Canon: Star Wars and the Bible
What makes something canonical?
On several occasions, I have been asked something to the effect of “Where did the Bible come from?…How did we get these books…but not other books?”
It’s complicated.
My short answer (speaking only for the New Testament) is usually something like, the church met together and discussed which books they were using in worship and which originated from people who learned directly from Jesus. They discussed, argued, and came to a relative consensus. What is in is called Canon. What is out is non-canonical.
The factor of use is the thing I would like to talk about this week.
How much of the Bible do we use? And the adjacent question: Where do we use the Bible?
The answer to these questions changes over the course of time and geography as literacy rates change.
In the fourth century, when the New Testament canon is taking shape, literacy rates are somewhere between 5 and 20%. People don’t have Bibles at home to read. The time they hear the Scriptures is in weekly worship gatherings. So, a lot of Scripture was read. When Justin Martyr defends Christians from accusations and persecutions in the second century, he mentions what the worship service is like. One of the things he talks about is reading from the Scriptures as much as time will allow.
Fast-forward to today. The adult literacy rate in the USA is 79%. The expectation is that a Christian will own a Bible and read it regularly in their home on their own or with their family. But is that happening?
Mark Twain is often credited with saying that the person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read.
Several years ago, I went through the lectionary of my denomination (that’s the system of assigned readings we use in worship). I wanted to see how much of the Bible was being read in worship.
I was shocked by what I discovered.
The three-year lectionary (if all four readings are used), covers 21.68% of the Scriptures (this is not including assigned readings for lesser celebrated feast days). The one-year lectionary covers 9.88% of the Scriptures.
Perhaps more problematic is that there are entire books left out of the lectionary. The three year lectionary does not use 11 books of the Bible (if you celebrate lesser known feast days, it reduces to 9). The one year lectionary does not use 21 of the 66 biblical books. (That reduces to 20 with the feast of St. Thomas.)
When I brought this up to one group of pastors, one of the responses I got was, “Well, that’s what Bible study is for.” My Bible study covers about a chapter a week (which is honestly much faster than most Bible studies go). If I had Bible study every Sunday at that rate, it would take me nearly 23 years to get through the entirety of the Bible.
Thus, the expectation that people will read their Bibles on their own. Our current systems of worship and Bible study do not cover the entirety of the Bible. Our system has created a canon within a canon. Our practice of biblical use confuses our teaching about what is the inspired Word of God…and what is not.
I’m reminded of Star Wars.
Fans of Star Wars have opinions. Much like the Sadducees only believed the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) was the Scripture, some Star Wars fans reduce what is truly canon to the original trilogy. Others expand that to add the prequel trilogy. Others allow for the all of the movies, but none of the TV shows. Others allow for all of the TV shows and movies except for the animated series. Still others want the canon to expand into novels and comics. There are dozens of possibilities of what could be considered canon. But all of the arguments largely boil down to use.
Whatever Star Wars movies and shows and novels I like are the ones I watch and read, and they are my canon. If I truly hate something, I can ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist and leave it out of my canon.
And that’s fine, when it is Star Wars. I am welcome to rewatch Rebels a thousand times and pretend like (fill in the blank with whatever you don’t care for) doesn’t exist.
And what’s strange is that, personally, I can also do this with the Bible. I can read Colossians a thousand times and pretend like Revelation doesn’t exist. But it does. And I should encounter it as Scripture when I am gathered for worship.
Yet, if I were to go to a Star Wars convention, I might dress in costume. I might choose my costume based on my favorite piece of media within the canon. But I would also encounter costumes from everything within the canon. And I would have no coherent reason to be upset at another conference attendee who dresses as a character from a show that is outside my own invented canon. There would be panels and guest speakers from everything within the canon. My point is, when I’m gathered with the community, they remind me of what the canon is.
When I gather with the community of Christians, I ought to be reminded of what is within the canon. And when books of the Bible are never read within the gathering of Christians, that can become problematic.
I don’t know what the answer is to this. (I have lots of ideas. Most of them impractical.) And I know that any different lectionary system will have its own issues. But I honestly wonder if it wouldn’t be helpful to start anew. To create a lectionary geared toward a more abundant hearing of the Word.
I’m guessing that 79% of Christians (the current literacy rate) don’t read the Bible regularly at home. What percentage would you guess it is? 10? 20? 50? If God’s people are not reading the Scriptures at home, maybe our worship practices out to look more like they did when people could not read. Maybe we should be reading much more Scripture in worship. Just an idea.
What do you think? I’m curious.
Andy
The situation is perhaps more dire if we think about the fact that even if all three readings are used, the vast majority of preachers only (and reasonably) preach on just one of the readings (usually the Gospel reading, very rarely the OT reading).
Of course, another way to think about canon as use is in terms of what we can use in an argument. If I can quote something to support a point I want to make and my interlocutors cannot just dismiss the authority of the quotation, then it's canon for us.
This makes me wonder whether the "canon with a canon" problem you've identified is necessarily a problem. Surely dismissing parts of the canon is a problem (though we should recall the importance of the homolegommena/antilegommena distinction), but that's not what our situation is. If I quote a book that never appears in the lectionary, nobody is going to object that that book doesn't actually matter. Our situation is that we give more attention to some parts of the bible over others. And to be fair, that's not necessarily bad. Some parts of the bible are more important than others. The resurrection accounts are more important than the censuses in Numbers.
Perhaps instead of making a lectionary that covers the entire Bible, we would do well to try to emphasize greater breadth in our teaching and preaching. We can be broader without being exhaustive. Pastors can seek to preach on the OT reading more often or can cover sections of neglected books in the summer, midweeks, or in Bible Study. It's also possible to preach and teach on scripture from a more zoomed-out perspective. We don't have to do everything verse-by-verse or chapter-by-chapter. One could very profitably do a four-week bible study of, say, Ezekiel without covering every chapter and every verse. At the end of the day, there will be no replacement for people reading the Bible at home whether alone, with their families, or in a group.
As a sidenote, there is no direct evidence that the Sadducees rejected the authority of the rest of the OT. We know they rejected the oral Torah of the Pharisees, but we just don't know what they thought about the prophets and the writings.
A good question to ask might be, "Why do we have the lections we have in the lectionary?" The Apostle Paul's answer: "We preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23). This canon within the canon magnifies the central focus of God's action in the world through Jesus. None of the Scripture is ancillary, but without the central focus of Christ, we might question the importance, or even the inclusion, of parts.