One of the
things that bothers me that has come of the Da Vinci Code, though he wasn’t the
first to talk about it, was the idea that Constantine chose the books that are
in the Bible. The truth is, the Bible
had been coming together a long time before that. James Garlow and Peter Jones, in their book
Cracking Da Vinci’s Code tell us that “they were not creating the Bible but
merely clarifying and unifying once and for all what had been true from the
beginning” (148).
The reason
why church councils had to deal with the topic of Biblical canon (the list of
books that are recognized as authentic and part of the Bible) was because of
the rise in false teachers trying to alter what was already being formed
naturally.
One person
in particular who came up with his own list of New Testament books was
Marcion. Marcion believed that the Old
Testament was completely irrelevant, so he sought to remove any Old Testament
influence from the Bible. The books he
accepted were the Gospel of Luke and ten of Paul’s letters which he had edited
to remove anything that had Old Testament influence. “Marcion even acknowledged that the books he
rejected or modified were accepted and honored by the church and written by the
original apostles. He simply believed
that he was right and they were wrong” (Garlow 141).
Because of
Marcion and others like him, many in the church began compiling their own
lists, lists that were very similar, but with some variation. The Muratorian Fragment is one of these
lists. It is believed to be from around
170 A.D. The list includes all of our
New Testament books except Hebrews, James and 1 and 2 Peter. It also includes a book called the Revelation
of Peter. James North tells us that the
Revelation of Peter “is typical of dozens of various writings which were not
authentically apostolic but were often used by the early churches” (57).
Origen, who
lived from 184 to 254, gathered lists from various Christian populations from
around the Mediterranean and made two new lists. The first list was called the homologoumena,
which included all of the books accepted by all the churches. This included all four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s
letters, 1 John, 1 Peter, and Revelation.
The second list was called the antilegomena. These books were the ones that were accepted
by some of the churches but not all of them.
This included Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude, Barnabas, the
Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the Gospel of the Hebrews. “It is obvious that by the time of Origen the
churches were well on their way to achieving a consensus on what writings were
to be considered scripture – but there were still some discrepancies with
regard to a final list” (North 58).
Before Christianity
became legal in the Roman Empire, the church was under intermittent periods of
severe persecution, so getting everyone together to form a comprehensive list
was difficult, though Origen did make a good start at it. When Christianity became legal in the year
313, there was no more fear of persecution, so the church could finally come
together and identify as a whole what they already knew to be true. “The various church councils that pronounced
upon the subject of the canon of the New Testament were merely stating publicly
. . . what had been widely accepted by the consciousness of the church for some
time” (Cairns 115).
There is a
lot more that could be said here, but I’ll just leave you with the books I used
to research so that you can read more for yourself if you are interested. These books cover many different topics
concerning the church, but each one has a section on the development of the New
Testament canon. Cracking Da Vinci’s
Code is an
especially interesting book because it talks about many of the issues brought
up in Dan Brown’s book.
Cairns,
Earle E. Christianity Through the Centuries
Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1996.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1996.
Carson, D.A. and Douglas Moo. An Introduction to the New Testament
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005.
Garlow, James L. and Peter Jones. Cracking Da Vinci's Code: You've Read the Fiction, Now Read the Facts
Colorado Springs: Victor, 2004.
Colorado Springs: Victor, 2004.
North, James. A History of the Church from Pentecost to Present
Joplin:
College Press, 1983.
(contains affiliate links)
Joplin:
College Press, 1983.
