Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20121021.htm

BIOGRAPHIES OF BIBLE SAINTS
V. Mary Magdalene: A Holy, Fulfilling Relationship With Christ
D. The Canonicity Of The Bible Behind Our View Of Mary Magdalene
(Luke 11:49-51; John 17:20 et al.)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    Being sure that we have God's truth today is quite a challenge!

    (1) In our sermon series on Mary Magdalene, we learned that on September 30, 2012, the Smithsonian Channel ran a nationwide documentary on the "newly discovered ancient fragment" of likely Gnostic origin presented by Harvard professor Karen King that claims Jesus referred to Mary Magdalene as His wife. (zeenews.india, "Jesus was married' claim a forgery,'" 9/22/2012) However, our Bible does not teach they were married, so the claim that they were fuels the theory promoted by Dan Brown's widely read book, The Da Vinci Code that Constantine the Great unfairly kept the Gnostic writings out of the New Testament "canon," that is, its collection of writings held to be God's authoritative Word. (Stanley E. Porter, "The Da Vinci Code Conspiracy Theory and Biblical Canon," catholiceducation.org)

    Darrell L. Bock, Ph. D., who wrote a critique of Brown's book in the book, Breaking The Da Vinci Code, 2004, p. 127-129, claims an agenda exists in some academic circles to rewrite Church History to counter theologically conservative Christianity's Biblical stands that counter "politically correct" views such as feminism. That agenda extols the Gnostic writings and challenges the New Testament.

    (3) However, the challenge to being sure we even have God's truth in our Bible hits us not only from the world, but even from some theologically conservative fellow Christians: I have been given a book authored by a Christian college professor, William P. Grady, that is titled, Final Authority, 1993, where Grady claimed on pages 186-187 that our pew Bible, the New International Version, is an inferior work, and that the King James Version is "the only Bible sanctioned from on high," meaning it is the only Bible sanctioned by God!

    (4) This challenge is made more complicated for us since one of my seminary professors, Dr. Kenneth Barker, Ph. D., though once the Chairman and Professor of Semitics and Old Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, later became the Executive Secretary of the NIV Committee on Bible Translation! I suppose some Christian college professor would thereby question my own ministry and that of our Church since Dr. Barker taught me Hebrew at Dallas Seminary!

    So, for this final message on our series on Mary Magdalene, we address the question, "How do we KNOW if our 66-book Bible is God's Word?!"

    Need: "How do I know if my 66-book Bible really is God's Word?!"

  1. The 66-book canon was set by God at the local level of His people:
    1. The closed 39-book Old Testament canon was set before the A. D. 90 council of Jamnia that discussed it, for the 150 B. C. Dead Sea Scroll 4QMMT refers to "the Book of Moses and the Books of the Prophets and David,'" the three-part division of the 39-book canon Jesus mentioned in Luke 24:44. (J. D. Lyon, "Dead Sea Scrolls - Timeless Treasures from Qumran," Answers, Oct.-Dec. 2012, p. 40-41.
    2. The 27-book New Testament was set before any council asserted it:
      1. In A. D. 58 in Romans 12:6b of the Greek Testament, Paul directed Christians to prophesy in accord with the analogia, the "canon" of truth (Charles Hodge, Commentary on Romans, 1974, p. 390).
      2. Thus, if a work lacked proven apostolic authority, the early Christians rejected it, J. McDowell, A Ready Defense, 1991, p. 39.
      3. Also, Rylands fragment P52 with John 18:31-33, 37-38 & dated A. D. 100-150 by reputable paleographers was found by the Nile far from its traditional place of authorship at Ephesus (B. Metzger, The Text of the N. T., 1968, p. 38-39). It has the Alexandrian reading at its only point of text variation (M. King, "Should Cons. Abandon Text. Criticism?", Bib. Sac. , Jan.-Mar., 1973, 130:517, p. 39), so John was widely held to be canonical by the early 2nd cent.
      4. Accordingly, when the Council of Nicea in A. D. 325 asserted the 27-book N. T. canon, it only reflected what local Christians had held to be canonical for over 200 years , Ibid., Bock, p. 100-102.
  2. Also, the 66-book canon is affirmed by the authority of Jesus Christ:
    1. In John's archaeologically proven very early Gospel, Jesus at John 17:20 affirmed the words of His disciples, so, via John 1:35-42, we know John, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2 & 3 John & Revelation are canonical.
    2. 1 Peter 5:13 claims Mark was Peter's close disciple, so Mark's Gospel was always held to be canonical, Ryrie St. Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 1397.
    3. Mark 3:13-18 names Matthew as a disciple, so his gospel is canonical.
    4. 2 Peter 3:15-16 puts Paul's letters on par with "the other Scriptures," "other" being loipos, "the rest of [same in kind]," Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 481), meaning Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus & Philemon are canonical.
    5. 1 Timothy 5:18 calls both Luke 10:7 and Deuteronomy 25:4 Scripture, so Luke and Acts by Luke 1:1-4 & Acts 1:1 are canonical.
    6. In Matthew 23:35, Jesus names the martyrs from Abel (Gen. 4:8) to Zacharias (2 Chr. 24:20-22). Genesis is the first and 2 Chronicles the last book in the 39-book O. T. canon (Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Matt. 23:35), and Maccabean martyrs in the Apocrypha died long after Zacharias, so Jesus affirmed the 39-book O. T. canon MINUS the APOCRYPHA!
    7. Then, Revelation 1-2 relies on Hebrews, James & Jude as canonical:
      1. The word, distomos, "two-edged," is used of swords in the N. T. only in Hebrews 4:12 and Rev. 1:16, 2:12 & 19:15 (Ibid., Arndt, & Gingrich, p. 199), and we need Hebrews 4:12 to identify the Revelation 1:16, 2:12 & 19:15 sword as Scripture or God's Word.
      2. The phrase, ton stephanon tes zoes, "the crown of [the] life" exists in the N. T. only at James 1:12 & Rev. 2:10 (Moult. & Ged., Con. to the Grk. Test., 1974, p. 904) and we need James 1:12 to know that overcoming temptation is what wins the crown in Rev. 2:10.
      3. Revelation 3:4 describes men with "unsoiled" (moluno, Ibid., Arndt & Ging., p. 528) attire, and only Jude 23 elsewhere in the N. T. reveals this figure means the Revelation 3:4 men do not live by the sin nature, U. B. S. Greek N. T., 1966, ftn. to Rev. 3:4.
  3. The Bible text has also been adequately transmitted in the mss:
    1. The N. T. variant readings are "one-half of one percent" of the text (Ibid., McDowell, p. 46, citing Geisler & Nix, A Gen. Intr. to the Bib., 1968, p. 367), and the Dead Sea Scroll finds of the O. T. books (they include all but Esther, C. C. Ryrie, A Surv. of Bib. Doct., 1972, p. 45) pushed our knowledge of O. T. mss back by 832-1,150 years to show no significant variations btwn. early & late scrolls, Ibid., Lyon, p. 41.
    2. In the end, "no fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading," Ibid., McDowell, p. 46, citing N. T. authority F. Kenyon, Our Bible & the Anc. Mss., 1941, p. 23, and citing in O. T. authority Gleason Archer, Ency. of Bible Difficulties, 1982, p. 25.
  4. [We recommend the (N)KJV, ESV & NIV in our conclusion notes.]
  5. Finally, Scripture claims God is preserving the Bible's truth for us:
    1. Isaiah 8:20 with Psalm 119:105 reveal that we humans need God's written Word or we function in great spiritual darkness.
    2. Psalm 23:3 claims God leads us in righteous paths or He is not God!
    3. Psalm 119:90a claims God is faithful to all generations, even to ours!
    4. Be sure, then, that God is preserving His written Word to disciple us!
Application: May we (1) trust in Christ to be saved, John 3:16, and (2) trust our 66-book Bible to be God's true Word to be heeded.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 As we noted in the sermon notes, in this conclusion section, we clarify our recommendation of the English translation(s) (as follows):

(1) First of all, the claim by "King James Only" promoters that the KJV is "the only Bible sanctioned from on high" from God, and the view that using the New International Version in our pews is wrong, is not logically credible for the following reasons:

(a) No English speaking person can make logical sense of Job 36:33 in the 1611 KJV where it states: "The noise thereof sheweth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the vapor." The NIV translates this verse to read: "His thunder announces the coming storm; even the cattle make known its approach." Had we been left with only the 1611 KJV, we would not have been able to understand this verse!

(b) In the preface of the 1611 King James Version, its translators claimed "that variety of Translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures'"! (James R. White, The King James Only Controversy, 1995, p. 76) This reflects our recommendation on the versions, for even the King James translators denied their 1611 version was God's only sanctioned Bible!

(c) The Textus Receptus manuscript from which the KJV was translated, a manuscript "King James Only" promoters exalt, exists in various editions that differ at points from each other! (The Biblical Evangelist, July-Aug., 1999, p. 2 in a review of Grady's book cited earlier) One errs to call the Textus Receptus God-inspired!

(2) Second, the NIV we use as our pew Bible is a "dynamic equivalent," taking some license in the English to make the original Bible languages more readily understandable in today's English.

(3) Conversely, the English Standard and (New) King James versions try to keep the reading closer to the wording of the original Biblical languages at the cost of some degree of clarity in English.

(4) Why these imperfections? (a) Only the autograph manuscripts and not the translations are covered by God's inspiration, and (2) one can not translate the Bible's original languages word-for-word into the English -- it is grammatically impossible!

(5) Thus, we suggest the (New) KJV, the ESV and the NIV, for, between the three and in line with the directive of the 1611 KJV translators, we hold the reader gets a text sufficient for faith and life!

Our 66-book Bible is God's Word, so may we use it as such.