Sunday Live at Kootenai Community Church

Preservation of God’s Word and the Need for Discernment

Okay, good morning everyone, come on in and find a place and we're gonna get started with adult Sunday school class. All right, let's begin with prayer. Our Father, we are grateful for this day that you've given to us and that we have this place to gather and to worship and to fellowship with each other.

We're so grateful for that blessing and the freedom to enjoy these graces. We also thank you for the fact that you've called us out of darkness and to yourself and you have brought us to faith and the truth in Jesus Christ and that you've given us your word.

It is a precious treasure that you have granted to us and we're thankful that we have it in our own language and that you have blessed us with understanding in your word according to the gift of your Holy Spirit.

And we pray now today and this morning that as we spend our time here thinking about how you have preserved your word for us and given it to us down through the ages, that you would open our eyes and our hearts to understand these things and give us grace for the teaching ministry of your Holy Spirit to be able to discern and to think clearly and to come to right and true conclusions regarding the truth of scripture.

And we pray your blessing upon this time for the glory of Christ our Lord in whose name we pray.

Amen.

The Closed Canon and the Three Categories of Ancient Books

Hey, we're in lesson 12, A Closed Canon is the title of that lesson, lesson 12. I'll give you a moment to find your spot there. Last week we finished up lesson 11 which dealt with the issue of canonicity and we looked at the qualities of canonical books, what qualities do all books which we have in our canon, what do they possess?

We saw that they are alive, they're authentic and authoritative, usually apostolic and we're talking about specifically New Testament, apostolic authorship. And today we're looking, we're gonna start talking about the question of is the canon closed and that's a little bit later in the lesson and I don't know that it will get all the way to that or even introducing that but we do wanna get through a discussion of some of the disputed books that were, there were question marks regarding their canonicity in the early church.

We're gonna look at each one individually. We've kind of alluded to these as we've gone through the last four weeks. We've mentioned James and Hebrews, 2 Peter, et cetera and those disputed or questioned books and those took a little bit longer to be widely accepted than some of the others, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, Galatians, Paul's epistles, et cetera.

And so we've kind of alluded to those. We talked about some of the reasons. We're gonna go into a little bit more detail on those today and then answer some objections that are commonly raised about some of the disputed books.

So we are under number one now, the nature of disputed books. I'm gonna give you three sort of difficult to pronounce or big, long, academic sounding words. They're not intended to be academic but if you read literature on these subjects, you're gonna come across homolagumina, pseudepigrapha and antilagumina.

Those words are used to describe the books of the New Testament and books that are not in the New Testament. So I'm gonna define each of these for you and then give you an explanation of what we mean by that.

So books, particularly ancient books that are considered in terms of their canonical status are divided into one of these three groups. The first is the homolagumina. These were books that were accepted by all, A-C-C-E-P-T-E-D, accepted by all.

In other words, there was no doubt by any Orthodox Christian, by any Christian church, any Christian group, any geographical region, there was no discussion or debate or doubt about the legitimacy of whether these books were apostolic, whether they were authoritative, whether they were inspired or canonical.

These were accepted universally across the board by all Christians. All the church fathers spoke in favor of the canonicity of these books. All of them appear in all the major canons of the early church, all the major lists, including the moratorium canon, which we talked about last week.

This book, sorry, this list of the homolagumina contains 22 of the 27 New Testament books. So that leaves five of them that we're talking about, or sorry, seven of them that we're talking about that are disputed books, okay?

So the homolagumina books were accepted by all, universal recognition. We can sort of put that a category. We're not discussing those this morning. Second, the pseudepigrapha. These were books that were rejected by all.

These are rejected by all. Pseudo meaning false, and pigrapha meaning bacon, false bacon, these are the books rejected by all. No, false writings is the word we use, word that describes false writings.

It means false or fake writing, spurious or heretical works. They contain false doctrine, many of them bad history, some of them aberrant doctrines. By the ninth century, there were a list of 280 of these books that were known to have been written or originated between the first century, around the first century, between the first century and the fourth and fifth centuries.

280 books were on the list of pseudepigrapha, and we'll cover those a little bit later in a different lesson. And then third, the antilagumina. These are the books disputed by some, the books disputed by some.

Now the key here is the word disputed and not rejected, okay, notice the distinction between that. There are seven books that were disputed by some, not rejected by some, and not disputed by all, and certainly not rejected by all.

Do you guys understand the difference between those? It's important to keep that in mind as we're talking about these seven books. These are books that were disputed by some. Eusebius, a Christian historian, lists seven books that were disputed by some, and that these seven books had not, by the fourth century, gained a universal acceptance.

So it took a little while for some of the books to gain universal acceptance because they were disputed by a few people. Here's the letter B, the nature of the antilagumina. The fact that they were questioned into the fourth century does not mean, we've talked about this before, but I need to reiterate it, the fact that these books were questioned or disputed into the fourth century does not mean that they did not have initial recognition by the apostles or the post-apostolic communities.

Okay, it doesn't mean that these books, take Hebrews, for instance, just because Hebrews was disputed by some in the Western church into the fourth century does not mean that it was not accepted by the apostolic community and even post-apostolic Christian communities immediately in the first century and the second century.

It just means that at some point in some regions of the Christian church, the book was questioned or disputed by some who did not view it as canonical. Okay, so the fact that they were questioned in the fourth century does not mean that they did not have universal recognition by the apostles or by certain apostolic, post-apostolic communities.

On the contrary, we can say of all 27 books of our New Testament that all of them were quoted with authority from the earliest of times, the earliest time that we have record, right? All of them were quoted as authority.

So it's not like, it's not as if we have a book, say Hebrews, that everybody universally rejected for four centuries and then suddenly around 450, somebody shows up and says, you know, I think we should add Hebrews to the book, to the canon.

That's not how it worked at all. Hebrews was quoted as authoritative and recognized as authoritative by some, by most, from the earliest times that we have record of the book of Hebrews. So we're not talking here, when we talk about the disputed books, we're not talking about books that were universally rejected by everybody and added at a much later date.

The fact that they were questioned into the fourth century does not mean that their place in our modern Bible is any less firm or legitimate than any of the other books. That's important to remember as well.

So in other words, we don't have, in our thinking, in our New Testament, we don't have two categories of books. The ones that are universally accepted and then we still have that list of a few that we're not quite sure about.

No, we have no distinction like that at all. We have all 27 books, we recognize it because they have been yet recognized universally. So we recognize them that way as scripture. We don't recognize, we don't label these as disputed books as if they're still under consideration.

We're still kicking around 2 Peter trying to figure out if it's canonical or not. That's not how that works. Okay, assembly shows that many geographical locations and congregations took longer to recognize the authority, authenticity, and orthodoxy and the power of certain New Testament books.

It took them time to do this because they had to verify those books themselves. And when a book shows up and there's claims that hey, 500 miles away, these guys regard this book as written by Peter, it's 2 Peter, they regard it as written by Peter and they regarded it as scripture.

You ever heard of this before, right? This is new to your congregation. You have 1 Peter, you didn't know there was a second epistle so it shows up on your church doorstep and the pastor's talking about it.

What are you gonna do? You don't just universally, you don't recognize just because somebody else said it's scripture. There were Gnostic and heretical groups that regarded the Gospel of Thomas as scripture.

So what would you do? You'd verify it, wouldn't you? You'd wanna ask, how widely accepted is this book? We need to find that out. Is this book really apostolic? We need to find that out. We need to read and study this book and compare it to the writings of the other apostles and find out if it matches up.

Does it have a high view of Jesus, a high view of scripture? Is it authoritative? We need to work through this book and make sure that this is genuinely an inspired apostolic writing. It would take time to verify that and that's why some of the books were disputed for a while.

Not forever, but for a while. It took time to verify that the writings were indeed apostolic. Okay, are there any questions about that before we move on? Yeah, small math point. At least five, right. Yeah, I said I can.

Yeah, we have seven. We're gonna look at Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. So that's seven. We're gonna look at seven books that were disputed. Okay, so that should be 20 of 27 books.

Thank you, appreciate it. Well, I am a product of the public school system, so. Okay, thank you for that correction, yeah. All right, so what is the nature of the dispute then? The basic problem with those books that were disputed by some, not rejected by some nor rejected by all, but disputed by some, the basic problem was a lack of information or a lack of communication.

Or in the ancient world, a lack of ability to get that information or a lack of ability to communicate. It's not like, keep in mind that we're talking about the ancient world. Communication didn't work the way that it does today.

Sometimes it might take a year or more to get a message to somebody and away from somebody, especially if the government is trying to persecute you and the very fact that you're gathering as Christians makes it threatening to your life to do so.

So communication and information is very hard to come by in the ancient world. So this would take a little bit of time. The people only, the Christians only needed to confirm certain things. Authorship, whether it was accepted, whether it was regarded as authoritative, that it was a genuine epistle, faithfully and accurately transmitted and communicated.

And once they could verify those things, then they would accept the books without any question. All right, number two, the number of disputed books. This comes back to the math again. So we're just gonna not talk about numbers, we're just gonna talk about each of these books and describe briefly why it is that some of them were questioned or disputed by some.

Hebrews and the Question of Anonymous Authorship

Letter A, Hebrews. We've talked about this before. The reason that Hebrews was disputed by some was because of the anonymity of the author that raised some questions about Hebrews because the author does not identify himself.

In fact, it's very difficult. Unlike the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there are very few internal clues as to even the relationship of the author to an apostolic community. He refers to the apostles as those who transmitted to him the truth regarding scripture, regarding doctrine.

Hebrews 2, verses three and four, he speaks about having heard the testimony, the witness from the apostles themselves, right? He refers to the group of the apostles and him being a firsthand witness to what they had testified to him.

So the author had some sort of a relationship with the apostolic community. He disclaimed being one of the apostles because he refers to them and not us as he is one of the apostles. So he disclaimed being one of the apostles in chapter two, verse three.

So it was the anonymity of the author that raised questions for the book of Hebrews. Okay, so that's one reason. A second reason was because of the heretical Montanists. They quoted Hebrews to support some of their erroneous views.

And this slowed acceptance of the book of Hebrews in some orthodox circles. There were heretical groups that would use Hebrews because they found certain things in Hebrews friendly to their theology. And so if a book is quoted prolifically by a heretical community that believes something that's non-apostolic, you might question a little bit the legitimacy of that book.

Is that correct? Yes. Yeah, signing your name to some of the books that you would write in the Roman Empire. Yeah, if you weren't an apostle, this is one of the reasons, hold on. Let me make sure I get my facts straight before I say something here.

Nope, it left me, sorry. That is true, there would be reason to keep your name off of a book because of the persecution that might come as a result of you writing a book or even promoting a book that advanced Jesus.

Paul was a little more bold in that way. I don't know what the reason why Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John would have kept their writings anonymous or at least not explicitly named themselves in those books.

But I don't know if it would have been placed in code to answer your question, hints within the text. Yeah, that's how John reveals himself, yeah. Yeah, and that is how Luke sort of puts himself into the narrative of Acts.

If you remember, I mentioned last week, you're reading along through Acts and it's all third person, they, him, he, they, all the way through Acts. But you get to chapter 16 when Paul crosses the Aegean Sea into Macedonia near the city of Philippi and when some of his first converts there, that all of a sudden the text of Acts goes universally from they and them to we and us.

And so it is at some point there, Luke, the author of Acts, joins Paul's missionary journey in the second missionary journey. And then you start putting the piece of who's mentioned later on in the book and it becomes obvious that it's Dr. Luke.

All right, so the quotation by a heretical community slowed the acceptance of the book of Hebrews. And so we can understand this because we would look at it also with a jaundiced eye, but would this necessarily disqualify the book from being accepted as canonical?

Because it was quoted by heretical groups, would that disqualify it from being canonical? Jehovah's Witnesses quote all the books of the New Testament to support some of their heretical doctrines, right?

So though in the first century, it would have caused people to question the book of Hebrews because of its usage in some sectors, it was not itself a disqualifier. Neither, by the way, is it a deal breaker for the book to be anonymous because all four of our gospels are anonymous and the book of Acts is anonymous.

So we have other writings in the New Testament that were anonymous writings that were universally accepted and never questioned. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts were never questioned by anybody. They were regarded as authoritative from the very beginning.

So again, with the book of Hebrews, all they needed to find out was, is it apostolic? Does it have apostolic certification? Is it apostolic doctrine? Is this apostolic in terms of its connection to the apostolic community?

And if it is, then it was accepted. Hebrews was suspected in the West by those who were not aware of its authority and its authenticity because Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians, which we're seeing as we go through the book.

Obviously, there's so much there that's connected to the Old Testament. So it was written to Jewish Christians who were located not exclusively, but largely in the Eastern side of the Roman Empire, the land of Israel and Jerusalem, Judea and that region.

And so in the East, over in Rome and Spain and the other East, sorry, the West, Rome and Spain, the other portions on the West side of the Roman Empire, though there were Jews there, they were not like the land of Israel as far as its Jewish population.

So Hebrews, because it was written so strongly, it was so strongly Jewish and written to Jewish Christians, it took a while to gain acceptance in the Western part of the Roman Empire. But by the fourth century, Hebrews was universally accepted and found a permanent place in the canon.

And it was accepted because it was believed by many to be written by Paul or at least under the auspices of Paul. We don't think it was. We don't know who wrote Hebrews, but my suspicion was it was not written by an apostle.

But again, that does not disqualify it from being canonical. Christians, by the fourth century, universally recognized Hebrews as scripture. And is there anybody here today who would doubt that Hebrews is inspired scripture?

You'd be a fool to do so, wouldn't you? And the proof is in the pudding, just by looking at the book itself and the history and how the Spirit of God has used that book. All right, are there any questions or comments about the book of Hebrews before we move on to James?

James and Justification Before God and Before Men

Okay, letter B, the book of James. This again was suspected on the basis of authorship. The Western church did not have access to information about its authenticity. And so the real question was this, was James really the author of that book?

It was suspected because of, and we've covered this before, it was suspected because of the apparent contradiction between what James says about justification and what Paul says about justification. And that conflict or that apparent contradiction has troubled many Christians as they read on the surface what James says and they read on the surface of what Paul says.

But once you understand that Paul is talking about a justification before men, James is describing a justification, sorry, Paul's describing a justification before God, James is describing justification by men, right?

The demonstration of your works being justified or declared righteous in the sight of men because they see your righteous deeds, James is describing that, James is not overturning Paul, he's describing the other side of the coin of what Paul describes.

Paul describes a justification or a declaration of righteousness before God on the basis of faith. And James is saying works is the way that you are justified or demonstrated righteous before men. And so it's two different aspects of justification, two sides of the same coin and not a contradiction at all.

So once it could be shown that James did not contradict Pauline teaching on justification, then it was accepted. And again, the question was apostolic doctrine because they had Paul's epistles, remember?

Even the first century before 63 AD or 64 AD when Peter was executed and martyred, when he wrote 2 Peter, he refers to Paul's letters as scripture. So already in the first century, within 30 years of the death of Jesus, there was a collection of books that were recognized as being written by Paul and that had become a standard and regarded as scripture.

So if you get James and it appears to contradict Paul, can you see why it was disputed by some for a period of time? They would obviously be really slow. You don't just throw books into the canon. You don't just throw books into your church environment and say, hey, go read this, this is good stuff.

We don't do that today. They wouldn't have done that in the first century. They would have that book and they would wanna compare it with Paul's writing and say, if we can show that this is genuinely apostolic and it doesn't contradict Paul and that the author is James, then it's scripture.

And that was all that needed to be demonstrated for the book of James. All right, any questions? I'll ask that at the end of every book. If something pops up, let me know. 2 Peter, there was no book in your New Testament that had greater trouble being accepted than 2 Peter.

It was doubted because of the difference in style from 1 Peter. Now, I don't read Greek. I can pronounce and read certain Greek words. If somebody tells me that this word, this Greek word is in this verse, I can identify that Greek word.

I can tell what is a prefix. I can tell what is a suffix. I can tell what's the root part of the word. I can kind of tell the family of words that it comes from. I know just enough Greek to be dangerous and to kind of make my way around some Greek speaking or Greek usage language tools.

That's about it. So I can't read or translate Greek as if it's a fluent language. I'm not gonna pretend to be able to do so, ever. But those who can do so will read 1 Peter and then they will read 2 Peter and they will say, these are two radically different styles of writing.

Different styles of writing. What might account for the different style of writing? Any idea? Sorry, what? A time span between them? Yeah, it wouldn't have been a long time span though because 1 Peter would have been written right before Nero's persecution, which started in 63 AD and Peter was likely executed or martyred in 63, 64, 65.

So it's a small time stamp, a small time period between the two. Sorry? The recipients, yeah. If I wrote a letter to Rick, do you think it would sound a little bit different than if I wrote a letter to my wife?

You would hope so, right? I mean, I like Rick, but it would sound quite a bit different, wouldn't it? And sometimes, listen, my letters, my writing in my books sounds a lot different than the emails that I write.

Totally different style. The audience that I'm writing to, the occasion that I'm writing under, the subject matter that I'm communicating, all of those play into the style of a writing. There are all kinds of things.

You see this variety in Paul's writings. Compare Paul's writings in Galatians to Paul's writings in Philippians or 1 Thessalonians. To the Thessalonians, Paul is, man, you guys have demonstrated the gospel.

He's patting them on the back. He is encouraging them. It's almost as if there's no problems at all in the church at Thessalonica. Your love has gone forth to all of those in Macedonia, and even the people far away are talking about you.

And it's just, this church was near and dear to his heart. And in Philippians, he says, you sent support and love to me on more than one occasions. You sent Epaphroditus, he was your minister, your servant at the time of my need, and of great encouragement to me.

And it's just, Philippians is full of joy, and joy in the midst of suffering. And then you turn to Galatians. Who bewitched you, you foolish Galatians, to turn so quickly from the gospel of God's grace?

If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be damned. You think circumcision avails you?

Cut it all off.

I mean, the sarcasm, the biting wit, the theological passion and the precision of Paul in Galatians, two totally different styles. You can't just look at two writings and say, well, one of these obviously came from Jim, and one of them didn't, or one of them came from Paul,.

And one of them didn't.

The occasion, the audience, the subject matter, all of that plays into style. So there's another explanation for the difference of style between 1 Peter and 2 Peter. I mean, in 1 Peter, 1 Peter is dealing, he is addressing Christians who are facing suffering.

In 2 Peter, Peter is addressing false teachers, and he is addressing false teachers who are plaguing the church. And so there's obviously gonna be a very different style between those two. But 1 Peter mentions an amanuensis, somebody who had a hand in writing that for Peter, as Peter probably dictated it to an amanuensis, who was involved in the writing of it.

Would that account for some of the style? It would, wouldn't it? If I dictate something to somebody, it's a different style than if I sit down and have a hand in crafting the language myself. Especially if the person I'm dictating to it, I give the freedom to word things a little bit differently, maybe choose word choice, and then I read it over and say, yep, that's exactly what I want, pass that on.

So that explains the difference in style. But once it could be established that it was Peter's writing, then it was accepted. It was accepted by Christians at a very early date. It was quoted by the early church fathers as scripture.

Clement of Rome quoted it. It was accepted by Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and Augustine. All right, any questions about 2 Peter? All right, 2 and 3 John. Again, these were suspected because of the anonymity of the author.

He is identified only as the elder. These did not enjoy wide acceptance because they were not circulated as widely as others. If you know about 2 and 3 John, can you tell me why it is that they might not have been circulated as widely as other books?

They're personal letters. I can guarantee you that more people have read my book, my books, than have read letters that I've written to my wife or to any one person ever. Nothing that I have ever written to one person or even a small group of people has nearly the circulation as my books have.

So books that were written to a larger audience like 1 Peter, 1 John, written to Christians scattered abroad, they're gonna have a much wider circulation and rapid circulation than a book that is a personal letter written to an individual woman in the congregation.

And not that John had anything with this woman, but he is obviously writing to one particular dialect lady in one of those letters. So they're personal letters, so they would not have been spread and circulated as quickly as others.

They were more widely accepted than 2 Peter. Polycarp, who was a disciple of John, acknowledged 2 John as authentic, as did Irenaeus. Remember, Polycarp, a disciple of John, he recognized 2 John as John's epistle.

And that just needed time for people to hear that and to know that. And 2 John, 3 John would have been accepted. The Muratorian Canon, which we talked about last week, that goes back into the first century, listed them as accepted books.

And the style is unquestionably similar to 1 John, and so it was never doubted by many. 2 and 3 John were never, sorry, 1 John was never doubted by any. And so 2 and 3 John, the style there is very similar to 1 John.

Now, similarity of style does not mean that a book is canonical, does it? No, just because somebody can duplicate somebody's style and voice doesn't mean that it could still be forged. But it is an argument in the favor of those books.

All right, any question about 2 and 3 John? All right, the book of Jude. The dispute around Jude centered around Jude's reference to the pseudepigraphal book of Enoch in verses 14 and 15. Remember, he mentions that prophecy of the seventh generation from Adam or something like that.

I forget how he words it in Jude 14 and 15. But because Jude mentions a book that was widely, or sorry, universally recognized as pseudepigraphal, fake writing or false writing, because Jude alludes to that, that raised questions about the legitimacy of Jude in the minds of some.

You think of an argument against why that is a legitimate argument against Jude. Can you think of an answer to that? Yeah, that was a bit confusing, thank you. So that's good. The argument against Jude would be that he mentions a non-inspired author.

He quotes a non-inspired author that everybody knew was not part of the canon, even in Jude's day. So we're talking about, I recognized it's not authoritative even in the first century, they recognized non-authoritative books.

So the argument against Jude is that he quotes a non-authoritative, non-inspired book that's not part of our canon. So people question Jude for that reason. Can you think of a reason to answer that objection?

Cornell? Yep.

Paul quotes the Greek poets in Acts chapter 17. And he also quotes that in Titus chapter one, right? As some of your own prophets or poets, as some of your own Greek cretins or liars, liars, was it lazy?

Lazy liars and evil beasts or something like that. Paul quotes somebody who was not inspired, somebody from his own day. Yeah, yeah, very good. It had to do with whether he's endorsing it or just simply alluding to those authors.

Some church fathers mentioned the controversy over Jude, Jerome does, and Origen, but Jude enjoyed substantial recognition by the early fathers, Uranaeus, Clement of Alexander, and Tertullian, and they all accepted it as authentic.

And the meritorian canon, which again, is the list of books that goes back into the first century, that was accepted. Jude was listed on that as well. So it enjoyed fairly widespread use, but was doubted by just a few.

And we have to include it, even though the doubt regarding Jude was probably less than with any of these other books, we have to include Jude on the list because there were some who questioned it on that basis.

And so again, it's not rejected by all or rejected by everyone, it is disputed or questioned by some. And lastly, the book of Revelation. Some raised concern over the book of Revelation and debate over Revelation lasted longer than any other book.

It wasn't as hotly debated as 2 Peter, but the questions regarding Revelation lasted longer than with any of the other book. And that boiled down to some interpretive presuppositions that played into the debate.

Interpretive presuppositions. So if you begin with a, I'm gonna pick on my all millennial, post-millennial friends here for just a second, but if you begin with an eschatology that requires, that says there is no such thing as a millennium, there's no 1000 year reign of Christ, how do you feel about reading through the book of Revelation and getting to Revelation 20, which talks about a 1000 year reign of Christ?

You got a problem.

And so Revelation was doubted by many for a long time because of certain interpretive presuppositions that made it very difficult to square the book of Revelation with your view of eschatology. And so that lay behind some of its rejection.

The controversy was really over Revelation chapter 20. They say, well then why don't all millennialists and post-millennialists reject the book of Revelation today? Because of Revelation 20. They don't.

They look at Revelation 20 and they just have an entirely different way of interpreting Revelation 20 than we would here. So Revelation was among the first to be recognized in the writings of the early fathers.

It was accepted by Papias and Irenaeus. Irenaeus was also a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John the Apostle. Remember, John the Apostle, Polycarp, and Irenaeus. So when Irenaeus, who was a disciple of one, by John the Apostle, accepted Revelation, then that is a strong argument in favor of its legitimacy and its apostolic authorship.

And Revelation was accepted by the meritorium canon. The Montanists attached some of their heretical doctrines to Revelation, which did help slow its acceptance. Augustine, Jerome, and Athanasius defended Revelation and showed that the Montanists were misinterpreting Revelation.

But when it was proved that the author was John, from Revelation 1, verse 4, and 22, 8, and 9, the debate was over. So here's how we would summarize what we've looked at so far regarding these seven books.

The Antilogomena books were spoken against by some early church fathers. This was usually because of a lack of communication or because of misinterpretation, which had attached themselves to those books.

But once the truth was known by all, they were fully and finally accepted into the canon, just as they had been recognized by Christians at the very beginning, close quote. Now that's from Geisler and Nix.

So to reiterate, when we talk about those seven books, we're not talking about books that were rejected universally by all Christians for any period of time. Nor are we talking about books that were disputed by all Christians for any period of time.

We're talking about books that were questioned by some until they could verify the authenticity of those books. And we are talking about books that were recognized as authoritative and apostolic by Christians from the very beginning, from the very beginning.

Now, whether all Christians knew that and recognized that or not is a different issue. That's what took a long time, that's what took a while, that's what took the time, was for the universal acceptance of it.

But all of the books of the New Testament were quoted and used and recognized by some Christians somewhere in the Christian church from the very beginning. So that means that 2 Peter, though it was heavily disputed for years after it was written, there was a group, there always was a group that accepted it as apostolic and authoritative and inspired from the very beginning.

It just would take a while for Christians in the rest of the empire to recognize, to get access to that book, to be able to verify its authenticity, to examine it, study it, and then to recognize that it is canonical.

Because again, remember when we talk about canonical books, we're not talking about something that is determined by people, it's something that is discovered by people. So it would take time for them to discover those books and to verify the authenticity of them, and once that was done, then the question was over, it was a settled issue.

All right, any questions?

No?

Okay, that's a little bit difficult. The key here is to remember that we're not talking about books rejected by all people, anywhere in the timeline. All right, we're talking about books that were disputed by some for a period of time.

And some of them for various periods of time. Every book, another way of saying this, every book in our New Testament was quoted as authoritative and recognized as authoritative from the very beginning by someone.

And no book in our New Testament was rejected by everybody at any time. That's saying it positively and negatively. All right, so now we have number three, some objections. Objection number one, and I'm gonna raise the objection and then we'll open up the field here for you guys to suggest some answers to this.

Why the Early Church’s Doubts Do Not Undermine the Canon

Objection number one, there were serious doubts about many of the New Testament books which should cause us to doubt their legitimacy. And we're talking here about objections, people like skeptics, critics, atheists, Bart Ehrman types who wanna undermine our belief in the legitimacy of the New Testament canon, we're talking about those type of objections, those are the ones we're gonna answer here.