New Testament for Dummies

 Together with a non-specialist, I am working towards a New Testament introduction for dummies (highly appreciated sort of non-academics!)

Here a first go - please let me know, if this is the right level of conversation:

B: It all sounds very exciting, exceedingly complex, and evidently intellectually and spiritually dynamic. A constant to and fro, it would seem, though evidently more competitive (between Marcion and the 'canonical party') than collaborative.

 

M: In truth, both: collaborative and competitive. Nothing extraordinary in that. Communication among academics has changed little since antiquity. They did then what we do now, learn from one another and attempt to make sense of the complexities.

 

B: The question for me is, what criteria governed the reworkings? Were they undertaken in close connection with trustworthy testimonies? Were they arbitrary, naïvely fanciful, or shrewdly devised?

 

M: Excellent questions. If I see things correctly, the revisions, much as today, tended to be conservative: only what seemed mistaken or imprecise was amended, and always in contact with what one held to be reliable testimony. Even fictive narratives (genre permitting, such as in the Acta literature or apocalyptic works) sought to remain within a tradition. The naïve ones are rare; calculating, deliberate alterations are more apt, often driven by purpose.

 

B: A distinguishing criterion seems to have been the attitude towards the Torah, which Marcion sought to exclude, while others strove to retain it at all costs.

 

M: This is a sensitive point, yet Marcion is no outlier here. Torah exegesis and even the development of new writings were commonplace in Jewish scholarly circles. The Jewish "Bible" was not yet a closed canon. Particularly the category of the "Writings," that third section of the Jewish Bible beyond Torah and Prophets, remained open.

We also have authors such as Philo of Alexandria, who interprets the Torah with great freedom, or Josephus, who in his Jewish Antiquities rewrites the entire Jewish scripture for a Hebrew-speaking and later also Greek audience. Many figures whom we designate as "Christian" (Ptolemaeus, Justin, and others) wrestle with which commands of the Torah remain binding, which are divine, Mosaic, or manmade, especially in light of the writings Marcion assembled.

No one insisted on retaining the Torah "at all costs", rather, it was maintained with considerable abridgement and qualification. Certainly, Marcion represents an extreme within this spectrum, viewing the Torah and the Prophets as wholly obsolete, and reinterpreting the Gospel and ten Pauline letters as Christ's new Torah, not as part of the third division of the Jewish scriptures, but as something altogether new.

 

B: But why multiply one Gospel into four? That seems to me to weaken rather than strengthen the case.

 

M: The first redactions of the single Gospel appear to have been uncoordinated, more reflective of the diversity of opinion among teachers of the time. All four canonical Gospels not only echo Marcion's text verbally and theologically, but also diverge from it, sometimes sharply.

In the very way they made use of Marcion's Gospel, so too did they utilise the Gospels developing alongside their own. The academic world then was no larger or smaller than now. They knew of one another, paid attention, copied and altered one another. This is no sign of weakness; it is the very nature of open scholarly discourse.

 

B: Perhaps it is best explained by positing multiple versions of Jesus' life, teaching, and death in circulation?

 

M: Perhaps, but not necessarily. The literary proximity and often-parallel structure of the five Gospels rather argues against it. Yet it seems that the various authors sought further information, added it when found, removed less fitting material, and restructured their texts.

 

B: You also mentioned Tatian, who compiled a single Gospel, presumably because he sensed that four versions were too vulnerable?

 

M: I would not leap to a polemical interpretation. Up to and even beyond Irenaeus, Gospel production appears to have followed the academic norms mentioned above. Teachers continued to produce Gospels: that of Mary, of Peter, and many more. When Bishop Serapion, around Irenaeus' time, encountered the Gospel of Peter in a congregation, he took no offence at its use, until he was alerted to controversies about it, whereupon he became critical.

That Tatian fused the five Gospels likely relates to the enduring influence of Marcion's Gospel within his New Testament, prompting Tatian to make a singular one of his own, as others may have attempted, as the Gospel of Peter fragment suggests.

 

B: Irenaeus, at any rate, comes close to recommending the modern canon.

 

M: Quite so. And just as the man who calls in the fire brigade may well have lit the blaze, so Irenaeus, with his propaganda tract, is likely the architect of the second canonical redaction, just as his teacher Polycarp may have stood behind the first canonisation of the Pauline letters.

 

B: If there was no "Luke," and Acts was not written by the same hand as the Gospel, then the linkage must be redactional, must it not?

 

M: Indeed. The Gospel of Luke, save for the additions and changes, is identical with Marcion's. The redactors adapted or composed Acts, furnishing it with a preface matching the one they appended to the Gospel in its revised form. The linguistic proximity of Luke and Acts is thus redactional, a feat still prompting scholars to treat the two as a unified work. In that sense, the redactors did their job well.

 

B: Finally, there is the "truth-question," which one might answer: it is of no consequence what historical-critical analysis may reveal; what was ultimately canonised is, by the Holy Spirit's inspiration, of unassailable authority.

This answer borrows the philosophical distinction between genesis and validity, only to transmute its meaning and apply it theologically. Yet in philosophy, this notion insists that historically contingent facts (a posteriori truths) cannot determine the validity of universally binding rational truths (a priori). The Pythagorean theorem is not true because Euclid discovered it in 300 BC; it is valid by virtue of pure reason, quite independently of its genesis.

To transfer this principle to theology is a daring methodological leap, a Salto mortale. Canonisation is not grounded in a priori insight, but rather constitutes a historical process of opinion-formation, even if one believes the Spirit guided it. Such guidance can never be proved a priori, only believed a posteriori, an act of human decision.

 

M: Faith, as Tertullian first expressed it, may entail such paradoxes: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Later: credo quia absurdum. To believe may be to perform one death-defying leap after another in the circus tent, a voluntary surrender. History is of little help here. For Irenaeus and Tertullian, the "canon of truth" outranks Scripture itself, though they argue with their opponents over which Scriptures are older. But that is not the point. The Holy Spirit in theology has no birth, no death, no age. It is a breath, and breath, as we know, cannot be pinned down.

 

B: So is the historical-critical method but a meaningless game of facts, I am not of the same opinion. I regard canonisation as fallible, even if the Spirit did assist. I conceive the relationship between God and humanity as dialogical, in which God allows errors, works with our limitations creatively, patiently, mercifully. This does not imply that all aspects of canonisation are wrong.

 

M: Indeed, the moment we add the supra-factual to the factual, be it breath, be it God, we change a critical method into one marked by indeterminacy, for we have introduced the incalculable into the equation.

 

B: But suppose you could demonstrate that certain redactional moves violated the historical truth of Jesus' teaching or Paul's, or even his Spirit, perhaps for reasons of power. Why should one not name and correct them?

 

M: We are far from that. We do not yet know what the "historical truth of Jesus’ teaching and life (or Paul’s)" is, nor what aligns with or contradicts his Spirit. We must first search for the guiding interests reflected in the texts we possess or reconstruct.

 

B: Fundamentalists and ideologues may well raise the alarm, but why? What sort of lifeless, undialogical, authoritarian, at best paternalistic image of God is that?

 

M: Thus the need for critical—also historical-critical—work. It must be anti-ideological and self-critical.