intro to bible unit test

• scripture attests to it's own authority
• OT: phrases like "Thus says the Lord" indicate equality between the prophet's and God's words
• Narrators refer to God speaking "through" the prophets
• NT: 2 Timothy "All scripture is God-breathed"
• the phrase "It is written" refers to the OT
• Jesus supports belief in divine origin of scripture
• Historical witness: Bible is a reliable historical document
• Prophets as witness: prophecies said in the OT come true in the NT 1,000s of years later

• Hebrews OT: Torah, Prophets, and writings.
• Protestant OT: Law, History, Poetry, Prophets
• Hebrew Torah means instruction; better word than law
• Hebrew characterized Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings as "former prophets"
• Protestant lable "law" doesnt describe fullness of Gen-Deut

• 66 books
• 39 books in the OT
• OT: about 35 different authors, many different genres. Covers more than 2000 years of Israel/God's history
• 27 books in the NT
• NT: written by less authors than OT

• has 4 catagories divided by theme:
• Law
• History
• Poetry
• Prophets
• 1st 5 books of the bible are called the Torah

• The Gospels (Matt, Mark, Luke, John)
• The Acts of the Apostles aka "history"
• The epistles (or letters) of Paul
• The general epistles (written by Paul and others)
• Revelation (Apocalypse of John)

• OT origionally passed down orally thru generations
• Hebrew scribes preserved text meticulously. They were called "counters" because they counted the letters in the words and sentences
• they also updated the text with spelling/vowels, grammar

• 1. Giving of the book of the Covenant and Decalogue after the Exodus
• 2. National revival under Josiah
• 3. Time of the fall of Jerusalem and Exile in Babylon
• 4. During reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah

most of our knowledge of Hebrew text in the early period comes from Dead Sea Scrolls

• group of scribes
• they added vowels to the Hebrew text
• vowel points helped to preserve pronouciation because hebrew was not the common language of Jews at this time

• OT: Hebrew
• NT: Greek

• No apocryphal books are referred to as authoritative scripture and none claims to be the word of God
• OT canon is confirmed by many sources
• Historical and theological discrepencies between Apocrypha and other scripture
• Catholic church canonized Apocrypha in response to Reformation

• no contraditions
• internal consistency as well as doctrinal purity
• written by a prophet or someone recognized as having divine authority
• having recognized divine inspiration and authority and internal indications of such
• universal use and acceptance in community of faith

• Hebrew scriptures were closed near the reign of Artazerzes (464-424 BC)
• Jewish Talmud states "after Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel"
• Jesus references the fixed canon

first person to use the term "canon" in relation to books considered scripture

John Gutenberg

the scholarly study of manuscripts, esp of the Bible, in an effort to establish the original text

• Formal Translation (word-for-word): Translates the words and structures of the original languages. E.g., NASB, ESV, HCSB
• Dynamic Translation (thought-for-thought): Translates the meaning and concepts of the original languages. E.g., NIV
• Paraphrase (Free): Rewording of an existing translation in the same language. E.g., NLT, the Message

• King James commissioned 54 scholars to undertake a new Bible translation
• it used the best known manuscripts avaliable at the time

• "hermeneutics"—a branch of theology concerning principles of exegesis
• Exegesis involves extracting meaning "out of" the text, rather than putting meaning into it.

• 1. Author: Discover the author's intended meaning, don't put in your own meaning
• 2. History: understand each text was written for a particular situations and put the text in context of that
• 3.Context: know the literary context; what happened in the story before and after this, how does it fit into the book and the bible as a whole
• 4. Rules: knowing the genre helps you understand the rules like if you should interpret literally or figuratively, if its in a pattern and if the origional reader would interpret it differently
• Grammar: use literal translation, find main idea, go slow
• Methods: use different methods like writing observations, cross referencing, reading out loud and praying about it
• Practical: bible study is incomplete without application
• Biblical: look at it as a whole, don't base doctrines on obscure passages, unity of scripture
• Christ-centered: how does the scripture present Christ and salvation

• Narrative
• Wisdom Literature
• Prophecy
• Apocalypitc
• Poetry
• Love Poetry

• The Fertile Crescent extended from the Nile River valley, to the narrow plains of Syria-Palestine, to the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys
• got a lot of rain, good for agriculture and settlement

• Mesopotamia
• between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers

• Creation: set the stage for the experience of salvation and introduced God and His character.
• The fall: created the separation between God and man and is the reason salvation is needed.
• The flood: God chose to wipe out the people in order to start the line of history over through Noah and his family. Thus, a new God-fearing generation was formed.
• Birth of Christ: By sending His son Jesus, God brought our only opportunity for Salvation. Jesus was born of a virgin to be perfect and blameless, and then died to give us life.

• Abraham (2100 BC)
• Exodus (1446 BC)
• Kingdom Divides (931 BC)
• Exile of Judah (586 BC)
• Birth of Jesus (6/4 BC)

Israel was positioned purposefully in the center of the communication/trade routes of the Fertile Crescent As such, Israel, as a "holy nation" was ideally situated to become a "light to the nations" and a "kingdom of priests"

• OT: Testimony of the Narrators: Scriptural narrators refer to God speaking "through" the prophets (e.g., Jeremiah 37:2; Zechariah 7:7, 12)
• God’s revelation comes with great power and can be fearful (Exodus 19)
• NT: 2 Timothy 3:16, which speaks of Scripture as "inspired," or lit., "God-breathed"—showing the text to be God’s Word
• 2 Peter 1:19-21 indicates that Scriptures were written by men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God

• Today, we use canon to refer to a fixed list of documents recognized as God-inspired Scripture and authoritative for the church and believer
• The key word is "recognize." The church does not grant authority (contra Catholic doctrine)
• The text has an inherent authority and is thus the basis for the church’s faith and practice

Evangelical Christians hold to inerrancy and a verbal (all the words, not just ideas), plenary (all parts equally inspired) view of inspiration. If God is true (Rom 3:4) and the Bible is from God (2 Tim 3:16), then the Bible must be all true