures," written by the evangelists under the same Spirit of the same God as in the OT. He also makes note of heretical Gospels: those of Thomas, Matthias, the 12 Apostles, Basilides, and the Gospel of the Egyptians. However, Origen does not issue any directive that these alternate Gospels be burned or thrown away; indeed, he does quote them, though with the qualifying phrase, "If anyone receives it..."

Origen accepts the four Gospels, the 13 letters of Paul, and Revelation. He also comments on several works that were on the "fringe" of acceptance as authoritative. Of 2 Timothy he writes: "...some have dared to reject this Epistle, but they were not able." Of Peter's Epistles, he notes of one that is acknowledged, and "possibly a second, but this is disputed." To John he attributes one Gospel and one Epistle, "and, as it may be, a second and third - but not all consider these to be genuine." Of James, he implies some doubt as to its authenticity; but does accept the genuineness of Jude. He also mentions two books outside of our current NT: the Shepherd of Hermas, which he calls "divinely inspired," and the Preaching of Peter, which he rejects because: 1) it was not composed by Peter; 2) it was not inspired by the Spirit of God, although he recognizes in it "elements of inspired value." He also felt free to use works like the Acts of Paul and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.

It is important to note here that:

• Origen does NOT tell people to burn or get rid of the heretical Gospels. Quite the contrary, he expresses admirable tolerance for them, even as he rejects their authenticity. That he does not viciously attack them indicates that the presence of false Gospels was an accepted fact, but one easily dealt with, not requiring any kind of "political war" to get rid of them or the views they express! This would also suggest that the false Gospels were so poorly grounded in reality that they had to struggle to survive (as indeed may be seen from those that survive to this day).
• The authenticity of 2 Peter, James, and 2 and 3 John are apparently being discussed throughout the church - based on their genuineness! The issue, again, is apostolic authority: do these books truly come from the hands of an Apostle? The church did NOT rush to judgment on these issues; although if they had, I wonder if skeptics would criticize them for being to hasty in their decisions!

Justin Martyr, c. 150 AD, refers to "memoirs of the Apostles" and quotes them as authoritative. Allusions in his work are identifiable from Mark, Matthew, Luke, and possibly John and Revelation. Metzger notes that these works were "read interchangeably with the Old Testament prophets," indicating their importance and authority in the eyes of Justin.

Hippolytus (170-235), mirroring developments in the East, accepts all four Gospels as Scripture; he also acknowledges as authentic 13 Pauline Epistles (not including Hebrews), Acts, 1 Peter, 1 and 2 John, and Revelation. He does quote Hebrews, though not as Scripture; other works he quotes less authoritatively, including the Shepherd of Hermas. His work may show knowledge of 2 Peter and James.

Irenaeus (130-202) quotes all of our present NT works except Philemon, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude - whether due to length or lack of recognition cannot be determined. He sees the Gospels quartet as fixed: the famous "four winds" quote, which many skeptics misuse, thinking it means that 4 Gospels were chosen, and not 3 or 5, because there were 4 winds; more likely, though not discernibly, Ireaneus was "simply confirming a concept that (was) well established in the churches" by means of a natural analogy. The rest of the forming canon, however, is still open. Ireneaus does identify two criteria for acceptance: 1) apostolic authority, and 2) agreement with the traditions maintained by the church.

Tertullian (converted to Christianity c. 195) made citations to every current NT book except 2 Peter, James, and 2 and 3 John - again, possibly due to their length, or perhaps due to ignorance of their existence! He regarded the books he quoted as being equal in stature to the OT Law and Prophets. The Book of Hebrews he accepted on the basis of authorship by Barnabas, an associate of Paul (again, note that apostolic authority plays a role in acceptance). On the other hand, he used Jude to argue for the status of Enoch as Scripture. (Important point here: It is assumed that apostolic authorship of Jude was adequate authoritative basis to decide questions of OT canon - showing a high degree of authority has been accorded to Jude!), and early in his career accepted the Shepherd of Hermas as inspired, although he later rejected it when he converted to Montanism.

Cyprian of Carthage (converted 246 AD) cites as authoritative all four Gospels, all of the Pauline Epistles (except Philemon), 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation. He does not cite Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude - but again, whether due to shortness or rejection, we cannot say. (ibid., 160-1)

The Muratorian Canon, by an unknown author, is usually dated to the end of the second century; attempts to date it later have been unconvincing, according to Metzger, although MacDonald provides an opposite view dating it to much later that contains some persuasive elements. A very persuasive case for a fourth-century date is presented by Hahneman from whom we gain much of our material below on the subject.

Discovered by the Italian historian, archivist, and librarian Ludovico Antonio Muratori, and published in 1740, this fragment indicates books that are accepted and rejected by the church. The only books clearly missing from the text are James and Hebrews, but Hahneman suggests that we have simply lost these references from the fragment, which has a number of defects. 2 and 3 John may be missing; but that is a matter of debate: The text indicates two epistles of John as accepted, and these may be 2 and 3 John, with 1 John subsumed categorically under John's Gospel. (Hahnemen notes that the close relationship of 2 and 3 John make it improbable that the fragment only knows of 1 and 2 John.) Only one presently non-canonical book was noted as accepted: A book of Wisdom by Solomon. Two apocalypses are mentioned, of John (Revelation) and Peter, though it is noted of the latter that "some of us are not willing that (it) should be read in church." There are also indications in the Canon as to which books are to be rejected as heretical.

The list of Eusebius refers to all 27 of our current books. 22 of the 27 were placed in the "universally accepted" category: The four Gospels, Acts, Paul's 13 epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, and finally, Revelation "if it really seems proper." The 5 remaining books were placed in a category that were "disputed, but familiar to the people of the church." A final list set out books that were to be rejected or were heretical; curiously, Eusebius puts Revelation in this category also, saying that it should be excluded if it seems proper!

The "final" listing comes from 367 AD, at which time Athanasius of Alexandria set forth a NT canon with a listing of books identical to those we have today. Councils at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) confirmed this enumeration. To be sure, this was not the end of the controversy (as we shall see) - but when has the resolution of any issue among human beings ever been simple?

"Persecution" could not properly be called a "stage" in the canonization process, for it was existent to some extent through each of these stages we are studying. However, it was certainly a motivating factor in the formation of the canon.

Why was this so? Well, imagine that you are being persecuted as a Christian, and that your holy books are a target and will be confiscated. If you don't turn them over to the authorities, you may be harmed or killed. Wouldn't you want to be sure you were not just suffering for the sake of something that was not a genuinely authoritative work? Indeed, during the persecution of Diocletian (303 AD), this is exactly what happened: Scriptures were burned, churches were demolished, and Christian meetings were banned, with the bans enforced on pain of torture, imprisonment or death. Also, individual houses were searched for copies of Christian scriptures.

Let us now briefly consider a few of the books that did not make the canon cut, and look for reasons why. Again, any time these titles are brought up, it is a good idea to see if whoever flies them on the flagpole knows what they actually contain and what their history is. If they do NOT know, then they are just blowing hot air or arguing for the sake of it.

We will ask the basic question of WHY these books we will examine (and dozens of others) were even put under consideration - and achieved what Metzger calls "temporary canonicity." First, what were the contents of these works? "It is obvious the great majority...are the result of attempts to produce literary forms that parallel those of the several genres of literature (in the NT)," that is, gospels, acts, apocalypses, and epistles. Epistles were the fewest made, "for clearly, it was more difficult to produce an epistle that possessed some semblance of authority than it was to draw up a narrative of events in which Jesus and various Apostles figured as heroes." In other words, it was easier to write about events that no one could verify than to pretend to be someone with the authority to write an epistle! (For more on this, see Glenn Miller's excellent work on pseudox at http://www.Christian-thinktank.com/pseudox.html - and note that the church would indeed have been on the lookout for false or pseudonymous works of all types!)

Now let us look at these books individually:

• Epistle of Barnabas. If this book was truly by the companion of Paul, then there might be reason to consider it for the canon. But there is insufficient proof of this, and its late date (c. 90-130) makes it unlikely to have been written by Barnabas. It also makes use of numerology.
• Shephard of Hermas. Reading this book, which Von Campenhausen describes as "more jejune and superficial than the Johannine Revelation," brought to mind another book - Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It is, like that work, self-evidently allegorical, and perhaps indeed inspired; but it was obviously written too late (2nd century) to be attributed to the Apostles.
• Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans. Metzger notes that this work was finally, once-and-for-all excluded from the canon in the mid-1400s. Now of course it should be easy to see why this work hung around for as long as it did: if it truly is a work of Paul, then it meets the criteria of apostolic authority and deserves to be considered for the canon. But there is nothing to assuredly connect it to Paul, and even if there were, it is in content "almost entirely a compilation of extracts from the Pauline Epistles." In other words, without Laodecians, we ain't missin' nothin' anyway!
• 1 Clement (also consider 2 Clement). It comes as no surprise that the works of Clement (or works allegedly by him - 2 Clement's authenticity is questionable) were considered by some as worthwhile, for he was a disciple of Peter. Hence, under the criterion of apostolic authority, his works could have entered the canon under the same principles as Luke and Mark did, but he is disqualified by other criteria. In particular, 1 Clement refers to a phoenix as an actual living creature!
• Preaching of Peter. Although recognized (by ONE PERSON that we know of!), a late date makes this document unlikely to have been written by Peter.
• Apocalypse of Peter. Same as the above. This work was written around 125-50 AD too late for Peter. It bears a haunting resemblance to works like Dante's Inferno, and thus may be inspired in the same category as the Shepherd.
• Gospel According to the Egyptians. This work was written around 150 AD (ibid., 169) and was accepted as canonical only in Egypt (naturally). It appears to have been written to promote the doctrines of the Encratites.
• Gospel According to the Hebrews. We have no current translation of this work (ibid., 169) so we cannot evaluate it, other than to say that it was probably written in the middle of the second century.

For none of the above books, therefore, do we have any evidence that would indicate that in any sense they deserved to make the "final cut" for the canon of the NT.

A final, "last-ditch" sort of objection (of course used by Zindler) relies upon more modern deviations within the canon. Martin Luther's rejection of James as an "epistle of straw" is particularly cited in this regard, but there are many other bits and pieces of history that are taken as problematic as well. However, when all the tempest storms are blown over, we find that these more modern debates involve either a) inclusion of a fairly standard set of apocryphal works; or, b) the exclusion of those same seven books on the fringe - Revelation, James, Jude, Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John. What we are left with this: 7 out of 27 books disputed, some more than others; BUT 20 out of 27 NOT questioned, ever. These, then, are tempests in teapots; they are merely examples of the natural human tendency to reject what we do not agree with or understand. In that view, it is easy to see why people have had a problem with Revelation; apocalyptic literature takes an acquired taste! We see, too, why Luther and others rejected James: They perceived (wrongly) that it emphasized works over faith, which hit Luther right in his gut, because he was intimately concerned with faith being the only way to salvation - which it is, as a proper reading of James reveals (see below).

Concerning those seven books, we should briefly consider reasons why these books remained on the fringe for so long, and still are, according to some:

• 2 Peter. This is admittedly the most problematical book in the NT - the primary issue being whether this letter was actually authored by Peter. Cited against Petrine authorship are:

  1) Differences in style and vocabulary from 1 Peter. This criteria, may I say as a literature specialist, should be axed forevermore for consideration of ANY work of the Bible for ANY reason. Two small letters is not sufficient to determine any writers' capacity for style and vocabulary. (Commentators note that it is possible that Peter had a secretary write this letter for him as a "last will and testament.")

  2) An allusion to an earlier generation. (2 Pet. 3:2, 4) This is rather a weak appeal; if Peter were an old man at the time of the writing of this letter, as is presumed, it would be natural for him to write in this fashion.

  3) The reference to Paul's letters as a collection. (2 Pet. 3:15-16) This would supposedly indicate a later date for 2 Peter, but from the cite, it is not clear whether the author refers to a fixed collection of Paul's letters, or just to those he has seen. Even so, there is good reason to suppose that Paul himself was assembling his letters into a collection rather early. (See Appendix.)

  4) Incorporation of material from Jude. There are many similarities between the two books; it is possible, however, that rather from one borrowing from the other, each independently used "several independent tracts that were circulating in the Christian communities." (See also the discussion of the interrelation of 2 Peter and Jude in John A. T. Robinson's Redating the New Testament).

• Jude. In addition to the borrowing issue referred to above, Jude's use of Apocryphal books (see above) has caused problems for some. However, Jude was accepted as genuine by earlier Church fathers (Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria). It appears to have been only AFTER the debate over the canon became important that others (Jerome, Eusebius) questioned whether it should be in the canon - reflecting, perhaps, a drawing away from the idea of inspiration being found not just in Scripture (as well as demonstrating the cautious decision-making of the early church).
• James. Of this letter, it is noted that it was accepted into the church rather slowly. It's assumed authorship by the brother of Jesus may have carried it. Later, the seeming emphasis on works hurt it (as with Luther), but Metzger notes that when comparing the ideas found in James to those found in Paul's letters regarding faith, one finds "what seems to be a reasonable resolution when one observes that the two authors were considering the nature of faith as it existed within each of the two different polemic situations in the church." (ibid., 280)
• Hebrews. The big problem, obviously, is the anonymous authorship of this work. The Eastern churches accepted it as canonical by the 3rd century, and the Western churches, by the 4th.
• 2 and 3 John, Revelation. Authorship again was a key question - were these works by the Apostle? Content, in the case of the latter, was also an issue, and often still is!

Therefore, we can see that there was good reason for these works being on the "fringe" as they were, and in some cases, still are. The early church was being cautious, and we may appreciate that they were!

One final point to close out: the triumph of the inspired works, these "fringe" works, over the power of men, is quite significant! In SPITE OF such radical questioning by leaders throughout time, these books have stayed in the canon - not ONE has ever been thrown out! Every possible argument has been used against them; and yet they outlast the leaders of every age! The same 7 books have been disputed, and the same 7 remain --and there are no additions, either. The durability of these works in the hearts of the people of God may be taken as ample evidence of their inspired character.

So in conclusion, to Zindler and others: Human beings will never agree unanimously on anything, even the canon of Scripture. Even today, many groups (such as the Mormons) seek to add to what has been written. This, of course, is their right; but the fact remains that the canon has been fixed, not by some 4th-century Church Council, but by the witness of history itself. As Metzger writes: "the canon cannot be remade - for the simple reason that history cannot be remade." The books that made it into the canon did so by means of "survival of the fittest" - it was not a random drawing with all participants beginning on equal footing. The church did not create the canon, "but came to recognize, accept, affirm, and confirm the self-authenticating quality of certain documents that imposed themselves as such upon the Church. If this fact is obscured, one comes into serious conflict not with dogma but with history." We may freely learn from the non-canonical literature, and it may be that some of that literature contains authentic strands of teaching by Jesus. Nevertheless, we have our canon. We are each free to take it or leave it; and if it offend thee - take up scissors and paste, and make what thou considerest a better effort than others! Zindler simply overplays conflict and oversimplifies the picture, and his panic-polemic is that of a "freethinker" who apparently here condemns a situation in which people have been allowed to think for themselves!

As an aside, Zindler drops a few hints about the Nicean Council inventing the Trinity. On that subject we encourage readers to consult out document at http://www.tektonics.org/JPH_AOA.html.

Question 2: Which Manuscripts?

The canon question is at least one viably discussed; for question 2, Zindler goes rapidly downhill and crashes head-on into the wall of Paranoia. Let's begin with a key question that would never occur to Zindler to ask : Is Biblical textual criticism any different from textual criticism of secular texts? In principle, not at all, and the statements made by Zindler regarding the text of the Bible would be laughed out of court in the circles of "secular" textual criticism.

The New Testament being our focus, let's ask how much of the NT can we recover and designate as authentic. A popular idea is that textual criticism has been able to recover the NT text with 99% accuracy. That's a total of three pages in your average Bible without study notes being in question. Textual critics Westcott and Hort asserted that the parts of the NT "still subject to doubt can hardly amount to more than a thousandth part" of the NT - which would be less than a third of a page. Generally, however, it seems that very few scholars in this field are willing to be so bold! Most scholars in this field seem to settle for vague phrases, ranging from speaking of the "retreating mirage" of the original text to Comfort's assurance that "there are several manuscripts that are quite accurate copies of the original text." Scholars outside the field are more bold; France asserts that "among the textual variants in the gospels there are only two which throw doubt on more than a verse or two of the traditional text" - the ending of Mark and the adultery story in John, with the other variants bearing only on details of sentimental value. Beyond that, he proclaims (ibid., 137):

The student of the history of Jesus is, from the point of view of textual criticism, on vastly safer ground than the student of the life of Julius Caesar or indeed of any other figure of ancient history.

And Moreland adds:

Most historians accept the textual accuracy of other ancient works on far less adequate manuscript grounds than is available for the New Testament.

The above leads us to compare the statements of certain NT text-critics with those of "secular" critics who work with far less evidence in terms of quality and/or quantity. Here are some words of wisdom we can apply:

"Nothing entitles us to assume stupid cutting, still less destructive cutting, except a blind reliance on the supposed axiom that Shakespeare never revised his work." Let us likewise do better than presume that all changes to the text that we suppose were made by later interpolators with an agenda.

"There is now general agreement that the textual problems in Shakespeare are if such complexity that no text can be established that will commend the general assent that constitutes 'definitiveness.' " This is the closest I have seen in any "secular" textual criticism book to the statements of despair and woe made by some NT text-critics to the effect, "We can NEVER know what was REALLY written!!!" (See below.) Most critics, however, are of a far more positive bent! For example, though an edition of Richard III "can advertise that they contain more than a thousand variants from the conventional text", we do not see text critics wondering if that play actually was written entirely differently! "Hamlet will not be revealed as a woman, or as the villain; he will still be melancholy and at odds with the life about him." Textual variants are important to note, but we are not going to find that they significantly alter the storyline!

How well do modern textual critics agree on the NT? An encyclopedic treatment of this issue is presented by the team of Kurt and Barbara Aland, who provide statistics as to both the percentage of variant free verses among the seven major editions of the Greek NT, and the number of variants per page (excluding orthographic errors). It is helpful to look at these:

Book---% of variant-free verses---# of variants per page

• Matthew 59.9 / 6.8
• Mark 45.1 / 10.3
• Luke 57.2 / 6.9
• John 51.8 / 8.5
• Acts 67.3 / 4.2
• Romans 75.5 / 2.9
• 1 Corinthians 75.7 / 3.5
• 2 Corinthians 78.1 / 2.8
• Galatians 76.5 / 3.3
• Ephesians 76.1 / 2.9
• Philippians 70.2 / 2.5
• Colossians 72.6 / 3.4
• 1 Thess. 68.5 / 4.1
• 2 Thess. 72.3 / 3.1
• 1 Timothy 81.4 / 2.9
• 2 Timothy 79.5 / 2.8
• Titus 71.7 / 2.3
• Philemon 76.0 / 5.1
• Hebrews 77.2 / 2.9
• James 61.6 / 5.6
• 1 Peter 66.6 / 5.7
• 2 Peter 52.5 / 6.5
• 1 John 72.4 / 2.8
• 2 John 61.5 / 4.5
• 3 John 73.3 / 3.2
• Jude 72.0 / 4.2
• Revelation 52.8 / 5.1

Total 62.9 equals 4999/7947 verses

The agreement here is quite astonishing, considering that this is the combined result of seven different teams and/or persons over an extended period of time. That all 7 editions completely agree on close to two-thirds of the NT is a striking indication of how much confidence we may have in our present text. (Though not given, the next statistics would show agreements on 6 out of 7, 5 out of 7, etc. - and if the trend above is followed, we might well reach that 99% agreement before going too far down the ladder!)

Is any matter of the Christian faith affected by any variant reading? This is the most important issue for the average believer, and the good news is this: No doctrine of Christianity is in the least dependent on ANY textual variant.

Also working against any idea that some important text was lost or added is evidence that textual criticism was already in process as early as the second and third century! Origen complains of negligence and audacity by scribes; Jerome takes note of various scribal errors, and so on. These fellows, at least, were on guard against any variations! (To this we may also add that scribal science used in Alexandria on the NT in the early decades also ensured careful treatment of the text.)

In summary, here is a general admonition regarding charges of NT textual corruption: Until solid textual evidence is found for such changes, all that we are being offered with such objections is a "spaghetti against the wall" supposition. Rather than citing some particular textual difficulty, all we have the typical critic is some vague idea that somewhere, somehow, we must be missing SOMETHING that will cause problems for the Christian faith! Even Bart Ehrman, a textual critic of a less generous bent, though he has only found a few dozen corruptions - which he was able to identify because original readings were still preserved! - cannot resist speculating that there are actually "hundreds" of undiscovered corruptions. This is rather like the wandering soothsayer who carries a sign saying "THE WORLD WILL END TOMORROW" - having faith that someday, he will be right! The evidence is far better that we DO have the "original text" -- it is simply mixed up with "unoriginal variants," and it is speculative to believe we have lost any real parts.

Now with this in mind, what of Zindler's "Paranoia Parade"? He claims, using Matthew's Gospel as an example, that this "problem" of not knowing what the text says is a "well kept secret among Bible scholars". If you believe that, Zindler is Daffy Duck. All you need to do is check some books out -- Bruce Metzger's The Text of the New Testament is a classic, and there are works by the Alands, Ehrman, and Comfort that are hardly secreted away in back rooms with hush-hush stickers on them. Zindler, frankly, has either not done any legwork or is outright lying when he says that this is some kind of big secret. He also vastly overblows his case with statement like these:

And what is Zindler left with in the NT? Mark 16:9-20 (which contains nothing essential, unless you think it is essential to have an idea that you can handle snakes, and we challenge Zindler to tell us why we should care), a single verse addition in the "Latin text of a fourth to fifth century African Old Latin version manuscript, the Codex Bobbiensis (k)" for Mark 16:3 (meanwhile, he doesn't want to mention the countless other earlier mss. of Mark used for comparison, which make this isolated text an irrelevant peculiarity that doesn't even come close to being a panic-button candidate) and a new one even on me that suppoesedy the last six verses of Relevation are in dispute. 5 out of 6 of these are repetitive, and the other one is a warning not to add to the book (which seems merely common sense!), so I have a hard time seeing why I should worry at all. His last gasp is that "666" reads "616" in some mss. This is quite true. Most will recognize that 666 is a numeric reference to Nero, as the Hebrew spelling of "Nero Caesar" -- as found in rabbinic writings and in one Qumranic document -- renders a 666. But when that name is written out in Latin, we have a value of 616. 666 as Ronald Reagan? Sorry, wrong number. (For a look at a more sensible eschatology, see our work at http://www.tektonics.org/eschatology.html)

Zindler returns to the OT for a while, making rather a hash out of the existence of the Septuagint, or LXX version of the OT. He tells us:

Between the third century B.C. and the first century A.D., Greek-speaking Jewish scholars in Alexandria and elsewhere translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, producing a series of editions of the Greek Old Testament known collectively as the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). A comparison of the LXX with the Hebrew Masoretic Text shows fundamental differences in content - differences that cannot be waived as translation errors, but can be seen as evidence that the Hebrew text used by the translators differed profoundly from the Hebrew text known today.

Zindler's panic button is by now dirty and broken; let's hear some sensible words from OT textual critic Emmanuel Tov:

The Hebrew text presupposed by the LXX basically represents a tradition which is either close to that of MT or can easily be explained as a descendant or a source of it. In several individual instances, however, the LXX represents a text that comes close to other sources, viz., certain Hebrew scrolls from Qumran and the Sam. Pent.

Zindler claims "many differences between the LXX and the Masoretic Text" but the only hard examples he gives are of numbers -- which are notorious victims of textual and transcription errors -- and differences in the order of Jeremiah. Is this a panic source? Not for anyone I know. Not that Zindler tells us.

Zindler does tell us that "the authors of the New Testament, when citing the Old Testament, cited it in Greek resembling the LXX far more often than the Masoretic Textus Receptus." That's a little slippery; in fact, of the 64 times Jesus quotes the OT, for example, more than half agree with both the LXX and the MT; 1/5 differ from both the LXX and the MT, 1.5 agree with the MT against the LXX, and the rest agree with the LXX AGAINST the MT. For those who want more information on how the LXX was used by all Jews of the period, we recommend an article at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/baduseot.html.

In closing on textual criticism, Zindler's conclusion that "Bible scholars have come to a simple conclusion" that "[t]rying to find the 'correct reading' of most biblical MSS is as hopeless - and as meaningless - as trying to find the 'average voter'" is little nothing short of a blatant misrepresentation of the state of affairs in Biblical textual criticism. You will not find such despair among secular textual critics with far, far less evidence, nor from Metzger, nor from the Alands, or even from Ehrman who is the most favored to suggesting changes in the text. Zindler's argument is a fantasy.

Part 3 -- Which Dictionary To Use?

Zindler's last section is not the most ridiculous of his three panic buttons -- the one on textual criticism wins that dubious distinction -- but it comes close: "How can one know what a given word in an ancient MS means?" What about a dictionary of these words in the original language? Zindler tells us, nope: "The most brilliant of dictionary writers cannot be certain of the meaning of every word as it is used in every culture and subculture, at every period in history." They can't? This would probably be news to linguistic scholars, of whom Zindler is decidedly not one, and with whom he does not in the least interact. Granted -- words change in meaning and nuance over time; yet some words are more difficult than others, yet Zindler's panic button is pressed of his own ignorance. He reports that a word in Shakespeare shocked him when he learned that a word was used in a way quite the opposite from the way it was intended -- as slang. Well, then, what? Zindler then essentially admits that a little homework goes a long way. And when it comes down to it, though Zindler lavishes upon us threats that we may go to hell because a word's meaning has been lost, the one example he gives are descriptions of -- hold on to your hats -- an adjective describing the ostrich's wings and feathers in Job! Is Zindler pulling our leg here? Tell us that we can't tell whether Jesus is the Logos or a Legos set; tell us that we have problems knowing whether God calls us to repent or refurnish, and maybe we have a problem. But we don't. Meanings of words are also determined by context. Adjectives about ostrich feathers and wings offer no specific context other than the limited scale of what such feathers and wings are like. Reason plays a role too. If a passage tells us to "repent and be saved" and we have numerous witnesses to contemporary lit (as we do for the NT -- this is what a lexicon is for, which Zindler apparently doesn't realize), then we have a quite clear data pool to draw from. Zindler's further panic-buttons of lack of vowels in the text of the Hebrew is also far from the crisis he suggests. We have much to help us make sense of that text: the later vowel points added; the LXX; the limited range of choices; contextual considerations. Zindler's proclamation of a "false sense of security" and "frightful uncertainty" is the dull lull of a commentator "incompetent and unaware of it." I challenge any reader to find a scholar of Hebrew who is in as much a state of panic as Zindler thinks there should be. The examples he gives ("dove's dung" versus "chick pea"!) are hardly anything to write home about!

Conclusion -- Why Bother?

The question is a good one to pose to Zindler, in this form: Why bother listening to him in the first place? The age-old question, "Who is this guy, anyway?" stares me in the face. Is he a scholar of the languages of the day? No. Is he a scholar of the culture of the day? No. If there is any "futility" in looking for certainty though textual criticism and such, it is because Zindler's efforts themselves are the futile efforts of one unschooled in the Big Picture and trying to instill panic via ignorance. Scholars of the Bible aren't worried like Zindler is, and neither should you be.

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