No.

I forgot to say, please elaborate on your answers. :-)

Well I think without the Gospels, the rest of it would be meaningless. I couldn't say that about any of the other books, even the Epistles. I don't know if that makes them "first among equals", but I would say that the whole thing revolves around the Gospels, and without them, it falls apart.

I might be inclined to agree with you, Andrew, except that for the initial growth of the church, the only Scripture that the early church had was not the written gospels, but the canon of the Old Testament. In Acts the Bereans were said to have studied the Scriptures to see if what the Christians were proclaiming was true. Only much later do we have the written New Testament.

I am not advocating that there is a supremacy of the OT over the NT, just that we can't single out the Gospels as the 'first among equals.' I believe that I'm in agreement with the Ancient Mariner in saying "no," as I don't think that any one can be said to take precedence over another; this would imply that any were therefore 'less important.' Martin Luther felt this way about James, but I think that it most definitely belongs within the canon.

Hank and Andrew, thanks for your comments.

Hank, you make some good points. Thanks for your insights.

To Andrew's point, the earliest circulated Scriptures in the post-Apostle era were the Gospels and Pauline epistles. And Luther did indeed have reservations (to put it mildly) about James, as well as Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation.

So there was a chronological order by which the church gradually accepted (or discovered) our present canon. The stuff that Luther took issue with was stuff that came around later, I believe. I don't claim to know much about this stuff, but it makes for interesting conversation.

Well, I often ponder the book of Jude, which, aside from being a later inclusion in the canon, is also the only N.T. book to quote from the Apocrypha (v. 14-15).

This is complicated by a fact I learned only recently -- that up until a little more than a century ago, Protestant Bibles routinely included the Apocrypha. I'm not saying the Protestant churches viewed the Apocrypha as equally canonical -- they didn't. But it was considered perfectly reasonable to read the Apocrypha and meditate on what it says right along with studying the canonical books.

Jerome (who translated the Vulgate) made a distinction between the canon and the so-called apocrypha, which are books that existed in Greek manuscripts (which is to say, the septuagint) but not in the hebrew. Some protestant churches preserve the distinction--for instance, the anglican church--and argue that the apocryphal books are edifying but cannot serve as the sole basis for any doctrine.

Even as late as Augustine, Jerome, and others there were questions about Jude because the author quotes from Enoch.

Hebrews is internally anonymous, so that made is suspicious.

Luther's rejection of James seems to me largely because he didn't like the emphasis of the book.

Anyway, I'd accept the distinction between the canonical old testament and the apocyrypha. I'm not in favor of any distinction between any of the rest of it. I'm anglican and folks in my tradition often use a distinction between the epistles and the gospels to argue in favor of things that are explicitly forbidden in the epistles (e.g. homosexuality)

That was the elaboration, Bird. :)

Seriously, whatever arguments anyone might make (and whatever they might be worth; Luther's, for instance, rested on a misunderstanding of James), it's all Scripture, and none of it's less authoritative. I think Anastasia's right that that sort of argument is usually invoked as a way of getting around things that we don't want to hear, which is why I'm suspicious of it.

Hi there

I'll speak as the Lutheran of the crowd. Luther did place a second-tier status on the books which were received late into the canon by the church, which had been either doubted or spoken against during the early days of the church. This included not just James (the teachings there on faith and works had been criticized as possibly heretical before it was finally canonized), but also Hebrews, 2 Peter, and Revelation and at least one more of the minor epistles. Lutherans to this day do not form dogma based on any of these books because of their poor reception in the early church.

I know it's a common charge that Anastasia makes, that Luther distanced himself from James because of his theology -- but why then did he likewise distance himself from Hebrews and 2 Peter and Revelation? Whenever I hear that charge, I hear prejudice against Luther speaking through not knowing the facts more thoroughly. It was the other way around: he was drawn to his theology through heavy study of the early church fathers. He was well-acquainted with the fact that the early church had its doubts about James. He may have even known that the early church's doubts about James included what it taught about faith and works.

Take care & God bless
Anne / WF

I don't know about the theology of all this, but I can say from experience in a variety of churches that there is in practice a subset of books that consistently take precedence. These include:

Genesis
Exodus
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Ruth
Anything involving David
Proverbs
Esther
Certain passages of Isaiah
Daniel
Jonah
The four Gospels
Acts
Romans
Anything by Paul or Peter
Hebrews
Revelation

The ones you'll almost never find as primary texts in a sermon include:

Leviticus
Numbers
Most of Judges
Most of the Kings and Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Job
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Most of Isaiah
The rest of the OT after Isaiah except Daniel and Jonah
James
John's epistles
Jude

Once again this list has been compiled solely from 30 years of experience in churches, and with no regard to theological implications whatsoever.

WF, saying that "the early church had its doubts about James" is overstating the case. Yes, the book took longer to be completely accepted into the canon than, say, the letters of Paul, and yes, there were those who disputed it; but Eusebius also says that "we know that these letters [James and the other catholic epistles] have been used publicly with the rest in most churches." We can safely say that Clement of Rome used James, and probably that Clement of Alexandria did likewise; there are also strong indications in the works of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and others that they accepted the book and its authority, though they found it less useful than the writings of Paul and the gospels. Then too, of course, following Origen, James was used heavily by the Alexandrian church.

Luke Timothy Johnson, reviewing the evidence for how the church used James, concludes that that evidence "is not significantly worse than for some other NT writings, including some of Paul's letters."

As for Luther and James, it isn't "prejudice"--whatever his broader thinking, he had a specific and clearly-stated animus against James, largely (at least) due to his misunderstanding of it as a result of his particular context.

It probably depends on how you define "the early church" as well. While Eusebius (a 4th century Christian) affirmed James' canonicity, he acknowledged that it was disputed.

Hi Mariner

Actually, if you compare the early canonical lists and rate them as far as which writings were accepted and not, the book of James (among others, as we were discussing) scores significantly lower on acceptance than the never-contested books of the canon.

For example, see this cumulative scoring of the canon and the linked supporting documents on the early canonical lists (ante-Nicene lists):

http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/2008/04/scoring-books-of-canon-cumulative.html

Hebrews, James, and 3 John are the worst-scoring books of the Bible as far as early acceptance. And I believe that James is the only book of the New Testament to be openly charged with teaching heresy by a respected member of the early church (the faith/works thing).

http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/2007/03/marius-victorinus-and-teachings-of.html

Take care & God bless
Anne / WF

All this has me wanting to read James next...

Yes, there were those in the early church who took a dim view of James; I just don't believe they were nearly as many as you imply. As for being fully accepted as canon, yes, I already conceded that its acceptance was slower than others.

As for Victorinus, I don't think that means much.

Oh, and Bird, I'm citing Eusebius there as an historian, not as a contemporary source; the point isn't the view of James in his own time, but his conclusion as to the view of it in the past.

I'll put in that some books have been put forward as good starting points for new believers: Genesis, John, Romans, Hebrews, and Revelation. That doesn't mean they trump other Scripture, but only that they would be recommended points for students to jump in. Working to understand Genesis and Romans first could be very good for a new Christian.

are there books -- or a set of books within the Bible -- that could be construed as primus inter pares (first among equals) when compared to other biblical texts?

Yes. Of course. Unless there are Christians that I don't know of who are practicing a more 'Orthodox' form of Christianity by obeying the Law(s) of Moses. (Personally, also I think Song of Solomon is not equal in it's importance as the Book of John.)

Taking the origionalist POV one may say e.g. that the Book of Leviticus means something totally different to Modern Christians as it did to the Jews who first received them; and the Pauline epistles surely had a different significance to the converts of Paul as they do today (did they consider the epistles Canon when they received them? Is all that we have in the Bible an all inclusive comprehensive collection of the Pauline Epistles and if not, why were the other writings deemed unworthy of canonization?). Therefore, it seems to me that of course there is a hierarchy of authority and precedence, and I think the Bible itself illustrates this quite conclusively.

I think that those of us who hold to Covenant Theology bristle a tad at the thought of some books taking precendence over others. All of scripture points to Jesus. The cleanliness laws outlined in Leviticus point to some of the best teaching on the need for a Savior and being washed clean by the blood of Christ.

I'm more comfortable actually saying that some Biblical Scholars take precedence over others in their ability to properly exegete passages in light of the Old and New Covenants.

If I read in Leviticus about what I must do to be saved - I come very quickly to the conclusion that I desperately need a savior. When I read James about the futility of faith without works, I get further insight into what it means to work out my salvation (yay, even my eternal security) with fear and trembling.

I find it interesting to hear this view that there is no precedence or chief authority within the Bible other than the Bible itself. While it’s true that serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out; that is not to say that we should ignore the historicity of the scripture and the spirit in which it was written by the original authors (who were imperfect but inspired men after all). The result being many foolish doctrines fabricated out of thin air which, if looked at from the perspective of the original author, would have a totally alien appearance. When one makes the Bible uniformly authoritative, we lose the historicity of the Bible. The reason why so many people claim the uniform importance of all Biblical scripture is perhaps to take care of the problem of the manifold differences in interpretation of certain historical or factual events in the Bible.

Be that as it may, when Jesus Christ gave the sermon on the mount saying, in effect: “you have it in your law and scripture that [A], but I say unto you that [B].” This is clearly a setting of authoritative precedent of a higher order than that which the people were taught and learned. Therefore, there are principles of law of higher and lower orders.

JDW - I guess the question would then be "precedence for what?" - general importance? That's too nebulous. Specific application? Well - some books are easier to extract direct applications from than others. Does that give precedence?

When Jesus said "but I say" - he was fulfilling the law......it doesn't make the law less important. Fulfillment isn't precedent, it's completion. I don't have any problem with saying I have a problem with "a canon within the canon"

When Jesus said "but I say" - he was fulfilling the law......it doesn't make the law less important.

No he didn't make the Law of Moses less important, nor did He toss the Jews or their covenant into the ashtray of history, but He replaced THAT law with the higher covenant and Law of the Gospel which fulfilled all previous, lower laws. That's what I believe is the essence of the Sermon on the Mount. That's why I think the New Testament has priority and precedence over the Old. That's also why I value Isaiah more than Leviticus even though Leviticus is imporant as well.

this feels like more of dispensational vs. covenant theology argument JDW.....I'm definitely more comfortable in the latter camp

I strongly believe that there can be divisions among the cannons;however please keep in mind that old Testament and new testament were written for cultural experience of that time frame. We need to understand and keep them two separate. F.F. Bruce even wrote that there were meaning and substance between the two testaments.
The New Testament I believe is made of four gospels as one possible group of cannons, but I strongly believe that Acts is the structure of Christ church while epistle's are summaries of standard of living mixed with missionary movement of the church establishment. The book of Hebrew offers some parts of structure using the old testament.
Donald Douglas Mucheck