Complete |
One of the standard charges of many anti-Mormons and non-Mormons is that the scriptures are complete in the Bible- that no other scriptures should be or can be added. For example, one anti-Mormon has written:
There is no more Word needed and no more to give until He comes for us. (McElveen, 1985, 7.)
In attempt to reconcile this closed-canon view with the scriptures some people point to Revelation 22:18-19 which reads:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Mormon critic, Floyd McElveen claims of this verse:
Think ...of the fact that an Omniscient, all-knowing God, who knows the end from the beginning, knew that under His promised guidance, the Book of Revelation would be placed as the LAST book of the Bible. It is just too much to ask us to believe that it is merely coincidence that the most drastic warning in the Bible concerning adding to its words or prophecies, would be on the LAST page of the LAST chapter of the LAST book of the Bible, in the LAST few verses, by the LAST prophet, unless God wanted this warning to apply to MORE than just the Book of Revelation. (Ibid., 15; emphasis his.)
The Book of Revelation is dated by most scholars at around A.D. 95-95. Many scholars date James, 1 & 2 Peter, Jude, and the gospel of John all to around the same time or later (see Robinson, 1992, 46). In was not until approximately 200 A.D. before the church at Rome complied a group of writings which they decided were authentic scripture. Many of the books contained in our King James Bibles today were included in that first New Testament, but others were excluded, while even other books, not included in our Bibles today, were included in the first edition. Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John were not in the first Roman New Testament, while books such as the Revelation of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon were contained in the Roman Bible. The Shepherd of Hermas, though not used in public worship, was to be used in private study as it contained many things which the church believed to be orthodox doctrines. It is to be noted that prior to this first canonization, several other books were the subjects of debate. The emerging church was unsure which books should be included as scripture and which should not.
About fifty years later in Alexandria, Egypt, Origen was using yet a different version of the New Testament, which excluded the Revelation of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon, but also excluded James, Jude, and 2 John, as well as those disputed by Rome, while adding 1 Peter. It was another hundred years later, at the beginning of the fifth century, and after the council of Nicea that our current New Testament was established: adding Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, and Jude, while rejecting the Revelation of Peter, and the Wisdom of Solomon which were included in the first edition. (See also Dave Armstrong’s, “New Testament Canon” timeline.)
The Bible also makes mention of several books which are no longer to be found. A partial list follows: the book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. 21:14); book of Jasher (Josh. 10:13; 2 Sam. 1:18); book of Gad the seer (1 Chr. 29:29); book of Nathan the prophet (1 Chr.29:29; 2 Chr.9:29); an epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, earlier than our present 1 Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:9); possibly an earlier epistle to the Ephesians (Eph. 3:3); and an epistle to the Church at Laodicea (Col. 4:16). (LDS Bible Dictionary, 725.)
John (author of the Book of Revelation) was referring to his book, not the New Testament which wasn't even compiled then when Revelation was written. In Deuteronomy 4:2 we read a similar passage:
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I commanded you.
Are we to conclude then that no scripture was to be added after Deuteronomy? If so, we would have a small Bible indeed.
Another scripture often used by those who wish to confine God is 2 Timothy 3:16. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." The statement, "all scripture is given," is used to argue that there can be no more scripture besides the Bible. As McConkie and Millet ask: Was Paul "thinking of the thirty-nine books that make up the Old Testament of the Protestant Bible? or was he thinking of those books plus the fifteen intertestamental books of the Catholic Bible? or did he only have in mind the five books of the Sadducee and Samaritan Bible? or was he thinking of the Jewish Bible, the canon of which (like that of the Christian Bible) was unfixed at that time? We must remember that the scriptural records at Paul's time were written on separate scrolls and that there had not yet been any universal agreement on what was scriptural and what was not" (McConkie and Millet, 42).
Did the early Christians consider the Bible to be closed to further revelations? Nibley notes that the "theory of complete, finished, and absolute scriptures was simply a door banged in the face of future prophets by the [church] doctors. In a recent and important study Van Unnick has shown that until the third century the Christians had no objection whatever to the idea `that someone might still add revelations to the writings of the Gospel.'" (Nibley, 1987, 278.)
Peterson and Ricks note:
Given anti-Mormon standards, it is not even clear that the New Testament itself will survive as a "Christian" document. The Epistle of Jude, for instance, draws heavily on non-canonical books such as 1 Enoch and the Assumption of Moses. Indeed, as an eminent contemporary scholar says of 1 Enoch, "it influenced Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, Hebrews, 1 John, Jude (which quotes it directly), and Revelation (with numerous points of contact). There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines concerning the nature of the Messiah, the Son of Man, the messianic kingdom, demonology, the future, resurrection, the final judgement, the whole eschatological theater, and symbolism." When Matthew the evangelist says (at 2:23) that Jesus "came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called Nazarene," he is citing a prophetic text unknown to the Bible as we have it. When, at Acts 20:35, the apostle Paul exhorts the elders of the Ephesian branch "to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, I t is more blessed to give than to receive," he is pointing theri minds toward a famous statement that does not occur in the New Testament books that we posses today. TO put it bluntly, both Matthew and Paul seem to accept a canon of scriptural materials broader than that accepted today by the critics of Latter-day Saints. This hardly bothers the Mormons, but it should give real pause to our detractors. How can they denounce us for receiving scriptures beyond their limited canon without simultaneously condemning Jude, Matthew, and Paul?" (Peterson and Ricks, 121-122.)
Even Martin Luther did not accept every book of the New Testament as fully inspired. Luther particularly disliked the Epistle of James, which he called a "'an epistle of straw' having 'no gospel quality to'" (cited in Peterson and Ricks, 125) for disagreeing with his teaching of justification by faith alone. He denied that James' Epistle had apostolic authorship and claimed that it was "'worthless'" (ibid.). Luther declared: "'I hold that some Jew wrote it who probably had heard about Christians but had never run into any'" (ibid.). Neither did Luther trust the Revelation of John (ibid., 126).
If Luther, Matthew, Paul, Jude, and other early Christians could accept more of less of the Bible (as we know it) and still be "Christian" than Latter-day Saints are in good company.
Michael R. Ash