The Corrupted Canon: How Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Tradition Distorted Apostolic Scripture
The traditional Bible canon is not a sacred given, but a product of later church politics and compromise. The collection of New Testament books we inherited is a corrupted tradition imposed by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox authorities – a canon that strayed from the apostolic faith it claims to uphold. While Protestant churches loudly reject the authority of Catholic and Orthodox tradition, they paradoxically accept without question the very canon those churches decided centuries after Christ. It is time to re-examine how this canon was formed and to ask whether some books – notably the Gospels of John, Mark, and Matthew – deviate from the original apostolic truth preserved in Luke-Acts and Paul’s writings. The evidence from history and scholarship is clear: the traditional canon is flawed and non-apostolic, and restoring a truly apostolic core of Scripture is essential.
This article is an overview summary of the canon-related research conducted by Integrity Syndicate and published on several websites with extensive citations. Refer to the referenced websites for additional details and full citations pertaining to the statements made in this article:
The Late and Contested Formation of the New Testament Canon
The New Testament canon did not descend from heaven fully formed – it was cobbled together over centuries by a church already drifting from its roots. As renowned scholar Bruce Metzger observed, recognizing the New Testament books as “canonical” was “the result of a long and gradual process” in which a few writings were picked out from a “much larger body of early Christian literature”. Astonishingly, history is “virtually silent as to how, when, and by whom” this process happened.
No apostle ever handed us a list of 27 books – later church leaders made those decisions. By the late 2nd century (150+ years after Jesus), we finally see an initial outline of a New Testament take shape. Around 180 A.D., the Catholic polemicist Irenaeus declared that there must be “four and only four Gospels,” giving us the now-familiar Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  But why four? Irenaeus’s justifications were embarrassingly mystical rather than historical. He claimed there are four Gospels because there are four winds, four corners of the earth, four creatures in Ezekiel’s vision, four principal covenants with humanity, etc. Such allegorical reasoning hardly inspires confidence in the selection. It suggests the church lacked solid historical grounds for insisting on exactly these four accounts of Jesus. Indeed, had credible apostolic evidence supported the fourfold Gospel, Irenaeus would not need to rely on dubious numerology.
Meanwhile, many Christian communities in the second century flatly rejected one or more of these Gospels. Irenaeus himself admitted that different groups favored different texts: Ebionite Christians used only a Hebrew form of Matthew; Marcionites accepted only a cut-down version of Luke; certain Docetic groups preferred Mark; and the Gnostic followers of Valentinus made heavy use of John.
In fact, the Gospel of John was earliest championed by Gnostic sects and was rejected by multiple groups of Jesus-followers who saw it as inauthentic. A sect known as the Alogians (literally “anti-Logos,” rejecting John’s Logos theology) accepted the other three Gospels but refused John, suspecting its theological innovations (Epiphanius, Panarion, Heresy 51.3.4–6). In short, the fourfold Gospel canon touted by Irenaeus in 180 A.D. was far from universally received – it was a minority position even then, let alone in the apostolic age.
Early Christian communities did not share a single “New Testament” – different churches revered different writings. This diagram (based on research from NTcanon.com) illustrates the literary relationships among the Gospels and which sects favored which. Luke (circled) emerges as the earliest existing Gospel source, with Mark and “Matthew” built later upon Luke. John was last and embraced mainly by Gnostic or proto-Orthodox factions, while groups like the Ebionites stuck to a Hebrew Matthew and Marcion’s followers used Luke alone. The so-called “Orthodox” canon (far right) ultimately combined Luke, Paul’s letters, and later gospels (Mark/Matthew/John), imposing a four-Gospel collection that many apostolic believers never accepted.
Another proof that the canon solidified late is the physical manuscript record. No second-century manuscript has all four Gospels bound together. Early gospel manuscripts are fragmentary scrolls or codices circulating independently. Not until well into the third and fourth centuries do we find codices compiling multiple New Testament books.
In fact, the earliest complete Bible manuscripts like Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) are the first evidence of all four Gospels appearing as a unit. This suggests that the “fourfold Gospel book” was a later, formal publication of the institutional Church, not an established apostolic tradition. It raises the question: if the Holy Spirit intended a fixed 27-book New Testament, why did it take 300+ years and imperial church sponsorship for such Bibles to appear?
Even lists of accepted books varied widely. The oft-cited Muratorian Fragment (c. late 2nd century) shows a canon in flux. This fragment (a damaged Latin copy of an earlier list) inexplicably includes the Apocalypse of Peter (later rejected) while excluding letters like Hebrews and James that ended up in the final New Testament.
Clearly, the late-2nd century church had not reached a consensus – different regions had different collections of writings. Later, church fathers like Origen (early 3rd cent.) and Eusebius (early 4th cent.) acknowledged that some books were disputed or only “accepted by some,” including Revelation, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, etc.
Only in 367 A.D. did Athanasius of Alexandria circulate the first known list of exactly the 27 New Testament books we recognize today, and regional Church Councils (e.g. Carthage in 397 A.D.) soon affirmed the same. In other words, a “final” New Testament canon was imposed in the late 4th century by Catholic bishops – long after the apostolic era.
This canon was a hallmark of the emerging Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox establishment. The same 4th–5th century Church that formulated orthodox creeds and wielded imperial power also decided which books to include. Protestants often condemn those councils and traditions – yet unwittingly rely on their decisions for the content of Scripture! They forget that the Bible didn’t originate with a table of contents. By clinging to the 27-book canon defined by a post-apostolic Church, Protestants are, in practice, submitting to that Church’s authority even as they deny it. This uncritical acceptance of the traditional biblical canon is rooted in a non-apostolic tradition shaped by a corrupted church.
Many Christians naively assume all books in the Bible are equally authoritative simply because they’re in the Bible, never investigating how they got there. But as we’ve seen, the canon was not handed down by Jesus or the apostles – it was the result of messy historical politics. Conservative evangelicals will also readily admit this. Different books had different statuses in earliest Christianity, and some included books were viewed with skepticism for centuries. To truly return to “apostolic” Christianity, we must be willing to question the canon itself and distinguish the core apostolic writings from later, lesser traditions.
The Gospel of John – An Artificially Crafted Narrative
Among the four Gospels, John stands out as the most dubious and theologically extreme, so much so that many early Christians and modern scholars alike have questioned its place (issueswithjohn.com).
The Fourth Gospel, known as John, radically deviates from the faith taught by the apostles in Luke-Acts and Paul’s letters. Whereas Luke-Acts and Paul emphasize Jesus as God’s appointed Messiah and risen Lord, John introduces a radically different portrait – a cosmic Logos who pre-existed with God, speaking long mystical discourses not found elsewhere. It is no coincidence that the first Christians to embrace John were Gnostic heretics in the second century, who found its lofty language useful for their philosophies. Various groups of early believers, including the Ebionites, rejected John. Even some later groups were uneasy with John; a group in Asia Minor (derisively nicknamed the “Alogians”) refused John’s Gospel and Revelation, likely seeing their content as aberrant. This early controversy alone is a red flag: would a truly apostolic Gospel be spurned by those striving to follow the apostles’ teachings, and welcomed by those spinning new doctrines?
Modern critical scholarship confirms John is a theological interpretation, not an eyewitness historical account on par with the Synoptics. Famed New Testament scholar James D. G. Dunn noted that since the 1800s, scholars increasingly conclude John’s Gospel is determined much more by [the author’s] own theological concerns than by historical concerns.  The differences between John and the other Gospels are so stark that “it can no longer be regarded as a good source for the life of Jesus,” and it certainly “cannot be treated on the same level” as Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Dunn bluntly concluded: “John’s gospel cannot be regarded as a source for the life and teaching of Jesus of the same order as the Synoptics… mostly it must serve as a secondary source.” In other words, if we seek the earliest and most factual testimony of Jesus’s ministry, we go to Luke (and the other Synoptics) first, and maybe use John only sparingly as a later, less reliable supplement. Another eminent scholar, C.H. Dodd, agreed that for “strictly historical material with minimal interpretation we must not go to the Fourth Gospel… it is to the Synoptic Gospels that we must go to recover the oldest and purest tradition of the facts.” John is simply not “apostolic history” – it’s a theological treatise.
Why is John so problematic? John’s author (who never names himself as John, incidentally) takes great liberties with chronology, geography, and Jesus’s words. For example, John relocates the Temple cleansing to the start of Jesus’s ministry (whereas all other Gospels place that dramatic incident in Jesus’s final week) – an anachronism likely made for symbolic reasons. John’s Last Supper isn’t a Passover meal at all (contradicting Mark, Matthew, Luke), seemingly so that John can portray Jesus as the Paschal Lamb dying “at the same hour” the lambs were slain. As scholar Craig Keener observes, John “rearranged many details, apparently in service of his symbolic message… Such features invite us to question the historicity [of John]; certainly he is not writing a work of the exact historiographic nature of Luke-Acts.” John’s Gospel is filled with long, philosophical monologues (John ch. 13–17, for instance) unlike anything in the more down-to-earth preaching of Jesus found in Luke or Matthew. Those “I Am” speeches in John – “I am the light of the world,” “I am the resurrection,” etc. – have no parallel in the earlier Gospels and read more like theological reflections put in Jesus’s mouth. The style and content align with second-century Alexandrian philosophy and emerging Trinitarian concepts, not with the Hebrew prophetic tone one might expect from a Galilean preacher. Small wonder that John’s Gospel was “the favorite gospel of Gnostics,” who were blending Christian ideas with pagan philosophy.
Furthermore, John flatly contradicts the Synoptics on numerous factual details – far more than just differing perspectives. To name a few: In John, Jesus ministers in Judea for years and makes multiple Jerusalem visits; in the Synoptics, his mission is mostly in Galilee and he goes to Jerusalem only at the end. In John, the crucifixion date is the day before Passover; in Mark/Matthew/Luke, it’s on Passover. In John, Jesus makes numerous I am claims; in the Synoptics, he never says anything so direct, and even deflects being called “good” by saying “no one is good but God alone” (Luke 18:19). The character of Jesus is different – John’s Jesus is almost a serene, otherworldly figure hardly touching the ground, whereas in Mark and Luke Jesus expresses anguish, shock, and a very human will submitted to God. These are not just complementary differences; they often clash.
The comprehensive analysis at IssuesWithJohn.com has catalogued over 30 direct contradictions where John opposes the Synoptic record. Such facts led a host of early 20th-century scholars (Jackson, Scott, Macgregor, Bacon, Schmiedel, and others) – all devout, not skeptics – to seriously question John’s place as history.
In sum, John represents a later theological “overlay” on the Jesus story, not the original apostolic testimony. Its inclusion in the canon owes much to the triumph of the Orthodox Church in marrying this Gospel’s high theology with its developing dogmas. But if we are seeking the “faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), we must acknowledge that John’s Gospel deviates from that apostolic faith as reflected in Luke and Paul. Luke-Acts presents Jesus as “a man attested by God” (Acts 2:22) whom God raised and exalted – a Christology of an anointed human Messiah. Paul likewise preaches “one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1Tim 2:5) and consistently distinguishes Jesus from God the Father. John, however, opens with “the Word was God… and the Word became flesh” – a statement that would have sounded alien to the earliest Jewish believers in Jesus. It introduces a metaphysical Jesus that the likes of Peter, James, and Paul never taught publicly in Scripture. To put it starkly: if Luke-Acts and Paul represent the apostolic baseline, the Gospel of John is an outlier. It is a beautiful work of theology in its own right, but its authority and authenticity as a record of apostolic truth are highly suspect. Any “correction” of the canon to its apostolic core would have to seriously reconsider the inclusion of John.
The Gospel of Mark – An Amped-Up Remix
The Gospel of Mark is often assumed to be the earliest Gospel, but evidence points to Luke being written first (as Luke’s own prologue hints) and Mark coming later as a creative reworking. In fact, Mark reads like a novelized remix of material from Luke – a kind of abridged retelling with added flair. Far from being a straightforward apostolic memoir, Mark shows signs of being a derivative account, pieced together by someone using Luke and perhaps other sources, and embellishing them for effect. It has long been noted that 95% of Mark’s content appears in the Gospel of Matthew and about 50% of Mark’s words are found verbatim in Matthew. This indicates Matthew’s author had Mark in front of him. But intriguingly, Luke contains much of the same material as Mark as well – often in a more primitive form. The theory of Lukan Priority holds that Mark actually used Luke (or an earlier version of Luke) as his main source, trimming and altering it. Scholars who defend this view point to numerous “minor agreements” where Matthew and Luke align against Mark, suggesting Mark is the odd man out who edited something they both saw. They also highlight Mark’s peculiar grammatical and stylistic changes that make better sense as editorial additions to Luke’s text.
What kind of editorial changes? Mark’s Gospel is noticeably more rough, vivid, and colloquial in Greek than Luke’s refined style – but it’s not just “rough” in a primitive sense; it’s deliberately punchy and dramatic. Analysts have described Mark as writing almost like a “graphic novel”, with a rapid-fire narrative (“immediately… immediately…” occurs over 40 times) and colorful details. Mark loves to amplify scenes with emotion – for example, where Luke might simply state an event, Mark might add that the crowd “was utterly astounded” or that Jesus looked around “with anger.” Integrity Syndicate’s research has catalogued dozens of places where Mark expanded or sensationalized stories found in Luke (IssuesWithMark.com). In fact, in 65% of the parallel passages where Mark can be compared to Luke, Mark’s version is longer and more elaborate, averaging 44% longer than Luke’s account. This pattern of “add-on” storytelling suggests Mark is not preserving an earlier tradition so much as adding flourish to a received tradition.
Some striking examples: Only Mark mentions a mysterious young man fleeing naked at Jesus’ arrest (Mark 14:51–52) – a curious detail absent from Luke or Matthew, likely a literary creation. Mark alone gives extra graphic description of Jesus’ encounters, like spitting on the ground to heal a blind man (Mark 8:23) or Jesus looking “around at them with anger” before a healing (Mark 3:5) – details Luke omits.
Mark also appears to have been the least copied Gospel in the second and third centuries. Early Christians seem to have preferred Matthew and Luke, and Mark was so neglected that we have only one surviving fragment likely from before 250 A.D.. Several scholars note that Mark’s text is so poorly attested in Greek that modern editors rely on early Latin translations to reconstruct some verses. All this implies Mark was not widely regarded as an authoritative account in the first few centuries. It gained prominence later, especially in modern scholarship’s eyes, due to the Markan Priority theory – but if that theory is wrong (and the evidence for Luke-first is strong), then Mark is exposed as a secondary work.
In sum, Mark’s Gospel is a “revised and embellished” account, not an independent apostolic voice. It likely came from someone in the post-apostolic generation who wanted to condense the story (perhaps for Gentile audiences or easier reading) but also to make it more dramatic and memorable. It bears the marks of creative editorial work – what one scholar dubbed Mark the “rewrite man”. This challenges its status in the canon: Should a second-hand digest with clear additions hold equal weight to writings grounded in eyewitness testimony (like Luke’s careful historical approach)? The early church’s ambivalence toward Mark suggests even they weren’t convinced of its primacy. Restoring an apostolic canon would likely prioritize Luke’s fuller narrative over Mark’s derivative version.
The Gospel of Matthew – A Late Embellished and Refined Expansion
Matthew’s Gospel, far from being the first Gospel written, appears to be the last of the Synoptics – a polished expansion that uses both Mark and Luke as sources. The tradition that Matthew the disciple wrote a Gospel is tangled: Papias (2nd cent.) claimed Matthew composed sayings of Jesus in “Hebrew,” but the canonical Matthew is a Greek text largely dependent on earlier Greek Gospels. In fact, as noted, Matthew reproduces about 95% of Mark– essentially copying Mark almost wholesale and then adding a great deal more material, much of it absent in the other accounts. This alone tells us Matthew’s author was not an eyewitness simply writing what he remembered; he was an editor working with documents. Furthermore, evidence is mounting that Matthew also drew from Luke’s Gospel (not just from Mark). Scholars of the Matthean Posteriority view (Matthew written last) point to instances where Matthew seems to weave together Mark’s wording with details that appear only in Luke, suggesting Matthew had both in front of him. For example, Matthew’s account of the Temptation of Jesus (Matt 4:1–11) follows Mark’s basic outline but adds the detailed dialogues found in Luke – hinting that Matthew knew Luke’s version and merged it with Mark’s. Indeed, a survey of scholarship shows that for over 100 years various experts – including members of the Jerusalem School and many notable biblical scholars – have argued that Matthew came after Luke (and Mark). The consensus of early Christian communities also fits this: those who used a Gospel of Matthew (the Ebionites, Nazarene Jews) seem to have had a different, Hebrew-language Matthew, not our canonical one; whereas our Greek Matthew was crafted later within the Greek-speaking “orthodox” church.
Matthew is essentially an expansionistic, theologized re-telling of the Jesus story, tailored for the institutional Church. It is often noted that Matthew is the most “churchy” Gospel – it’s the only one to explicitly mention “the church” (ekklesia) by name (Matt 16:18; 18:17). It’s structured into five long discourses of Jesus (Matthew 5–7, 10, 13, 18, 23–25), almost like sermon modules, alternating with narrative. This deliberate five-fold structure likely echoes the five Books of Moses, as if presenting Jesus as the new Lawgiver – a very theologically driven design. Matthew’s author clearly organized Jesus’ teachings topically (e.g. collecting many parables into chapter 13, or all apocalyptic sayings into chapters 24–25) rather than preserving a chronological diary. This suggests the author’s goal was didactic and liturgical: Matthew reads like a manual for teaching the faith in the church assembly, not a simple memoir. In fact, early Christian lectionaries (public reading schedules) favored Matthew heavily, since its polished structure suited liturgy. Matthew is the most crafted and polished of the Gospels, preferred for liturgical use, being the least primitive.”
Crucially, Matthew adds many embellishments and new stories not corroborated by any other apostolic source. Some examples: only Matthew tells of the visit of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem, or Peter walking on water, or the elaborate coin in the fish’s mouth miracle to pay the temple tax. Most strikingly, only Matthew describes a zombie apocalypse of saints rising from their tombs after Jesus’ death and appearing to many in Jerusalem (Matt 27:52–53) – an extraordinary claim no other Gospel or epistle even hints at. These additions have the character of legendary or symbolic fiction serving Matthew’s themes (e.g. presenting Jesus’ birth and death as earth-shaking cosmic events). Matthew also leans heavily on portraying Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, sometimes in questionable ways. He frequently says, “This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet…” even when the alleged prophecy is obscure or contextually stretched. For instance, Matthew 2:15 claims Jesus’ family fleeing to Egypt “fulfills” Hosea 11:1 (“Out of Egypt I called my son”), which in Hosea plainly referred to Israel’s exodus, not a future messiah. Matthew tends to conflate and misquote prophecies to fit Jesus – another sign of creative license. Famously, Matthew 21:7 has Jesus somehow riding two animals at once (a donkey and a colt) during the triumphal entry, apparently because the author misread Zechariah 9:9’s poetic parallelism (“a donkey, even a colt”) as two separate beasts. This awkward scene is likely a byproduct of Matthew’s determination to shoehorn every detail into a fulfillment mold, even if it meant inventing things the other Gospels do not report.
All these observations depict Matthew not as an untouched apostolic testimony, but as a late-stage theological document – a heavily revised, expanded, and embellished gospel drawing on earlier sources. The author was an erudite Greek-speaking Christian, probably writing in the late 1st century when the church was more structured. He wrote with the benefit of prior accounts and shaped them to address the needs of the Church in his day (especially a Jewish-Christian audience struggling with how Jesus related to Jewish law and scripture). This is why Matthew’s Jesus emphasizes the validity of the Torah (“Not one jot or tittle will pass from the Law,” Matt 5:18) and why Matthew’s Gospel is more “Judaizing” and legalistic than Luke or Mark – it reflects a community still very attached to Jewish identity and law, trying to assert Jesus as the new Moses. That community context is decades after the apostles.
In the end, Matthew’s canonical status rests on church tradition asserting it was authored by the Apostle Matthew – but internal evidence contradicts that. An actual disciple-eyewitness would not need to copy 600+ verses from someone else’s account (Mark). Nor would he likely write in sophisticated Greek or rely on second-hand sources for Jesus’ words. Thus, like Mark (and John), Matthew must be seen as part of the developing orthodox narrative rather than part of the original apostolic deposit. It’s an important early Christian document, to be sure – but does it deserve unquestioned inclusion as one of the foundations of faith? Or should we instead sift it, recognizing where it diverges from Luke’s more historically grounded testimony?
Conclusion: Rejecting Corrupted Tradition, Reclaiming the Core Apostolic Witness
The traditional biblical canon, as it stands, is the product of a corrupted tradition – a tradition that saw an increasingly institutional Church elevate later writings to the status of apostolic truth in order to bolster its theological agenda. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox leaders selected this canon, and Protestants unquestioningly followed suit even as they claimed to protest church traditions. It is an uncomfortable truth that many Christians have based their faith on a collection of books assembled by the very ecclesiastical authorities they distrust.
But we are not doomed to continue in that paradox. The call to “test all things” (1 Thess 5:21) applies here: we must test even the canon by the criterion of apostolic origin and sound doctrine. When we do so, it becomes evident that the apostolic faith – the original gospel handed down by Jesus’ chosen witnesses – is found most clearly in a subset of the New Testament, whereas other parts reflect later developments or even deviations. Luke-Acts and Paul’s writings emerge as pillars of this original faith, corroborating each other and preserving the core gospel of one God, the Father, and one Lord Messiah, Jesus. Around them, we find other writings of varying value – some edifying and true in much (like James or 1 Peter), others more problematic (like John or Revelation, with their potential to mislead when misinterpreted).
In daring to question the canon, we are not attacking God’s Word – we are defending it from human corruption. We are stripping away the layers of tradition to get back to the pure testimony of Christ and His apostles, unclouded by later institutional agendas. The evidence from history, early manuscripts, and scholarly analysis compels this re-evaluation. Far from weakening our faith, such an honest inquiry will strengthen it on a more secure foundation – the foundation the apostles actually laid (Eph 2:20), not the one built later on ecclesiastical sand.
It is time for believers to rethink the canon with boldness and fidelity to truth. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches do not own the Bible, and we are not obliged to accept their 4th-century decisions as irrevocable. We can reassert the primacy of the genuine apostolic writings and refuse to let questionable later works dictate doctrine.
The corrupted canon has had a long reign, but its time is up. Let the Reformation complete its course: throw off not just the pope’s dictates, but any canon imposed by post-apostolic authorities that does not stand up to the light of historical truth. The result will be a leaner, purer New Testament – a canon truly in line with the faith of the apostles, untainted by the compromises of later centuries. Such a restored Core Scripture will guide the Church back to unity and truth, founded on the genuine teachings of Jesus and His chosen emissaries, rather than the convoluted legacy of imperial church politics. It is time to break the chains of uncritical canon conformity. Only then can we say we have fully escaped the shadow of “Orthodox corruption” and returned to the light of apostolic Christianity.
What if we did re-examine the canon? The findings would be uncomfortable for many: we would have to admit that not all New Testament books are equal in authority or authenticity. In fact, as shown, some are clearly more “apostolic” (grounded in earliest testimony) than others. Luke-Acts, for instance, is tied to Paul’s circle and reflects detailed knowledge of apostolic missions – and notably, Paul’s epistles themselves corroborate Luke’s narrative extensively. It’s telling that Paul even quotes Luke’s Gospel as Scripture (1Tim 5:18) and seems to assume the Jesus-tradition that Luke records. This harmony is what we would expect if Luke-Acts and Paul’s letters form the core of apostolic witness. By contrast, later additions like John or Matthew show theological and narrative divergences that are hard to reconcile fully with that core. The early Church chose to include later derivative gospels to satisfy a broadening tradition – to have four Gospels symbolically, to cater to various constituencies – but in doing so, it sanctified some post-apostolic ideas as though they were on par with apostolic teaching.
Restoring a truly apostolic canon would mean having the courage to say some venerable books may not be “Scripture” in the fullest sense. It does not mean throwing away any book that isn’t by an apostle – but it does mean prioritizing and perhaps redefining the scope of what is authoritative. For example, one might distinguish a “Core New Testament” consisting of the unquestionably apostolic works (like the genuine Pauline epistles and Luke-Acts, which together give us the original Gospel and its implementation), while viewing the other books with a more critical eye. This is what is proposed at NTcanon.com, a Core Canon focusing on the most reliable, early testimonies, as a foundation for doctrine, rather than treating all 27 books as equally definitive. Such an approach would resolve many internal tensions and return the focus to the beliefs and practices of the first-century church, unencumbered by later embellishments.
