How do you know what books belong in the New Testament?
We have a Roman fragment from around AD 170 listing which books early Christians accepted--and which they rejected: The Muratorian Fragment.
It names familiar texts, odd ones, and even a pope. Let’s take a look 🧵
What books does it include? Here are the familiar ones:
✅ Luke
✅ John
✅ Acts
✅ 13 letters of Paul
✅ Jude
✅ 2 letters of John (not 3)
✅ Revelation of John
But there are also surprises - and big omissions. 👇
May 29 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The oldest known Christian hymn -- dating to before the Council of Nicaea -- is being sung again after 1,800 years.
But what’s truly amazing?
It’s explicitly Trinitarian, long before Nicaea or Constantine.
Here’s what you need to know: 🧵👇1/
The hymn, found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, is preserved on a Greek papyrus dated to around 250 A.D. -- decades before the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.).
It’s one of the earliest pieces of Christian music ever discovered. What does it say? 2/
Feb 15 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Popular-level Calvin apologist James White says ‘there was no Pope, not even a single bishop, in Rome’ when Ignatius lived, around AD 108. Is he right? Let’s find out.
White makes a bad argument from silence: Ignatius doesn’t mention a bishop of Rome in his letter to Rome, so there must not be one! The problem: Ignatius was under Roman guard on his way to being fed to lions in the Colosseum! He would’ve been a fool if he identified his Roman counterpart. 2/
Apr 27, 2021 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
A Parable on Corpus Linguistics: On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test the Linguist. “Linguist,” he asked, “what must I do to correctly interpret this Law?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
The Judge answered, “the Law says, ‘no person shall bear arms at or near any bank.’ This proscribes carrying arms at or near rivers or lakes.”
