The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Fiasco Lessons from the headline-grabbing forgery that duped Harvard’s oldest endowed professor and enthralled the media Christian AskelandDan Brown famously spun his Da Vinci Code yarn in which Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor, demonstrated that Jesus Christ actually married Mary Magdalene. In a tale stranger than fiction, Brown’s dream came true through the now-infamous Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, which ironically was promoted through a Harvard professor. Inscribed in Coptic, the ancient Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet, this papyrus fragment became the most recent in a series of spectacular fakes designed to shock faithful Christians and churn the mainstream media with fantastic headlines. This is the story of the attempted ruse and what we can learn from it. The Story Breaks In 2012, I attended the International Coptic Congress in Rome, Italy, a normally staid event tragically marred on this occasion by media sensation and disinformation about what came to be called the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife fragment. Public relations staff at Harvard University had coordinated a news blitz at our conference of two hundred scholars without first consulting the conference organizers. No scholar at the conference could produce a viable comparison for the fragment’s ugly writing in a known, authentic manuscript. Nobody wanted to defend its authenticity, and most people ridiculed the thing openly. The Vatican hosted several of our events, and the major theme of the congress suddenly became this obvious forgery of a Coptic fragment in which Jesus alludes to his wife. In English, the fragment reads: … My mother she gave to me L[ife] …… The disciples said to Jesus …… denies. Mary is [not] worthy of it …… Jesus said to them “My wife” …… she will not be able to be a disciple to me and …… Let a man the which bad let no T[?] …… I myself am with her concerning …… an image … The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife papyrus was written in a very crude Coptic script. Photo from Wikipedia Because the forger did not employ a modern equivalent to ancient cedar oil, the ink lacked viscosity, running to-and-fro like a failed pastel painting from your childhood. Unlike real papyrus-inscribed text, which is made with reed pens, this writing resembled that of a paint brush. The character forms did not parallel ancient literary styles like one would find in a biblical manuscript or ancient documentary styles like a business document or private correspondence. The papyrus, which could easily have been purchased from eBay, seemed ancient, but the text had all the appearances of a cheap fake. But why let facts get in the way of a good story! None of the reporters seemed to care about our concerns, except to the extent that they had been prepped for a shocked response from religious conservatives. The expectation was that this discovery would potentially overthrow patriarchal views on celibacy and on women-in-ministry, and would further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity. The expectation was that this discovery would … further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity. Of the two hundred scholars at the conference, perhaps fifty specialized directly or indirectly in manuscripts and ancient writing. The reporters had not really come to hear our opinions, though, since their articles were already written, based solely on feedback from select sources. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Smithsonian broke the story, highlighting the Harvard credentials of the lead scholar and the supposed vetting by various other experts. Not by accident, the announcement occurred a stone’s throw away from Vatican City, seemingly with the support of the gathered scholars. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: Problems Emerge for Jesus’ Wife In reality, two world class specialists (Bentley Layton and Stephen Emmel) had already identified this papyrus as a probable forgery, formally rejecting an article submitted to the Harvard Theological Review weeks before the Rome conference. The journal editors simply ignored the peer reviewers’ opinions and pushed forward. Within days of the Rome announcement, however, the blogosphere caught on fire with specialized experts from Europe and North America tearing the forgery into metaphorical shreds. Although the forger had not yet been identified, Andrew Bernhard, an independent researcher who had formerly studied at Oxford, created the “Patchwork Hypothesis,” demonstrating that the forgery had created the Gospel of Jesus’ text by using a 2002 PDF of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas he found online. In only a few weeks, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife debacle seemed to have imploded, and authenticity no longer seemed defensible. Headlines from the initial announcement sensationalized the idea that Jesus had a wife. For many, Christmas and Easter involve remembering Christ’s Advent and his resurrection. For the secular media, these seasons too often represent an occasion to float absurd theories about Jesus. The Harvard Theological Review partnered once again with the Smithsonian, The New York Times and The Boston Globe to resurrect Jesus’ wife fragment from the dead. How, you might ask, could they do such a thing, when the papyrus had so conclusively been proven a forgery? In the context of a dedicated issue of the Harvard Theological Review as well as a professional webpage, Harvard PR executed a two-fold strategy. First, the publications completely and totally ignored the Patchwork Hypothesis just as they had previously ignored the peer reviewers. Second, the scholars used their various networks to produce a variety of scientific results which in retrospect were misconstrued to demonstrate authenticity. Two weeks before Easter, the world would see a Smithsonian documentary demonstrating that science had validated the scholarly opinions from Harvard. Although carbon dating did place the papyrus roughly between 600–800 AD, skeptics had never argued that the papyrus material was anything other than ancient. Ultra-high resolution showed that the character Alpha which represented the my in “my wife …” was not altered, yet no scholar had ever suggested as much. Raman spectroscopy demonstrated chemical similarity between the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife ink and the ink on a Gospel of John fragment from the same collection. It showed the presence of soot (or graphite) in both inks, a feature expected in the case of a modern forgery. Somehow, several pictures of this Gospel of John fragment, later known as the Harvard Lycopolitan John, appeared on the Harvard website, and, because of these pictures, Jesus’ Wife was once again proven a forgery. Cracking the Related Case Because I wrote my doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge on the Coptic versions of John’s Gospel, I’ve had a longstanding interest in this accompanying John fragment. Harvard did not respond to requests for an image of the Coptic John fragment which had been mentioned in the original presentation. The fragment would have been useful to a colleague of mine who was constructing a critical edition of the Sahidic Coptic gospel of John. When the pictures appeared on the website, naturally my interest was piqued. The vowels were all wrong, immediately alerting me to the Lycopolitan dialect of the Coptic. Normally, one expects the Sahidic dialect in Coptic papyri, and only two papyri preserve John’s Gospel in Sahidic. The Qau Codex contains most of John’s Gospel and is easily accessible online, especially if one googles “earliest Coptic manuscript.” The Lycopolitan John fragment showed even clearer signs of forgery. Image source This new forgery, the Harvard Lycopolitan John, had been directly copied from the internet PDF of the Qau Codex, duplicating every line break and erring conspicuously at the turn of a digital page. Where the editor of the Qau codex had restored text with impossible suggestions, the forger reproduced these same impossibilities. The Harvard Lycopolitan John preserved the same ink and the same handwriting as the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. None of this had occurred to the scholars affiliated with the Harvard publication, nor had they considered that Lycopolitan had disappeared no later than the sixth century. Lycopolitan should not appear on a piece of papyrus harvested in between 600–800 AD. If this second papyrus was a fake and used the same ink and scribe, then most papyri must be fakes. Other scholars rightly referred to this new discovery as the “smoking gun.” In 2016, Ariel Sabar identified the forger in an explosive piece for The Atlantic. His subsequent book tells the whole sordid tale in gripping detail. Lessons Learned According to satirical comedian Stephen Colbert, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Conservatives, the feeling sometimes goes, rely on pseudo-science and are skeptical of climate change, evolutionary theory, and big government’s role in solving society’s problems. Liberals, however, are thought to act as servants of reason and the envoys of human progress who advance their mission for the common good, even the good of those conservatives who tragically cannot accept reality. This is, at least, how some present the matter. The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side. Colbert’s notion arose as a joke at the 2006 Correspondent’s roast of President Bush, but today it has too often metastasized into overt policy at secular colleges in North America which are designed to exclude conservatives by painting them as beyond the pale. The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the larger echo chamber of liberal apologetics at secular private and public colleges that too often marginalize religious and social conservatives.
Did Nicaea Really Create the Bible? Debunking the popular myth that a Roman emperor and a fourth-century church council decided the canon John D. MeadeIdeas have consequences. One idea that has yielded dangerous consequences is the notion that the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), under the authority of Roman emperor Constantine, established the Christian biblical canon. Did the Bible originate from a few elite bishops selecting which books to include? Should we credit a Roman emperor with creating the Bible? No. This falsehood has been used to cast suspicion on the origins of the canon, which undermines the Bible’s authority. Dan Brown’s 2003 bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, planted this idea in our culture, and many now think Constantine or Nicaea established the Bible. But Brown didn’t invent this story. He only perpetuated it through his fiction. (Same goes for popular spy novelist Daniel Silva’s latest book, The Order. He admits in an author’s note: “Christians who believe in biblical inerrancy will no doubt take issue with my description of who the evangelists were and how their Gospels came to be written.”) There is no historical basis for the idea that Nicaea established the canon and created the Bible. Nicaea and the Canon in History There is no historical basis for the idea that Nicaea established the canon and created the Bible. The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity and other early evidence show that Christians disputed the boundaries of the biblical canon before and after Nicaea. For example, even lists from pro-Nicaean fathers such as Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. AD 350) and Athanasius of Alexandria (ca. AD 367) don’t agree on the inclusion of Revelation. None of the early records from the council, nor eyewitness attendees (Eusebius or Athanasius, for example), mentions any conciliar decision that established the canon. In the preface to his Latin translation of Judith, Jerome wrote: But since the Nicene Council is considered (legitur lit. “is read”) to have counted this book among the number of sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request (or should I say demand!). Could Jerome be referring to a formal decision to include Judith in the canon? That’s unlikely. The earliest adopters of Nicene orthodoxy—from Athanasius to Gregory of Nazianzus to Hilary of Poitiers to Jerome himself—don’t include Judith in their canon lists. If a decision was made at Nicaea on the canonicity of Judith, the earliest adopters would’ve listed it among the canonical books. But they don’t. Rather, Jerome is probably describing discussions in which some fathers may have referred to Judith as scriptural. In any case, these discussions didn’t end in a formal conciliar decision on the canon’s boundaries. It seems Jerome’s statement, though, was later misunderstood to say that Nicaea decided on the canon, which leads us to the rest of the story. Nicaea and the Canon in Legend The source of this idea appears in a late-ninth-century Greek manuscript called the Synodicon Vetus, which purports to summarize the decisions of Greek councils up to that time (see pages 2–4 here). Andreas Darmasius brought this manuscript from Morea in the 16th century. John Pappus edited and published it in 1601 in Strasburg. Here’s the relevant section: The council made manifest the canonical and apocryphal books in the following manner: placing them by the side of the divine table in the house of God, they prayed, entreating the Lord that the divinely inspired books might be found upon the table, and the spurious ones underneath; and it so happened. According to this source, the church has its canon because of a miracle that occurred at Nicaea in which the Lord caused the canonical books to stay on the table and the apocryphal or spurious ones to be found underneath. From Pappus’s edition of the Synodicon Vetus, this quotation circulated and was cited (sometimes as coming from Pappus himself, not the Greek manuscript he edited!), and eventually found its way into the work of prominent thinkers such as Voltaire (1694–1778). In volume 3 of his Philosophical Dictionary (English translation here) under “Councils” (sec. I), he writes: It was by an expedient nearly similar, that the fathers of the same council distinguished the authentic from the apocryphal books of Scripture. Having placed them altogether upon the altar, the apocryphal books fell to the ground of themselves. A little later in section III, Voltaire adds: We have already said, that in the supplement to the Council of Nice it is related that the fathers, being much perplexed to find out which were the authentic and which the apocryphal books of the Old and the New Testament, laid them all upon an altar, and the books which they were to reject fell to the ground. What a pity that so fine an ordeal has been lost! Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: Voltaire earlier mentions that Constantine convened the council. At Nicaea, then, the fathers distinguished the canonical from the apocryphal books by prayer and a miracle. The publication of Pappus’s 1601 edition of Synodicon Vetus—and the subsequent citing of the miracle at Nicaea, especially by Voltaire in his Dictionary—appears to be the reason Dan Brown could narrate the events so colorfully and why many others continue to perpetuate this legend. Matter of Authority The church no more gave us [the] canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. As our culture becomes increasingly secular, many will continue to cast doubt on the Bible’s origins and especially on early Christianity’s role in the canon’s formation. Although the history of the canon is a bit messy at junctures, there is no evidence it was established by a few Christian bishops and churches convened at Nicaea in 325. Christians need to prepare their minds for action in this age and confidently assert that the biblical canon is the work of God, recognized by churches over many years’ time. In the vivid words of J. I. Packer, “The church no more gave us [the] canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity.” This article was originally published at The Gospel Coalition.
Welcome to Our Brand-New Website With this new website, we plan to tell the story of how we got the Bible for those at all levels of understanding. Peter J. Gurry and John D. MeadeAs the directors of the Text & Canon Institute at Phoenix Seminary, it’s our pleasure to welcome you to our brand-new website. In line with our mission, we’ve designed it to be a place with engaging content that illuminates the history of the world’s most amazing book, the Bible. Here you’ll find new articles every month on subjects covering the textual history of the Bible, its canonization, translation, and more—all written by those with expertise in their fields. To help readers with different levels of knowledge, we’ve further organized articles as either beginner, intermediate, or advanced. So, whether you’re a layperson, a student, pastor, or teacher, you should be able to find what you need. You can also learn about our upcoming events like Academic Colloquia and our Scribes & Scripture conferences. If you’re a student, you may also be interested in our TCI Fellowship, which mentors aspiring Christian academics and provides a generous scholarship for Phoenix Seminary’s ThM program. Finally, if you want to receive new articles in your inbox and keep up to date with news and events, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: We hope this new resource inspires you to read and treasure the greatest book ever written.
Borrowing from the KJV Bank and Trust Why we must steward and protect the trust people have in prominent Bible translations. Mark WardI want all good evangelical English Bible translations to be trusted and used by all good English-speaking evangelicals. And I think you should want this, too. It makes sense, then, to look to the most popular English Bible of all time for lessons in how a translation might win and keep Bible readers’ trust. That is, of course, the King James Version. The KJV is the one ring to rule them all. There is no escaping its influence—on church history, on Bible translation, on the English language itself. But Rings of Power often get shrouded in hagiographic mist over time. According to a recent poll, 103% of English-speaking Christians believe that the KJV was created on the sixth day and brought over to America on the Mayflower on the seventh. A huge number of English-speaking Christians still use and trust the King James. Okay, that isn’t true. But this is: the most recent reliable poll found that 55% of American Bible readers are still reading the KJV. A huge number of English-speaking Christians still use and trust the King James. And yet, there was when the King James was not. It had to be made by humans, just like today’s translations. There were no angel choirs singing in the sky at its birth (and the Pilgrims carried the Geneva Bible, not the KJV). The KJV had to achieve its status. There are therefore a number of useful lessons we can learn about public trust in Bible translations from the human history of the excellent King James Version. 1. Plan for cavils and parles. First, those who love good English Bible translations today—the ESV, CSB, NIV, NET, NLT, LEB, NKJV, and others—should take heart: even the venerable KJV once faced vituperative opposition. It’s odd, actually, to read the KJV preface, “The Translators to the Reader,” because it opens in what might seem to us to be an unnecessarily defensive crouch. Its author, Myles Smith, is certain people will attack his and his fellow translators’ work. There isn’t much space to read between Smith’s rather dense lines, but I see there a resigned, elite-academic sigh. Smith has no idea he has helped forge the one ring. By sentence two, he is offering this biting prediction: Cavil, if it do not find a hole, will make one.1David Norton, ed., The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version, Revised edition, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), xxvii–xxviii. Page numbers for future quotations of the preface will be given in parentheses. The KJV translators foresaw the inane criticisms (“cavils”) they were about to face, and yet I can’t exactly point to them as examples of how to respond with grace—I don’t hear in Smith much noblesse oblige. He calls out his critics’ “absurdity,” “wickedness,” “envy,” and “malignity.” And listen to this cynical complaint: He that meddleth with men’s religion in any part meddleth with their custom, nay, with their freehold [money-producing land]; and though they find no content in that which they have, yet they cannot abide to hear of altering [it]. (xix) But I actually take some consolation from the mere fact that Smith felt he had to defend the KJV. The malicious treatment that current English Bible translators often get today is not an invention of the social media era. Apparently, it can be overcome. The KJV translators do offer this constructive tip: Being brought together to a parle [conference] face to face, we sooner compose our differences than by writings, which are endless. (xvii) New Bible translations, if they are to be trusted, have to be ready to suffer slings and arrows from outraged Bible readers. And they have to win some of those people over with parles. 2. The KJV is the Septuagint of today. A second lesson we can learn from the KJV translators comes from the insightful comments they make about one of the only Bible translations in history that is more famous than the KJV. This is the Septuagint, the pre-Christian Greek translation of the (Hebrew) Old Testament. The lesson might go something like this: the trust people have in a prominent Bible translation must be carefully stewarded and protected. The KJV translators were not overly enamored with the accuracy and quality of the Septuagint: It is certain that that translation was not so sound and so perfect but that it needed in many places correction. (xxii) They noted that the coming of the New Testament was a perfect time for God to fix the Septuagint’s problems. Whenever Jesus and the apostles quoted it, they could have adjusted it. But they often didn’t. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to them to take that which they found (the same being for the greatest part true and sufficient), rather than by making a new, in that new world and green age of the Church, to expose themselves to many exceptions and cavillations, as though they made a translation to serve their own turn. (xxii) The KJV is the Septuagint of today. In general, the safest path to widespread trust is through it. The KJV established a tradition (begun by William Tyndale) of basically literal and beautifully literary translation choices, a tradition that has proven its utility over time. In general, the safest path to widespread trust is through it. While I happen to think that the New International Version is a fine work by fine scholars, and while I use the NIV frequently, it hasn’t hewed as closely to the KJV tradition as a few of the other major modern evangelical English Bible translations. I don’t think there is any kind of biblical requirement that we stick with precedent here; if Christians in your context trust the New International Version, then you have a new and useful tradition worth holding on to. But when it came time for a choice in my own congregation, I found that I was a member of the if-it-ain’t-broke school of Bible translation selection. We now use an English translation that is a more direct heir of the KJV—it was simply an easier sell in my circumstances to borrow from the KJV Bank & Trust. 3. Make the KJV translators thank you. That, in fact, is very like what the KJV translators did in their day. Hence a third lesson: the KJV translators successfully replaced the work of their forebears without disdaining it. I said earlier that Myles Smith wasn’t exactly gentle with his imagined critics. But he was nothing but gracious toward those who went before him in the work of English Bible translation. As nothing is begun and perfected at the same time, and the latter thoughts are thought to be the wiser: so, if we building upon their foundation that went before us, and being helped by their labours, do endeavour to make that better which they left so good, no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike us; they, we persuade ourselves, if they were alive, would thank us. (xxvii) There are defenders of exclusive use of the King James Version who take even the gentlest question (Hasn’t English changed enough by now to make portions of the KJV unnecessarily difficult for today’s readers to understand?) as an affront. But it seems to me that if indeed it is time for the English-speaking church to replace the KJV in pulpits and other institutional contexts, pastors and others who must make this change would do well to speak well of the KJV—to refuse to let those defenders lay sole claim to its legacy. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: The KJV translators were not KJV-Only. It is actually those who wish to see the venerable King James revised who are most honoring the KJV tradition. The KJV itself wasn’t a fresh translation; it was a revision of the Bishop’s Bible, first released in 1568. The edition of the KJV that is now in the most common use was produced in 1769 (not 1611). The KJV translators were revisers, and they were sensitive to the charge that revising a translation meant rejecting or even disrespecting that earlier work. They loaded up the metaphors to explain their revision work to non-specialists: It took the work of both Gideon and of the men Ephraim to destroy Midian in Judges 8: both were called for. Likewise, translation and revision are both necessary. (xxvii) Joash struck the ground three times in 2 Kings 13; he should have struck it more. (xxvii) “Books of profane learning” such as Aristotle’s Ethics get translated and then revised—even multiple times. (xxvii) Gold doesn’t stop being gold because it needs at times to be “rubbed and polished.” (xxvii) They did not disdain the work of their forebears. We should not disdain theirs even as we the church begin to use KJV revisions and replacements. Conclusion Some aspects of the KJV’s rise to prominence are unrepeatable, especially 1) the tiny size of the English-speaking world at the time and 2) the fact that pretty well all of it was subject to the king who commissioned the translation. That will never happen again. I am convinced that there will never again be one ring to rule them all. Instead we’ve got something not quite so stirring, though you can still try using a movie-trailer announcer voice to say it: multiple rings with complementary and overlapping powers. It’s a bad idea, then, to take a Bible translation that people trust such as the KJV and cast it into Mount Doom. There is room for many rings. And we can have and use them if we learn some lessons about trust from the wise KJV translators.Notes1David Norton, ed., The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version, Revised edition, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), xxvii–xxviii. Page numbers for future quotations of the preface will be given in parentheses.
Why Are There Four Gospels in the Bible? Despite tales of conspiracy, there are good historical and theological reasons why the Church recognized four—and only four—Gospels. C. E. HillIn 2006, the world was presented with a newly-discovered, ancient Gospel – one that was excluded from the Christian Bible and thought to have been lost. The excitement in many quarters was palpable. “This changes the history of early Christianity,” one scholar announced. “This is big,” exclaimed another, who went on to predict, “A lot of people are going to be upset.” One and a half decades later, the tidal wave of media hype has died down to a faint and distant ripple. The Gospel of Judas has not changed the history of early Christianity, and perhaps the only people who are upset are those who are upset precisely because the Gospel of Judas did not change the history of early Christianity. Still, the republication of this long-lost Gospel reminds us that there were once more Gospels than just our familiar four. How is it that these four and only these four made it into our Bibles? The Most Direct Path to an Answer There are multiple paths we might take towards an answer to this question, and a very great deal has been written about it. But perhaps the best and most direct path to an understanding of why the Church has these four and only these four Gospels is simply to read them, and then read every known alternative, and let the books have their say. I suspect that most people will find what the church as a whole has confessed for a very long time, namely, that it is the portrait of Jesus that these four Gospels present, it is the life-giving message they bear, that sets these four apart from all the others. The most direct path to understanding why the Church has these four Gospels is to let the books have their say. Admittedly, this method may not sound the most scholarly, the most “objective,” or historically-grounded. Most peoples’ ideas of Jesus, one could argue, have already been formed at least to some degree by the familiar four Gospels, and so, comparing the contents of alternative Gospels could turn out to be simply an exercise in bias confirmation. Many, then, would insist we focus on the historical attestation. Their Historical Attestation If we do so, we shall find that while other Gospels were known, and very occasionally cited, in the early period (let’s say, up to the end of the second century), no other Gospel approaches any of the four in terms of its early appearance, its breadth of early geographical distribution, or in the consensus of voices recognizing its truth or Scriptural status. And no, it is not even close. This is not to say that no other Gospels besides these four were ever read. Some Gospels seem to have had a regional popularity, or a popularity with only certain groups. The Gospel of Peter is known in the east, but Irenaeus in the west, who made a collection of “alternative” books, shows no awareness of it. Irenaeus, on the other hand, knows the Gospel of Judas (probably a version of the one that was republished in 2006), but no other early, surviving source even mentions it. What’s more, most if not all of the other Gospels appear to be dependent upon one or more of the four. Some, like the Gospel of Thomas, advertised themselves as proffering “secret words” of Jesus, thus tacitly acknowledging that there were more “public words” already widely known to Christians. Nor is it simply that, by counting the raw numbers of Gospel citations or allusions in the second century, we can identify a clear “top four.” Why not take the top two, or the top five? The reason is much more telling. From at least sometime around the middle of that century, if not before, four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are viewed as forming a natural unit, to be read and interpreted together as a group, all ultimately coming from God. This is the notion of a “fourfold Gospel.” The author of the late second-century composition now known as the Muratorian Fragment, for instance, is not bothered by differences among the four, “since by the one sovereign Spirit all things have been declared in all [the Gospels]” (lines 19–20). This conviction of a four-Gospel canon even produced at least three “customized,” material innovations: Gospel Harmonies, Gospel Synopses, and Four-Gospel Codices. First, around 170–175, a man named Tatian created what was, as far as we know, the earliest “Gospel Harmony,” known as the Diatessaron, which attempted to combine the contents of all four into a single narrative. Some scholars assume that Tatian intended to replace the fourfold Gospel with his synthetic composition. If so, his effort still assumes the existence of a fourfold Gospel. But that this was Tatian’s intention is far from certain. Some Christians used Tatian’s tome as an aid to studying the life of Jesus, alongside and without prejudice to the four separate Gospels. Second, we know of an attempt in the third century to create a Gospel synopsis based on these same four Gospels. Ammonius of Alexandria constructed a book with four columns, the first with the continuous text of Matthew, the other three with the parallel passages from the other Gospels. In the fourth century, Eusebius of Caesarea used this tool to create a set of tables listing the Gospel parallels, accompanied by the first set of “cross-references” placed in the margins of the Gospel texts. Eusebius’s ingenious cross-referencing system for the Gospels depended upon the widespread adoption of a third specialized, information-technology innovation that had taken place much earlier: the four-Gospel codex. The advancing technology of the codex eventually made it possible to bind all four together in a single volume. Interestingly, never do we find any of the four bound together with any other Gospel. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: We cannot say precisely when the fourfold Gospel canon idea took hold. But before the end of the second century, the Muratorian Fragment (probably from Italy), Irenaeus in Gaul, Clement in Alexandria, and Tertullian in Carthage all know a fourfold Gospel collection, with the same four Gospels. This argues for a reception much earlier in the second century. But why, we may ask, did these four seem to form a natural cohort? Why did Christians receive them as a unit, a “canon?” Part of the answer has to do with their unique origins. Their Unique Origins For more on this question, see Dr. Hill’s book Who Chose the Gospels? Jesus, of course, never predicted that there would be four and only four authoritative Gospels. But he did, you might say, set a natural limit on the number of authoritative Gospels that could be written. He did this by calling and commissioning a limited number of people to be his authorized witnesses, his apostles, to speak in his name. The four Gospels now in our Bibles were received by the church as the direct fruit of the apostolic mission—written either by apostles themselves or by their personal assistants. And this is tantamount to saying that they were received as the ones Jesus had authorized, even as the ones the Old Testament prophets had pre-authorized! The Old Testament Scriptures, of course, promised a messianic deliverer for Israel and the world. These same Scriptures also predicted that a message of deliverance would result from his appearance. “In the latter days,” good news would travel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem…” (Isa. 2:2–3; Mic. 4:1–2; cf. also Isa. 52:7). This very passage, among others, may have been in Jesus’ mind when on the day of his resurrection he said the Scriptures predicted that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47; see also Acts 1:8). How would this prophesied, good-news mission come about? It began in earnest when Jesus told his apostles on that same day, “you are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48), and then weeks later appointed them to “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). In other words, the prophesied new “law and the word of the Lord” flowed from Jerusalem to the world as the result of Jesus authorizing a small band of apostles to speak in his name (Luke 10:16), to hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:19; 18:18), and to lay the foundation (Rom. 15:20; 1 Cor. 3:10–12), and even to become the foundation on which he would build his church (spoken first to Peter in Matt. 16:18; but extending to all the apostles in Eph. 2:20; Rev. 21:14). The unique and unrepeatable role of the apostles, to receive the true gospel from Jesus and then to deliver it in oral and written form to the church—to lay the foundation for the church—was widely recognized in the early church (see, e.g., 1 Clement 42.1–2; Polycarp, To the Philippians 6.3; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.9). The apostles all died, but their authoritative witness still endures, in the writings they left to the church. The apostles all died, but their authoritative witness still endures, in the writings they left to the church. To remain faithful to that original apostolic mission, the church must carry out its ministry by constantly conforming itself to that written deposit. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were received as constituent elements of the permanent, apostolic legacy from very early on. The unique origins of these Gospels and their continual use in the church from the time they were published explain why their early attestation far surpasses that of any others. Their Self-Authenticating Power But there is one final aspect of the explanation for a “fourfold Gospel,” and it is the one I suggested could give us the “most direct path” to the answer: the self-authenticating power of these Gospels themselves. In the 160s, Justin testified that Jesus’ words (which he knew from these Gospels) “possess a certain awe in themselves, and are able to put to shame those who turn aside from the straight path; while the sweetest rest is afforded those who diligently practice them” (Dial. 8.2). Over and over again, the confession of Peter as recorded in the Gospel of John has been echoed by individuals and churches as they encounter the Jesus of the four Gospels: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68–69). In these four Gospels the church has heard the voice of its Shepherd, as he said they would (John 10:27).
Why Are Protestant and Catholic Bibles Different? Knowledge of the Bible’s history clears away the caricatures and misinformation swirling around this common question. John D. MeadeWhy do Catholic Bibles contain more books than Protestant ones? Few questions provoke more curiosity (and angst) about the history of the Bible than why and how the two major western branches of Christianity have different books in the Book. The Roman Catholic Bible has 73 books, while the Protestant Bible contains 66. Both groups claim the Bible functions as their authority for doctrine, though admittedly in different ways. That is, Protestants and Catholics claim the Bible is their canon or authority for faith and morals. Before we can understand how each group reads their Bible, we need to learn the differences between the bibles they read. To do that, we will detail the major differences, describe the history of the canon, and then show why the question matters. The Differences Catholics and Protestants have the same 27-book New Testament. Thus, the differences between their Bibles concerns the boundaries of the Old Testament canon. In short, Catholics have 46 books, while Protestants have 39. Thus, Catholics have seven more books and also some additions within shared books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus / Sirach / Ben Sira, 1–2 Maccabees, Baruch, and the additions to Daniel and Esther. Protestants call these books collectively, “the Apocrypha,” while Catholics refer to them as “the Deuterocanon.” Here, “Deuterocanon” does not mean second in authority but second only in reception in time. The Protestant Old Testament agrees with the narrower contents of the Hebrew canon (though not the ordering and numbering of books), while the Catholic Old Testament contains these same books plus the deuterocanonical books. How the Different Canons Arose At the start, several simplistic answers need to be avoided. These include the notion that Protestants removed books from the Bible or that Roman Catholics finally published their Bible pure and simple at the Council of Trent. As we will see, the Old Testament’s history from the beginning of the Christian era to the 16th century was quite complex. One must understand the early history of the relationship of the canon to these other books before making sweeping statements about what happened in the 16th century. Early Christian History (100–400 AD) Early Christians answered the question “What is the Old Testament?” differently as they recognized the voice of their Shepherd in the Jewish writings that remained. Jesus and the Apostles did not leave behind a list of authoritative books for the earliest church, and there were various spiritually significant books and different opinions about them. The complete Greek Bible codices of the fourth century (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus) contained many of the deuterocanonical books alongside the others. They were integrated alongside the rest of the Old Testament. Christians were clearly copying and reading these books. Whether they considered them as having authority or not is a separate question, as we will see. Furthermore, in the third century, Christians began to cite the deuterocanonical books as “scripture.” Clearly, they considered these works important. Although the New Testament and second-century authors never cite the deuterocanonical books as scripture, they do allude to them, showing awareness of them. (See, for example, the allusion to the Jewish martyrs of 2 Maccabees 6–7 in Heb. 11:35.) Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: But Paul’s statement in Romans 3:2, “the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God,” probably led many early Christians to conclude that the church’s Old Testament canon should match the Jewish canon. The earliest, second- and third-century lists of Melito of Sardis, Bryennios list, Origen of Alexandria, and the fourth-century Greek lists (e.g., Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus) omitted almost all of the deuterocanonical books (e.g., some still included Baruch as part of Jeremiah).1For these lists and more in original languages and English translation see Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). These Christians and others beside did not outright reject the deuterocanonical books. Rather, they considered them useful for believers to read for edification, but not authoritative for doctrine. That is, their first-tier-canonical books established doctrine for the church, while second-tier-readable books illustrated piety for believers. That is a crucial distinction that is sometimes lost today. First-tier books established doctrine while second-tier books illustrated piety for believers. However, in the Latin West, another development was underway. Instead of asking whether a book was part of the Jewish canon, some early Christians accepted a book into the canon if the churches read and received that book. Augustine of Hippo and Pope Innocent I, for example, clearly accepted the deuterocanonical books based on this consideration. But other Latin Christians such as Jerome of Stridon and Rufinus of Aquileia continued to promote the narrower canon, placing the deuterocanonical books in a secondary list of edificatory books that did not establish church doctrine. Related Illustrations by Peter Gurry. Photos from iStock and Insight of the King How Can You Know We Have the Right Books in the Bible?Any study of the canon must eventually ask how Christians know which books belong and which don’t. Michael J. Kruger What this short survey shows is that fourth-century Christians were divided over the criteria for the Old Testament canon. Based on the canon lists, most Christians would have followed the Hebrew canon criterion for determining what belonged in their own. But others determined the Christian Old Testament by looking at what books the churches were reading in public and accepting. The two views agreed on the Hebrew canon but disagreed on the status of the deuterocanonical books with some relegating them to a secondary, edificatory status and others integrating them with the rest of the books. The issue was still debated in the early Reformation period and into the period of the Roman Catholic response in the Council of Trent (1546). Reformation Period and Council of Trent Although the Council of Florence around 1445 included a list of Old Testament books that incorporated the deuterocanonical books, the list did not have dogmatic definition. This means that Catholics before the Council of Trent were still debating the Old Testament canon in different ways. For example, Cardinal Ximénes (best known for his role as Grand Inquisitor), Cardinal Cajetan (known for his role as reviewer of Martin Luther’s teachings at the Diet of Augsburg in 1518), and the great Catholic scholar Erasmus would have probably agreed with the early Protestants on the contents of the Old Testament and the distinction between the canonical books and the edificatory deuterocanonical books. But other Catholic theologians were persuaded that Pope Innocent, Pope Eugenius, and the Council of Florence among others included the deuterocanonical books in the canon. When the Council of Trent convened in 1546 to discuss the matter of the canon of scripture, they committed to printing the list of books of the Council of Florence, but they did not believe they were settling once and for all the debate between Augustine and Jerome—a live debate at the time between Humanist and Protestant scholars on the one hand and Catholics on the other. But when the council published its decree on the canon, the text did not clearly reflect this live debate. Instead, it came with an unqualified list of books that included the deuterocanonical books on the same tier as the other books. But the minutes and papers of the Council of Trent’s meetings suggest a different story. They show that the theologians and church leaders believed they were not settling the long-held debate over the deuterocanonical books despite the fact that their decree published the wider list of books without any qualification or explanation. As one recent Catholic historian says, “In this case at least, the council itself must be held responsible for the misunderstanding.”2John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 92. From this point forward, Catholic apologists, who should have known better, began to defend this canon as part of Roman Catholic identity. For their part, Protestants also understood Trent’s decision as a way to include the deuterocanonical books that supported some of their doctrinal positions. In 1566, Roman Catholic theologian, Sixtus of Sienna, coined the term “Deuterocanonical” to describe these books together with a few others that Christians would not call Deuterocanonical today (e.g., Revelation). By “Deuterocanonical,” Sixtus means second in time of reception—not second in authority and dignity. These books were slower to be received into the church’s canon of scripture, and therefore he called them deuterocanonical, while Protestants continued to call these books “Apocrypha,” clearly preserving the ancient distinction between them and the canonical books. Do the Differences Matter? As early as 1519, the differences between these canons could be felt. At a debate in Leipzig, Martin Luther and Catholic Johann Maier von Eck debated the doctrine of purgatory and the role of indulgences among other issues. As Luther questioned the scriptural authority for purgatory, he noted that 2 Maccabees 12:43–45 might offer some opinion, but “since Maccabees is not in the canon,” it is only effective for the faithful and does not furnish such authority. Only books in the canon could establish doctrine. If a book’s canonical status was disputed, as all the deuterocanonical books were, then it was not a sufficient authority. In this, Luther was appealing to Jerome’s view. In 1547, one year after Trent’s decree on the canon, John Calvin in his Antidote argued that the leaders at Trent “provide themselves with new supports when they give full authority to the Apocryphal books. Out of the second of the Maccabees they will prove Purgatory and the worship of saints; out of Tobit satisfactions, exorcisms, and what not. From Ecclesiasticus they will borrow not a little. For from whence could they better draw their dregs?”3From Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters: Volume 3: Tracts, Part 3, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet (Edinburgh; Calvin Translation Society, 1851; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 68. These early Protestants understood clearly that the Apocryphal books taught different doctrines than the canonical books, and once the Roman Catholic Church lent full authority to them, many of their teachings could then find full support too. Clearly, the differences between the two canons are not trivial. Canon means authority, and thus, an authoritative support for the church’s teachings. Clearly, the differences between the two canons are not trivial. Canon means authority, and thus, an authoritative support for the church’s teachings. Conclusion Today, because of the different canons, Catholics and Protestants have different scriptural authorities. Opening up the history of the matter shows that Catholics at Trent did not think they were solving the canon debate or publishing the Catholic Bible once and for all, even if the decree had that effect. Similarly, the history of the matter shows that Protestants were not removing books from the Bible, for their canon was not only traditional but, in so far as it cohered with the Hebrew canon, actually had the more ancient precedent. Knowledge of the Bible’s history clears away the caricatures and misinformation swirling around this question. This article is also available in Polish.Notes1For these lists and more in original languages and English translation see Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).2John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 92.3From Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters: Volume 3: Tracts, Part 3, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet (Edinburgh; Calvin Translation Society, 1851; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 68.