The Evolution of Holy Scripture

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Table of Contents

The Old Testament Becomes a New Book
Before and After the Reformation
New Testament
The Alexandrian Fathers
A Canon within the Canon
Reference

The Old Testament Becomes a New Book

Discussing the Christian faith separately from the personality and Jesus and his story is impossible. In the chapter “The Old Testament Becomes a New Book,” Bruce (1988) expands on Jesus Christ’s indispensable role in shaping the Scripture’s contents and the most accurate way of comprehending it adequately. At the same time, the author focuses on the connection between the New Testament, where Jesus is the leading personality, and his appeals to the Old Testament and the Hebrew sources of the religious doctrine.

In the section on Jesus, the author carefully anatomizes the Old Testament’s inner structure, reconsideration, and reinterpretation, demonstrating how the Christian Church’s underlying book places Jesus in the epicenter of all meaningful events. The reconsideration of the Old Testament in writing the New Testament, as the author argues, involved increasing the number of figures and images referring to and associated with Jesus, including Moses, Yahweh’s servant, David’s son, and other meaningful direct and symbolic references (Bruce, 1988). Overall, the section offers an excellent analysis of how the Old Testament became a source of new cues and concepts regarding Jesus.

In the subsequent sections about the biblical mysteries and heritage-related concerns, Bruce summarizes the mystery of God’s Kingdom mentioned by Jesus in communication with the disciples. It is followed by reviewing the various attempts by New Testament creators to interpret it (Bruce, 1988). These include Matthew’s prophet-focused approaches, John’s explanation of Jesus’s words as something to contextualize and develop the Old Testament’s hidden motifs, and other interpretative traditions (Bruce, 1988). Therefore, the interpretative process’s complexity concerning holy readings is thoroughly demonstrated, making the chapter worth precise attention.

As mentioned earlier, it is impossible to understand the essence of the religious worldview and the meaning of the Gospels without the appropriate interpretation of Jesus Christ. The author talks about the centrality of Christ to the religious doctrine because his life, mission, death, resurrection, and atonement of humanity’s sins determine the believers’ views (Bruce, 1988). It is possible to find the description of these stages of Jesus’s life in all canonical gospels, and the existence of the parallel lines is among the pieces of evidence that prove the truthfulness of the narration.

The author emphasizes the importance of studying the historical context surrounding the life and mission of Jesus Christ. For instance, he writes that the preaching of Jesus features numerous appeals to the Hebrew scripture and the Jewish religious context that was dominant in the times when Christ lived. As it is written in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God was soon to come, which was why people believed the prophet (Bruce, 1988). Similar passages in the book of Daniel also describe the moment when God’s heaven will begin, and it will substitute the realm of the false kings (Bruce, 1988). In addition, Jesus cites the passages from the Old Testament, which made his followers appeal to this knowledge in their understanding of the doctrine (Bruce, 1988). Therefore, the Christian faith is based not only on the ideas from the New Testament but also the knowledge from the Old Testament, and Jesus Christ was the person who connected these two stages in the development of religious history.

Bruce provides the readers with a detailed scholarly description of the theological basis surrounding the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible. He writes that 24 books in total are divided into three sections (Bruce, 1988). The first part includes the Torah, which describes the divine laws, and the books of Moses, which feature Genesis, Leviticus, Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (Bruce, 1988). The second part contains the books of the prophets, while the third part features the Psalms, Proverbs, and the Book of Job (Bruce, 1988). It is possible to find similar chapters in the Christian Old Testament, which shows the connection between the Hebrew source and the Christian sacred book. In general, the historical insight shows a significant historical background connected with the development of the Christian canonical doctrine and book sequence from the Hebrew sources.

The author writes about the controversies in the book choice that have existed for many centuries. There is a well-known division of the books into the canonical gospels and the biblical Apocrypha. Even though the Christian canon was established before 400AD, controversies continued to exist (Bruce, 1988). For example, some Christian denominations, including the Anabaptists who use the rendition of the Bible by Luther, appeal to some of the Apocrypha (Bruce, 1988). For example, the description of the widespread wedding ceremony among the Amish community was taken from the apocryphal text about the marriage of Sarah and Tobias (Bruce, 1988). Therefore, the theological history of Christianity is complicated, and the canonical perception of the religious books requires time to form.

Bruce manages to discuss the historical background of this topic in detail, making the narration vivid, thorough, and enjoyable to read. In addition, the author emphasizes the importance of understanding the basics of the faith to perceive the religion and its doctrine adequately. Even though faith in God does not require knowledge about the doctrinal roots of Christianity, this information is critical for those theologians and believers who want to trace the progression of the church and its views.

Before and After the Reformation

In this chapter, the author develops six themes that are analyzed chronologically, focusing on pre and post-reformation processes. Jerome’s Vulgate version of the Bible and the canonicity debate receive much attention, followed by the sixteenth-century reformist attempts, including Coverdale’s, Tyndale’s, and Thomas Matthew’s translations and unique book organization decisions (Bruce, 1988). The following points prominent in the chapter include the role of the Catholic Church’s 19th Council of 1545 in clarifying the definitions of deuterocanonical writing concerning Bible books (Bruce, 1988)(Bruce, 1988). Also, the author carefully captures the Elizabethan politico-religious arrangements in the theological Reformation (Bruce, 1988). All themes appeal to a knowledgeable researcher of biblical history by offering much fact-based information on each epoch and its internal dynamics.

Two more themes represent the author’s research interests in the stated chapter, enabling him to cover a set of large-scale and international tendencies in regulating, controlling, and promoting using the Bible. First, Bruce (1988) analyzes the 16th and 17th centuries in theological history, focusing on the publication of the King James Version of the Bible, the rejection of the Apocrypha by the Long Parliament in the mid-1640s, and the growth of the Puritan attitudes to scripture usage and assessment (Bruce, 1988). Second, he then proceeds to review religious enlightenment activities in the early 19th century, including the formation of Bible societies in England, the U.S., Germany, and the Russian Empire (Bruce, 1988). This information shows that the author appeals to the general description of the Reformation period, emphasizing only the most important events that changed the doctrinal background of the Christian church. It allows Bruce to provide the readers with a thorough understanding of the time, which allows them to make conclusions about how the church develops.

The history of the changes made in the Biblical content and form shows the evolution of the views of Christians. The Old Latin version, the standard text in the time of Augustine, was substituted by Jerome’s Latin Bible, which had a different approach to canonicity issues. It was created in the 12th century, and the accents in the Bible were changed compared to the previous version, which determined the different interpretations of the holy text. Jerome was more concerned with the spiritual aspect of the Biblical translation than its literary value and precision. It led to the appearance of several levels of canonicity of the Holy Scripture, which was regarded as unacceptable by the 16th-century Reformation theologians. The emphasis on the authority of the Bible instead of the rituals promoted by the church and the priest’s influence on the congregation is supposed to be the highest truthfulness of the Holy Scriptures. For example, Luther claimed believers should obey only the Bible, representing divine law (Bruce, 1988). Luther acknowledged the strengths of Jerome’s Bible and gathered the Apocrypha into the appendix that followed the Old Testament in his version. No need to say that this attitude to the Reformation also influenced how theologians perceived the Gospels.

The emergence of humanist views among theologians also marked the Reformation period. For instance, Erasmus and Calvin included passages like the verses from the Song of Songs that manifested human love in the translations of the Holy Scripture (Bruce, 1988). Therefore, all European countries had similar tendencies during the Reformation period. The publication of Coverdale’s English Bible in the 16th century developed this tradition and expanded the Reformation to Great Britain (Bruce, 1988). The author of the discussed book shows in detail the differences between these Biblical versions, showing the linguistic and the dogmatic changes in editing and translating the Holy Scripture.

The Christian church required several centuries to elaborate the single view on the Apocrypha and the canonical parts of the Holy Scripture. The Council of Trent that happened in 1545 emphasized the connection between the Christian faith’s oral and written traditions (Bruce, 1988). The first Vatican Council in the 19th century used this idea to clarify the canonical parts of the Gospel. The inspiration of the text by the Holy Spirit and the divine nature of the books made them holy and an integral part of the religious canon that is preserved nowadays (Bruce, 1988). It is possible to illustrate these tendencies using the following lines from Bruce’s book:

As for the status of the books which Jerome called apocryphal, there is general agreement among Roman Catholic scholars today (as among their colleagues of other Christian traditions) to call them ‘deuterocanonical’ (a term first used, it appears, in the sixteenth century); Jerome’s distinction is thus maintained in practice, even if it does not enjoy conciliar support (Bruce, 1988, p. 156)

Therefore, when the Authorized (King James) Bible appeared at the beginning of the 17th century, it had a long historical background. The first versions were published with the appendix with the Apocrypha, and the first ones without them started appearing only in 1626 (Bruce, 1988). The apocryphal texts are not regarded as part of the canonical Gospel by contemporary Christian theologians.

New Testament

Bruce discusses the New Testament in detail in the third part of his book, which makes the text foregrounded. It is a credible source of information about the historical development of the religious doctrine and the church’s views on the holy texts. The main issue in discussing the New Testament is that Jesus Christ did not leave any texts, and his disciples also taught using the oral tradition (Bruce, 1988). Though, the apostles reflected the teaching of Jesus in the books they read after the death and the resurrection of the Son of God. There are numerous parallels in the stories about Jesus’s life and passions in the books by the apostles. Everything Christ said to his followers was repeated multiple times and treasured for future generations as theological wisdom (Bruce, 1988). Therefore, it allowed the apostles to transmit the knowledge from the oral tradition to other nations and to preserve it through time.

The author doubts whether the early Christians perceived the words from Jesus and the same utterances from his disciples similarly. Bruce (1988) that was the difference in the attitudes of the believers to these two sources of knowledge, even though the apostles had spiritual authority among them. The main problem was the restricted number of Christ’s disciples and their physical inability to spread knowledge about the religion among a significant number of people. As a result, writing the Scripture has become the practically justified and necessary step in the missionary work of the apostles.

Bruce discusses the story of the New Testament creation and spreads it in chronological detail, which facilitates understanding of the issue. The references to the Scripture became widespread in the second century, and the priests regularly referred to the New Testament in their letters and lectures. The apostles’ authority is not less than those of the Old Testament and Jesus Christ. The author illustrates this shift in the public perception of the Gospels in the following excerpt:

‘Whoever has confessed me before men, I will confess him before my Father’ (cf. Mt. 10:32), is followed by ‘And he says also in Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me”‘ (Is. 29:13) while in yet another place it is declared that ‘the books and the apostles say that the church is not of present-day origin but has existed from the beginning that of ‘the books (the Old Testament writings); their Lord’s authority is a fortiori on a par with that of the law and the prophets (Bruce, 1988, p. 182)

Therefore, there is an evident connection between the views expressed by the theologians of the Early Christian period and the sacred books. The New Testament gained similar authority as the Old Testament soon after life, and the apostles described the mission of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.

The peculiar issue is that Bruce refers to the topics discussed previously in his book, which makes the narration interconnected. It contributes to a more thorough understanding of the topic among the book’s readers, which is its essential advantage. In this chapter, Bruce (1988) emphasizes that the authority of the apostles and Christ precedes the canonicity of the Gospels. It allows the scholar to claim that the authority of the Lord was shared by his disciples, which made them equal to prophets in the truthfulness of their words.

The word “gospel” has several meanings, and Bruce explains them in the discussed chapter. First, four parts of the New Testament written by the apostles are called the gospels, and it is the name of the literary genre in general. The second meaning of this notion is the good news about the kingdom of God conveyed by Jesus Christ. The good news about Christ is that the believers and followers of the Son of God spread. Ignatius was the first person to use the word “gospel” to denote the holy books that contained knowledge about life and the mission of Jesus Christ. He referred to the gospels as the actual teaching, which was opposite to the teachings of the false prophets (Bruce, 1988). This idea dominated the religious discourse for centuries after the apostles wrote their gospels, and it remains unchangeable nowadays.

The number of texts in the New Testament underwent slight changes during history. For instance, Bruce writes about the Pauline corpus that contained the letters written by the apostle Paul to the Corinthians, Ephesus, and Alexandria (Bruce, 1988). These letters were edited by the theologians and priests of the subsequent centuries, but still, they all acknowledged the need to publish these texts due to the high spiritual authority of Paul (Bruce, 1988). This example shows that the Gospels and other texts inscribed by the disciples of Jesus Christ had a high level of authority for the believers. Even though such texts as the Holy Spirit did not inspire the letters, they still had value for the faithful Christians because the disciples of Jesus shared the part of God’s wisdom and blessing.

The Alexandrian Fathers

As the chapter’s title suggests, the author provides insight into the Alexandrian school of theological thought, reviewing the life, methodological/analytical approaches, and contributions of three Church Fathers. The first of them is Clement of Alexandria, Pantaenus’s disciple. Bruce (1998) gives due attention to Clement’s bold thoughts, such as the rejection of earlier statements regarding Christian and pagan a priori incompatibility and contributions to Christianity’s acceptance in Greece, including over twenty writings to glorify the Christian standpoint in generating knowledge regarding the world.

Origen represents another Alexandrian Father, and Bruce’s account of his contributions emphasizes Origen’s clarification of disputed versus the undisputed sections of the New Testament. Bruce describes the succession of the Alexandrian fathers chronologically, which allows the readers to understand the evolving needs of the Christian church and the contribution of every individual to it. Origen, as another Alexandrian father, did not recognize the verity of all texts in the Old Testament (Bruce, 1988). These views were consistent with dividing the New Testament into apocryphal texts with doubtful authorship and content and the books written by the apostles whose truthfulness was not doubted by Origen (Bruce, 1988). Notably, Bruce’s content organization methods enable the recognition of local disagreements between the two mentioned contributors, including Origen’s ambiguous opinion regarding the Preaching of Peter, appreciated by Clement.

Dionysius was the third Father and Alexandria’s 14th Pope. In discussing his persona, Bruce (1988) seeks to contribute to the allegory-based interpretation method’s recognition by the audience while also promoting Dionysius’s lexico-stylistic analysis of the Apocalypse and contributions to establishing its actual author instead of John the Apostle. The author writes about this Alexandrian father using the following lines:

Dionysius not only defended the allegorical method, which he believed could bring to light in the Apocalypse hidden and wonderful truths that were too high for his comprehension; he added some observations on the book’s authorship, which reveal his sure touch in the field of literary criticism. He saw that the stylistic and lexical features of the book were such as to render it unlikely that it came from the same author as the Fourth Gospel and 1 John; he agreed that it was the work of a man called John, as indeed it claims to be (whereas the Fourth Gospel and 1 John are anonymous), and agreed further that this John, while not the apostle, was a ‘holy and inspired person’ (Bruce, 1988, p. 301)

Using this information, Bruce invites the reader to reflect on the author’s formal hierarchical position versus the contents in defining the writing’s status. The conclusions made by Dionysius, Origen, and Clement represent the development of theological thought.

A Canon within the Canon

This concluding chapter guides the reader through the complex history of canonicity. The author’s review of “the inner canon” idea formulated by Aland and tracing back to Dionysius’s authorship-related discussions points to challenges in accepting it, including introducing the material center idea in the German theological community (Bruce, 1988, p. 270). Bruce’s (1988) writing also sheds light on the long-term dispute over the canon’s ability to promote and demonstrate the Christian Church’s unity. In a discussion of today’s criteria of canonicity, the author problematizes the inability of the traditional canon’s adherents to defend their perspective concerning modern arguments unrelated to the realities of the canon identification process.

Bruce’s (1998) chapter on canonicity can also be regarded as a practice-oriented discussion aimed at reviewing the mechanisms through which quality is appraised in a theological sense, including efforts to prevent some new findings from challenging the relative harmony of the previously compiled narrative. In the chapter, the researcher expands on apostolicity’s status as an evaluation criterion and carefully distinguishes between date/authorship establishment requirements and the canonization criteria. More than that, he speculates on the fate of a hypothetical, previously unknown apostolic piece of writing that might be discovered, indicating the lack of a consensus as a crucial contributor to canonization-related disputes.

It is possible to state that Bruce presents a detailed and theoretically foregrounded description of the history of Christian canonicity. The book is written in clear and easy-to-understand language, but the author does not compromise the validity of the content. As a result, the book discussed by Bruce can be used as a source of truthful and detailed information about the history of the canon of the Holy Scripture for the general audience. At the same time, a person specializing in theology and religious studies might also find valuable information in this source. Bruce manages to present the data on the chosen topic in a structured chronological manner, which makes the question clear to the readers.

Reference

Bruce, F. F. (1988). The canon of scripture. Intervarsity Press.

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