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Marxsen sometimes seems to reason that, for the ancient church that canonized the New Testament writings, "canon" originally had the meaning, simply, of "list," "inventory," "index." What was "canon" for that church in the further sense of "standard," "norm," "rule," or "authority" was neither this list of writings nor any of the writings on the list, but rather the original and originating and therefore constitutive witness of the apostles -- according to the principle, canonical = apostolic. Only after the church had determined, by howsoever questionable procedures, that a given writing was apostolic did it become "canonical" in the sense that it was placed on the "list"; and only then did it itself, together with the other writings on the list, become "canonical" in the further sense of "authoritative."

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But even if the Muratorian canon removes any doubt that the apostolicity of a writing was the principle for determining whether it was binding on the church, Marxsen rightly warns that we must not misunderstand this in a modern sense as though properly "historical" judgments of apostolic authorship decided whether a writing belonged on the list of authoritative writings. In point of fact, there was simply no available instrumentarium for reaching such judgments. Substantial agreement with a judge's own (unquestionably!) "apostolic" tradition, or long use in the church, including being publicly read in its services, typically sufficed to reach the judgment of apostolic authorship.

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