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Line 57: Central to his scholarly contribution to New Testament studies is his trilogy: ''The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration'' (1964; 2nd ed., 1968; 3d enlarged ed., 1992); ''The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations'' (1977); ''The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance'' (1987).<ref>James A. Brooks, "Bruce Metzger as Textual Critic," ''Princeton Seminary Bulletin'', vol. 15, no. 2, new series (1994), 157.</ref> The first volume of a series that he founded and edited, ''New Testament Tools and Studies,'' appeared in 1960. Metzger's commentaries often utilize [[historical criticism]] and [[higher criticism]], which attempt to explain the literary and historical origins of the Bible and the [[biblical canon]]. For instance, Metzger argues that the early church which assembled the New Testament did not consider [[biblical inspiration\|divine inspiration]] to be a sufficient criterion for a book to be placed in the canon.{{dubious\|reason=That this was Metzger's view is not in dispute, but isn't this a generally accepted "given" in historical scholarship on the formation of the canon? That's how it's treated by Dale Martin (https://cosmolearning.org/video-lectures/from-stories-to-canon-6796/), who attributes the idea that "inspiration" is an important criterion to "modern people", apparently implying that this is a modern misconception on the part of Christian popular culture, but was Metzger the progenitor of the idea that inspiration WASN'T the most important criterion? If not, it probably doesn't belong in this article, or should not be written the way it is so as to imply that other scholars disagree or disagreed with this view. The quotation provided in the citation for the following sentence, if that is all there is to it, indicates that associating this idea specifically with Metzger is indeed a weak form of OR. The cited source was published late in Metzger's life, only 12 years before the Martin lecture cited above.\|date=September 2016}} Metzger says that the early church saw it as very important that a work describing Jesus' life be written by a follower of or an eyewitness to Jesus, and considered other works such as [[Shepherd of Hermas\|''The Shepherd'' of Hermas]] and the ''[[Epistles of Clement (disambiguation)\|Epistles of Clement]]'' to be inspired but not canonical.<ref>"The Fathers … did not consider inspiration to be a unique characteristic of canonical writings." Bruce M. Metzger, ''The Canon of the New Testament'' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 256, and see 211, n. 6.</ref> In discussing the canon, Metzger identifies three criteria “for acceptance of particular writings as sacred, authoritative, and worthy of being read in services of worship...”, criteria which were “generally adopted during the course of the second century, and were never modified thereafter”, namely, orthodoxy (conformity to the rule of faith), apostolicity, and consensus among the churches.<ref>Bruce M. Metzger, ''The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content'', 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 317–8. And see the detailed discussion in Metzger, ''The Canon of the New Testament'' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 251–4.</ref> He concludes that, “In the most basic sense neither individuals nor councils created the canon; instead they came to recognize and acknowledge the self-authenticating quality of these writings, which imposed themselves as canonical upon the church.”<ref>Bruce M. Metzger, ''The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content'', 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 318. Also see Metzger, ''The Canon of the New Testament'' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 287–8.</ref>

Bruce M. Metzger: Difference between revisions