The Evangelical Universalist Forum

A New New Testament (and canon addition feasibility)

Theology Biblical Theology
#1

Over the past century, numerous lost scriptures have been discovered, authenticated, translated, debated, celebrated. Many of these documents were as important to shaping early-Christian communities and beliefs as what we have come to call the New Testament; these were not the work of shunned sects or rebel apostles, not alternative histories or doctrines, but part of the vibrant conversations that sparked the rise of Christianity. Yet these scriptures are rarely read in contemporary churches; they are discussed nearly only by scholars or within a context only of gnostic gospels. Why should these books be set aside? Why should they continue to be lost to most of us? And don’t we have a great deal to gain by placing them back into contact with the twenty-seven books of the traditional New Testament—by hearing, finally, the full range of voices that formed the early chorus of Christians?

To create this New New Testament, Hal Taussig called together a council of scholars and spiritual leaders to discuss and reconsider which books belong in the New Testament. They talked about these recently found documents, the lessons therein, and how they inform the previously bound books. They voted on which should be added, choosing ten new books to include in A New New Testament. Reading the traditional scriptures alongside these new texts—the Gospel of Luke with the Gospel of Mary, Paul’s letters with The Letter of Peter to Philip, The Revelation to John with The Secret Revelation to John—offers the exciting possibility of understanding both the new and the old better. This new reading, and the accompanying commentary in this volume, promises to reinvigorate a centuries-old conversation and to bring new relevance to a dynamic tradition.

#2

The additional books added are:

The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Mary
The Gospel of Truth
The Odes of Solomon I
The Odes of Solomon II
The Odes of Solomon III
The Odes of Solomon IV
The Prayer of Thanksgiving.
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
The Acts of Paul and Thecla
The Letter of Peter to Philip
The Secret Revelation of John

Many of these books were rejected by the early church.

Steve

#3

Thanks Steve

#4

Many of these so-called “lost scriptures” are actually gnostic writings. Many of them were forgeries, supposedly written by one of the apostles. They can give a very warped view of Jesus. For example, here is chapter 3 of The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This “gospel” supposedly relates incidents in which Jesus was involved as a child, often in relation to other children.

Chapter 4 records Jesus as having killed another child in a fit of anger:

However, there is at least one writing that I think should have been in the New Testament. Shortly after Paul and Peter’s death, Clement (believed to be that Clement who was Paul’s fellow helper (Phillipians 4:3) and who later became an overseer in the church at Rome) wrote a powerful letter to the Corinthians warning them the results of allowing the overseers whom God had established being forced out of their positions by young upstarts who replaced them. Clement warns them, telling them what happened to rebels against the authorities that God had set in the days of the ancient Hebrews, such as the earth opening and swallowing them up, etc. The early Christians read from this long letter in their assemblies.

Clement’s letter to the Corinthians may be read here:

ewtn.com/library/patristc/anf1-1.htm

#5

Oh, one other point. We should not be led astray by particular chapter headings.
Chapter 40 is entitled “Let us preserve in the Church the Order Appointed by God” and 41 as “Continuation of the Same Subject”.
But actually these chapters are not about the order of the Church at all, but the order of leaders under the Old Covenant! Clement contrasts this with “The Order of Ministers in the Church”, the title of chapter 42 (Here the title is correct).

#6

I agree. Clement’s writings are powerful. His virgin epistle is remarkable. I believe Clement also wrote (compiled) the Constitutions of the Apostles, which I think is the most astounding set of books ever (outside of the bible). *Recognitions of Clement *is also extremely valuable for the history of gnosticism (or its founder - Simon Magus). I also think that the *Shepherd of Hermas *is a worthy book. It was my first introduction to universalism; and it was also part of the earliest complete canons found.

Steve

#7

Clement the fellow helper of Paul, who is believed to have written the letter to the Corinthians, lived from 30 A.D. to 100 A.D. That was a bit early to have written or complied the Apostolic Constitutions, which has been dated 375-380 A.D.

Here is part of an article about the Constitutions from Wikipedia:

#8

The main problem with Clement of Rome, is that most of his works are forged or heavily interpolated. The legitimate epistle would be interesting to include in the NT canon – I don’t know why it wouldn’t be, actually, since as the bishop of Rome soon after Peter he would have had at least as much connection to apostolic witness and authority as Mark, Luke (author of 1/4 of the canon by himself), the author of Hebrews (if that wasn’t John Mark), or Jude. Too many of the works attributed to him were spurious, or the text wasn’t used widely enough, for bishops later to feel comfortable (compared to Jude???) leaving it on the list I guess.

(Edited to add: does the Ethiopian Orthodox Church include it? I didn’t know they included a modified portion of the Apostolic Constitutions.)

Clement’s EpistCorinth would make a curious addition to the canon, not least because it would provide more fuel for the ECT/Anni/Kath debates. (The epistle contains statements picked up by proponents on all sides: Rufinius, the Latin apologist for Origen, reminded Jerome once his friend face-turned against Origen, that they both knew Clement of Rome taught Christian universalism, citing a suggestive portion of EpistCor to prove that, whatever Clement’s language might have been elsewhere, he didn’t mean to be talking about hopeless punishments!)

As for ANNT, I trod upon it back around Easter this year, in my not-a-review over at the Cadre, although actual scholars like Dan Wallace did so rather more thoroughly. Links at the link.

A sample of my not-review:

#9

I know many today regard the Constitutions as a later work. I do not. I think there is ample evidence (for me) to suggest that it is an authentic work compiled by Clement.

Jason’s concern is correct; many of Clements works were interpolated - as were most of the earliest fathers. I think it is possible to discover the original writings, though, by a critical comparison of the available texts. Gnostic and early christian interferences are not difficult to identify (IMO).

Steve

#10

Of what work are you aware other than his letter to the Corinthians? I know of no other. His so-called “second letter” was not even written by him.

What evidence do you have that ANY of Clement’s letter to the Corinthians has been interpolated?

#11

:confused: None at all, or I wouldn’t have wondered why it isn’t canon. My guess was that there were so many other spurious works purportedly by Clement that the ancient bishops did not feel comfortable acknowledging EpistCor as canon, possibly also combined with a relative lack of widespread usage of the epistle (although I compared that to the example of Jude, whose epistle seems at least equally or more obscure, not to say suspiciously similar to the Petrines in composition and content.)

What I said is that most of his works ARE FORGED, although I allowed that perhaps there are legitimate echoes in the later Pseudo-Clementines (thus perhaps “heavily interpolated”). I didn’t mean he forged them, but that others did so in his name, duh. :wink:

Dr. Ramelli (if I’m remembering her notes correctly in the midst of a gigantic book that I don’t have here at home where I can check) makes a small case that some of the material from the later Recognition variants can be traced back through an early Apocalypse of Peter, well regarded by ancient authorities, to a tradition significantly predating ApocPeter’s composition, thus possibly contemporary with the real Clement Romanus. How much of that could be sussed out by source criticism of ApocPete who knows? – at best it’s a definite maybe, but not in regard to particular blocks of text.

None of what I said about forgery or interpolation was meant to touch on Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians, though. Why would I have referred to it as “the legitimate epistle” if I had any doubts as to the legitimacy of its contents?? I even regarded Clement as having more authority to contribute canon than authors of well over 1/3 of the NT! (Or possibly more than 1/2, depending on how far John Mark’s authorship and/or editorial activities contributed.)

#12

I would be curious to see a detailed case for that, btw.

#13

I personally believe other letters belong to Clement, such as the *Apostolic Constitutions *(complied by), the Recognitions of Clement, On Virgins, Epistle of Clement to James, and possible the Martyrdom of Peter and Paul.

Clementine Homilies are an example of a corruption of Recognitions of Clement.

Steve

#14

I will dig up my reseach and post some details back here. I have the data in Adobe Indesign, which I no longer have installed. I need to install it anyway, so I will follow-up shortly.

Steve

#15

Jason, thank you for the clarification. I regret that I misunderstood you. Somehow I thought you were saying that ALL of the writings attributed to Clement of Rome were highly interpreted, although you clearly said “some” of them. Perhaps I’m over-defensive of the letter to the Corinthians.

I think that ALL of the works of a contemporary of Clement’s, namely Ignatius, are either forgeries or highly interpolated. Some believe there were NO genuine writings of Ignatius. In his supposed writings the elder/overseer distinction is made, whereas these were two names for the same people in the NT. Furthermore the writer indicates that there was only one overseer in each church, rather than a plurality as in the first churches.

Whichever persons interpolated his letters or wrote the letters ascribed to him, also urged each church to be as submissive its overseers as if they were submitting to Jesus Christ. That is also an injunction that fits only a later age.

#16

I don’t know about this. The Latin versions are clearly interpolated, as they are about twice as long as the Greek (in many places), and they also add very foreign ideas (AKA the longer and shorter versions - ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.ii.v.html). I think the Greek is trustworthy.

This was a common practice - as church to church differed in administration depending on the size, needs and culture of the church. Variations of teachings were certainly acceptable in the 2nd century (to an extent).

This idea is also presented in Clement (and from later writers). There is nothing unusual about this adjunct.

Steve

#17

Claims that the Constitutions of the Apostles make:

The Constitutions claim to be written by the “apostles and elders” (ch 1:1 - some individuals are identified). The Constitutions were taught by Christ in His last 40 days (Acts 1:1-3; Book 8, 1:7), and sent out after the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15; Book 6, ch. 6, 7; 11:5).

**A Pseudepigraphical work? **

Some claim that the Constitutions are a pseudepigraphical work from the 4th or 5th century AD. This is impossible! The Constitutions were known and quoted by reputable Bishops in the 2nd century AD; such as Zephyrinus, Irenaeus and Hippolytus, and the Constitutions were appealed to by the 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils to determine the canon of the bible. Such an appeal would be impossible if the Constitutions were not given serious authority and validation by the bishops at that time. Owing to the list of banned books which were propagated; it is inconceivable that a pseudepigraphical work could fly under the radar and influence the church for all time - especially if it originated as late as the 4th century.

I had written about the Constitutions in a preface to the e-books that I never published. I have a collection of e-books from the 1st century onwards that I have sorted out into categories of authentic, gnostic, christian gnostic, and christian pseudepigrapha. There was a deliberate attempt made by gnostic sects to confuse the teachings of the fledgling church by writing prolifically under pseudepigraphical titles of other famous people (i.e., Ignatius in Latin). Many theologians have discarded the sacred along with the profane in order to protect the church’s heritage. I have paid less attention to the church’s heritage agenda and focused on what was considered legitimate by the church from the earliest times, and looked for discrepancies found with the original autographs when the books were translated into Latin or Syriac. There is hardly a saint who has not had his books deformed by this subterfuge, especially Origen.

See Concerning the Adulteration of the Works of Origen, by Rufinus.

Steve