THE FORMATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
What we today call the New Testament is composed of a 27-document collection that Chris tians view as bearing unique authority— along with the Old Testament— as the Word of God. But the reason that this particular collection of documents— from among other Chris tian writings of the first century— came to be received and accepted by the church as the New Testament Canon isn’ t immediately clear.
It is necessary to begin with the definition of the word“ canon.” A canon is a standard or norm, something against which other things are measured— and as such, it is used in reference to both the Old Testament and New Testament. When we hear the New Testament described as“ Canon,” it is an acknowledgment that this collection is limited and has authority for the church. 1
The study of the formation of the New Testament Canon can be understood largely as an evernarrowing definition of the term“ Canon” in reference to Chris tian writings. Confusion has resulted because not all Canon historians understand the term in the same way. This can be seen in the three main answers to how the church came to accept only the New Testament documents from among other first-century Chris tian writings.
The first answer was given by Theodore Zahn in the late 19th century when he argued that the New Testament arose as a spontaneous occurrence. Zahn believed that once a New Testament document was cited by a church father, the document should be seen as canonical— citation proved canonicity. Thus, according to Zahn, by the end of the first century there was already a New Testament in existence that was not forced on the church but rather was a spontaneous creation that occurred in the life of the church. 2
Zahn’ s position received an important qualification in the early 20th century from Adolf von Harnack, who developed answer number two. Harnack argued that citing a New Testament document as Scripture is very different from simply citing or alluding to New Testament documents; Harnack paid particular attention to the way a document was cited. Whether a citation was preceded by a formula referring to it as“ Scripture” became the test for canonicity because doing so gave the document at the same status as the Old Testament. The effect of this qualification was to move the emergence of a New Testament Canon from the first century into the mid- to late second century, when documents attest to citations of New Testament documents as Scripture. 3
The third answer to the question was offered by Albert C. Sundberg, Jr. Sundberg continued to narrow the definition of Canon in light of his reassessment of the Old Testament Canon in early Christianity. 4 Sundberg observed that the church fathers cited documents as Scripture that are not known to us as canonical Scripture. 5 He concluded that the church did not receive a closed
1 Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 289 – 93. 2 Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon( Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 41 – 42. 3 Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon( Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 42 – 44. 4 A. C. Sundberg, Jr.,“ Towards a Revised History of the New Testament Canon,” Studia evangelica 4, no. 1( 1968): 452 – 61;“ The Making of the New Testament Canon,” in The Interpreter’ s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, ed. C. M. Laymon( Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971), 1216 – 24; Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon( Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 45. 5 Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon( Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 177 – 85.