The New Testament is an ancient collection of even more ancient texts. To be more specific, the New Testament as we know it came into being in the 4th and 5th Centuries, but its contents were written in the 1st Century. That is, all the contents of the New Testament consist of 27 different texts authored by 8 different men. Nothing more. The full collection of 27 under the title “New Testament” did not begin appearing until the 4th Century.
Why would it take the 27 individual texts written in the 1st Century over 300 years to coalesce into what we call the New Testament? That is, if believers valued texts written by the apostles of Jesus – especially since he left no texts of his own – you would think these 27 texts could have been collected and accounted for in far less time than that. Yet, there are at least a dozen reasons why this process would have taken several centuries.
- Book Technology – When the New Testament started taking shape, it existed more as a list of writings read in church than as a physical document. This is because it wasn’t until the 4th Century that the transition from scrolls to books reached the point that both testaments could be fitted into one volume. As long as the New Testament existed only as a list, which might not even be published, it could be easily changed; the act of publishing required more decision-making and commitment about what was and wasn’t included.
- No Stated Intention – There is nothing in the New Testament texts that suggests there would ever be a New Testament. On the contrary, New Testament authors wrote as if the Hebrew Scriptures were all the Scriptures anyone would ever need. In other words, though we call them “the New Testament authors” they show no consciousness that they were writing “the New Testament” – only that they were writing their individual texts.
- Preaching, Not Publishing – The apostles were primarily preachers, not writers. They constantly delivered their teaching about Jesus orally, only resorting to writing when they couldn’t speak face to face.
- No Defined Process – The closest any of the New Testament authors came to calling for circulation of their texts is an occasional request for the receiving church to share the text with one or more nearby churches. The authors did not define a process by which the texts would be copied, collected, and circulated so that all the churches all over the world would each have the full collection. That eventually happened, but it took much longer than it would have if the authors had directed it.
- Authors Geographically-Dispersed – Jesus’ followers were geographically dispersed because they said he had sent them to reach the whole world. Each author wrote from wherever he happened to be in his mission at the time. Thus a church would only have one or two texts in the beginning…and most would start with none.
- Audiences Geographically-Dispersed – Not all the 27 texts indicate the geographic location of the intended recipients, but where recipients are named, they are spread across the Mediterranean Basin. This, too, limited the initial distribution of texts.
- No Printing Press – The printing press wasn’t invented until the 15th Century. Prior to that time, all copies of a document had to be handwritten just as the original had to be handwritten. That takes time.
- Limited Literacy – As the vast majority of people today are literate, the vast majority were illiterate in antiquity. While churches and synagogues were effective means of making sure even illiterate people knew and understood the contents of written documents, the lower literacy rates did mean that there were fewer people who could be scribes. This lengthened the time it took to copy texts.
- Authentication – Because the writings of the apostles were valued, and all the more so after they died, unscrupulous ministers (yes, they had those back then, too) began counterfeiting texts. There was “The Gospel of Judas,” “The Gospel of Thomas,” “Paul’s Third Epistle to the Corinthians,” and many other such forgeries. Since the hundreds of churches were geographically separated with no modern means of communication, it took time to identify and reject falsely-attributed writings.
- Persecution – While persecution of Christians was periodic and varied in intensity between the 1st and 4th centuries, it did inhibit interactions between Christians in different locales and therefore inhibit the spread of Christian texts. Only with the Roman emperor Constantine’s conversion did circumstances begin to allow for the finalization of a New Testament and its widespread dissemination.
- No Central Authority – It wasn’t until the 11th century that the church split between east and west, resulting in the formation of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. There was no pope or central controlling authority during the earlier centuries to take control of the New Testament formation process. It had to happen organically as autonomous churches agreed to cooperate. There were ecumenical (worldwide) councils to resolve theological controversies, but the undirected, organic vetting process for authenticating apostolic texts was sufficient to resolve disputes such that there was never a need for an ecumenical council to rule on the subject.
- No Defined Outcome – Since no one knew how many authentic apostolic texts would ultimately come to light, a completion date for the New Testament could not be specified. Only when enough time had elapsed did it make sense to stop waiting for more genuine apostolic texts to arise. And, even then, there was no one in church who could say “Time’s up!” Once the concrete set, however, it never changed.
Give all these factors, it’s a wonder the New Testament ever came to exist. But it did. And it’s remained unchanged for the 1,500 years since. It might as well have been written in granite.
Related essays:
How Were Ancient Churches Able to Agree on New Testament Contents? (4 min)
What Does the New Testament’s Table of Contents Tell Us? (9 min)
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The Duty of a Man 