Different Christian Biblical Canons

carlton_bach

MarkA said:
I thought Moton Smith's discovery of the Secret Gospel of Mark confirmed the existence of an inner and outer canon from the very beginning of christianity? Maybe it still exists? After all, the 'revelations' of the visions the church claims were of Mary in the twentieth century were kept secret and revealed only to the pope and a select group of churchmen.

So the assumption is that the senior church leadership had access to whole volumes of writings that were kept away from the laity and other priests. As one pope said, 'This Jesus myth has served us well.'
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Sounds like one of the Avignonese...

I think we are talking different things here. Not inner and outer canon in the sense of 'the pap for the masses, the truth for the select'. That kind of thinking is not entirely alien to some branches of Christianity, but what we are talking about here is the idea of a canon of Scripture that is accepted across church boundaries and one that is taken as canonical only by some. You could, in fact, argue that we already have such a thing in practice, to a small degree (on the one hand it makes me happy to see how well everyone deals with it, on the otrher hand it is slightly disturbing how little everyone in the ecumenical movement seems to care on the matter of the canonicality of, say, Maccabees. I mean, we are talking direct inspiration, aren't we?). However, imagine a world where instead of differing in the books hardly anyone ever reads, the churches differ in major issues like the canonicality of Revelation, the Epistles, additional Gospels, or the Pentateuch, but all agreed on the synoptic gospels as core canonical. You could tell a different Bible at a glance from the table of contents, and I'd join the Marcionites (no Numbers, Leviticus and Deuternonomy, Yeah!).
 

MarkA

OK carlton, what you mean is that when the bible was being developed instead of the church heirarchy ensuring there was uniformity, they refused to compromise local traditions? So different books that were canon in say Anatolia but were either unknown or rejected in Lyon became entrenched in Anatolia but remained absent in the bible in Lyon. There would have been no debate or contact even among the faithful and especially the bishops. Ireneaus would not have written his work because there would have been no concept of heresy.

If that is so then how could orthodox faith come about?

This POD sounds like a protestant nirvana. No historical basis for the faith only 'direct revelation'. I assume that the so-called 'prophets' will continue to expound strange dreams as divinely inspired and no one would have authority to reject them. Church Fathers would have no authority. Debate, at least in the western church, would be limited to how close one book in one area was to another someplace else. Philosophical maturity would be stifled in the west and no Augustine, Pelagius or Aquinas would arise. Heresy would be the normal state of affairs so there would be no church in any recognisable sense. No counter weight to secular robber barons, no moral unity that would allow people to identify themselves as living in christendom, no monks to preserve and copy manuscripts, no historical sense of a 'faith of the fathers'.

In other words what you are describing is the defeat of orthodoxy and the triumph of Gnosticism.
 

Alratan

I would agree with the suggestion uo thread that the best POD(s) for this is to have more of the early strands of Christianity to survive. If Arianism gets more popular support in Germany and into Northen Europe, Monophysism is not displaced by Islam and instead plays the same role in uniting the Arabs that Islam does, and Nestorian Chrisitianity (later on) makes much better progress amongst the steppe peoples and into China, you could see different Bibles quite easily.
 

MerryPrankster

Alratan said:
I would agree with the suggestion uo thread that the best POD(s) for this is to have more of the early strands of Christianity to survive. If Arianism gets more popular support in Germany and into Northen Europe, Monophysism is not displaced by Islam and instead plays the same role in uniting the Arabs that Islam does, and Nestorian Chrisitianity (later on) makes much better progress amongst the steppe peoples and into China, you could see different Bibles quite easily.
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In OTL, did the Nestorians, Arians, and Monophysites use different canons?

If they all started with the basic 66, what might they add/subtract in ATLs? I'm thinking the Arians might not like the Gospel of John, while the Nestorians have a lot of written tradition of their own they could draw on.
 

MerryPrankster

MarkA said:
OK carlton, what you mean is that when the bible was being developed instead of the church heirarchy ensuring there was uniformity, they refused to compromise local traditions? So different books that were canon in say Anatolia but were either unknown or rejected in Lyon became entrenched in Anatolia but remained absent in the bible in Lyon. There would have been no debate or contact even among the faithful and especially the bishops. Ireneaus would not have written his work because there would have been no concept of heresy.

If that is so then how could orthodox faith come about?

This POD sounds like a protestant nirvana. No historical basis for the faith only 'direct revelation'. I assume that the so-called 'prophets' will continue to expound strange dreams as divinely inspired and no one would have authority to reject them. Church Fathers would have no authority. Debate, at least in the western church, would be limited to how close one book in one area was to another someplace else. Philosophical maturity would be stifled in the west and no Augustine, Pelagius or Aquinas would arise. Heresy would be the normal state of affairs so there would be no church in any recognisable sense. No counter weight to secular robber barons, no moral unity that would allow people to identify themselves as living in christendom, no monks to preserve and copy manuscripts, no historical sense of a 'faith of the fathers'.

In other words what you are describing is the defeat of orthodoxy and the triumph of Gnosticism.
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Umm...we're only talking about some differences in the canon here. I don't think you'd get "prophets of the week" and thus extremely subjective theology, although I concede incorporating a later writer's works as Scripture could open the door for this.

The basic situation I'm thinking of would be, say:

1. A church in North Africa might deny that Paul had apostolic authority b/c and draw its theology solely from the Four Gospels and the epistles confirmably written by one of the Twelve.

2. A church in Mesopotamia or Lebanon includes the Gospel of Thomas in addition to the canonical four.

3. The writings of St. Whatever in, say, France are added to the Bible.

How might that cause the apocalpytic scenario you describe?
 

MerryPrankster

Carlton describes what I'm thinking of best.

He brings up a good point re: Revelation. That was almost rejected by one of the church councils, I think.
 

MarkA

MerryPrankster said:
Umm...we're only talking about some differences in the canon here. I don't think you'd get "prophets of the week" and thus extremely subjective theology, although I concede incorporating a later writer's works as Scripture could open the door for this.

The basic situation I'm thinking of would be, say:

1. A church in North Africa might deny that Paul had apostolic authority b/c and draw its theology solely from the Four Gospels and the epistles confirmably written by one of the Twelve.

2. A church in Mesopotamia or Lebanon includes the Gospel of Thomas in addition to the canonical four.

3. The writings of St. Whatever in, say, France are added to the Bible.

How might that cause the apocalpytic scenario you describe?
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If no central authority determines what is canonical and what is not then anything is allowable. Marcion, for example, rejected all but the letters of Paul and a couple of gospels. Ireneaus rejected some of the present bible and argued that four was the number of gospels (because there are four seaons, four winds, four corners of the earth, etc.) So if one area allowed the Gospel of Mary Magdelaine to be canonical there would be more than four and therefore it would not be orthodox.

No central authority to determine canon means no church councils. No church councils means no definition of the faith. No definition of the faith means any heresy is allowed. Any heresy allowed means the ultimate triumph of Gnosticism.

As for the prophets I mentioned, they were roaming all over the christian areas and propounding all sorts of nonsense. They were only discredited and stopped because the bishops were united as believers in the one faith (not many as different bibles would imply).

These minor differences that are proposed in the bible must arise as the product of major changes to the idea of what the church is and what authority means.
 

MerryPrankster

MarkA,

I'm thinking the difference in canons would be national or regional (think Ethiopia) rather than church-by-church, although there might be exceptions (for example the Liberals Like Christ types are headquartered in the South, but they are assuredly NOT Southern Baptists).

If each particular church has its own canon, you're right that orthodoxy as we know it would not exist.

However, if there are several regional canons in Christendom, and they all have at least a few books in common, then things might be different.
 

MerryPrankster

Alratan said:
The different regions would automatically evolve into different churches
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That would depend on how radical the differences in canons are.

The "Liberals Like Christ" guy is actually a Methodist minister. The overwhelming majority of Methodists believe Paul was an apostle; the church has apparently not ejected him yet.

Without Paul's epistles (but containing the other 66 books), you would still have essentially the same religion. Perhaps less end-times speculation and obsession with gender roles, but the core ideas are contained in the gospels.

Now, if you started tinkering with the gospels, that's when things get tricky. Many of the "Gospels of X" were very Gnostic.

Come to think of it, there is also some non-Gospel that might cause differences. The Apocalypse of Peter, for example, states that Hell is not eternal--people go there for varying lengths of time before eventually going to Heaven. A more univeralistic church (an example of which might be based on the www.tentmaker.org site) might justify their doctrines with the AoP.
 
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