Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 66:263 (Jul 1909)
Article: Ferris’s “Formation Of The New Testament”
Author: Parke P. Flournoy

BSac 66:263 (July 1909) p. 512

Ferris’s “Formation Of The New Testament”1

Reverend Parke P. Flournoy

This is a book on a subject of acknowledged obscurity. We do not know much about the formation of the New Testament. There is but little contemporary literature to throw light on the subject; and the author of this book, which deals with it, does not seem to wish to lessen the difficulties which encompass it, by using such light as we have. He claims that the New Testament church had no New Testament, and seems disposed to think that it would probably be better if we had none; or rather, that instead of a closed canon we should still be guided by “open vision,” with writings added to those which we have in our New Testament, and much of that omitted.

The book is published by the American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, and is written by one who is (or was) a pastor, presumably interested in the spiritual welfare of all whom he can reach with his voice or pen. Yet, to one reader at least, the book, instead of being likely to minister to the edification of its readers, seems calculated to unsettle their faith.

His treatment of the New Testament is such as to throw doubt (1) upon its completeness, (2) upon the authenticity

BSac 66:263 (July 1909) p. 513

of parts of it, and (3) on its authority as a guide to faith and godly living. His views of inspiration are of the loosest. His presentation of the facts connected with the formation of the New Testament is exceedingly one-sided and defective. While professing a conscientiousness which he reproaches the great mass of his brethren in the ministry as lacking, he yet seems to be so under the influence of his theory about the formation of the New Testament, that he is incapable of presenting the facts in an unprejudiced way. There is an utter lack of balance in his treatment. His finger is always on the scale which he wishes to go down. He continually underestimates the importance of the dates and genuineness of the New Testament books, and of apostolic authority in connection with their production and their use by the church. He is very earnest in presenting the claims of apocryphal literature to a place beside the books of the New Testament. He seems especially anxious to impress the reader with the “vast mass” of literature out of which he represents the books in our New Testament as having been selected by arbitrary ecclesiastical authority. He pours contempt on portions of the New Testament, and exalts to the highest rank such a book, e. g., as the “Shepherd of Hermas,” and speaks of it as more generally read and admired by early Christians than any book in our New Testament.

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