There Must Be Something More

105 | This Is Getting Intense

Trey moved an inch closer to the edge of the stage. "The New Testament writers rarely quote from other books and never with the same authority. The Apocrypha is entirely absent in their writing."

"Yeah, we get it, Bible nerd," Mark stood up with his arms crossed. "The Apocrypha isn't an accurate record of religious writings. We want you to get straight to the point. Why in the world can we trust that stupid book--"

"All comments and questions will be addressed at the end of the lecture," Trey interrupted, his look stern.

Mark clenched his jaw and reluctantly sat back down.

"He's an aggressive one," I turned to Alex.

Alex inhaled sharply, crossing her arms. "He's just mad he lost his best friend."

I nodded. "Sounds like someone I know."

"While it is true that some of the early church leaders quoted from the Apocrypha—though very rarely compared to their use of the Old Testament books—there is no evidence that they recognized these books as equal to the Old Testament." Trey continued on. "The conviction that there was a canon of old covenant books that could not be added to or subtracted from doubtless led the early Christians to expect the same divine order for the story of Jesus, the record of the early church, and the letters of the apostles."

I smiled.

Trey smiled. "And this brings us to our new topic, 'The Canon of the New Testament'." The slide behind him changed, golden letters floated on the projected screen. He turned around for a while to appreciate the scene, then turned back around to face the audience.

"The earliest available list of New Testament books is known as the Muratorian Canon and is dated around A.D. 150. It includes the four Gospels, Acts, thirteen letters of Paul, Jude, two (perhaps all three) letters of John, and the Revelation of John. It claims that these were accepted by the 'universal church.'"

"Amazing," Alex said, taking down notes on her phone, the projected screen reflecting her wide eyes.

Meredith rubbed her hands together. "This is my favorite topic."

"You said that about every topic," I said, rolling my eyes.

She gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. "Got a problem with that, Borlock?"

Trey grinned this time, "This leaves out 1 and 2 Peter, James, and Hebrews. However, 1 Peter was widely accepted by this time and may be an oversight by the compiler (or the later copyist). No other books are present except the Wisdom of Solomon, but this must be an error since that book belongs in the Apocrypha and no one ever added it to the New Testament!"

I glanced at the crowd and saw Calum narrow his eyes at Trey. His hands were crossed in front of him. But he seemed interested, his attention all on the lecture. My hands tingled. Could he actually have a chance on becoming a believer?

But then Calum shook his head and started typing something on his phone.

I sighed. Fat chance.

"By A.D. 240, Origen from Alexandria was using all our 27 books as 'Scripture,' and no others, and referred to them as the 'New Testament.' He believed them to be 'inspired by the Spirit.' But it was not until A.D. 367 that Athanasius, also from Alexandria, provided us with an actual list of New Testament books identical with ours." Trey said. 

He held one finger to raise a point, "However, long before we have that list, the evidence shows that the 27 books, and only those, were widely accepted as Scripture."

"And to elaborate what I'm talking about, please look at the projected screen behind me." He added.

Many words flashed on the screen in bullet form. 

"So, why did it take so long?" Trey continued, pacing back and forth by the edge of the stage. "Can anybody give me an educated guess why did it have to take so long to have all the New Testament books gathered together?"

Everyone started to turn around to the other, reluctant to be the one called in front. It looked just like a regular classroom subject. I was amazed at how Trey was handling all this. It was no accident he had the call to do the lecture this time. God truly worked in mysterious ways. Just a few days ago, Trey was shaking at the fact that he was going to live up to everyone's expectations of him. I knew he felt insecure that people found mine and Meredith's lecture really interesting, and he felt he was going to have to hit that standard. But the Lord proved He could use anyone to bring about His glory.

Calum raised a hand. "I've got an idea."

My heart leaped. In a bad way.

"Yeah?" Trey didn't seem convinced.

Meredith shot me a quick glance.

"It took so long because the writer still had to dream up stories for his little book of fairy tales."

The crowd burst into laughter. Calum snickered at Trey. Trey turned to Meredith and me just beside him.

Meredith gave him the gesture to go on.

"Not quite right," Trey said, chuckling. "Although I was starting to figure after everything I discussed here, you would catch the fact that the Bible is all true and reliable. But I guess you're that much of an airhead, aren't you?"

Meredith's eyes grew wide and she turned to me. "He shouldn't do that."

I face-palmed and sunk lower down my seat.

"I'd like to hear you say that with my fist planted deep down your throat!" Calum challenged.

"Boys, enough!" Principal Powell stood and shot Trey and Calum a dirty look. Then he turned to Calum. "What did I say about clever comments and questions? You wanna be kicked out of this lecture, boy?"

"No, sir," Calum replied through gritted teeth. I saw him clench his fists shakily, and then he sat down.

"This is getting intense," Alex said, fanning herself with one hand.

"I can't handle this much violence," Meredith scowled.

Trey awkwardly straightened his coat and spoke formally again, "The New Testament was not all neatly printed and bound by the Macedonian Pub. Co. at Thessalonica shortly after Paul's death and sent out by the pallet load into all the bookstores and kiosks of the Roman Empire. Here are six reasons why it took time for the books of the New Testament to be gathered together.

"First. The originals were scattered across the whole empire. The Roman Empire reached from Britain to Persia, and it would have taken time for any church even to learn about all the letters Paul had written, let alone gather copies of them."

"That actually makes sense," a girl from the crowd said. I looked to see who it was. I couldn't tell.

"Second. No scroll could easily contain more than one or two books. It would be impossible to fit more than one Gospel onto a scroll, and even when codices (books) were used, the entire New Testament would be extremely bulky and very expensive to produce. It was therefore far more convenient for New Testament books to be copied singly or in small groups."

I looked at the crowd. Calum was already looking at me. He shook his head in a look of disappointment.

I looked away. I'm never coming back, Cal. Accept it.

Disclaimer: This info was taken from the article by Brian H. Edwards entitled "Why 66?" In the answersingenesis.org website.