How My Theory About An Imperial Conspiracy in the Late Second Century Bridges the Gap Between David Trobisch and Martin Hengel

Let's continue with Trobisch's amazing work. After going through all the surviving manuscript evidence (which I won't cite here) Trobisch develops some important conclusions which I think best explain the origin of the canon:

With the exception of five documents, all of the evaluated manuscripts of the first seven centuries may be interpreted as copies of the same (original) edition P46 and D 06 (Letters of Paul), W 032 (Gospels), and D 05 (Gospels, Praxapostolos) may be understood as a deliberate redaction rearrangement of the same material.

... I would like to illustrate this point with an analysis of Theodor Zahn's argument. According to Zahn, an anonymous anti-Montanist writer at the end of the second century asserted that any additions to or deletions from the Holy Scripture were intolerable. Zahn then turns to Tertullian, a Montanist, who only a few years later repeated exactly the same sentence about such additions and deletions during a discussion with a theological opponent. For Zahn there is little doubt that both authors refer to the final verses of Revelations. Zahn then ironically remarks that one could conclude that these men had perused an examplar of the New Testament, one that began with the Gospel According to Matthew and ended with the Revelations of John - an examplar, that is, that looked very much like modern printed editions. As far as Zahn is concerned, such a conclusion would be a foolish error. His verdict strongly influenced most twentieth-century studies on the New Testament canon.

... [after arguments against Zahn's view] From this perspective, the same documented debates that are usually evaluated to demonstrate a gradual growth process of the canon serve instead as proof that the Canonical Edition of the Christian Bible was finished, published and widely used.

It is not Theodor Zahn's fault that he did not appropriately evaluate the manuscript evidence. The Codex Sinaiticus had just been discovered when Zahn published his work, and a reliable transcript of the Codex Vaticanus was not yet available. The high value of both witnesses for the reconstruction of the original text was not yet established among scholars. The impressive number of papyri accessible to us today had not yet been discovered. Zahn certainly is not to be blamed. Today, however, New Testament research has to deal with and evaluate the rich new manuscript evidence.

More often than not, the history of the Christian Bible was treated as the history of a doctrine and not the history of a publication. Researchers focused on the canon, not on the Canonical Edition.[p. 35 - 37]

So I hope my readers understand what Trobisch is saying. Someone in the late second century established a 'final edition' of the canon and the basic form of this collection stayed relatively stable over time.

Of course Trobisch recognizes that there are critics of his position - most notably Martin Hengel. Here is what Trobisch writes a little later after demonstrating that the titles of the various gospels, letters and works of the surviving New Testament canon were assigned by a final editor living in the second century (you'll have to buy the book to read that argument):

The uniform structure of the titles (of the various texts in the canon) points beyond the individual writing to an overall editorial concept and was not imposed by the authors of the individual writings. The titles (of the various texts) are redactional. In most cases the genre designations, the alleged authorship, and the structure of the titles cannot be derived from the text with certainty. This strongly suggests that the present form of the titles was not created by independently working editors but that they are the result of a single, specific redaction.

Martin Hengel strongly rejects the idea that the uniformity of the Gospel titles, which he readily agrees existed toward the end of the second century, might be explained as the result of a centralized redaction promoted by the influence and power of the church. And many historians will wholeheartedly agree with Hengel. The Christian church of the second century had not yet developed the structures that would later be used to promote and enforce the specific practices that would later be used to promote and enforce specific practices and creeds. There was no central personality who could have exercised so much power.[p. 41]

I STRONGLY disagree of course and Trobisch has read SOME of the arguments I developed three years ago to identify Irenaeus as that 'central personality.' I think my regular readers have seen the proofs which connect Irenaeus, Marcia and Eclectus to Commodus' inner circle. I would contend that traditional scholarship is too afraid of the stigma of promoting 'conspiracy theories' to ever admit that Irenaeus is EXACTLY the kind of figure Trobisch is describing.

My new book coming out in the fall of 2011 will do exactly this, I promise ...