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The Bible as a source of wisdom and authority (Source: The Bible as a…
The Bible as a source of wisdom and authority (Source:
The Bible as a source of wisdom and authority
How the Christian biblical canon was established
Three criteria guided the early church in what to canonise
Connection to the Apostles.
Connection with the Churches, supporting faith and practices in a diverse range of places.
Not contradicting any key Christian belief e.g. Jesus' incarnation, death and resurrection.
The official canon was decided on in the 4th century contained 27 books in the New Testament and different denominations disagree over how many books are in the Old Testament
Controversy
These books span a thousand years and were written by different authors in different languages.
Controversy regarding which Gospels to use and how to translate the OT.
Issues due to authors using significant names (e.g. those of the apostles) to gain authority
Seven books in the Hebrew Bible were canonised by the Catholic Church, but rejected by Protestant Reformers - these are
deutero-canonical
and included Judith and 1st and 2nd Maccabees.
The New Testament writers used the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible which included some things later excluded from the Jewish canon. Books in the Hebrew Bible that got into the Christian OT are called
proto-canonical
Luther thought some of the Biblical books were heresy e.g. Maccabees 12:46 which suggests purgatory exists and denies jusfication by faith alone.
The inspiration of the Biblical canonical orders
The Bible has a certain order
- we can question whether this order was inspired by God. The order could be important as it shows you the progression of God's revelation which can help to understand it better.
Response:
Historical contingency
- the order of biblical books is just down to contingency
Counter:
there does seem to be some important order
- i.e. the creation story, the Fall, the covenant with the Jews. The core parts of the canon do seem to have an important order.
Humans decided on the biblical canonical order
- the OT was originally written on scrolls and ordered into two groups: law prophets and writings. As seen in history, it has been determined by human debate
Response:
Many theologians
believe the Holy Spirit was influencing those debates and decisions
Counter:
Different Bible orders were produced
so how do we know which one to go with? How do we know which debate to accept
If the order were important, then Matthew would have to be the most important book in the Bible.
However
, the order being important does not suggest that the first book of the Bible is the most important, just that the order is important due to their unfurling of revelation.
Diverse views on the Bible as the word of God
Bible says that 'Ru-ach' (God's breath) was breathed onto the bible writers and inspired them to write it.
2 Timothy 3:16 'all scripture is God-breathed'
Christians believe that the bible was the inspired Word of God.
Diction theory
Conservative and objective: the holy spirit moved biblical writers to write the words of the Bible.
E.g. God speaking directly to or through a prophet like Moses
Iraneus
: claimed scriptures are 'perfect' because they were 'spoken by the Word of God and his Spirit'
Augustine: there are no contradictions or falsehoods affirmed in the Bible and believing otherwise would have 'disastrous consequences'
Different understandings of inspiration
The objective view of inspiration
The subjective view of inspiration
John Calvin's doctrine of accomodation