Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Nathan Busenitz - How did we get the Bible?

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the Bible.In this episode Nathan Busenitz, Executive Vice President, Dean of Faculty, & Associate Professor of Theology at The Master's University, answers the question, "How did we get the Bible?"Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis, and this is Dial In. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Nathan Busnitz, who is the dean of the Master's Seminary, and I ask him about biblical canonicity, which is essentially the idea behind how we got our Bible. So much of biblical authority and biblical sufficiency is under attack today, and the initial wave of that attack is a doubt that is thrown at how our Bible was compiled and assembled in the first place. You'll be well served to listen to this episode with Dr. Busnitz. Let's dial in.

Well, Dr. Busnitz, thank you for sitting down. Can you tell us briefly who you are, your background, what we need to know about Dr. Nathan Busnitz? Yeah, Johnny, thank you for letting me be here. I have the joy and privilege of serving at the Master's Seminary. I serve primarily in the administration. I also teach church history. And then I get to be an elder at Grace Community Church, which is just awesome. So the Master's Seminary in Grace Church, that's my life and where I love to be. Well, I love it.

Well, thank you for your time. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about today is biblical canonicity, which is really the idea of how we got our Bible. So much of biblical authority is under attack today because this topic of canonicity is also kind of gilded with much ambiguity by the outside world. So what I wanted to ask you is how did we get our Bible and how do we know that the 66 books

that compose our current Bible are the books that we need and are all we need for a life of godliness? What would you say to someone asking that question? Yeah, first of all, it's a great question and it's an important question. And it's a question to which I think we have really good answers. So we could delve into a lot of details about a lot of things. And that's the temptation, I think, for many people when they start to study canonicity is they get in the weeds really fast. I think it's helpful, first and foremost, to pull back and to see the forest and really to give a very simple but very clarifying answer. And that answer would be this, that the question of canonicity really boils down to the person of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ

is the authority over the canon, and Jesus Christ is the authority over every believer. We affirm the canon of scripture because Jesus Christ affirmed the Old Testament canon of his day, which corresponds to our 39 books of the Old Testament, and he authorized his apostles to give new revelation to the church in the New Testament. So it's the affirmation of Christ and the authority or authorization of Christ that gives us reason to submit to the canon. So what you're saying is that one of the main reasons we can at least trust in biblical, our biblical canon is because Jesus affirmed the Old Testament. He said, this is the word of God. He preached from it. And in the New Testament, we can trust because Jesus extended his authority to a unique set of apostles, so we can trust it. That would be at least your

primary starting point. Absolutely. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the church, and he's the Lord over his canon. And his people submit to him, and therefore they submit to his word, which is why the church submits to the scriptures. If we start by talking about the Old Testament, for example, the Hebrew canon of first century Judaism was a 22 book or 22 scroll canon. The Codex was something that comes a little bit later. But those 22 scrolls contain the same content as our 39 books. So for example, if you take the 12 minor prophets, put them all on one scroll, put Judges and Ruth together, put Jeremiah and Lamentations together, put 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Samuel, put them all together.

When you condense it, you go from 39 to 22. We see in Josephus, we see in many of the early church fathers, there's widespread recognition that the Jewish canon of the first century was a 22-book canon. Jesus affirms that canon in his interaction with the religious leaders, specifically the Pharisees and the scribes. And he never questions that. He only affirms it. In fact, he affirms on multiple occasions the three-part division of the law, the prophets, and the writings, places like Luke 24. And so we see in Jesus him affirming the 22-book canon of his day

as scripture, and that corresponds to the 39-book canon that's in the Protestant Old Testament. It's the reason we don't accept the Apocrypha books, because Jesus never affirmed the Apocrypha. The Jews of Jesus' day did not consider the Apocrypha to be scripture. And so when Jesus affirms their canon, he necessarily omits the Apocryphal books. And so we don't submit to the Apocryphal books as canonical scripture because Jesus didn't affirm them as canonical scripture. It really is that simple. How do the Roman Catholics currently view the apocrypha? Is it sub-canon or do they view that just as the canon of scripture like every other book? Yeah, per the Council of Trent, they would call them deuterocanonical books are regarded as canonical scripture. So I think they would recognize that in church history, they were

viewed as books that were canon, but maybe a little bit not as important as the other canonical books. But since the Council of Trent, they have been regarded as canonical books by the Roman Catholic Church. So if you were to pick up a copy of the Bible that a Roman Catholic publishing company had produced, it would have the apocryphal books in there. After Malachi, before Matthew, These are intertestamental books. So how would you respond to the rebuttal that so many people probably often hear today is that tradition or the church made the Bible? So how can you base your life upon, how can you establish your faith upon something that was established or organized by man who are fallible? How would you respond to that?

So let's go from the Old Testament to talk about the New Testament. Jesus authorized his apostles to give new revelation to the church through the Holy Spirit. And he specifically made promises to them in the upper room, John 14 verses 25 and 26, John 16 verses 12 to 15. Jesus said, through the Holy Spirit, He's going to bring to your memory all that I have said to you. So they're going to have a precise and exact remembrance of what Jesus taught. That's a promise. And then the promise of John 16 is that through the Holy Spirit, He's going to give them new revelation for the church. And that's something that we see fulfilled in the writing of the epistles.

So the gospels are that first promise fulfilled. The epistles are that second promise fulfilled. It all comes back to the person of Jesus Christ. So what we see in church history is we see the church responding to and recognizing the voice of Christ. In fact, in John 10, 27, Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. So it's a characteristic of the followers of Jesus that they recognize and submit to his word. And that's what we see happen in church history. It wasn't the kind of thing where the church got together and decided, this is the word of Christ. It was instead that as these apostolic writings circulate from church to church, believers recognize through the illumination of the Holy Spirit that this comes from an apostle, it comes from one of Jesus' authorized delegates as he commissioned and authorized them in the upper room in John 14 and John 16.

So the writing of the New Testament is the fulfillment of those two promises. Jesus promised, you'll remember what I said, fulfilled in the writing of the Gospels. Jesus promised there's more revelation to come, fulfilled in the writing of the epistles. All of it comes back to Christ. Christ is the Lord of the church. Christ is the Lord over the canon. And Christ's word comes with his authority so that his people submit to that truth. So then I think the, I'm assuming that the logical ensuing question would be, then if that was the case in church history, at least in the early centuries after the death of Jesus,

that there was already established letters from the epistles that were viewed as the scriptures. You see the same thing with Peter and Paul referring to each other's writings as the scripture. What were the events leading up to or the catalyst that functioned to lead to our binding of the 66 books that we have today? How did we end up with that? And really, what was the impetus for making that a decision? Let's make a Bible. Yeah, I think you have both a technological and a theological answer to that. On the technological side, you have the introduction of the codex. So we're moving from a scroll to actual flat pages that are bound together. So a book, we're going from scrolls to books. So that's an advance in technology

that's taking place in world history at this time. You also have theologically heretics that are attacking the truth. And in the mid-second century, there's a heretic named Marcion who denies and rejects the Old Testament altogether, and he also rejects significant portions of the New Testament. In fact, he came up with his own sort of mini New Testament, almost like Thomas Jefferson, but way before Thomas Jefferson, where he's editing the Bible the way he wants it. He comes up with a list of 10 letters of Paul that he likes and part of the gospel of Luke. And believers responding to this, true believers, are like, hey, wait a second. You can't, you don't have the authority, Marcion, to reject certain writings that come from apostles just because you don't like what they said.

Anything that authentically comes from an apostle comes with Christ's own authority. That's it. So in response to the heretics, true believers start to say, you know what? We probably should write down the books that we all recognize come from the apostles. They're not determining what's in, they're recognizing and responding to what they have always recognized as coming from the apostles. Even if we look at Justin Martyr around the year 150 describing an early church service, he says that what the Christians did when they gathered was they read the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets. New Testament scripture, Old Testament scripture, that was the content of their corporate instruction. So the church recognized anything that comes from an apostle comes with Christ's own authority.

They began to develop lists only in response to the heretics when the heretics started making lists that were incomplete. That's really helpful. Now, Dr. Buzins, maybe just in closing, let's say someone's looking at the topic or they're looking at the title of the video and it says the canon of scripture. And maybe the initial thought is, well, that's something reserved for scholastics and academics. They need to understand that, you know, I'm fine. What would be maybe your encouragement to a Christian in the workplace for why they need to understand and be able to articulate how we got our Bible? Yeah, you know, when I think about the way that Christians are to engage in the workplace or in the world, a passage that comes to my mind is 1 Peter 3.15. Sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a defense for the hope that is in you to anyone and everyone who asks with gentleness and reverence. That passage

is where we get the term apologetics from, because to give a defense from the Greek word apologia, and it's the idea of always being ready to give an answer. But I love how that verse starts, sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart. That giving an answer, a good answer, having a good answer to anyone who would ask you is actually an act of worship. And when we think about the big picture of canonicity, it all comes back to Christ. So why do we affirm the 39 books of the Old Testament? Because Christ affirmed the Old Testament canon of his day. Why do we submit to the 27 books of the New Testament? Because Christ authorized his apostles through the Holy Spirit to give that revelation to the church. So to submit to the word of Christ is an act of worship. And to defend the word of Christ

is an act of worship. It's all an act of worship that we offer to the Lord Jesus as those who treat him as holy and as Lord. Well, Dr. Buzes, that's so helpful. And I'm grateful for your time. Thanks for sitting down.