I mentioned Mark Shea‘s book By What Authority: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition, in my recent series of posts about becoming Catholic. I read it six months or so ago, and didn’t review it at that time, as it raised issues I wasn’t ready to talk about publicly. I leafed through it while writing that series, and decided it was time to read it again, which I have; and this time I’m going to talk about.

By What Authority is, in some ways, Mark’s own story about becoming Catholic. While yet an Evangelical Christian, Mark came across the work of the so-called “Jesus Seminar”. It was clear that John Dominic Crossan et al were off-base, and particularly so in their inclusion of the Gospel of Thomas in with the canonical four. The canon of scripture is what it is, and can’t be changed. But that led Mark to ask where the canon of scripture itself came from. For a Bible-believing Evangelical, that turns out to be a particularly vexed question.

I won’t try to summarize Mark’s investigations and arguments; it’s an interesting story, well-told, which ends with the firmly supported conclusion that the canon of scripture rests on nothing and nothing but the apostolic tradition received by those who determined which books would be canonical and which would not. And if we accept this apostolic tradition, how can we not accept the other traditions handed down by the apostles and their successors?

Suffice it to say that Mark tells the story (and makes the argument) much better than I would have. Intellectually speaking, this book was instrumental in bringing me home to Rome, and probably more so than anything else I read over the last year.