Benjamin Laird Reviews Biblical Canon Lists in JETS

Another review of The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity has appeared. Benjamin Laird of Liberty University’s School of Divinity has reviewed it positively in the most recent issue of JETS (61.3; 2018: 617–9). In his introductory remarks, he notes the influx of publications on the biblical canon in the last quarter century but also that there is a paucity of works “designed to serve as a resource for those engaged in the study of the primary sources” (p. 617). In his estimation the book contributes to filling this lacuna, at least as far as the early canon lists are concerned.

Laird’s concluding remarks are positive but perhaps hint at some of his own disappointment with the book:

In sum, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity is a unique, well-written, and clearly presented volume that provides both students and scholars with a valuable resource for the study of the canonical history of the biblical writings. Gallagher and Meade are to be commended for producing a definitive and up-to-date study of the early canon lists in an accessible format. The value of the book is apparent in the fact that the greatest disappointment many readers may have is that it is not wider in scope (p. 619).

As a New Testament professor, Laird comments on the usefulness of the book as a guide to the extant canon lists but also notes:

It should be kept in mind, of course, that because the authors focus specifically on canonical lists, several witnesses to the early state of the biblical canon receive only limited attention or are not discussed. What might be known, for example, of the state of the NT canon from the testimony of several notable church fathers such as Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian receives only scant treatment given that their extant writings do not contain explicit reference  to the content of either the OT or NT in the form of a list (p. 618).

He also includes a comment on Marcion to the effect that since the field has given considerable treatment to him in recent years, the volume might have included more substantive treatment of him and what his writings (known from his critics) might contribute to our knowledge of the early NT canon.

Laird would have liked more treatment of biblical manuscripts than our chapter six provides. Specifically, he would have preferred more treatment of those early MSS that do not preserve the whole OT or NT such as P46.

I appreciate Laird’s overall positive review of our book. Two comments are in order. First, we do acknowledge our book’s limits on p. xv:

Lists are not the only means by which early Christians expressed themselves on the subject of the biblical canon. Scattered comments on individual books or groups of books pepper patristic literature. We have not seen fit to collect all these comments. Some authors of fundamental importance—Irenaeus of Lyons, or Clement of Alexandria, or Tertullian, for example—left behind nothing that could be considered a canon list, though any canon history would have to give serious attention to their statements and practice. They do not receive extended treatment here because their works transmit no canon list, a decision which demonstrates that this book is not a full canon history but a tool for such research.

Second, it’s interesting to me that James Walters’s review of our book in Reading Religion expressed confusion over the presence of a chapter on full biblical MSS in the book in the first place and Laird would have liked more comment on them. [UPDATE 10/18/18: see Walter’s tweet thread for a helpful correction to my understanding of his review]. The former didn’t see what contribution a chapter on full MSS made for the volume, while the latter thinks that such early MSS “often contain valuable insight into the early state of the NT canon” and would have wanted more.

It seems clear to me, then, that the opposing sides in the canon debate interpret the evidence of MSS for the formation of the NT canon very differently. For the one side, full biblical MSS may not tell us anything about the canon, and for the other side, they may grant valuable insight.

[UPDATE based on his thread: rather than Walters and Laird being on opposite ends of a spectrum, they would agree on the value of MSS for the history of the canon; Walters actually concludes that perhaps early MSS may be more important than the lists themselves, a point I’d like him to tease out for me in the future.]

In other news, I have contributed a chapter to Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry’s forthcoming Myths and Mistakes volume on this very question. But I don’t think I’ll let any cats out of their bags until the book is released. :-)

Greg Lanier: Locating the Inspired ‘Original’ Amid Textual Complexity

Greg Lanier is an assistant professor and dean of students at Reformed Theological Seminary and a good friend of mine from Cambridge. Recently, he published a long article in JETS about a particularly knotty textual problem that spans both OT and NT. It also raises questions for Evangelicals about the goal of textual criticism and its relationship to our bibliology. I would like to see more discussion about these issues and so I asked Greg if he would introduce us to his article and pose some of the issues it raises. So, here is Greg.

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The most recent volume of JETS (61.1) includes my analysis of the textual tradition of the murder (M), adultery (A), and steal (S) commandments of the Decalogue—traditionally 6th–8th in the Protestant numbering. The full article can be downloaded here.

The bulk of the article is an inventory of the various sequences found in extant sources (including the versions) for both OT and NT occurrences of these commandments. For instance, the order M-A-S is read in the MT for both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5; A-M-S in the Nash Papyrus and B-Deuteronomy; A-S-M in B-Exodus; and a variety of sequences appear in the NT references to these commandments (and the resulting textual traditions). The full set of results can, of course, be found in the article.

While tracing the minutiae of these passages as far as possible was interesting in its own right, I eventually realized that the project served as a well-contained case study that surfaces and helps crystallize a bigger-picture issue of significance in the study of the textual tradition of Scripture. Namely, what does it mean to speak of an authorial/original/initial form of a Scriptural writing when faced with tremendous complexity in the actual data itself?

In conversations with various OT and NT peers—particularly those who have a “high” doctrine of Scripture (of the American or British varieties)—I’ve found that this topic has struck a chord, as others have been thinking on it as well.

Where Should the Books of Chronicles be Placed?

In the latest issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 60.2 (2017): 283–99, Gregory Goswell has contributed an article entitled “Putting the Book of Chronicles in Its Place.” His “aim is to unsettle any developing consensus that Chronicles must be read as the last book of the OT (in preference to other positions)” (283–4; emphasis original). His conclusions are worth citing in full:

My argument has been that the placement of Chronicles within the different canons reflects post-authorial evaluations of the book and its contents. Each position has its rationale and potentially contributes to the understanding of readers. There are no grounds for insisting that any one position is the earliest or best. In particular, there is no proof that the Chronicler composed his work to conclude the OT canon. Chronicles after Kings alerts readers that Kings (and the preceding historical books) record the history of Israel from a prophetic perspective. Chronicles at the head of the Writings suggests that succeeding books have a liturgical and/or wisdom orientation. Finally, Chronicles at the end of the Writings sums up the witness of the OT to God’s purposes that culminate in the rebuilt temple (= palace) of God as a precursor to the dawning of God’s final kingdom (pp. 298–9).

The first order of books alluded to above is the Greek ordering of the OT books in which Chronicles or Paraleipomenon follows Kings (p. 284ff); the second order is that of the earliest extant Hebrew codices of Aleppo and Leningrad which have Chronicles at the beginning of the Writings (p. 289ff); the third order in which Chronicles concludes the Writings is found in Baba Batra 14b.

In the final analysis, Goswell shows that our current, variegated evidence keeps us from concluding that any one of these orders is primary or better. Most importantly, according to him, we cannot conclude that the author of Chronicles is responsible for closing the Writings and therefore closing the Hebrew Bible with his own book. The different canonical orders result from “post-authorial interpretive frames” not an “authorial paratext” or an authorial guide to interpretation of the whole.

The article is worth reading in its entirety paying especial attention to pp. 295-7 wherein he shows the improbability that Chronicles was composed as a conclusion to the Writings as an authorial paratext. Goswell probably has not settled the debate, but he and others like Edmon L. Gallagher (see Tyndale Bulletin 65.2 (2014): 181-199; pdf) are certainly unsettling any recently formed consensus on this question.

Weekend Links: Autographs and Bible Formatting

A couple links for your weekend reading.

Timothy Mitchell whose blog I mentioned earlier has a fresh article in JETS on just what we mean by “autograph” in debates about inerrancy. He concludes that “in reference to the NT, the ‘autograph,’ as often discussed in biblical inerrancy doctrinal statements, should be defined as the completed authorial work which was released by the author for circulation and copying, not earlier draft versions or layers of composition.” I wonder what Tim thinks of suggestions that Paul edited his own letter collection with some possible changes. Would inerrancy apply to the first release or the release of the collection or both? I’m not sure we can distinguish such, but I still wonder. We need something like this for the OT, by the way. But good for Tim for taking the question on.

Tony Reinke interviews Glenn Paauw, the Executive Director of the Biblica Institute for Bible Reading about the history of “Bible clutter.” Paauw says that the Bible’s “central unit is not a verse, is not a chapter, it is a book. Those are the central units the Bible is built on, and I think we should read holistically first and then do our study in the context of that reading. And I think the modern Bible reverses those things.” A friend told me recently he is reading through Crossway’s Reader’s Gospel and really enjoys the lack of clutter.

Enjoy your weekend. If you live somewhere with sun, please send it my way.

Dan Wallace in JETS

The most recent issue of JETS contains the plenary lectures on the text and canon of OT and NT from last year's ETS conference (see previously here). The NT papers are both excellent. I'll make some comments on one paper here:
Daniel B. Wallace, 'Challenges in New Testament Textual Criticism for the Twenty-First Century' JETS 52 (2009), 79-100.

This is not a technical discussion, and only one or two actual manuscripts or variant readings are mentioned in the paper, which has more the tone of a pep talk for evangelicals to get more acquainted with the issues posed by the discipline. He begins with Bart Ehrman and then
Dan discusses three 'postmodern intrusions into NT TC'.
The first of these is the Ehrman/Epp/Parker redefinition of the goal of NT TC away from determining the wording of the original text, their approach is anchorless, isolationist, and self-defeating, and 'the quest for the wording of the autographa is still worth fighting for' (p. 85).
The second is 'epistemological skepticism' - just because we can't know something certainly (e.g. the date of P52 or the correct text of ancient writers) doesn't mean we can't know anything.
The third is a focus on community/collaboration - which unlike the other two Dan welcomes in terms of various collaborative projects involving lots of acronyms: IGNTP, INTF, UBS, CSNTM.

He then discusses the role of theology in NTTC. Dan notes that theological issues have played a prominent role recently. He makes four points:
First, this blog is a symbol of the importance of theological issues in textual criticism (a good acknowledgement except for the unfortunate fact that he refers to us by the wrong url as www.evangelicaltextualcriticism.com which goes basically nowhere and at the moment doesn't even refer back to here - I guess they'll find us if they really want to).
Second, the prominence of discussion of the orthodoxy of the variants - in Dan's words: "no viable variant affects any cardinal doctrine" (which is commendably cautious).
Third, Dan thinks that those who reject inerrancy because we don't have the autographs are illogical (perhaps here he could have more carefully distinguished between the autographic text and the autographic manuscripts, for more of Dan on this see here).
Fourthly, Dan argues that the incarnation provides a methodological model for historical work in NT TC (not with any explicit reference to Peter Enns [for background see Enns]).

Finally Dan proposes some Desiderata:

Knowledge of documents: we ought to know them better, discover more, make digital photos, collate them and analyse them.

Closing gaps: evangelicals ought to contribute to this field, especially in the versions (like Pete Williams); apologists ought not to make exaggerated statements (as if!); and we ought to teach church members the real facts about the Bible to innoculate them against losing their faith by reading Bart Ehrman (slight paraphrase).

It is a good read, with some interesting details about various things. Most of it I basically agree with. Just a couple of quotes I was not sure about:

1. "Although the second-century MSS are all fragmentary, they attest to most of the NT books and over 40% of the verses of the NT." (p. 87) This figure seems way too high for me. Perhaps a typo for 0.4%. [Up-date: See comments for discussion: it is not a typo, but is not really a serious claim.]

2. The CSNTM has "discovered somewhere between 40 and 50 NT MSS" (p. 96; in fact recently Dan has upped this figure to 75 new mss - WSJ article and Dan on WSJ article). I continue to be fascinated by the number of new mss which the CSNTM claims to have discovered (and which we have often noted with delight on this blog). I might have missed it, but as far as I can tell we are still waiting for a single scholarly publication which actually discusses or demonstrates even one of these new discoveries. Nor, as far as I can see, are any of the images of these 75 mss available on the CSNTM website. Maybe a bunch of you, sworn to secrecy, are even now working away on these new discoveries. Let me know. [Up-date: See comments for discussion: new figure is 77 which is explained by Dan in comments; I was right on no scholarly publications yet, wrong on no images: 2881 and 2882 are on-line at CSNTM and more coming]

3. The CSNTM has "discovered the only biblical majuscule in Constantinople, a fragment of Mark that may be as old as the third century" (p. 96). I seem to recall Dan saying in a comment to this blog that this could be sixth or seventh century.