[AnalogReigns]

Before the (ridiculous, anti-intellectual & unscholarly, not to mention heretical) “Jesus Seminar,” general scholarly consensus is that Marcion’s truncated/mutilated “canon” served to motivate the Bishops to formalize the real canon.

One of my professors in seminary has written a couple books on the formation of the canon, and he convincingly argues that there never were any serious doubts or discussions about the major NT books, only the Apocalypse (mainly because it’s so fantastical) 2nd and 3rd John, 2nd Peter and a couple other (relatively minor) books were debated—none of which would change the message of the gospel of Jesus one iota. The 4 Gospels, the letters of Paul, James etc. were never doubted to be genuine.

The very idea that Christians would take seriously Gnostic writings (”gospels”)is as silly as historians today taking a fantasy novel about Jefferson written in 1980 as history. The people of the Greco-Roman world just weren’t that stupid...

[jboot]

I won't argue that Marcion's tampering served a salutory purpose in forcing the church to fix the canon. Nevertheless he greatly enlarged a tradition of mistrust of the text and willingness to embrace spurious documents that has unfortunately endured. The most significant challenges to the canon are contemporary. We may know how madcap the Jesus Seminar was, and we may rightly disdain the work of the textural critics, but many will not, including many folks who should know better. I'm just a lowly Baptist Sunday School teacher, but I have defended the canon to pastors, priests and well-eduated men (lots of them) who simply would not accept that the Church "got it right".

Heck, there ae plenty of FReepers who will tell you that the Book of John is a second (or third!) century forgery.