REFUTING THE

GAINSAYERSSession 3

Nag Hammadi Codices

Reason for the Fascination

• Diversity• People disagree• No one has the right to claim they

have the corner on truth.

Bauer’s Argument

• Early Christians disagreed with one another• No one united Christianity, but various

Christianities.• Each faction has its own books.• The books in our NT belonged to the

theological “winners”.• If another group won, their books would

have formed the canon.

Canonical Diversity

• Hence, you can’t trust your Bible because everybody disagrees about it. • So we can’t be confident we have the right

books in our Bibles.• Everyone is entitled to their own version

of truth and no one has the right to claim the others’ are false. • You get to pick the Jesus you like the most.

Diversity is Not An Argument

• Does the existence of disagreement prove that the 27 NT books are not from God?

• This is a non sequitur argument.• The fact that there are disagreements has

no bearing on whether one is the truth or whether you can know one is the truth.

• Assumption: If these books are from God, there would be agreement on all of them.

Diversity is Not An Argument

• There would be rapid acknowledgement and hardly any disagreement. • This is an invalid assumption.

Reasons for Disagreement

1. God chose to deliver His canonical books through normal, historical channels.

2. There has always been and will always be false teaching and false teachers in the church.

3. There are spiritual forces opposing the church.

4. Not all who claimed to be Christians are really Christians.

The Diversity Is Exaggerated

• We get the impression that early Christianity was in utter chaos.

• There was actually a great deal of unanimity.• Majority of the NT was agreed upon by A.D.

125, especially the 4 gospels. • There was no dispute about the 4 gospels. • Many theological debates resolved.• They had enough ammunition to deal with

the disputes.