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The New Testament as Canon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Geoffrey Wainwright
Geoffrey Wainwright
Affiliation:
The Queen's College, Somerset Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2QH
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Extract

My title, which is stolen from a collection of learned German essays edited by Ernst Käsemann (Das Neue Testament als Kanon, 1970), may sound remote from the concerns of the practical ministry. But the academic question here raised has profound implications for all our understanding, proclamation and practice of the gospel. My exposition will fall into three parts. First I shall make clear what, historically, were the theological motives governing the establishment of a fixed canon of New Testament scripture, and I shall discuss the question of how far the aims of the early Church in this matter may be considered, in the light of modern critical scholarship, to have been achieved. Next I shall show that today also we are faced by problems similar to those which the principle of a New Testament canon was designed to meet, and I shall try to indicate what part the canonical New Testament may still play in helping us to meet them. Thirdly, I shall draw some consequences for worship, preaching, evangelism, ecumenism, and ethics from the principle of a New Testament canon and from the actual content of the canonical New Testament. In conclusion, I shall briefly consider the place of the canonical New Testament in the problem posed by the particularity of Christianity's historical origins and the universality of its claims. Space will obviously forbid anything more than the giving of hints on all these questions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 28 , Issue 6 , December 1975 , pp. 551 - 571
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1975

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References

page 551 note 1 This article reproduces the text of a lecture given on 18th April 1974 before former students of Handsworth College, the Methodist theological college which in 1970 joined to form the ecumenical Queen's College at Birmingham.

page 551 note 2 I was driven to reflect on this question during my recent experience of six years as pastor of the English-speaking congregation in Yaoundé, Cameroon, alongside my teaching in the Faculty of Theology there.

page 552 note 1 See Aland, K., ‘Das Problem des neutestamentlichen Kanons’ in Käsemann, E. (ed.), Das Neue Testament als Kanon, 1970, in particular pp. 141–143Google Scholar (originally in Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie, 4, 1962, pp. 220–42; English in Aland, K., The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 1962).Google Scholar

page 552 note 2 ‘Canon’ means measuring-rod or ruler. In ecclesiastical parlance, it denoted first the regula fidei (on which see later), next synodical decisions, and only then the list of books admitted as scripture. See Souter, A. (revised by Williams, C. S. C.), The Text and Canon of the New Testament, 1954, pp. 141f.Google Scholar

page 552 note 3 The most recent full-scale treatment of the early history of the canon is von Campenhausen, H., Die Entstehung der christlichen Bibel, 1968 (ET, The Formation of the Christian Bible, 1972).Google Scholar

page 553 note 1 The Muratorianum is a Western document, possibly but by no means certainly Roman in origin. See H. von Campenhausen, op. cit., ET, pp. 243–62.

page 553 note 2 See Hennecke, E. and Schneemelcher, W., Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, I, 1959Google Scholar; English edition by Wilson, R. McL., New Testament Apocrypha, I, 1963.Google Scholar

page 553 note 3 Summary in Bultmann, R., Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting, 1960, pp. 193–204.Google Scholar

page 554 note 1 Compare the account of Tertullian, though some think that it dates from the time before he became a Montanist: ‘We have now amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with sundry gifts of revelation, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic vision amidst the sacred rites of the Lord's day in the church’(de anima, 9).

page 554 note 2 Refutation of all Heresies, VIII.19 (A.N.C.L. VIII.12).

page 554 note 3 In the quotation made above from de anima, 9, Tertullian's language echoes Rev. 1.10.

page 556 note 1 Rom. 10.9; 1 Cor. 12.3; Phil. 2.11; cf. already the maranatha of 1 Cor. 16.22.

page 556 note 2 The Birth of the New Testament, 1966 2, p. 9. This whole book is interesting for our theme of the canon, and especially chapters ix and x.

page 558 note 1 ‘The great form critic’ in Scottish Journal of Theology, 22, 1969, pp. 296–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 558 note 2 ‘Begründet der neutestamentliche Kanon die Einheit der Kirche?’ in Käsemann, E. (ed.), DasNeue Testament als Kanon, in particular pp. 128fGoogle Scholar (originally in Evangelische Theologie, 11, 1951–2, pp. 13–21; ET in Käsemann, E., Essays on Mew Testament Themes, 1964).Google Scholar

page 558 note 3 E.g. Galatians and 1 John.

page 558 note 4 A full discussion would demand consideration of the kind of questions raised by Bauer, W., Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum, 1934Google Scholar (ET, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, 1971) and largely answered by Turner, H. E. W., The Pattern of Christian Truth, 1954.Google Scholar

page 558 note 5 Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17, 1966 (ET, The Testament of Jesus, 1968); cf. already his essay ‘Aufbau und Anliegen des johanneischen Prologs’ in Libertas Christiana, Festschrift für F. Delekat, 1957, pp. 75–99 (ET, in Käsemann, E., New Testament Questions of Today, 1969).Google Scholar

page 558 note 6 Il problema del cattolicesimo, 1962, pp. 131–51 (ET, The Problem of Catholicism, 1964, pp. 104–20).

page 559 note 1 There is a typical statement of Käsemann's views on Früikatholizismus and on the Unvereinbarkeit of Paul, and James, in ‘Begründet der neutestamentliche Kanon die Einheit der Kirche?’, in Das Netie Testament als Kanon, p. 130Google Scholar (ET, Kasemann, E., Essays on Mew Testament Themes, p. 1O2f).Google Scholar

page 559 note 2 Das Neue Testament als Kanon, p. 410. Käsemann says (p. 355f) that Marcion's error was to excise all that did not fit his hermeneutical principle: that is to fall into “ideology”. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are my terms, not Käsemann's own.

page 561 note 1 A value of the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ is that it is both a firm and full affirmation and one that is open to exploration, interpretation and ever new application.

page 563 note 1 For the difficulties of the Johannine principle, see now Wiles, M., The Remaking of Christian Doctrine, 1974, pp. 9–14Google Scholar; the principle is by no means rendered totally unserviceable.

page 563 note 2 See Wainwright, G., ‘Theological reflections on “The Catechism concerning the Prophet Simon Kimbangu” of 1970’ in Orita, 5, 1971, pp. 18–35.Google Scholar

page 565 note 1 H. Küng rightly accuses Käsemann of being ‘more biblical than the Bible, more New-Testament-minded than the New Testament, more evangelical than the Gospel, more Pauline, even, than Paul’. See ‘Der Frühkatholizismus im Neuen Testament als kontroverstheologisches Problem“ in Das Neue Testament als Kanon, p. 192 (originally in Theologische Quartalschrift, 142, 1962, pp. 385–424; ET in Küng, , The Living Church, 1963).Google Scholar

page 566 note 1 Compiled by C. R. Campling (1973), it is a collection of ‘readings from outside Scripture’, designed for use with the Daily Office of the Joint Liturgical Group—which itself has three Scriptural lessons. The Synod of Carthage of 397 reveals that accounts of martyrdom were sometimes read in anniversary services (Souter- Williams, p. 204).

page 568 note 1 von Allmen, D., ‘Pour une théologie grecque? “Indigénisation” de la théologie dans le nouveau Testament’ in Flambeau, No. 25 (Feb. 1970), pp. 2–34Google Scholar, or ‘Die Geburt der Theologie: das Problem einer “einheimischen” Theologie im Lichte des Neuen Testaments’ in Euangelische Missions-Zeitschrift, 27, 1970, pp. 57–71, 160–76.Google Scholar

page 568 note 2 Reprinted in Das Neue Testament als Kanon, pp. 124–33 (ET in Essays on New Testament Themes, pp. 95–107).

page 568 note 3 Lutherans are notoriously weak on ‘sanctification’ and tend to fall into apoplexy at the mention of ‘judgement according to works’. A reading of Lindström, H., Wesley and Sanctification, 1946Google Scholar, will show how Paul and James may be reconciled.

page 568 note 4 Käsemann, has again stressed the diversity of the New Testament in ‘The Problem of a New Testament Theology’ in New Testament Studies, 19, 1972–1973, pp. 235–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 569 note 1 For a fuller discussion, see Wainwright, G., ‘Quelques principes sous-jacents au catholicisme romain’ in Flambeau, No. 22 (May 1969), pp. 75–84.Google Scholar