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The Christian Canon was very interesting to read about. Since I do not know too much about religion of any sort it taught me a lot. The term “canon” implies that it is like a rule of thumb or a standard to live by. The Christian Canon is a gathering of inspired scriptures and different religions have different canons. In Christianity the canon is a set of scriptures that are in the Bible and consist of 27 books that are in the New Testament. This set of scriptures aids the Christian people to live by those principles since they are the regulations of Christianity. If they defy, disregard, or show contempt for these principles, they will be ready face the consequences. The main source of canon law is God, whose will is demonstrated either by …show more content…
The only thing they had were the Oral Traditions of the Apostles. Written knowledge of the New Testament that were composed by one of the twelve apostles were authentic accounts that were eye witnessed by them. Even though Mark and Luke were not considered apostles they still provided definite specific data from those who had encountered and spoke with Jesus and were able to witness the miracles that he had done. Mark seems to have gotten his account straight from Peter. Luke seemed to have more information direct from the origin and the majority of his effort seemed to have been spoken to him from Paul, the Apostle. Although letters that were written of the New Testament were composed, the church did not differentiate whether the letters were to be considered Scripture or not until around the 4th century. The bishops were able to make a decision by determining if the letter in inquiry went along with the Oral Tradition passed on from the …show more content…
People still wrote down the words by oral tradition and even by a personal account and the Holy Spirit made sure that there was no discrepancy would put off the reader from the message that was intended. This is the way that I come to understand it at least. God allows for individuals to interpret in their own way but I think that if enough misinterpretation was included in the Scripture at the time, God would have amended the mistakes through his prophets similarly to how he did throughout Biblical times. The message is extremely important for us to get the reward of Salvation with reading the Bible and realizing we are all in one way or another sinners and seek forgiveness and reconciliation. These people told stories of Jesus because they wanted to keep his life and virtues alive. They wanted to preserve the truth in what he did convince people that were not true believers of the realistic theological accounts of the past. Through these accounts we are able to account for what is true and what is not and the historical evidence is available for whoever cares to see
The book entitled Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books written by Michael J. Kruger explains the canonical model by which the books of the New Testament were selected as the right word of God. The correctness of the canon has always troubled Christians; they have always wanted to know that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are the rights ones. In his book, Kruger answers many typical questions asked by people in relation to the New Testament, its structure and its authenticity as God’s word. For example, he shows what all of the selected books have in common and why any of the existing apocryphal books is not in the Bible. The book Canon Revisited is for Christians who want to know what the canon is, what defines the canon, how its model is applicable to the New Testament books and in what way believers can be sure that the New Testament books are inspired by God Himself and are not the product of the human mind.
To replace the Torah, then, the Romans created a literary equivalent, the gospel of Matthew (and shortly thereafter the Hellenistic and Roman versions known as Luke and Mark). The central literary character, called Jesus
Although the New Testament is the main source of information regarding Jesus’ life, Jews often disregard it as a reliable source of information. It was not written until two to three generations after Jesus, hence it cannot be considered a primary source. Also, from a Jewish perspective, the aim of the Gospels is not to give an accurate account of Jesus’ life and teachings; the Gospels served as missionary documents containing accounts recorded by biased evangelists. They reflect the aims of the church rather than actual facts, and their writers were more concerned with the advancement of Christianity than the transmission of factual historical information. For these reasons, it is impossible to separate the historical Jesus from the divine Christ presented in the Gospels, and Judaism regards the Gospels as unreliable and irrational.
Jesus claimed to be the divine Son of God and settled His claims by living a sinless life, His death on the cross, and His resurrection. Jesus’ life was recorded in the four Gospels, and has been historically accurately proven and witnessed by first century writers. Since Jesus is God incarnate, anything opposing his teachings if false, because what He taught was true. The authority of both the Old and New Testaments have been declared. Jesus named the prophets and the canon of the Old Testament. Abel was named the first prophet in Genesis, and Zechariah the last prophet in 2 Chronicles. The Old Testament is referred to as the commands of God in Mark 7:8-9. Jesus made it clear throughout His ministry that His teachings corrections and actions were unchanging from the Old Testament. Jesus affirmed historical disputed stories of the Old Testament. He professes as true the accounts of Adam and Eve (Matthew 19:4-5), Noah and the Ark (Matthew 24:39), and many more. Jesus proved the Old Testament and promised the Holy Spirit would inspire the apostles in the preservation of His teaching and writing of the New Testament (John 14:25-26). The apostles displayed the authority of God through the wonders they performed as Jesus and the Prophets did before them. The book of Acts, also proven to be historically accurate record written by first century eyewitness, records the miracles of the
The Structure of Biblical Authority has helped me understand the general layout and purpose of the Canon. It also offers a proper perspective on laws, covenants, and events contained in both the Old and New Covenants.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the origin of nearly everything the Christian Church teaches about Jesus. The Gospels, in turn, serve as the scale or test of truth and authenticity of everything the church teaches about Jesus. It is said that the Gospels are the link between Jesus of Nazareth and the people of every age throughout history who have claimed to be his followers. Although the Gospels teach us about Jesus’ life they may not provide concrete evidence that what they speak of is true there are several other sources.
Sacred texts and writings are integral to a living and dynamic religious tradition. Such texts are materials that can range from verbally spoken stories to writings. Sacred texts and writings provide followers with information on core ethical behaviour, rituals and ceremonies, as well as beliefs. The idea of the texts and writings being sacred refers to the texts encompassing divine inspiration. Christianity’s sacred texts and writings, such as the bible (conveyed as the word of God), are continually studied/interpreted throughout generations. The teachings of the bible and the ‘Ten Commandments’ provide Christians with morally accepted standards of behaviour to live their lives by and thus directly influence the day-today actions of its adherents. Furthermore, sacred texts and writings provide information on beliefs, which assist adherents in understanding and even answering significant enduring questions of life. For instance, the creation story ...
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
This is compared to the New Testament that was written from 40-100 AD. The first known manuscript of the New Testament was found in 125 AD. This twenty-five year gap is very impressive as compared to the Illiad's five hundred year span (McDowell 45). This first test has basically shown that the text that people have in their possession is essentially the original text. The second test is the internal evidence test.
This was later disproved since the destruction of Jerusalem was only prophesied and not detailed. This destruction happened in 70 A.D. Therefore, the Gospels must have been written before this date and thus were written within living memory. Since the New testament had eyewitnesses, and was written in the living memory, there must be corroborating texts.
The four gospels are detailed accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Each portrays a unique story and angle of Jesus, who is the savior of the Jews and the world. Apostle Matthew’s writings are to prove to the Jews that Jesus is their Messiah. Mark stressed the humanity of Jesus and also his deity. Luke wanted to show that the gentile Christian in God’s kingdom is based on the teachings of Jesus. John speaks of Jesus as one sent from God to reveal His love and grace to man. The four gospels work together to elaborate on the several key themes; salvation, spreading His word, and the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.
that the... ... middle of paper ... ... d exactly what the truth is behind the question of the synoptic gospels. Evidence of this can be taken from the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. The information provided from these and the Jesus papyrus suggest that there were/are many documents that all the gospel writers could take their information from and suggest that much of the information in the gospels was taken from writings not only from common oral traditions. I believe that it would be hard now to ever understand fully what exactly all the gospels information was taken from and as time slips by so does evidence.
The New Testament Cannon contains twenty-seven books of which four are pronounced Gospels. The four gospels are Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, which are all assumed to be written at different times by separate people. Mark, Matthew and Luke are all said to have very similar messages and therefore are grouped together to be called the Synoptic Gospels. Each of these gospels contains stories that are transferred from one to the next. There are some stories that have major differences, or may not even exist in other gospels. This synoptic problem has several possible explanations for this differences, but can be best explained by the four-source hypothesis. This explanation states that Mark was written first, then Matthew and Luke used Mark as their source of information. Matthew and Luke also contain similar information that is not found in Mark, which is said to be found in Q (a lost source but is proven to exist from this common material). The last two
The development of the Gospel as described by Luke referred to “eyewitnesses” an “account of the things” and “an orderly account”. These stages correlate to the Oral tradition, the period of written sources, and the period of final composition. Lea and Black, The New Testament, Its Background and Message 2003:115. • The Urevangelium Theory by G. E. Lessing, a German critic, suggests that the relationships from the Gospels derived from a single Gospel written in Hebrew or Aramaic. He believed that Matthew wrote the Aramaic Gospel of the Nazarenes, the germs of which originated in the time immediately following the death of Jesus Christ.
Most Christian scholars agree that Mark was written before Matthew and Luke. Over half the material in Matthew and Luke is common to material in Mark, suggesting that Matthew and Luke used Mark to write their gospels. Matthew and Luke each have about 100 verses in common, most of them sayings; to explain this agreement, scholars assume that they used a primitive document, which they call Q. It consisted largely of sayings of Jesus. Matthew and Luke also contain unique material not present in Mark. This apparently came from two different sources, of which each author had access to only one. These differences and similarities can be seen in the story of the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus can be broken down into 5 sections: the approaching of the tomb, the removal of the stone, looking in the tomb, the response and the reaction.