When most people hear about the Bible, they automatically assume that because it is a religious book, the stories in the Bible have no historic authenticity. However, when the Bible mentions historical events, it is accurate. It is widely accepted that the Bible was written by 40 to 44 authors over a period of 1500 years. The Old Testament was written between 1400 and 400 BC, and the New Testament was written between 50 and 100 AD. The Old Testament is comprised of 39 books and is split into four sections: the Pentateuch (Creation and the laws), history books (the history of the Israelites), wisdom books, and prophetic books (Quest NIV). The New Testament is comprised of five sections: the Gospels, the history of the early church, Paul’s letters, letters from other authors, and the Apocalypse (Quest NIV). There are four types of evidence that can be used to support the …show more content…
They are Biblical Nihilism (the belief that the Bible is completely made up), Biblical Minimalism (the belief that there is very little historical truth behind the Bible), Biblical Maximalism (the belief that the Bible is historically accurate, though the miracles cannot be proved), and the belief that the Bible is Divinely Inspired, so everything that is in the Bible is accurate (Is the Bible Reliable Ep. 1). The most common Biblical Nihilistic theory is The Theory of Evolutionary Origin of Religion and the Bible. This theory was introduced by Julius Wellhousen, and states that religion evolved over time, starting with pantheism, then progressed to polytheism, then to monotheism (Is the Bible Reliable Ep. 1). Because it is not possible to prove whether the miracles described in the Bible truly occurred, and the extensive amount of evidence, this paper will focus on arguing for Biblical Maximalism of the first two books of the Bible (Genesis and Exodus), and disproving Biblical Nihilism and Biblical
The Christian Scriptures is the entire Christian Bible. It is composed of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Testament. The Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) is composed of several books all containing stories about Jesus, and the Christian Testament (New Testament) which contains the stories of Jesus and the earliest Christian Communities. Although these stories cannot confidently prove to us that they are true there are several distinct similarities, which are contained in nearly all of the books. These similarities are so frequent that their constant occurrence seems more than coincidence. Although these similarities occur often in the books of the Hebrew Scriptures, there are four short books included in the Christian Testament, which we must rely on to understand Jesus’ ministry and life.
We often look at the Bible as one of humanity’s most important texts, where we gather most of our morals, information and logic. The Bible is over 1,500 years old and has influenced billions of people. However, many historians have looked at the Bible’s texts and found that some of its verses and stories are closely related to religious texts that existed far before the Bible was originally created. With this new study we must look closely at three key stories within the Bible to see how closely they relate to the previous religious texts. We must closely look at the stories of The Garden of Eden, The Great flood and The Ten Commandments in order to determine the similarities with other religious texts.
William C. Placher in his article, “Is the Bible true?”, attempts to explain to the reader the reasons why we can believe in the Bible. Placher states that to understand how the Bible is true we need to first accept its genres, recognize its attitudes toward historical details, and consider the social context of the language in which it was written. When a person understands the meaning of the Bible they then can trust the Bible as a guide to life, and a way of understanding the world. After reading the article, multiple times, I have come to the conclusion that I do not believe Placher proved his thesis with the points he presented.
Writings of historical scholars, Josephus, Aristotle, and Plato, to name a few, are taken as truth and fact, yet the writings of the Scripture are constantly disputed. Why? Perhaps because of the ethical imperatives imposed to which people do not want to adhere. Perhaps because of man’s ego and pride that disallows them to submit to a Higher Authority. Nonetheless, The Bible has been, and still remains, the most widely read and revered book of all
It contains sixty-six smaller books, and those books are divided into two different parts, called the Old Testament and the New Testament (“Fast Facts about the Bible”). The Old Testament has thirty-nine books, and even those books are divided into sections. The first five books of the Bible make up the Pentateuch, which contains the laws that the early Israelites had to live by. The next group of books are the Historical books, which tell the stories of many different people that Christians look up to. After those come the books of Poetry, and the Major and Minor Prophets. In the New Testament, there are twenty-seven books, which are also made up of different parts. The first four books in the New Testament are different accounts of the Gospel of Jesus, which tells of His life and ministry on Earth. Those are followed by the Church’s history, and Paul’s letters to the churches from that time period. And, the last book of the Bible is a part of its own theme, the prophecy. It depicts the future events of the world, and what will happen during the end
The Hebrew Bible, better known as the Old Testament, is a collection of tomes that form part of the Biblical canon. Many scholars around the world do not think that a single author wrote the books contained in the Hebrew Bible, but rather that it represents centuries of stories frequently compiled after the events they describe . The stories were created with visions for the future, in order to allow audiences insight into communities and beliefs that were common thought during their era. The stories responded to the issues and problems of their time, but also addressed contemporary climates. While the stories themselves may not be true, they convey truth without needing literal readings. For example, the creation stories in Genesis, portray God as creating the universe, and while this is considered as not ‘literally true’; the stories communicate theological truths about mankind’s relationship with God through the eyes of Hebrew writers .
The Bible as a Historical Document MARK'S THEOLOGY REFLECTED IN WRITING Mark and the other evangelists used basically five ways to change, edit or enhance Jesus' sayings to reflect their own views of Christianity. According to the Five Gospels Book, plagiarism and changing of writing was not a crime, but actually very common Mark's time. Besides, Mark never knew Jesus first-hand, he somehow had to make a 'story' from basically Hearsay!
New Testament starts with the chronology of the promised Messiah. In comparison to Old Testament thirty-nine books, the New Testament contains only twenty-seven books, but not les important. The first four books of the New Testament; Mathew, Mark, Luke, John are called the Gospels. The Book of Acts is a historical book. The next fourteen books are called, Pauline Epistles, and they are; Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, Second Thessalonians, First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Hebrew. General Epistles follow; James, First Peter, Second Peter, First John, Second John, ...
The Old Testament is divided into six major sections. During each of these sections, elements of Old Testament history foreshadow various New Testament themes and events. Some of these various accounts recorded in the Old Testament are prophetical in nature and foretell specific details about various events that will be fulfilled in New Testament times. Each of the six major sections carries its own unique overarching theme that will in some way tie into New Testament history and theology. The six major sections of Old Testament are: creation (Genesis 1-11), covenant (Genesis 12-50), congr...
The Old Testament revealed how worshipers of Christianity were to live their lives, and helped guide them through their lives. Many do not question the validity of the Old Testament. Books were left out essentially fitting into what the church wanted, and not seeing eye to eye with their Christian ideals. The New Testament is not valid because it does not follow the teachings of Jesus, nothing could be verified with Jesus, many gospels were omitted, and it suppressed other group’s ideologies. The Gospels were written approximately thirty-five to sixty-five years after the death of Jesus Christ.
The Bible contains two parts, which are the Old Testament, the so-called the Jewish Bible, and the New Testament. Though many different writers involved in writing the Bible, the two Testaments are not independent; they are cross-referenced to each other. Christians often treat the Old Testament not only as the historical documents or literatures of the Israelites, but also as an important element of the foundation of the New Testament, because the writers of the New Testament lay strong emphasis on the relationship of Jesus with the prophecies of the Old Testament, which includes "the birth of Jesus, the place of His birth, the flight into Egypt, the return to Nazareth, the role of John the Baptist in preparing Jesus for His public ministry," the crucifixion of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus.
The Bible is a collection of sixty books that was written by diverse of authors, including the apostles and the disciple of Jesus. The Bible divided into two Testaments; the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament or the old contract is a collection of thirty-six books and the New Testament has twenty seven books. The New Testament is a contract between God and the humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Koran was written by Muhammad, a prophet of God. Muslims believed that he received a message from Angel Gabriel and wrote the Koran. However, Both the Bible and the Koran are the words of God. The Christians believe in the resurrection of Christ Jesus has the son of God while the Muslims do not believe Jesus Christ as the son of God.
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
The historical reliability of the Bible is the first matter that needs to be discussed. There are three criteria that the military historian C. Sanders lists as principles for documentary historical proof: the bibliographical test, internal evidence test, and the external evidence test (McDowell 43). The bibliographical test is the examination of text from the documents that have reached us. The reliability of the copies of the New Testament is tested by the number of manuscripts (MSS) and the time intervals between the time in which the piece of literature was written and our earliest copy. There are more than 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and 10,000 Latin vulgate manuscripts, not to mention the other various translations.
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