The Canon of Biblical Writings
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
implications of the process.
Old Testament
In regards to evidence for the divine authority of the Old Testament, Je...
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... that would not be Biblical. I am not implying that we should hold all religions as equally valid or place our faith in irrational philosophies because none of them can be proven to be absolutely true. The fact is, God will never be able to be inserted into an equation to prove His existence and absolute truth. The Bible will never be able to be put into a beaker and tested so that any individual will be able to see for himself that all that Christians claim to believe is in fact one hundred percent proven fact. There are certain things in life that require faith such as belief in the Bible as divine revelation and faith in God itself. If our faith could be proven then what room would we be leaving for the faith needed for salvation that Jesus talked about. I am glad to have had a chance to rediscover the importance of my faith through this reading assignment.
In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000 is a great exhibit for people in their teenage years and anyone older. I really like the way the web page is set up. There is a video interview playing at the start of each informational page at the top of the page and there are pictures in the video and to the right of the text of the different discoveries of ancient biblical texts. I like all of the visual aids in this exhibit. In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000 is an exhibit I would recommend to anyone interested in the history of the bible; it is very informative and user friendly. I enjoyed reading about the ways that Christianity spread throughout the world and how the bible evolved from papyrus, parchment, and animal skins to leaf-books, manuscripts, and hard cover books. I admire that the creator of the exhibit has included a “resources” tab at the top of the page for people to view a chronological list of the events talked about in the exhibit. There was also a “who’s who” section in the “resources” tab explaining who each character in the exhibit was throughout history and their importance.
The Documentary Theory holds that the Pentateuch was composed or compiled from several different documents or traditions written by several different authors. These original documents were argued to favor different styles and names for God, and thus were written by different authors. One document might favor “Elohim,” while another might favor “YHWH.” These sources are generally argued to be source J, E, P, and D. Genesis, however, only shows traces of J, E, and P. Some have even further subdivided the four primary sources. However, this theory fails to adequately explain the origin of the Pentateuch. Religious documents of the ancient Near East were not complied in this way, nor are variations in style and word choice conclusive. Dating the different documents is extremely difficult and far too subjective to prove the Documentary Theory.1
Metzger, B. (1997). The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. New York.
Thielman, Frank. Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2005.
Matthew In the Bible’s New Testaments, the book of Matthew is of Gospels genre. In the Old Testament, God appointed the people who we know as prophets. They were the ones to describe Jesus life and work. What they wrote, those things did happen during Jesus life on earth.
The Bible is read and interpreted by many people all over the world. Regardless, no one knows the absolute truth behind scripture. Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament, wrote “Biblical Authority” to help people understand what he describes as six different parts that make up the foundation to ones understanding of scripture. He defines these six features as being: inherency, interpretation, imagination, ideology, inspiration, and importance. As Brueggemann explains each individual part, it is easy to see that they are all interconnected because no one can practice one facet without involuntarily practicing at least one other part.
We cannot over simplify human behavior and the power of belief. Belief being the structure humans have created to understand one’s existence. Equally important, beliefs reassure a sense of balance and control in a world where we may feel powerless or helpless despite scientific developments. Nevertheless, science is the reality tested. Bultmann, points out blind acceptance of the New Testament’s written word would be irrational, and “a sacrifice of the intellect which could have only one result – a curious form of schizophrenia and insincerity” . Nevertheless, there remains a confusion that pervades modern ideas of the universe and our existence. Bultmann did acknowledge the truths a shallow enlightenment had failed to perceive are later rediscovered in ancient myths. Therefore, the task of dissecting the written words and structure of the New Testament is important for clarification and
First, Achtemeier highlights the difficulties that lie in these topics by asking popular questions that have led to debates that have lasted centuries or even millennia. Is it the case that inspiration lies in the authors who were chosen by God to record his word? Or is it only the content of Scripture that is inspired? All Christians agree that God is the ultimate author of the Bible, but what is not agreed on is the methods or system in which Scripture was recorded in the past. Achtemeier uses these questions and debates to lead into a discussion about the opposing stances on the views of inspiration.
Bacon, Benjamin W. "The Canon of the New Testament" The Biblical World, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Feb., 1903), Published by: The University of Chicago Press. Web. Available at:
The Hebrew Bible is studied, analyzed, and worshiped by millions each day, it gives insight into the teachings and laws of God. The article “Pentateuch”, obtained from The Zondervan Pictoral Encyclopedia of the Bible by Merrill C. Tenney, deeply examines the authorship of the Pentateuch and displays two compelling arguments of weather the Pentateuch is of Mosaic authorship, or written by authors other than Moses. The Pentateuch is the bases of the entire Bible, it contains the first five books, including Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, thus the literal meaning of “five volumes”. Theses five books make up the Old Testament and are roadmap to God’s teachings.
In this paper, there will be a discussion about the canonization of the New Testament. Along with an investigation into who was involved in this process. The people and institutions looked at will include the following: Marcion, Irenaeus, Origen, Synod of Hippo, and God. First, let us look at the canonization of the New Testament. The first available list of the New Testament books is called the Muratorian Canon and it dates somewhere around A.D. 150.
Thus, an effort is made to highlight how Bible interpretation – through its publication – has developed in the history of Christianity.
Answering these questions is the purpose of this essay. I begin by arguing that the Bible cannot be adequately understood independent of its historical context. I concede later that historical context alone however is insufficient, for the Bible is a living-breathing document as relevant to us today as it was the day it was scribed. I conclude we need both testimonies of God at work to fully appreciate how the Bible speaks to us.
The Catholic Church has many avenues for teaching the word of God. This is a difficult task due to language barriers and variations in interpretations of various church documents. The complications of these interpretations are exampled in such terms as inspiration, inerrancy and canon. This essay will briefly describe these terms and attempt to shed some light on how the Catholic Church uses them in the interpretation of biblical documents.
One of the major points stressed by Hodge in this essay is that the scriptures are infallible because they were written by the inspiration of God and the Holy Ghost. Hodge begins to describe the attri...