David Patrick Harry Says: First Century Christians Did not Have a Bible

I have written several articles about David Patrick Harry who goes by the name Church of the Eternal Logos and, as long as he continues to say dumb things, I will continue to do so. In a recent livestream comparing The Church of Christ with The Orthodox Church David got into a discussion about Sola Scriptura. David actually says Christians in the first century did not have a Bible. 

Early Christians Were Protestants? Deconstructing the Church of Christ (Sponsored Stream)

1:49:20 Was Sola Scriptura present in the Old Testament? Was Sola Scriptura present in the first century? So, right, like that's a fundamental problem for them. So, they're first century Christians basing their faith on scripture. Did first century Christians have a Bible to use? No. No. Absolutely not. So, so what, what role did scripture in the Bible have for first century Christians? Well, it was tradition. The Apostles, they knew what the teachings were, they knew which Epistles, they knew which Gospels, you know, out of all the Gnostic Gospels that began to emerge in the second century. First, the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Peter. You know, it's the tradition, it's the church, it's the hierarchy that which protected it from all this fallible nonsense.

That David could say something so dumb is mind boggling. Does he not know what the Septuagint is?  It's the Bible of the first century Christians! Jesus stood up in the Synagogue and read from it Himself. Jesus is always referring to the Septuagint when he speaks of Himself and His mission. The Apostle Paul also cites copiously from the Septuagint in his letters. 

Perhaps David means first century Christians did not have a full Bible including both Old and New Testaments. His own statement undercuts that interpretation. 

So, so what what role did scripture in the Bible have for first century Christians? Well, it was tradition. The Apostles, they knew what the teachings were, they knew which Epistles, they knew which Gospels

According to David first century Christians knew which were the inspired and authoritative epistles and Gospels. That means they had a written collection of documents from which they drew their teaching. 

The fact that there was no official, that is canonically defined, list of books until well after Marcion forced the Church's hand by drawing up his own list is no barrier to Sola Scriptura. The Church has always had a Bible.

In Lee McDonald's book "The Biblical Canon" there are various canonical lists which do not all agree. David would have us think that this proves there was no fixed canon and because there was no fixed canon sola scriptura is invalid. This is actually wrong and McDonald on pages 216 and 217 writes the following:

There is little doubt that the core of the biblical collection of authoritative books is essentially the same collection that we no have in the Protestant OT collection. What is in question in canonical studies are book on the fringe. These fringe books included both canonical and apocryphal books, were disputed among Jews and Christians for centuries, even though many leaders in the church and synagogue freely quoted these writings in an authoritative manner, sometimes even using the designations Scripture or as it is written to refer to them. Remarkably, these disputes took place for centuries after decisions were supposedly made about its canonicity. Yet in neither group - those who accepted and those who rejected the authority of this literature - was there any noticeable change in theology.

“The decision whether to accept or reject the deuterocanonical literature is not at the core of what Christianity is all about. As the Law of Moses formed the core of the OT, so also the Gospels and Paul have been at the heart of the NT biblical canon since the second century, even though there was a great deal of dispute over the deutero-Pauline epistles (especially the Pastorals), Hebrews, the Catholic (or General) Epistles, and Revelation. The Jews and later the Christians fully accepted the Law of Moses as the core of their sacred Scriptures. Soon thereafter, most if not all of the traditional Prophets and many of the Writings were accepted as canonical, but at a secondary level of scriptural authority among the Jews. Not everyone agreed on the contents of the Writings, especially not before the time of Jesus, but the division of opinion was not over the core, but over the fringe.”

The issue, writes McDonald, is fringe books and not the core. There has always been a core of canonical scripture for both Christians and Jews. At first the Christians adopted the Septuagint. Later they held the Gospels and the letters of Paul to be central to their doctrines. The very fact that there are lists at all indicates that Scripture was being appealed to as an authoritative source of doctrine. Not merely appealed to but actually built upon. Irenaus says this very thing:

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.  

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1 

The Scriptures are the ground and pillar of our faith. That is the very essence of sola scriptura. 

The reason David is wrong is because as a member of the Orthodox Church he places his faith in the hierarchy and unwritten nebulous traditions, not in the Scriptures. David Patrick Harry does not have the same faith as St. Irenaeus who said the Scriptures are the ground and pillar of our faith.