T J Lang, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK

Unstable Canons and the Fingerprints of Forgery: Introducing Uncomfortable Facts to Unsuspecting Christians

Lecture delivered at the Lanier Theological Library, May 19, 2022

This essay is a personal attempt to systematize my thoughts on how to introduce the messiness of “The Bible” to Christians in ecclesial, seminary, and university contexts. The essay begins with a brief history of Christian canons – the accent being on the irreducible plurality and incongruities of various Christian bibles. Such a history of Christian canons necessarily entails addressing questions of possible forgeries within established canonical domains. To illustrate some of the ancient ways of reckoning with canonical instability, I turn to Timothy I’s Letter 47, a Syriac document from the 9th century CE that straightforwardly expresses several key untidy realities of bible production, including those related to textual authenticity and the potential porousness of canonical borders. The letter is an especially frank itemization of key facts regarding the instabilities inherent among Christian bibles – instabilities often unknown to (and often embarrassing to) contemporary Christians. To introduce some order to this messiness, I propose a four-fold typology of canon realities, situating various Christian bibles within this typology. I conclude with a series of general theses on how to introduce students to the facts of canonical untidiness in a way that is sensitive to various confessional identities.