 |
Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms |
|
|
|
The problem of the divisions in early Christianity raises a further question:
why can't we just turn to the New Testament to resolve outstanding issues which were confusing in early Christianity?
This is the instinctive reaction of many Christians, especially Protestants.
Answer for yourself: Isn't the New Testament precisely such a guide for anyone needing clarification?
There are several reasons why doing this does not work:
All this could be overlooked, perhaps, if early Christianity were otherwise a unified, coherent movement; but early Christianity was anything but unified and coherent, as we have already seen.
The New Testament can easily be invoked for support of countless mutually contradictory explanations of Jesus. As a result, even those seeking to interpret the Bible literally often come to a completely different understanding of what that literal interpretation is. On the basis of the Bible, some Christians are pacifist, while others support war; some support capital punishment, others oppose it; some accept alcohol, while others do not; some allow divorce, some allow divorce only in cases of adultery and some do not allow divorce at all; and so on. Each viewpoint can cite its favorite verses or interpretations. Fundamentalists may object that the New Testament is complete and consistent and provides a reliable guide for life and religion; but if this is the case, it is hard to explain all the contradictions among the fundamentalists themselves.
To the impartial reader it is obvious that many different ideas are at play; centuries of exegesis designed to harmonize the New Testament writings cannot overturn the problems that lurk there. John Dominic Crossan, author of several books about Jesus, points out that we can construct almost any picture of Jesus we want to by selecting the "right" texts. Jesus can be shown "to be for or against legal observance, for or against apocalyptic expectation, for or against Gentile mission, for or against Temple worship, for or against titular claim, for or against political revolt, and so on" (Quoted in Dart, The Jesus of Heresy and History, p. 156).
But even putting this aside, the New Testament would be a poor guide to historical reality. The New Testament is highly selective; gospels that did not meet with the approval of the early church were eliminated. Due to the twentieth-century discoveries at Nag Hammadi, we now know what the New Testament might have looked like if history had turned out a bit differently. As diverse as the New Testament is, it pales in comparison with the diversity of the range of views held by significant numbers of the followers of Jesus just within the first century after Jesus. It should not be necessary to repeat the statement of Hans-Joachim Schoeps that the New Testament "must surely be regarded as a tendentious, contrived product of the second century" (Schoeps, Jewish Christianity, p. 3), or Robert Funk's conclusion that the New Testament is "a highly uneven and biased record of various early attempts to invent Christianity" (Funk, Honest to Jesus, p. 314).
Moreover, it may be next to impossible to fully reconstruct what the original texts of even the "approved" New Testament books said. Helmut Koester reminds us that the oldest known manuscripts of parts of the New Testament are over a century later than the presumed original versions; and it is precisely in the first century when the most serious corruptions of the texts (changes, additions, and deletions) are likely to have occurred. Koester concludes that "textual critics of the New Testament writings have been surprisingly naive in this respect" (Koester, op. cit. note 2, p. 19).
Even within the sphere of the orthodox there was disagreement as to which books should be included. The Muratorian canon, based on a manuscript thought to originate as early as the third century, fails to include Hebrews, I Peter, II Peter, one of the letters of John, and James, all of which are in the modern New Testament; it does include, however, the Apocalypse of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon, which ultimately were not included. Some writers even attacked the Gospel of John in reaction to the Montanist heresy, a heresy with strong apocalyptical and pentecostal elements (Funk, op. cit. note 6, p. 113). It was not until the fourth century, with Athanasius, that someone mentions the exact twenty-seven books that now constitute the New Testament. But Eusebius, who lived about the same time, describes the books of James, Jude, II Peter, II John, and III John as disputed (James and Jude are mentioned as disputed in Ecclesiastical History 2.23.25; II Peter , at 3.3.1; and II and III John, at 3.24.17), indicating that even at this late date there is still some considerable debate going on.
Bet Emet Ministries has detailed the confusion and constant disagreement, even murder, that occurred over the centuries as the Canon of the New Testament was argued into completion. The sad fact of these horrific details are at another website: http://geocities.com/faithofyeshua
Even as late as the Reformation, Martin Luther objected to the inclusion of the letter of James in the New Testament; and Catholics and Protestants disagree to this day over the Apocrypha.
This short introductory article is not a detailed attempt to determine either what the canon should have been, or to determine which of the sayings of Jesus (or the "logia", or the Ancient Wisdom taught through the Jewish Christ has he spoke through the Prophets in Israel) from the canonical or other gospels are "authentic." We do this on the website above. Our task is both more humble and more fundamental. It is more humble, because evaluation of all New Testament and other texts for authenticity is completely beyond the scope of this website; we have done that at another site. But it is more fundamental, because it establishes the framework within which any discussion of the turths and facts about the historical Jesus must take place: the history of Christianity.
Answer for yourself: For if we do not understand the basic context and history of his teaching, how can we hope to ever understand the exact words?
The New Testament provides important evidence about the historical Jesus and the history of early Christianity. Please pay attention at my next comment for it is possibly one of the most important facts that I can ever relate to you.
The New Testament cannot be taken simply at face value: it is a highly edited, inconsistent document put together to support the viewpoint of a single party in early Christianity, namely the victorious party. It is the outcome of early Christian history not just a record of it.
The starting point of historical Jesus research is history; we must first establish the historical context of the Jewish Christ and his mission and message as filtered through the Jewish nation. We believe that this website along with other others can establish this historical context and its importance for both the Jew as well as the "non-Jew" as followers of the Jewish Christ.