Asking for a Friend – Week 4

  • All of these things try to cast doubt on the text that we have been given – but the good news is that none of these claims are true
    • Scripture makes the claim in 2 Tim. 3:16-17 that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
    • Ecclesiastes says that “Every word of God proves true.”
    • In Matthew 24, Jesus says, “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away”
The reality is what you hold in your hands today is a REMARKABLY preserved document unlike anything we have seen in history
  • here are some books that are REALLY helpful on this topic if you want to know more
    • From God to Us: How we Got our Bible – by Norman Geisler and William Nix –
    • The Case for Christ – by Lee Strobel
    • How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth – Gordan Fee and Douglas Stewart
    • One Bonus: How we Got Our Bible –  By Griffith Thomas
PART 1 – The Old Testament:
The Old Testament  was written over a period of about 900 years from 1,400 – 500 BC.
So up until Moses wrote some of these earliest stories down – it started as an oral tradition – which was very common in this day – all ancient cultures passed history down orally until writing was developed.
  • so the Old Testament Canon – kind of evolved across the 900 years of writing
    • they put criteria in place for what could be considered Scripture
        • It must be divinely inspired –
      • Authorship was a big one – It must be written by a Prophet, lawgiver, judge, king, or priest.
      • Third was content – did it internally stay consistent with the other writings and God’s character
By the time of Jesus – we have an established Jewish Canon – we know this because of TWO big reasons
FIRST
  • Jesus quotes the OT a LOT – I believe he has 78 references to the Old Testament – referring to it as Scripture – all across the gospels – John 7:38 – and Matt. 21:42 are both examples of that you can look that up –
  • He says that the Law – the Prophets – and The Psalms – all point back to him (Luke 24:27, 44).
SECOND
because of a Jewish historian by the Josephus – in fact, I brought a prop today – I am a book nerd and this is one of my favorite books I own – this is an 1800s copy of the works of Josephus – in here he talks about the Jewish canon which contained 22-24 books officially
  • You might notice that that is less than our 39 books – that we have –
    • and there is a reason for this – so in our bibles we have 1 and 2 Samuel // 1-2 kings and 1-2 Chronicles – where they just combined them – Ezra Nehemiah were combined in one document
    • The poets were combined – so psalms, proverbs, job
    • then another section known as “the other writings” which included, song of solomon, Ruth, Ecc, lamentations, and esther –
    • then the 12 minor prophets were combined into one book
So that’s the OT
Part 2 – The New Testament:
  • there is large reason to believe they knew they were writing Scripture
    • Colossians 4:16 – Paul says for the churches to circulate his letters – he knew he was writing Scripture
    • Peter – in 2nd peter 3:15 – Peter recognizes Paul as writing Scripture
    • In fact, the books and letters that make up the New Testament – were widely circulated and passed around as Scripture.
  • They used clear questions to help determine what should be in Scripture:
  • Was the author an apostle or close connection to apostle?
  • is the book being accepted by the Body of Christ at large?
  • Did the book contain consistent doctrine and orthodox teaching?
  • Did the book bear evidence of high moral spiritual value that reflect the work of the Holy Spirit?
By the 200s – a church father by the name of Origen –
  • summarized where the conversation was – he split up the books into three categories
    • Acknowledged – which were the four gospels, Acts, 13 Pauline letters, 1 peter, 1 John, and Revelation
    • The disputed – James, Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and fringe book called Shepherd of Hermas
    • The rejected – all the others
so by this point 21 of 27 books are seen as canon – and the other six were under consideration.
  • Over the next 150 years – there’s a lot we could get into with that – the disputed were prayed over – researched – vetted – and confirmed into canon
  • In A.D. 367 – the Thirty-ninth Paschal letter of Athanasius (representing the eastern church) contained an exact list of the twenty-seven New Testament books we have today then – in 397 – so thirty years later – the Council of Carthage – representing the western church – agreed on the list.

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