Christian Scriptures

Living during the time of the Roman Empire was a very cosmopolitan period. Much like living today, there were many religions and philosophies vying for people's attention. Syncretism meant that people often picked and chose what beliefs, practices, holy days, and rites they wanted to celebrate.

Because Jesus was Jewish and all of his early followers were Jewish, the earliest of Christians saw themselves as a Jewish sect with some additional teachings and practices introduced to them by Jesus. The believers, led by the original apostles of Jesus would have worshipped in both the synagogues on Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) and in home churches on Sunday (the weekly celebration of Jesus' resurrection). They would have read the Hebrew Scriptures and recounted stories and teachings of Jesus from memory. They would have spoken in the common language of the day, Aramaic. They would have likely kept the Jewish religious festivals such as Passover and Yom Kippur, while re-enacting the Lord's Supper on Sundays.

That began to change some 5-8 years later when Paul, who was both Jewish and a Roman citizen, converted to Christianity and began to proclaim the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection to non-Jewish communities throughout the Roman empire. The result was a new religion we know as Christianity that had both Jewish roots and non-Jewish beliefs, rites, and practices. Just like society at large, there were many people and leaders within the different congregations and ethnicities of the Christian church who were trying to vie for their practices and interpretation of this new faith to become the accepted one.

During this period, various church leaders would accuse each other of some sort of heresy. Ideas that were once popular (like Gnosticism) were eventually rejected. The idea that Jesus was not just a man but also divine arose rather early in the church's history, but it was a long way from the Trinitarian doctrine find coming out of the Council of Nicea in 325 CE. At the end of that Council, after much discussion, argument, and even some skullduggery, the Council agreed that Jesus Christ "God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father" (in other words, God the creator).

The point here is that even though our modern Christian Scriptures only contain 27 different books which represent the most highly regarded, probably the most highly shared and read, the most extensively shared across the early Christian churches, and align most closely with what has come to be known as Christian Orthodoxy, they aren't the only Christian readings available. There were many other books that were read and shared by those Christians much closer in time to the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

Other Christian Writings

Early Christians were excited about their new faith. The early Christian era had a large variety of writings and ideas as people tried to share their views, beliefs and interpretations of the life of Jesus of Nazareth with one another. However, that diversity isn't reflected in our Bible. There are many reasons for this.

In the Roman era, there were no libraries (well not for common people). There was no Amazon. There was no publishing industry and no organized way to pick or choose books like we do today. There was no New York Times best sellers list or any sort of Giller Prize or other book award to help people decide what to read. Even if there had been book lists, readership was limited by many other problems...

For one thing, very few people could read and write. At the time maybe 1-2% of the population was literate. Only children of civil sevants, priests or the wealthy had the chance to be schooled because it was assumed that these children would follow in the careers of their parents and need to be educated. 

Secondly, there was no printing press. Each book would need to be copied by hand into a new book. Duplicating books was time-consuming and also introduced occasional errors.

Thirdly, written material did not last long. The paper of the day was made from the leaves of Lotus plants imported from Egypt known as Papyrus. Papyrus would rot and decompose like any other paper. Parchment which was made from animal skins was much more durable, but also much more expensive.

New books were made in individual copies. As they got read and passed along, some scribe would take the time to hand copy more copies. For those that were not popular, they often disappeared completely. Those that were more fortunate might be dug up by archeologists excavating an ancient ruin. Only the most popular books, the ones endorsed by local or highly regarded spiritual leaders,  or the ones approved by church officials would have any hope of surviving and become the classics that we include in our Bibles today.

Only works that had popular appeal would be copied over and over again. The list of books recommended to Christians changed constantly over time as some books were included and then later excluded from the recommended reading list. The first indication of our current list of 27 books dates from a letter written in 367 CE by Athanasius. Even then, the list wasn't finally approved until the Council of Trent, held from 1545-1563 CE.

It's not hard to see that there were many other writings that were viewed as scripture by Christian communities through the first few centuries of Christianity. A large collection of documents found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt were uncovered in 1945 and include works such as: The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Philip, and about 50 other writings. 

The Christian Canonical Books

The Christian Scriptures as we know them today contain 27 books written between around 50 CE and 120 CE. They are organized into generally 4 sections:

  1. A collection of 4 "Gospels" begins the collection. They contain the stories around Jesus' life, work, and teachings and are named after their assumed writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
  2. A book of early church history called "Acts of the Apostles" (or simply Acts) that was written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke.
  3. A collection of letters (called Epistles) by various early church leaders to congregations or individuals to encourage them in their faith, help correct excesses or bad behaviour, and interpret or clarify the teachings of Jesus found in the Gospels.
  4. A final book called "Revelation" which is a book of the genre of "Apocalyptic literature."

The Gospels

The Letters

The Letters of Paul

The Book of Revelation

The term "Apocalyptic" is from a Greek word meaning "revealing." Apocalyptic literature first emerged in Jewish literature in the post-exilic era (after the return of the Jewish community from capitivity in Babylon). As such they are the youngest type of writing that we find in the Hebrew Scriptures and provided an inspiration for the "John" who authored the book of Revelation.

Apocalyptic literature has a strong eschatalogical focus. "Eschatology" is a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind. Apocalyptic literature is a subset of eschatology meaning that not all eschatology is apocalyptic, but apocalyptic literature is always eschatological.

Daniel is a book in the Hebrew scriptures which is probably one of the last books to be composed and is almost entirely apocalytic in its style and focus. Revelation is written in a similar style. Another book in Jewish literature which was not included in the Hebrew canon, The Book of Enoch, is a longer example of Jewish apocalyptic literature.

Apocalyptic literature tends to have the following features:

  1. They are "Pseudepigraphal" meaning that the person claiming to the author is an important person from the past like a well-regarded prophet or apostle. The actual author may be a fan, a follower, or a student of the named author who lived much later in time.
  2. They often reference a message delivered by a heavenly messenger or angel who comes in a vision or a dream.
  3. The message is highly symbolic and coded, often using numbers or sequences, or a series of events that together have a higher meaning that only the faithful can understand.
  4. Often the symbolism is quite bizarre with surreal images of beasts and monsters. Often these depict foreign nations or enemies of the country or the believers.
  5. The sequence of visions represents a chronology of past events in symbolic terms and pointing to the present or near future.
  6. They describe a series of catastrophes as an indication of the "coming of the end."
  7. They divide people into a duality of two groups: a tiny righteous minority and a large immoral majority who will be destroyed.
    God usually appears as an enthroned king who pronounces judgement on the forces of evil, chaotic, or disobedient agents.

Apocalyptic literature is meant to be both a message of despair and hope. It describes the "march of history" as being under the control of the sovereign God where hardships on believers will eventually be replaced with everlasting redemption/glory while those who have profited by evil—including minor deities and supernatural forces, will be made to suffer punishment and exile.

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