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Proper interpretation of the bible
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The most highly referenced and revered as sacred are The King James Version, considered a masterpiece of English literature, The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, The Aprocrypha, the books believed left out of some bibles, The Vulgate, the Latin Bible used for centuries by the Roman Catholic religion, and The Septuagint, the first ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh (Geisler and Nix 15, McCallum 4). The Bible is considered a sacred text by three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many believers consider it to be the literal truth. Others treat it with great respect, but believe that it was written by human beings and, thus is often contradictory in its tenets. Modern scholars believe that the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, was composed by four or five writers between 1000 to 400 BCE based on much older traditions. The New Testament was composed by a variety of writers between 60 to 110 CE. The contents of the New Testament were formalized by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 CE, and finally canonized in 382 CE (Geisler and …show more content…
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
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.
The Old Testament and the Bible itself has been studied extensively for centuries. Archeologists and Scholars have labored and pondered over texts trying to decipher its clues. It does not matter how many times the Old Testament has been studied there will always be something new to learn about it or the history surrounding it. In the book Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, the author Lawrence Boadt presents us with a few different authors of the Old Testament that used different names for God and had a unique insight into the texts. These four sources are titled P for priests, E for Elohim, J for Jehovah, and Y for Yahweh (95). These four unique sources help us realize that there is more than one author of the Pentateuch. These authors took the text and adapted for their culture. This independent source is used by scholars to help gain insight into what was behind the texts of the bible so we are not left with an incomplete picture of what went into the creation of the bible. Julius Wellhausen used these four sources to publish a book to able us to better understand the sources and to give it credibility with the Protestant scholars at the time (Boadt 94). These sources that is independent of the bible as in the DVD Who Wrote the Bible? and the Nova website aide in shedding light on the history that surrounded the writers who wrote the text and what inspired them to write it in the first place. The DVD shows the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the extensive history of the texts and all its sources in an effort to try to find exactly who wrote the bible (Who Wrote). These scrolls have aided scholars immensely by giving us some of the oldest known manuscripts of the bible in the world today. It shows that the bible w...
The King James Bible serves as the world’s base belief system. The creation of the King James Bible from Tyndale’s writings on the New Testament help mode what the King James Bible is today. Psalm 23 is almost a direct copy of Tyndale’s version, but written in simpler forms for better understanding seen in Romans 1:1-3. And the poetic wisdom in The Sermon on the Mount and through the bible is very self-evident and shows Jesus not only teaching but to give visual gratification mentally. The King James Bible was formed with many literary elements and samples of other examples of God’s word put into layman’s language. The King Jams Bible was written for better understanding of the word. The bible today is the source of all knowledge of God and Jesus
The first of these was the KJV, initially created in 1611. Since the KJV is the earliest translation, it is commonly known as the most accurat...
The Hebrew Scriptures Truth, scripture, and revelation are three concepts that the Bible is based on. Truth is defined as the way that things are or should be. It can relate to reality or wisdom. Truth can be communicated in a variety of ways. Literally, which is facts and figures and can be shown in math and science.
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.
The Bible: The Holy Canon of Scripture is an essay by J. Hampton Keathley, III that aims to justify the canonicity of the Bible. Keathley first defines canonicity as a word used to describe books that are recognized as inspired by God and then gives a brief history of the term. In essence, the word can be derived from Greek, Hebrew, and Akkadian words denoting a standard of straightness and was used first to describe accepted doctrines of the Church before it became widely used as a description for the list of sacred books that fit the modern definition. The article then addresses the need of a canon and justifies the canonicity of the Old and New Testaments.
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. It presents salvation history as how God reveals himself, his plan for redemption of fallen mankind. His Divine plan starts with the creation of the world. The Bible is made up of both the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament pertains to God’s creation of the world and his Word to Israel. It is written in Hebrew Scripture except for a few written in Aramaic, and is composed of the Law(Torah), the Prophets, and the Writings. It was preserved in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
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
There are around 24,000 total MSS for the New Testament. The next closest document in respect to MSS is the "Illiad" by Homer, with 643 manuscripts (McDowell 43). The textual reliability then continues with respect to the time interval between the original and the first known manuscript. The shorter the interval, the more reliable the text is. Homer's "Illiad" was written in 900 BC and the earliest copy was found in 400 BC.
The Biblical cannon is the complete, inspired, and inerrant Word of God, inspired and preserved by God, including the construction of the cannon. It is composed of 66 books written by over 40 different authors over a thousand-year time span. The first set of writings were the Old Testament, complete approximately four centuries before the birth of Christ. The first book to be completed was the Torah, written by Moses approximately 1400 B.C. His writings were considered authoritative because of his authority as a prophet, backed the miracles God performed through him (Cartwright, Jonathan, Gutierrez & Hulshof 2016). The Torah, known in the English Bible as the Pentateuch, or five books, comprised the cannon to which all other books would be compared.
The Bible is the Word of God. It is God’s message for all of humanity. The Bible is divine revelation, breathed by God, written by men, and is applicable for all of humanity. In today’s world, there is controversy over if the inerrancy of the Bible and inspiration of the writers; however, there is little controversy over the simple fact of the New Testament, as a whole, itself. The Bible is not one long book, but rather, the Bible is a book consisting of various letters and manuscripts from throughout the history of mankind. A human being wrote every book of today’s Bible during various times in history. However, there is a classic divide in the books—Old and New Testament. The Old Testament is considered the Jewish Bible. This Bible was the original Scriptures during the time of Jesus and was the original Scriptures for many years. Therefore, not much controversy has risen over the assembly of the Old Testament.
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 Bible is the book sacred to Christians and is seen as the indirect word of God. To Christians, the Bible is a guideline on how to live their lives. It also provides information on how the Earth was created, how humans came about, and provides explanation to anything life has to offer. The Bible is split into two segments which include the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the sacred book of the Jews. It provides information to everything before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The New Testament starts with the birth of God’s son whom he sent down to Earth, Jesus Christ. The Bible is a sacred book for the Christians as well as a history book composed of many first and second hand accounts of not only Jesus Christ,
For many years, I have had this ideology that all the information inscribed in the Bible is factual. It was thought provoking to see that the Bible is composed of historically accurate information and stories. The Introduction to the Bible course has given me the opportunity to explore and broaden my perspective on the Catholic bible. I am challenging myself to see the bible from a historical and scientific view, but also with a view of my faith. The information that I have gathered from the course has caused me to question faith and facts.