The Case for the Core New Testament

Abstract

The Case for the Core New Testament sets out the scholarly argument that the New Testament canon is not a uniform inheritance. While it genuinely preserves the apostolic witness, some of its writings stand markedly closer to the apostolic foundation than others.

It begins by clarifying the key terms and tracing how the canon actually developed, then examines the literary relationships among the Gospels, making the case for the priority of Luke and weighing the standard arguments for Markan priority before assessing the remaining canonical Gospels. From there it identifies Luke-Acts and the letters of Paul as the foundational apostolic authorities and recovers the Kerygma, the earliest proclamation underlying the written texts. On this basis it proposes a way of classifying the New Testament writings by their proximity to that apostolic core, and reflects on what the distinction means for how Scripture is read, weighed, and contested today.