NEW LEAVEN

That order is similar to the Book of the Bible edition I like to read. I don’t understand the build a correct theology either, but it’s interesting to see how later writings in the new testament get more apologetic in nature. That’s probably in response to arising issues.

I have no idea why Frank argues for “theology”. I should think he is thinking of ecclesiology. Maybe he used the wrong word, or maybe he’s just overgeneralizing, or predicting something. I don’t know.

I do think things look different when you put Paul’s letters (and the rest) in the order they were all written… assuming that’s possible, of course.

Btw, Paul’s nine letters to churches descend by length, followed by four letters to individuals which proceed the same way. The so-called Jewish or Catholic epistles then, in turn, descend by length. Revelation, of course, simply had to go last.

trying to wrap my mind around that

I retyped and then began reading them that way 13 years ago. It gets better all the time.

What about Jude?

You’re right. The Peters, then the Johns, then Jude.

Hebrews is longer than James is longer than 1st Peter is longer than 1st John is longer than Jude.

What’s a shorter way to say that?

Not just thought, but actions as well – which is more to Frank’s (probable) point. And yet much more. Galatians is the first and only ‘angry’ letter. Paul learned a lot, along the way. Most of all, the story makes it more difficult (hopefully) to extract concepts from their context.

Btw, 1st Peter may be slightly longer than James as normally formatted, but it has many more ‘poetic’ lines. If we gave it a word-by-word count, in Greek, it’d be awfully close. Someone else can double check that. Still, the order is “in general” that of their length.

Just correcting myself.

I think the main point is that Romans gets undue prominence in our theology because it is the first of Paul’s letters, whereas on Viola and Barna’s scheme that prominence would go to Galatians.

I am told that in the earliest NT manuscripts the non-Pauline letters are found after the Pauline ones (including Hebrews). This order is still found in Bibles in Russia and other Eastern Orthodox countries. So for them the first and most prominent of the letters is James. One could easily find parallels between this and the distinctives of Orthodox theology.

Historically, I think you will find that Hebrews was put at the end of the Pauline collection as a kind of appendix, as disputably Pauline, and so out of the order of length. Then the non-Pauline letters were collected by length but adapted to avoid splitting sets of letters from the same author.

Here are the numbers of words per NT book in the Greek text (UBS):

Matt 18346
Mark 11270
Luke 19482
John 15635
Acts 18450
Rom 7111
1 Cor 6829
2 Cor 4477
Gal 2230
Eph 2422
Phil 1629
Col 1582
1 Thes 1481
2 Thes 823
1 Tim 1591
2 Tim 1238
Titus 659
Philem 335
Heb 4953
James 1742
1 Pet 1684
2 Pet 1099
1 John 2144
2 John 245
3 John 219
Jude 461
Rev 9851

I guess someone used a different basis of estimation or miscounted in putting Galatians before Ephesians, and perhaps the Thessalonian letters (kept together for obvious reasons) before 1 Timothy. They got it right, just, in putting James before 1 Peter.

If anyone is sensitive to theological implications of the construction (i.e., translations, book orderings, canon declarations), it is Willis Barnstone. For his Restored New Testament, he decides to “follow the traditional format, starting with long Romans and ending with short Jude.” (But he does depart from this some to “group the probably authentic Pauline letters together, followed by the pseudo-Pauline letters, and [to] end with the least likely Pauline letter, Jews (Hebrews)” (page 114).

Barnstone has lots to say about the implications of the order. The most fascinating statement is this one:

“If this volume were predominantly a study Bible, then it would begin with Paul’s I Thessalonians, which, if not supreme, carries the authority and beauty of all his authentic letters. And despite the above encomia [i.e. Barnstone's own praise] for the apostle’s key letters, there are advantages at least for study purposes to keep in mind the probable order of Paul’s work. He grows as his movement grows, and his work moves to the climactic pivotal letters. A chronological order, even the thought of one, would provide an unbiased historical frame for secular and sectarian events and reveal the material culture scene of the Jews, Christian Jews, Greeks, and Romans who participate in the drama of each book.” (page 115)

Barnstone also says “We don’t know the true chronology of the letters, but we can make informed guesses.” And he turns to scholarship that has attempted to do so. Nonetheless, his point is that the order (“even the thought of one” does make a difference. The key issue is that culture does impact development of the Pauline corpus and that it is neither static nor even in its message in any given book. It’s fascinating that Viola and Barna are conjecturing that the order of the epistles still reflects some of the cultural influence Paul was under. Wouldn’t we love to hear Viola and Barna talk with Barnstone? And then — discussing the best arrangement for work in the twenty-first century — the three of them talking now with Paul?

Wow. Great stuff, Peter & J.K. By Peter’s count, 1st Timothy should have gone before Colossians, which shows that someone must have recognized the difference in audience. My point being: do we?

Many things in Paul’s first nine letters sound completely different in the context of corporate instructions. “Put on the whole armor of Christ, y’all.” That’s one suit of armor for a whole church together. A BIG difference from how it normally gets preached, yes?

Also, I’ve seen teenagers taught to read 1st Timothy like it was written to them, because Tim was young. But he was ten years old in the faith and had already helped plant five churches – a contextual frame of reference rendered ‘out of sight, out of mind’ by the cannonical order.

Eventually, without an overarching context, one verse is good as another. But some people prefer making hay where the sun doesn’t shine.

Btw, Tim, Tim & Titus aren’t “pastorals”. They’re “apostolicals”. But now I seriously digress…

armor of God. body of Christ.

I’m still waking up. Must have been a freudian sleep.

I still don’t get it – suppose we put Galatians before Romans. Both are discussing the same issue from different vantage points (though I say that from my Reformed perspective)…

I’m a bit baffled by this. I’ll admit that there may be theological reasons and ramifications for the order of the books in the canon, but I don’t believe we need a “correct order” (whatever that is?!?) to have a correct theology. imho that sentiment is way over the top . . . a hullabaloo wrapped in a brouhaha.

I would contend that Paul’s epistle to the Romans does not take prominence because of where it is place in the canon. It is the contents of the epistle as well as the historical context of debates and issues within Christendom that has made Romans stand out. And even when we evaluate the various traditions, Romans doesn’t stand out as much as the Synoptics. If we need a “correct chronological order” in order to have correct theology, wouldn’t Romans (indeed most if not all of the Pauline corpus) have to come before the Gospels?

Anyway, everybody knows the REAL focus of the NT is in the so called “general epistles” and the Book of Revelation, ’cause they came last!

Now this is just silly.

1. We don’t know exactly when the NT documents were written. This is like the first day of NT 101.

2. If you’re going to build a Pauline theology, you read all his letters as a group, and go from there. Order shmorter.

I’m beginning to think I’ll step wide around any copies of these guys’ books I see for safety’s sake.

i am with chuck on this one.

TC said: “it would all be simply that obvious situational climate of each document, as in any introduction to the Letters”

That’s like saying the Civil War can be understood by studying each of its battles in alphabetical order.

Most stories tend to be greater than the sum of their parts.

Chuck (and Brian), forgive me, but dogmatic assertions like yours are the reason PC really needs to be read and considered more strongly, despite its argumentative flaws. Some questions for you, brothers:

How can you “build” a Pauline theology without first “building” a Pauline chronology?

If we cannot “know exactly” what Paul was doing, are you really so certain we can in fact “know exactly” what Paul was thinking?

How can you say the document sequence doesn’t affect our considerations, without having examined the epistles in some order as opposed to another?

Steer clear all you like, and study scripture with as much (or as little) context as you feel confident accepting. At the very least, however, you should admit it seems anti-academic to suggest the mere exercise – perhaps more as Barnstone considers it – would be “silly”.

You’re putting too much stock into Pauline chronology.

How much is too much? Anyway, that point remains to be argued.

Where do we start?

Obviously, researchers differ. Personally, my starting point is the death of Claudius. 1st Cor. must have been written before Rome re-opened to Jews. After that: Gallio, Aretas, Illyricum and Paul’s 2nd trial (in 64) are enough to put 1st Tim at Troas (Acts 20) and Titus (himself) on the beach at Fair Havens. There. In a nutshell, I just scooped myself. Feel valued, brother.

What then does such a list yield?

That depends on our research. Yours is just beginning, yes? I’m at the stage where I agree with J.P. Meier that relevance is the enemy of history. I’ve never learned much theology, and I’ve recently given up working towards ecclesiology, deciding instead that the Story matters for its own sake.

from the world around.. only so much is yielded

Agreed. See the post I just posted. And also see here.

we don’t have a lot to ride on

I think we have a lot more than you might think. We may even have enough to do more than has typically been, um, encouraged.

“It’s not what you’ve got. It’s what you do with what you’ve got, that matters.”

Think about it!

I do. Almost constantly. Do you not read my blog?

I left point for point replies, TC, but the comment hasn’t appeared. Oh well. You’ll just have to start reading my blog!

Bill,

How can you “build” a Pauline theology without first “building” a Pauline chronology?

If we cannot “know exactly” what Paul was doing, are you really so certain we can in fact “know exactly” what Paul was thinking?

So if we don’t have the chronology right, then we don’t have the theology right? And if we don’t know what Paul was doing when he wrote such a such epistle, then we may not know what he was thinking?

It appears there is a huge problem with this kind of thinking in that we must know everything or else we can know nothing. Surely one can build a theology of Paul without knowing the exact chronology of his writings. And surely one can understand the main gist of what Paul is saying without knowing the precise setting when he wrote a particular epistle.

While the adjective “silly” might be a bit strong to describe all canonical criticism of this sort, it does seem silly to put the weight Viola and Barna have placed on it.

It seems the “controversy” they project is a hullabaloo wrapped in a brouhaha with a side of much ado about nothing.

metochostouchristo –

My questions were not meant to be absolutely rhetorical. In some respects I do not believe chronological knowledge is a prerequisite for theological investigation. In other respects, it absolutely is. In order to explain to me whether James and Galatians are in conflict, do you not have to suppose whether either writer had first read from the other’s epistle?

That last question, there, is also non-rhetorical. I do honestly assume I might be missing something. For instance, I’d love to hear someone defend an attempt to harmonize James & Galatians completely outside of all context. The rest of us are somewhere in the middle… so maybe what I’m asking is just – Where are you, actually?

One can indeed “build” whatever one wants from whatever one chooses to build from. And then we discuss what you’ve “built”. However, I did not think Theology was overly concerned with stopping at Paul’s “main gist” as you put it.

Obviously, we all seek some degree context for Paul’s writings. What bugs me is when people seem to *prefer* having less of it. Or is that just my imagination?

This is kooky. Instead of trying to re-write history, these authors should encourage us to concentrate on believing and doing the words of Scripture. One’s theology isn’t going to be significantly changed by the ORDER of the books if it is grounded in the CONTENT of the books.

Obviously chronology and historical background are important to our understanding of the New Testament, but since those things can be studied independent of the order, the order should make no difference at all.

When did Barna move from independent, objective pollster to Christendom’s chief theological advisor?

Strange. I appreciate the importance of context and chronology for careful exegesis, but the order of the books in the canon?

It feels like conspiratorial thinking, doesn’t it? Why not discuss the evil done by the people who put the chapters and verses in?

“I’d love to hear someone defend an attempt to harmonize James & Galatians completely outside of all context”.

Give me a little time….

I don’t get it. I really don’t. Why is everyone ganging up on poor Bill, and on Viola and Barna? All they are asking is that we do our exegesis properly. People say things like that we should “concentrate on believing and doing the words of Scripture”, and indeed we should. But first we have to understand those words.

And we cannot properly understand Paul’s letters, written to specific people in specific circumstances and not directly to us, unless we study those specific circumstances. That is why every good commentary includes studies of the historical background of each book. Such studies have to be based on a proper chronological framework into which each of the letters needs to be fitted, as far as possible. The results of this will then help us to understand the development of Paul’s thought by comparing his various letters. This is not an innovation but a standard part of good exegesis.

Peter,

Maybe I wasn’t clear in my statements. Exactly what you said is why I don’t think the order is an issue.

You said: “… every good commentary includes studies of the historical background of each book.”

That was my point. The commentaries are available to us, so why bother rearranging the books? If one studies, he knows the approximate chronological order of the books and isn’t thrown off by the arrangement.

But that brings up another point: since there is so much disagreement among scholars as to which book was written when, wouldn’t a supposedly chronological book order “canonize” a particular chronological view? What if it’s the wrong one? Which scholars do we follow for this “new” approach?

There are good chronological Bibles out there, and we can use them if we want to (funny part is, they don’t all agree with each other).

[cynical conspiracy theory begins here]

I bet there is a new “Super Duper Chronological Bible” that is going to be marketed to religious consumers in the very near future.

Well, it wouldn’t surprise me . . .

Pardon me, Peter,
Although I don’t think to be considered a part of the *gang* you are concerned about here, I just want to say that I’m all for context and grasping the story of THE STORY…(to whatever degree that can be done correctly…).

BUT,

As someone else suggested earlier in this thread; we have to be careful not to get into a mindset which insists that we have to understand everything before we can understand anything.

And even more importantly, we don’t want to wind up in a place where we think that it’s *all* about UNDERSTANDING (as important as that may be).

Derek, I may have misunderstood you, but I think you have misunderstood Viola and Barna. I don’t think they are actually suggesting reprinting Bibles with the books in a different order, which as you say should be unnecessary at least if each book is given a proper introduction. What they are urging, and what I thought you and others were rejecting, is that the various books are studied according to where they fit into external circumstances and chronology, as (fallibly) reconstructed by the best evangelical scholars such as F.F. Bruce.

Johnny, I agree with you that the Christian life is not all about understanding everything. See point 5 in this post of mine.

It seems to me we may be talking past one another to a certain extent.

It seems most of us in the “gang” who disagree with Viola and Barna on this don’t disagree with understanding historical context of the books of the Bible. As for me, I’m very concerned with all sorts of contexts. Contextual hermeneutics doesn’t merely mean reading a sentence in light of the paragraph in which it is written. There is the context of the book, the context of the writing, the context of the corpus, the context of the NT, the context of the OT, the context of history, the context of religions, the existential context we bring to the text, etc., etc.

Yet given all that, in the big scheme of all things hermeneutic, the order of the books in our canon makes very little difference in the way we interpret them. If Galatians came before Romans, or if Philemon came before 1 Corinthians, our Pauline theology would not be unsettled.

If we want to grant that Paul developed his theology over time in such a way that his thought was more mature in the latter epistles than in the former, I can see how a chronological grouping may help us tighten up some things in our understanding of Paul. But a major overhaul of his theology would not take place if we found out that 1 Thessalonians was actually the last letter Paul wrote.

You’re probably right on all points, mtch. (Since you’re anonymous, can we just call you Mitch? Wonderful posts on your blog, btw.)

As I said way up top, the Story probably affects ecclesiology much more than theology. In other areas, I just don’t find much *sense* of context in the thinking or writing or speaking of others, about scripture. It’s so easy to expound on extracted principles and tack on applications. If everyone agrees “the big picture” is so valuable, how come we don’t work harder to put it together and celebrate that – for its own sake?

TC mentioned the New Perspective on Paul. My own views aside, I really believe the resistance in that whole discussion demonstrates that many Theologians prefer to ‘whistle past the cemetery’ of historical inquiry.

“I must now admit that I just started attending a very enjoyable sunday school and ‘midweek home’ group, through the nearby Baptist Big Box. The relationship also seems very promising. Please don’t tell anyone”.

Bill.
How. Could. YOU?

I hope you all get it worked out. Drop me a line when you’re all done.
he he….

You guys have been busy the last twelve hours or so. Thirty more posts? Gee.

This idea that order matters when interpreting and understanding theology.
The importance is left out of our discussions when we discuss the un-important. These guys bring up good points, like the emergent church forum can bring up.
But the point (as I see it) is not to change radically, but no brainstorm and thing in other ways.
We have seen movements (and ideas, trends) pop up for good motives, but realise that they are too radical and they setting down, finally ending up doing some good.
Its like taking two steps forward and one and a half step back.
At least we gained a half step; was it worth it???

LOL, Chuck.

Seems like the issue here is getting reduced to who’s the “Pagan Christianity apologist” and who’s ganging up on them.

T.C.R., You said “we don’t need to be as radical as Viola and Barna envisioned.” But sometimes to be revolutionary in thinking, one has to be ostensibly radical. We could “step wide around any copies of these guys’ books I see for safety’s sake,” as Chuck proposes some 30 comments ago in this thread. Or we could glean something from Viola and Barna that perhaps we’re reluctant and resistant to seeing because we get so distracted by how we’ve always looked at things and by any error we might be able to find in their initial assertions.

Bill, Thanks for your excellent analogy above, worth repeating here:

“Suggesting that the sequence in which we examine Paul’s letters has no affect on our understanding of those letters is like suggesting the Civil War can be understood by studying its battles in alphabetical order.”

Or imagine reading Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman by Don W. King rearranged in order from longest letter to shortest. King’s chronological arrangement allows us, the reader, to follow Davidman’s pilgrimage in thought and in life from atheism to theism to Christianity.

How is this much different from what Barna and Viola have suggested?

TC, some time ago now you wrote the following comment, which I repeat in full for clarity:

Peter, the problem is with this statement, as I see it:

What is needed today is a theology built, not on the present canon and its misarrangement, but on the chronological narrative of the early church.

What you outlined as the standard is what is usually taught.

Viola and Barna statement seems to suggest that it doesn’t exist.

I think the difference is that what is outlined as the standard is what is usually taught in seminaries as the correct way to do exegesis, but is not what in fact most evangelical and much other theology is based on. This becomes obvious when we realise that a proper understanding of “the chronological narrative of the early church” has become available only within the last 150 years or so, whereas evangelical theology is tied down by doctrinal statements from the Reformation period, and by continued reliance on teachings of Church Fathers even when these (for example Augustine’s teaching on original sin based on Romans 5:12) have been proven to be based on obvious exegetical errors. Viola and Barna have done what is right and necessary, if not entirely novel: they have challenged the church to base its theology on what Jesus and the apostles actually taught, not on ancient and mediaeval misunderstandings of their teachings.

JK writes,

“Or we could glean something from Viola and Barna that perhaps we’re reluctant and resistant to seeing because we get so distracted by how we’ve always looked at things and by any error we might be able to find in their initial assertions.”

That is absolutely right, JK. At the same time, however, there is a strident tone that, I think, people pick-up as not good, even sub-Christian. Earlier, at the beginning of TC’s reflections on Pagan Christianity, my initial comment was, “chew the meat, spit out the bones.”

There are a lot of bones to spit out here. As we digest the meat that Bill, Peter, you and others have faithfully kept in the forefront, it is valuable to take a look at the bones as well. Why the overstatement? Why the ad hominem tenor directed at our past? Why the iconoclasm againt everything, including the received order of the received texts of Scripture?

I think I’m reacting to a deeper issue that the book manifests about American Christian culture. We are much more comfortable with the exercise of worldly power, be it money, politics, or intellect. I love truth, although I am frequently a fool. When I feel that someone is beating me with a club, however, I’m smart enough to know it. I guess my question is, why the club? I want to say to Viola and Barna, put the club down, and just say what you want to say. And after the beating stops, I want to ask, “Why are you beating me anyway?”

Why the overstatement? Why the ad hominem tenor directed at our past? Why the iconoclasm againt everything, including the received order of the received texts of Scripture?

Kyle, these are indeed significant questions. But I think the Pharisees might have been justified in asking the same kinds of questions of Jesus, and for that matter of the early Christians for rearranging the books of the Hebrew Bible into a more chronological order than the Jewish order. Don’t blame Viola and Barna for taking the same general approach to harmful traditionalism that Jesus took.

What’s with all this “Pauline” stuff anyway.

Makes Paul sound like a sissy.

He could take some punishment. Yes?

Oh yea, one other thing, about Paul’s letters.
Paul never mentions “disciples” in his epistles.
You find “ disciple” in the Gospels and the book of Acts, BUT,
It’s not in any of the epistles. Hmmm?

What’s up with that?

Peter, Thank you for taking us to your blog to see the analogy you’ve made between Augustine’s mistranslation of Paul and our “need to be very careful before basing any kind of doctrine on a translation of the Bible.” This is helpful also as you bring up the Pharisees, who didn’t get side tracked by a translation but nonetheless read the original texts of the Bible through the lens of a “harmful traditionalism.” I’m very glad you’ve reminded us how Jesus did use hyperbolic overstatement, parabolic and pervasive deconstruction, and a rather caustic ad hominem approach.

Kyle, I’m with you on loving truth even if I’m a fool. Would I have seen the way Jesus approached religious and hermenuetic traditions as containing sharp bones I would have had to spit out?

T.C., Is it the argument or the approach that’s difficult in Barna and Viola? Are these authors just trying to make a name for themselves, mere attempting to get book royalties? I sympathize with them because there is so much that we do not examine in the tradition of the church. There are sacred cows and hot potatoes. Seems that the traditional order of books is only one small gripe they have with the tradition. Are they really making overaching claims to being revolutionary if books were reordered? I think Willis Barnstone, Bill, Peter, others, and I are simply considering how profound the implications if we refuse to consider whether the traditional book order is problematic. Likewise, I don’t think that requires that Viola and Barna get a pass on everything just because they’ve got us thinking about certain things. I, for one, am really glad you blogged on this point and have allowed us to engage in conversation.

Thank you again, TC, and everyone. I’m so grateful for this entire conversation.

For those interested, my post on Pauline Chronology is up now.