Daniel Wallace: Did the Ancient Church Muzzle the Canon?

Dr. Daniel Wallace addresses the question,  “Did the ancient church muzzle the canon?” What we mean by the canon is those books that belong in the text of the New Testament. The 27 books that we call the New Testament scripture.

Dr. Wallace addresses the story behind the Apocryphal Gospels. Those gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, like the Gospel of Philip, and Mary and Judas and Peter that were written later.

All sorts of ancient works were written that never made it into the canon. This is a discussion as to why that is.

This talk addresses the impulse for apostolic authorship. The early Church obviously wanted to see it’s books written by apostles if at all possible. What’s really significant here is that all of our gospels were originally anonymous works. They did not have the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John on them. There was strong oral and scribal evidence that went back to the originals authors, that said, “this is the Gospel according to Matthew, “and this is the one according to Mark, etcetera.”

Now when you get into the 2nd century, what’s really interesting is that anonymity seems to disappear. You have the Gospel of Thomas and it says it’s by Thomas right from the get-go. The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Judas, and all these other works were those apostolic names were put on to the books to give them an authority that they did not otherwise have.