the word of god a special study for the young adult ministry

The Word of God A Special Study for the Young Adult Ministry

Introduction Why does it matter? Trust Authority Defense

Some Biblical Starting Facts 66 Books Approximately 40 different authors Written in Different Genres (Narratives, Law, Poetry, Prophecy, Wisdom, Gospel, Epistle, Apocalypse) Written with different purposes, to specific audiences Written over a time period of greater than 2000 years Reveals who God is, how God works, what God requires of us Dual authorship

Question: How did we end up with the books that we have now?

How the Books of the OT Were Recognized Recognition of the OT books was a lengthy and serious process Divine inspiration and authority recognizable to Hebrew leaders through Holy Spirits guidance o Did the author claim to be speaking a Word of the Lord? Was it confirmed? o Did the Word come with the power of God? Authorship someone who held a divinely appointed office o E.g. Lawgiver, Prophet, King o Some exceptions: Psalms written by Lemuel, Ruth, Esther Content was examined for internal consistency o Did it tell the truth about God?

How the Books of the OT Were Recognized (Cont.)These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Luke 24:44 Historically the Jews divided the OT books into three sets: o The Torah or Law o The Prophets o The Writings (often called Psalms) Jesus affirms this three-part distinction in Luke 24:44 Jesus makes this distinction while ministering in a Jewish setting The apostles also validate the OT books, quoting from them frequently

Why are there different books in the Catholic Bible? The Roman Catholic church includes certain extra OT books, known as the Apocrypha The overwhelming evidence shows that the apocryphal books were not regarded as authoritative o Jesus affirmed the threefold distinction of the Jewish Scriptures o 1st century Jewish historians Josephus and Philo affirm the same OT that we have today o The NT authors never directly quote from the books of the apocrypha as they do other OT books o 38 of the 39 OT books were found among the dead sea scrolls, but only three of the apocryphal books The apocrypha have historical and theological statements that contradict Scripture The apocrypha can be helpful as books that reveal historical thinking, but they are not inspired Scripture

How the Books of the NT Were Recognized They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. -Acts 2:42 The NT consists of 27 books, written between AD 50-100 From the outset, the basis for the growth of the church was the teaching of the apostles It became evident in the 2nd century of the need to officially recognize a set list in order to protect from heretical teachings As persecution of Christians increased, it became more crucial to determine what books they were willing to die for Our current NT is listed in various lists beginning in the 2 nd century (recognizing the books that were inspired)

How the NT books Were Recognized (cont.) The books that we have were not chosen by the church, but were the ones recognized as the true and authoritative teaching The criteria for recognition has three primary elements: o Apostolic authority: was the book written by an apostle or someone closely associated with an apostle. o Catholicity = universal recognition: were the books in question universally recognized by the church as being authoritative o Conformity to the rule of faith: does it maintain apostolic doctrine

Was there a Conspiracy to Reject Other Books? In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown brought forth the opinion that the church willfully excluded certain books But the gnostic gospels clearly do not reflect the same teaching as that of Jesus and the apostles These works were easy to reject as inauthentic, given the huge difference in their teaching versus the NT books

Simon Peter said to Him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life. Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Gospel of Thomas 114

What About Other Letters Written by Apostles? We do have evidence that Paul wrote two additional letters to the Church at Corinth We do not have any copies of these other letters, nor references to them in the writings of the church Fathers What if we found them? o Interesting question, but likely one that is moot o After 2000 years, we can be confident that the Holy Spirit has not desired us to have those letters o The canon is closed I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; (1 Corinthians 5:9) This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; (2 Corinthians 2:3 )

Question: Is the Bible Reliable? -Do we have what was written in the original? -Is it true?

Ways of Assessing Historical Reliability There are three primary ways of assessing the historical reliability of ancient sources: Bibliographical Analysis Internal Evidence External Evidence

Do We Have What Was in the Original? We do not have any of the original copies of the books of the Bible But we can say with confidence that the Bible is the most well-attested book of ancient literature in history How can we make this claim and trust what we have?

New Testament Manuscript Evidence We have over 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the NT, and 19,000 translations in other early languages (Latin, Coptic, Syriac) We have some fragments within 50 years of the events, entire books within 100 years, most of the NT within 250 years Compare these facts with other works of ancient literature accepted as history: o Homers Iliad has the next most amount of manuscripts, 643, dating 400 years after the events o We have 7 copies of Platos works, none within 1300 years of the events o We have 10 copies of Caesars Gallic Wars, none within 1000 years of when they are written If the same standard is applied across all literature, the Bible is unparalleled in its Bibliographic support

New Testament Manuscript Evidence One of the Oldest NT Manuscripts: Papyrus 66 John 7:32-38

How God Has Preserved His Word Through Manuscripts We believe that the Bible is inerrant in the original writings The incredible number of manuscripts allows us to discern where any scribal errors were made (i.e. poor eyesight, missed words, etc.) While there are minor variations in the manuscripts, there are no discrepancies that effect any of the doctrines of Scripture Even if we had no manuscripts, we could reconstruct the entire New Testament from the quotations of the church fathers The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. - 1 Peter 2:24-25 Conclusion: we can be confident that God has preserved His word just as He indicated

Old Testament Manuscript Evidence We have less total OT manuscripts, yet the total is still impressive on a historical scale (>700) There was always an amazing reverence given to the copying of the OT Scriptures:: o No word or letter could be written by the scribe from memory, they had to look at the previous copy o Verses, words, and letters of each scroll were numbered, and the middle word and letter was calculated for each o The copyist had to sit in full Jewish dress, wash his whole body, and never write Gods name without fresh ink We have given practical proof of our reverence for our own Scriptures. For although such long ages have now passed, no one ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable; - Josephus

The Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls More than 200 scrolls found in the caves of Qumran in 1947 The scrolls date back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, more than 1000 years older than our previous oldest manuscripts Includes all of the books of our OT except Esther The copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls were nearly identical to the manuscripts 1000 years later o Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there is only a question in the spelling of 17 letters

Conclusion: we can trust the evidence that the Scriptures we possess today substantially represent the inerrant originals But is the original true?

The Internal Evidence for the NT Supports its Truth Most scholars agree that the text was completed by 100 AD The text does not contain any known contradictions The earliest books completed can be dated to the mid 50s AD, shortly removed from their occurrence The oral tradition of the culture made oral transmission of stories highly possible in such a short period of time o Ancient Jews honed the art of memorization, many memorizing the entire OT o Greek schoolboys often committed wither Homers Iliad or Odyssey to memory o An example from the Super Bowl

The External Evidence for the NT Supports its Truth The writings of Jewish historians Josephus and Philo confirm the existence and characteristics of NT events o Confirms that Jesus was called Christ o Confirms the existence and beheading of John the Baptist Passages in the Jewish Talmud affirm the existence and miracles of Jesus Non-Christian Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius also speak of Jesus 1st century existence

The Content of the OT has Repeatedly Been Affirmed The Scriptures exhibit incredible continuity between the Testaments The fulfilled prophecy of the Old Testament differentiates it from all other religious books o The book of Daniel accurately predicts the sequence of kingdoms and coming persecution under Antiochus o There are over 300 OT prophecies of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone Archaeology has repeatedly proved the accuracy of the Scriptures Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it. - Isaiah 46:11

The Cyrus Cylinder discovered in 1879 in Mesopotamia, this dates to the 6 th century BC and describes Persian King Cyrus II victory over Babylon and releasing captives to their homeland

Tel Dan Stele 2 Kings 9:14-28 names Jehu as the killer of both Jehoram and Ahaziah. An inscription from 841 BC called the Tel Dan Stele says I have killed Jehoram son of Ahab king of Israel, and I have killed Ahazyahu son of Jehoram king of the house of David.

Question: Why do we Have Different Translations?

The Different Translations Reflect Different Methods All translations begin with the original Greek text From there, three methods are used: o Formal Equivalence: Tries to pull out the original words of the text while still being understandable in English (KJV, NKJV, NASB, ESV) o Dynamic Equivalence: take the original meaning of a phrase, and translate it into the same idea in English (NIV, NLT) o Paraphrase: Add explanatory words to help make the text more readable in English (The Message, The Living Bible, Philips Translation)

An Example of the Methods (2 Cor 5:14) , , , For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; (NASB) For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. (NIV) Christs love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. (The Message)

Question: How does this relate to our study of John?

Why the Brackets? John 7:53-8:11 This is one of the few passages where there is a discrepancy in the manuscripts over the existence of the story in the gospel External evidence: The story is not found in the earliest manuscripts, but is cited by the church fathers starting in the 4th century Internal evidence: The story does not relate directly to the feast context of John 7 & 8, but the teaching is consistent with the message of John Conclusion: It is difficult to tell if the story is originally in the gospel, but it is almost certainly a true historical account of Jesus And sowell study it!

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the word of god a special study for the young adult ministry

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