The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate

Summary

Did the New Testament canon arise naturally from within the early Christian faith? Were the books written as Scripture, or did they become Scripture? Why did early Christians have a canon at all?

These are the types of questions that led Michael J. Kruger to pick apart modern scholarship's dominant view that the New Testament is a late creation of the church imposed on books originally written for another purpose. Calling into question this commonly held "extrinsic" view, Kruger tackles the five most prevalent objections to the classic understanding of a collection of authoritative scriptures.

Kruger addresses foundational and paradigmatic assumptions of the extrinsic model as he provides powerful rebuttals and further support for the classic, "intrinsic" view.

Unlike many books written on the emergence of the New Testament canon that ask "when?" or "how?" Kruger focuses this work on the "why?"—exposing weaknesses in the five major tenets of the extrinsic model as he goes. While The Question of Canon scrutinizes today's popular scholastic view, it also offers an alternative concept to lay a better empirical foundation for biblical canon studies.