Bible Talk, Theology Talk

Bible Talk, Theology Talk

Honest Answers to Honest Questions

By Saundra L. Washington D.D.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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Bible Talk, Theology Talk

Honest Answers to Honest Questions

Copyright 2010 by Saundra L. Washington D.D.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica. Use of either trademark requires the permission of Biblica. The King James Version (KJV) is in U.S. public domain.

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Dedicated To…

The honor of Jehovah God, Jehovah Christ, Jehovah Holy Spirit

All those who taught us about Christ Jesus.

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Table of Contents

I. Bible Talk

1. The Bible

2. The Canon of Scripture

3. The Canon of New Testament

4. Bible Translations

5. The Concept of God in Scripture

6. God and Evil

7. What is Man?

8. The Church

9. Bible Miscellany

II. Theology Talk

Appendix

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Foreword

Written from the perspective of Christian faith and experience as known within the fellowship of the body of Christ, Bible Talk promises to facilitate increased understanding of how the Christian Bible came into existence and provide answers to the most pervading questions surrounding the Bible that confronts the Christian believer today. You will not have to peruse many pages before discovering the reason why the Bible remains the most published, most quoted, most translated and most influential book in the history of mankind.

Theology Talk will increase your knowledge of apologetics, key Christian terms and the heresy some of the apostles and early Church Fathers had to fight diligently against in defense of the true Christianity. It will also aid you in formulating your own theories that makes sense of the various parts of Christian doctrine and beliefs and, at those points where it intersects with the world, motivate and encourage you to further inquiry and serious contemplation on doctrinal and theological issues.

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Part I. Bible Talk

1. The Bible

What is the Bible?

Christianity inherited Scripture from Judaism. Jesus in His preaching constantly referred to this Scripture and the disciples followed in this practice. They accepted as fact the existence among the Jews of a body of writings received as sacred and authoritative.

Ask this question of fifty different people and you are likely to receive fifty different responses. No words can adequately describe what the Bible is and why it is held in such high regards. For Christian believers everywhere, who have experienced its transforming power; it is, among all possessions, the most sacred. Let us begin with a general description of the meaning of the word, Bible.

The English word Bible means book of books (from the Greek word for books, biblia). A book of the Bible is an established group of writings. For example, the Book of Psalm consists of 150 songs while the Book of Jude is a half-page letter.

The Bible is the primary sacred Scripture of both the Jewish and Christian religions. These Scriptures are compilations of what were originally separate documents (called books). They were later compiled to form first the Jewish Bible (Tanakh) and, with later additions, the Christian Bible. These writings were written over a period of 1500 years by more than forty different authors living on three different continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe). While the text itself was penned by the hands of its various human authors, the ultimately Divine origin of Scripture is testified to numerous times within the Bible text itself and has been repeatedly confirmed throughout history by its steadfast integrity and reliability.

The Christian Protestant Bible is a library of sixty-six books, yet one. Each of the sixty-six books varies in length and purpose. Within these books we read the history of the chosen people (Jews), love poems, philosophy, laws, rules, informal letters, short stories, long stories, wise sayings and so much more. We are also introduced to Jesus Christ and His life, death and resurrection. Through Jesus Christ, we get a view of God the Father and learn what He is like.

Thirty-nine books compose the Protestant Old Testament.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

Forty-six books compose the Catholic Old Testament.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith

Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus / Sirach, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch,

Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

Protestant and Catholic New Testament are identical and consists of twenty-seven books.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation.

The shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 117 and Ezra 8:9 is the longest verse. The books of the Bible are so varied, and cover so vast a period of time, that they provide invaluable material for not only Biblical scholars, Christian ministry and laity, but also for the anthropologist, archaeologist, the historian and many others.

The first division of the Bible into chapters and verses is attributed to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury in the late twelfth century and who also wrote extensively on the Bible. Cardinal Hugo, in the middle of the thirteenth century divided the Old Testament into chapters as they stand in our translation. Jewish teacher, Mordecai Nathan, divided the Hebrew Old Testament into chapters. Later he and Athias, a Rabbi of Amsterdam, divided the chapters of Hugo into verses. Robert Estienne, or Robertus Stephanus, is credited with our numbered verse system. Sometimes, however, the verses are not well divided and this can mislead readers. An interesting case in point appears in Revelation 20:5.

There are those who describe the Bible as being a record of man’s search for God. Others describe it as God’s search for man. However one chooses to think of it, one thing is for sure, it records the bloody, agonizing, upward quest for truth from primitive origins to a highly developed monotheism (belief in one God). It is the record of an incalculably influential development of religious thought and life, extending from the primitive faith of the early Hebrews (Jewish people) into the Christianity of the second century.

The Bible has all the excitement of a John Sanford thriller in which Detective Davenport chases his nemesis through chapter after chapter. The same kind of relentless pursuit dominates the interpretation that the Jewish people put on their historical past, in the Old Testament. The search culminates in the New Testament, where the claim is made that God has so desired a relationship with man that He has not just sent prophets, or disciples, or representatives, but in Jesus Christ He has come Himself.

The Bible then, tells of Israel, the chosen people through whom God’s purpose has been made known to our world; it tells of Christ, in whom there is no other name by which we must be saved; it tells us of these times when God has acted upon the lives of men, and as we read it, the possibility is opened that God can communicate through those acts and events directly to us. So, the Bible is more than a book and more than a record. It is the Word of God, a summons, an invitation, an urgent message.

Who wrote the Bible?

At the outset, it must be understood that no one person was overcome by a sudden inspiration and sat down to write the Bible. It did not suddenly or miraculously appear on the table of a prophet of God. And, it was not written in English.

The Old Testament books find their beginnings in the oral traditions of mankind. The oral traditions are the stories, history, laws, prayers, songs and poems that were passed from one generation to the next by word of mouth before they were written down and collected. From oral tradition, these collections of thoughts and understandings were recorded by various authors and as mentioned earlier, formed into separate writings, or books. God Himself instructed many of the writers to write their experience and encounters with Him and the manifestations of His powers (i.e. Moses). All of these writings were initially written in Hebrew and were in response to God’s interaction with His people and His actions in history. These writings take on significance precisely because they have developed in this dilatory manner. They make plain that God reveals Himself to man and deals with us right where we are.

The Old Testament testifies to the fact that collections of inspired and recognized books were being put in the Ark of the Covenant and later, the temple. It was the job of the priests to watch over and guard these books. If you are familiar with the works of Josephus, the Jewish historian, you will recall that he tells us that the Old Testament canon was completed and recognized as completed by the Jews after their return from Babylon in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (around 400 B.C.). By Jesus’ day the Jewish people still held to Ezra’s collection which they called the Scriptures.

Christians accept the Jewish Old Testament collection of books primarily because Jesus accepted them. Jesus quoted Scripture authoritatively; referred to it as the Word of God and believed it to be the revelation of God given under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He cited each of the Old Testament’s main divisions: the law, the prophets, and the writings.

The Old Testament is authoritatively quoted two hundred thirty-nine times, cited sixteen hundred times, and alluded to many other times by the apostles. Most of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament are quoted as God’s Word somewhere in the New Testament.

Supporting Scripture: Ezra 7:6, 10; Nehemiah 8:2-8, 18; Matthew 4:4; Mark 14:27; Matthew 19:4ff; Mark 7:11-13; John 10:34ff; Mark 12:36; Luke 24:25-27, 44.

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2. The Canon of Scripture

Who Decided What Books Should Become Part of the Bible?

It all began with Marcion of Sinope, one of the most conspicuous heretics in early Christianity, who lived from the late first century to the mid second century C.E. (Christian Era). He was an early Christian teacher who became bishop in the Christian Church but whose opinions were condemned by the Orthodox Church as heresy. His teachings departed from traditional Christianity in a number of ways. Most dramatically, perhaps, Marcion rejected the idea that the Old Testament God and the New Testament God were the same being. More specifically, he believed the Creator God of the Jewish faith was incompatible with the God of Love revealed in Christ. He also found it necessary to edit Luke’s Gospel, which, along with many of the epistles of Paul (excluding the pastorals), constituted his canon of Holy Scripture. Up until then, the traditional Church had considered the Old Testament to be sacred and assumed that Christianity was a fulfillment or continuation of Judaism. Marcion’s rejection of that idea affected many different doctrines and beliefs.

Canon came from the Greek word kanon which meant reed. At the time, a reed was used as a measuring tool. In the ancient world it was used in a variety of meanings such as, rule, ethical norm, list, standard, rent paid for land to the Roman Emperor, ecclesiastical law. In the Middle Ages, it was used to describe secular clergy who lived together in a group observing a certain rule, and from this derives its present day use as an ecclesiastical title.

So, the term canon came to mean, the standard. A book had to be proved to be Divinely inspired before it was included in the Canon of Scripture. There were many criteria’s that had to be met. For example, who wrote the book - a prophet, an apostle, a disciple? What types of confirmation of the accuracy of the writing existed - miracles, fulfilled prophecy, validity found in an already proven work of Scripture? Were the writings consistent with books already accepted as Divine? Many books were considered for inclusion in the Bible, but, while they may be excellent historical resources, they were not found to be inspired by God and infallible.

Thus, when we talk about Canonization of Scripture,