In The Heresy of Orthodoxy, Andreas Köstenberger and Michael Kruger offers an apologetic rebuttal against their dubbed Bauer-Erhman thesis, which proposes that “there [is] no such thing as ‘Christianity’ (in the singular), but only Christianities (in the plural)” (p. 16). The thesis asserts that “the traditional version of Christianity that later came to be known as orthodoxy is but the form of Christianity espoused by the church in Rome, which emerged as the ecclesiastical victor in the power struggles waged during the second through the fourth centuries” (ibid).
The Bauer-Erhman thesis is a good example of the contemporary postmodernist way of thinking. “Postmodernism, for its part, contends that the only absolute is diversity, that is, the notion that there are many truths, depending on a given individual’s perspective, background, experience, and personal preference” (p. 39).
Andreas Köstenberger and Michael Kruger, whose literary styles can be distinguished across the pages, draw from their respective academic disciplines in contribution to this book. Köstenberger, a research professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, specializes in biblical theology and hermeneutics. Kruger, the President and Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Charlotte campus of Reformed Theological Seminary, is a leading scholar on the origins and development of the New Testament canon.
The book is organized into three sections. The first section (chapters 1 to 3) explains the Bauer-Erhman thesis, and critically examines the supposed doctrinal diversity of early Christianity. The second and third sections (chapters 4 to 8) discuss the development of the New Testament canon—how the apocryphal gospels, letters and other writings with heterodox (heretical) views should be perceived, and whether ancient scribes and copyists had “changed the New Testament to conform it to their own beliefs and preferences” (p. 17).
- Chapter 1 explains the origin and influence of the initial Bauer thesis, which was “slow to impact scholarship, in part because of the cultural isolation of Germany during the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II” (p. 26). The initial Bauer thesis became mainstream as Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman began to “popularize Bauer’s thesis by applying it to the Nag Hammadi documents, which were not discovered until 1945 and thus had not been available to Bauer” (p. 31). Pagel and Ehrman used the Nag Hammadi literature to argue for “the notion of an early, variegated Christianity that was homogenized only at a later point” (ibid).
- Chapter 2 examines the initial Bauer thesis more closely. In short, Köstenberger and Kruger argue that “orthodoxy did not emerge from a heretical morass; instead, heresy grew parasitically out of an already established orthodoxy” (p. 67). While heterodox views emerged in less developed forms as early as AD 40s to 60s, the authors argue that the orthodox view had always been dominant and pervasive, and that heretical views had always been subsidiary and varied.
- Chapter 3 confronts Bauer’s near-exclusive reliance on “second-century extrabiblical material, bypassing the New Testament as a potential source of primary evidence” (p. 69). Bauer’s dismissal of the New Testament is problematic because Jesus and his apostles provided “the core of early orthodoxy in conjunction with Old Testament messianic prophecy” (ibid). The authors explain a certain range (diversity) of theological views can be legitimate and was demonstrated among the apostles, which “bears witness to the presence of different personalities and perspectives among the New Testament writers” (p. 100), as long as the views are grounded on a core set of Christological beliefs. Illegitimate diversity (heretical views as mentioned in Galatians, Colossians, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy, Jude, 2 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation) is “denounced and renounced in the pages of the New Testament” (p. 100).
- Chapter 4 argues that the “idea of a ‘canon’ was not an after-the-fact development with roots solely in church history, but rather a natural, early, and inevitable development with rooted in redemptive history” (p. 108). The authors challenge the reader to “move beyond the practice of studying the canon simply by starting in the period of the early church and then moving backward toward the New Testament. Instead, we can start our studies of canon with the New Testament itself and then move forward to the time of the early church” (p. 124). On this basis, the authors contend the reliability and credibility of the New Testament as the foundation for orthodoxy.
- Chapter 5 explains that “although the borders of the canon were not yet solidified [before AD 150], there is no doubt that that the early church understood that God had given a new set of authoritative covenant documents that testified to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and that those documents were the beginning of the New Testament canon” (p. 149). Within the New Testament, in 2 Peter 3:16, Peter described Paul’s letters as scriptural “on par with the authority of the Old Testament” (p. 127). Double citations of the Old Testament and other New Testament texts indicate “both citations bear the same authoritative scriptural status” (e.g. 1 Tim. 5:18; Matt. 15:4; Mark 7:10; Acts 1:20; 1 Pet. 2:6; 2 Pet. 2:22). Moreover, the authors point to allusions to a bi-covenantal canon (2 Pet. 3:2), public reading of Paul’s epistles (Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27; 2 Cor. 10:9; 1 Tim. 4:13), and affirmations of the Apostolic Fathers, in support of this view. From this perspective, the authors explain that the Muratorian Fragment can be perceived as evidence for some of the New Testament books to have “already been received and used long before [AD 150]” (pp. 149-150).
- Chapter 6 confronts the “central challenge posted by the Bauer thesis: on what basis can we say that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament represent the ‘true’ version of Christianity when there are so many other apocryphal books that represent other versions of Christianity?” (p. 151-152). The authors remind the reader to not “reject our earliest and best Christian sources—the books of the New Testament—and replace them with later and secondary sources” (p. 169). The authors assert that the mere existence of diversity does not mean that an orthodox version of Christianity cannot exist. As proponents of the Bauer thesis may not necessarily be Christian, they may assume that “there is no means by which God has given by which which his books can be identified” (p. 154). Moreover, the authors provide an overview of the apocryphal literature (the letters of Ptolemy and Barnabas, and the gospels of Thomas, Philip, Mary and Nicodemus), and explained that these books had already been largely rejected or neglected by the early Christian church.
- Chapter 7 explains how the manuscripts were copied and circulated in the ancient world. The authors explain the “bookish” nature of early Christianity and the rigor of the “scribal infrastructure”: (i) “professional hand” of Christian scribes; (ii) use of nomina sacra, which is the special abbreviation of certain words in Christian documents in order to set them apart as sacred; and (iii) use of the codex (a prototype of the present-day book form), instead of the scroll, that was more widely used in the broader Greco-Roman world. With regard to the publication of the books, the authors point to Paul’s writings to indicate that his letters were disseminated to “the various churches under his care (e.g. Rom. 16:1; Eph. 6:21; Col. 4:7), and were regularly, and expected to be, publicly read (e.g. 2 Cor. 2:9; Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27)” (p. 196).
- Chapter 8, building upon the prior chapter, responds to the question of “whether the manuscripts themselves are so filled with errors and mistakes that we are forced to doubt their integrity” (p. 201). In other words, the authors respond to the question of whether “the early Christian battles over heresy and orthodoxy affect the transmission of the text” (p. 204). In short, the authors explain that the vast majority of scribal changes are minor and insignificant, and that the high count of available manuscripts contribute to the high count of observed variations. Moreover, “the brief span of time between the production of the New Testament and our earliest copies gives us access to the New Testament text at a remarkably early stage, making it very unlikely that the textual tradition could have been radically altered” (p. 212) because one divergent manuscript would need to compete against many other “original” copies in circulation. “Of the small portion of variations that are significant … although we can never have absolute certainty about the original text, we can have sufficient certainty that enables us to be confident that we possess the authentic teaching of Jesus and his apostles” (p. 205).
Overall, the authors wrote a brilliant book to shine light upon the illogic of postmodern logic. Throughout the book, the authors present highly critical, yet civil, comments against the circularity of the Bauer-Erhman thesis. Even if a deeper understanding of Christianity is not a primary motivation, a reader can still benefit from observing the authors’ approach to philosophy and apologetics.
