This post is in response to Who's Afraid of "The Golden Compass"?
By Paul Edwards
 
and the following debate on the comments page about the use of the New Testament before 300 AD.

One commenter named Justpaul... said the following:

"There is no copy of the New Testament as read by most Christians which predates 300 AD. Most of you read the King James Version, written 1500 years later.

Find me a copy of the Bible written in either Christ's hand or that of any of his 12 Apostles, and you might have something."

justpaul, hopefully this will enlighten you.

Your right Christians dont read Bibles written before 300 AD. They couldnt. At that time Christians were still being persecuted by Rome and could not have an open and public religion.  But that does not mean there was not a list of New Testament books and letters recognized by Christians and the Church.  There were letters and books recognized and historical documents to back this up.

Buckle your seat belt.

Lets look at the different canonical lists of the Bible in history.

The earliest official canonical list is exactly like our current New Testament. This list is from Athanasius in 367 when he wrote his 39th Festal Letter. Athenasius is no minor authority on this subject.  He is the bishop of Alexandria, the second city of the Roman Empire.  When he refers to “the church” as acknowledging a New Testament canon he is speaking of the church throughout the world.  Moreover, this late date is explained by the fact that it was not until the fourth century (the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313) that the church could communicate openly about these matters or have ecumenical councils. 

 There is also a recently found early canonical list called the Muratorian Fragment.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/muratorian.html
 It is dated late second century between 170-190 ad.  It has 4 gospels, (its torn at the top, and doesn’t have Matthew and Mark listed but says third gospel Luke and then John), it has Acts, 13 Pauline epistles, revelations, 2 epistles from John, Jude, and wisdom of Solomon, and apocalypse of Peter. That’s well over 90% of the New Testament.  The only book missing is Hebrews.  It also has a rejection list, which are Paul’s letter to Alexanderians, Laossians, and the Shepherd of Hermas. This is significant, because modern scholars look at early church and call them naïve and ignorant. But this shows they aren’t!  They used discernment and rejected some books and letters. They simply didn’t rubberstamp things.  

You can also look at other ancient documents when defending the Bible being written and used before the 4th century.  We have what is called the P^46, which is a papyrus dated about the year 200.  It is a book or codex, written in Lingna Continua, which is written in continued Greek, no punctuation, no spaces and in all caps. It contains Paul and Hebrews.  It is in book form and it has at least ten of the thirteen letters of the Apostle Paul but it probably lost the others.

We can also look at the early church fathers when arguing for the authenticity of the New Testement before 300 AD. Eusebius was the Bishop of Caesarea from 314-339 and he was the first church historian, writing a book on church history. It’s important to understand the timing of this book, 304 was the last persecution of Christians in the Roman empire and 314 was the year Constantine comes to power and makes Christianity the official religion. In 316 there is the Council of Nicea, where Eusebius had a prominent role as the secretary. In his church history book he talks about the books that were accepted universally;  4 gospels, 14 letters of Paul, (including Hebrews)  Acts, 1 John, 1 Peter and Revelations. It is important to note the very first moment the history of Christianity could be talked about publicly all these books we accept today were books that were universally accepted at that time as well. 

Irenaeus (A.D. 130-200), who wrote against heresies,Irenaeus (A.D. 130-200), who wrote against heresies, knew Polycarp, who knew the Apostle John.  Heretics, according to Irenaeus could be distinguished on the basis of new doctrine and no link back to the apostles.  He had a functional canon of 22 of the 27 books.    He quotes from every Pauline letter except Philemon.  Thus, late in the second century he is functioning with a canon that is almost identical to ours. 

Bishop of Smyrna from circa 100, is the earliest person to quote from 2 Thessalonians. 

Another important church father was Polycarp, 69-155 ad who was a disciple of Apostle John. In Polycarps letters he exhaustively uses quotes from the gospels and Paul’s letters. In fact Polycarp quotes extensively from 11 of Paul’s 13 letters in such a way that he expects his readers to be familiar with what he is quoting. That is significant because what that means there is a Pauline corpus already in place and these letters were written between 108-117.

In Polycarps letter to the Philippians quoting from 11 of Paul’s 13 epistles in the year 110.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/polycarp.html

 Note the following concerning his letter.

·His quotes expect his readers to know the texts he is quoting from. 
·He uses quotes extensively, stringing them together with little admixture of original thought. 
·He is a bishop at a young age, and declares at his martyndom that he has followed Jesus for 86 years, together suggesting strongly that he has been taught the texts he quotes from and is conversant with them at an early age. 
·Once a corpus has been established, it is very difficult—thought not impossible—to add to it, suggesting that if there was a Pauline corpus at an early point in time, it would have been established in a complete form.

These facts point us to the existence of a Pauline corpus sometime prior to A.D. 100, perhaps around 90.  Why is this important? Paul, an Apostle, about half of the New Testament. 

Those who believe there is nothing before the 4th century simply dont know their history. The above evidence that shows there was more consistency and more a universal canon than you realize.