Religion and Theology

The New Testament presents the paradox of a literature born of protest against the tyranny of a canon, yet ultimately canonized itself through an increasing demand for external authority.

Benjamin W Bacon, The Making of the New Testament

As Professor Bacon notes, Christianity was born as a revolt against the dead weight of the extant Jewish scriptures. Jesus rebelled against a book-religion. He vehemently opposed the scribes and the faithful devotees of a sacred scripture, known as the Law. However, the new Way of the Christ as it was practiced in the centuries after Jesus adopted as its starting point the same Scripture as that of the scribes. As early Christianity grew rapidly converting people with an intense religious fervor, there was a great need for scriptures that could reveal the path for the vast numbers of newly converted Christians. Besides the gospels, which were more than four at that time including books such as The Gospel of Thomas, a great number of writings proliferated during these first couple of centuries of the new millennium.

Subsequently, evolving from the anti-establishmentarian religion that it was, Christianity rose to the status of the state religion. It is commonly believed that the Church councils such as the famous Council of Nicaea convened in A.D. 325 by the Roman Emperor Constantine codified the official Church doctrine and canonized those scriptures that fell in accord with the accepted doctrine. Many prevalent scriptures were relegated to apocrypha and others were dismissed as heresies. Although the Council of Nicaea was a landmark event in the history of Christianity it did not issue the New Testament as we know it today, nor did several other Church councils of the following centuries.

The New Testament was gradually consolidated over vast periods of time, incorporating into itself those Christian texts that were most universally revered by devout Christians. It was only during the much-later Tridentene Council of the Roman Catholic Church held during the sixteenth century that the New Testament attained its present final form.