Johnnie Davis �February 4, 2001
It's a fact that Christians and non-Christians spend a lot of time arguing the validity of the Bible and bickering over little details about what it is. The Bible is a collection of writings, a library of sorts in one volume. The word Bible translates to mean "book of books".
The Old Testament was written by Nomadic peoples. Although to begin with, it
was not in writing; it was cared for by professional storytellers--people who were
experts at this. The surge of writing down these stories took place around 1000 B.C.
The Old Testament is divided into 3 sections: The Torah, which consists of the first five chapters and is based on events of Israel. It summarized the creation and fall of a sinful world. The next section is The Challenge. It is made up of prophetic writings and the challenges people who claim to trust God. The next section is The Writings. It is a collection of literary works covering hymns for worship (Psalms), wisdom (Proverbs), history (Chronicles), and romantic love (Songs of Solomon) and others. The Writings are observations and affirmations of human nature. Regardless of your religious belief (or absence of), wisdom is wisdom, history is history, beauty is beauty, and romance is romance.
The New Testament is a collection of the four gospels, letters, sermons and practical teachings written over a span of two generations. It was important that the New Testament be put in written form because in the Roman Empire the spoken word had no authority. After the four gospels, which were an account of the life of Jesus Christ, comes the writings of Paul. Those writings were the first attempts to get Christians to agree on something. Those writings were inspired by fighting among churches and arguing over doctrine. Much the same as today. There are also various letters written by church leaders covering many topics. The New Testament is concluded by Revelations, a mysterious work of symbolism, and its meaning continues to be debated today. The Bible was compiled as an ongoing effort of Jews and Christians. Does saying the Bible is the inspired word of God mean word for word? Or concepts and ideas? Or individual inspiration? Or community inspiration? Perhaps it means God is the origin, or source.
There are several arguments about the authority of the Bible. In today's world,
perhaps the best accepted is that of existentialism, or what is happening in the life of
the individual reading the Bible and how it applies to his life as he listens to it.
Humans have the ability to reason. This means we have the ability to plan, learn, comprehend and set ethics for our lives. It is because of the ability to reason, we should be able to take the Bible and realize it is neither 100% accurate, nor 100% wrong. We must study and analyze it, then apply it to our own lives as our own reasoning shows us is appropriate. The Bible is what is known as a canon of scripture. The Greek translation of canon is "measuring rod", thus the canon of scripture is a measuring rod of scripture and how to apply it to life.
Many books were written that could have been included in the New Testament. The first collection was assembled around 150 A.D., the second by a Frenchman around 185 A.D. In the neighborhood of 303 A.D. the emperor Diocletian ordered that all scriptures be destroyed. Anyone who did not participate was to be executed. So it came down to were the scriptures worth dying for? It was in 382 A.D. that a council held in Rome selected those books that were to be included in the Bible. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, Luther said hey, let's throw out the books of the Apocrypha. Today some Bibles have those Apocrypha books, some don't. The first complete English translated Bible did not appear until 1382, just a few hundred years ago. In the early 1500's, Tyndale worked on a translation of the Bible with access to Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. The first printed English Bible appeared in 1535, the Miles Cloverdale version. There was later the Matthew Bible, The Great Bible, The Geneva Bible, The Bishops Bible, and The Douai version. Then in 1611, along came the King James version. It has been followed by the English Revised Version of 1885, The American Standard Version of 1901, The Revised Standard Version of 1946, and later, the New Revised Standard version. Now, factor into that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls which gave us manuscripts 1000 years older than any previously used. Now look at how many cooks have stirred the pot and seasoned the stew. You can see why it is a mistake for anyone to think the Bible is quoted verbatim from the mouth of God.
Since hell has been an issue in the debates on Ben's message board, consider this: Hell has many names, but we don't pay close attention to its many meanings. �Hades� is a Greek term for a pit of darkness ruled over by Pluto. �Sheol� is a subterranean place for the dead until time of judgment. It has two areas, paradise and hell. And then we have �Gehenna� (also known as hell), a pit south of Jerusalem where bodies were burned and the fire never went out (everlasting fire). Somewhere along the line of translations, it is actually possible that the �hell� Jesus referred to was Gehenna. You can see why arguing over hell really is pointless. As long as we're on the subject of translations, we should be aware that "Word of God" is a translation for the Hebrew term deed. A deed is an action. So Word of God actually means "Action of God".
In conclusion, I would say to argue over details of the text of the Bible will
get you nowhere. It is frustrating, and brings on stress. It makes more sense to me to study this book of books closely--actually study it. To study it, you must go outside the book itself and look at the writings of those scholars that have made it a life pursuit to understand this amazing collection of books. You should also look at
different versions, and how different religions perceive them. Study it in a way that
brings on inner peace, then apply what you learn to the way you live your life.
Johnnie
Go to the message board!
