Participants:
Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000093S
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00:01 - Some people seem to believe that Christians think
00:03 the Bible just dropped out of the sky one day, 00:05 completely formed, 00:07 but that's not at all what Christians think happened. 00:10 [upbeat music] 00:20 [upbeat music continues] 00:30 Welcome back to part two in a series we're doing 00:33 on the history of the Bible. 00:34 It's a series that I decided to do because, well, 00:37 every week I challenge people 00:39 to read this book for themselves. 00:41 And the reason I do that is because simply put, 00:44 this is easily the most influential book in the world, 00:47 and it's my personal conviction that this book offers us 00:50 the best possible opportunity 00:52 to discover what it means to live an authentic human life. 00:56 I know that a lot of people believe 00:58 that this book is somehow out of touch, 01:00 but I've got to tell you, I have never found better answers 01:03 to the big questions of life than I have in the Bible. 01:07 There's a good reason that people have risked their lives 01:10 to smuggle this book into countries that banned it 01:12 because of its contents 01:14 and the way that it speaks about human dignity. 01:18 This book creates a real problem for tyrannical regimes. 01:22 I've met some of the people who put everything on the line 01:25 back in the 20th century 01:27 to make copies of the Bible on manual typewriters 01:30 in the dead of night, carefully striking one key at a time 01:34 so that the letters would push through 01:36 five or six sheets of carbon paper. 01:38 And of course, they had to find a place 01:40 where nobody could actually hear them typing like that. 01:44 I know of one person who placed pillows 01:46 all around the typewriter to muffle the sound 01:49 and she knew full well that if she got caught, 01:52 she'd be off to the gulag or worse. 01:56 You and I have access to this incredible book 01:59 because countless people have been willing 02:01 to pay the ultimate price to be sure that you and I have it. 02:05 And now we live in an age 02:06 where we have more access than we ever have had before, 02:10 thanks to digital forms of media. 02:12 But sadly, at the same time, 02:14 fewer and fewer people are actually reading the Bible. 02:18 And what a tragedy it is, 02:19 because I know full well that the Bible is not at all 02:22 what the skeptics are telling you it is. 02:24 I know what happens for people who take this book seriously. 02:29 Look, I've lived with the scriptures 02:31 and I've lived without the scriptures, 02:34 and I've got to tell you, there's no going back. 02:36 And if this book is everything that it claims to be, 02:40 well, obviously you'd be a fool to ignore it. 02:44 So where exactly did the Bible come from? 02:47 Well, according to Paul, 02:49 one of the most prolific authors in the Bible, 02:51 this is a collection of writings 02:53 that began with God Himself. 02:55 Here's what he wrote in his second letter to Timothy. 02:58 He said, "All scripture is breathed out by God 03:02 and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, 03:05 and for training in righteousness, 03:07 that the man of God may be complete, 03:09 equipped for every good work." 03:12 Now, a lot of Bible translations will say 03:14 that the scripture is inspired by God, 03:18 which is why you'll hear Christians talking about 03:20 the inspiration of the Bible. 03:23 The word that Paul actually used in Greek is "theopneustos," 03:26 which literally means "God breathed." 03:30 So the version we just read is a good translation 03:32 when it tells us that scripture is breathed out by God. 03:37 Peter describes that process like this. 03:40 He says, 03:41 "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, 03:44 but men spoke from God 03:45 as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 03:49 So the content of the Bible originates with God Himself, 03:54 who inspired people to write out His thoughts. 03:57 And as they did that, 03:59 they often wrote those thoughts in their own words, 04:01 which is why scholars can spot different writing styles 04:05 throughout the Bible. 04:06 And you'll notice there are large portions of the Bible 04:09 where the writer really is taking dictation from God, 04:12 recording the words that God is speaking verbatim. 04:16 But outside of those specific passages, 04:18 the Bible writers communicated God's thoughts 04:21 in their own language. 04:23 In some cases, you'll find 04:25 that God actually prepared these writers for the job 04:28 even before they were born, 04:29 like He did with the prophet Jeremiah. 04:32 I mean, just listen to this at the head of Jeremiah's book. 04:36 This is Jeremiah 1 in verse four, and it says, 04:39 "Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 04:41 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, 04:44 and before you were born I consecrated you; 04:47 I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'" 04:51 Now, what you and I call the Bible, 04:54 this single volume bound between two covers, 04:57 well, that single volume is a relatively recent invention 05:00 because for the longest time, 05:02 the Bible was really a collection of books, 05:05 a collection of sacred writings 05:06 contained in different scrolls, and it was only later on 05:10 that we bound them together in book form, 05:13 the form that you are used to, 05:14 which scholars would call a codex. 05:17 A codex is a book as we understand it, 05:20 leaves of paper folded over and bound together. 05:23 The codex was a huge technological advance over the scroll, 05:28 which was kind of difficult to use 05:30 because you sometimes had to unroll a lot of scroll 05:33 before you could find the passage you were looking for. 05:36 Notice the description of Jesus 05:38 reading in the synagogue on Sabbath 05:40 found on Luke chapter four where it says, 05:44 "And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. 05:47 He unrolled the scroll 05:49 and found the place where it was written." 05:51 And then Jesus goes on to read a portion 05:53 from the book of Isaiah 05:55 that actually predicts His Messianic ministry. 05:58 The codex, however, was a far more convenient way 06:02 to preserve sacred writings. 06:04 As opposed to the scroll, it was more portable 06:06 and it was easy to navigate your way through it. 06:09 In fact, most of the early Christian scripture collections 06:12 were books about the size of a modern-day paperback novel, 06:16 about six inches high, 06:18 so they were really easy to slip into your luggage. 06:21 And once the printing press was invented 06:23 more than a thousand years later, 06:26 codices, that's the plural of codex, 06:29 they became very easy to produce. 06:32 The ancient Jews used scrolls to make copies 06:34 of the Old Testament scriptures. 06:37 Christians started to use codices or books 06:40 just about from the beginning. 06:42 From the second century onward, 06:44 almost all Christian writings were produced in codex form, 06:47 and a lot of these were actually collections of books, 06:50 say, a few of Paul's letters bound together 06:53 or maybe just the four gospels. 06:56 But then as time moved along, 06:57 we started to bind all of the sacred books together 07:00 in a single volume 07:01 the way that you and I experience the Bible today, 07:04 although I've noticed a recent publication 07:07 from one Bible publisher 07:08 that has all the books as single volumes in a box set, 07:11 and I'll admit that was more than I could resist, 07:14 so I bought that one. 07:15 Now, in this series, 07:18 we're still going to have to eventually answer the question, 07:20 how did we come to the decision 07:22 that certain books were biblical and other books were not? 07:27 Now, that's a much longer story than many people think 07:29 because, well, 07:31 the Bible didn't just drop out of the sky one day, 07:33 fully formed, ready to go. 07:35 The Bible was formed gradually 07:37 over a period of about 1,500 years. 07:40 The first five books date back to the time of Moses, 07:43 and today we know them as the Torah or the Pentitude, 07:47 and they've pretty much always been considered canonical, 07:50 which means we recognize them as being authoritative 07:53 and inspired by God. 07:55 They are pretty much universally recognized as scripture. 07:59 Now, we know for sure that while Moses likely authored 08:03 the vast majority of those first five books of the Bible, 08:06 he couldn't have written the very last part of Deuteronomy 08:09 because, well, that describes his death and burial. 08:13 Obviously, the Israelite community had someone 08:15 complete the story by adding those last few verses, 08:19 and traditionally we think it was Joshua, Moses' successor, 08:23 which brings up a really important point. 08:26 While God clearly used individuals 08:28 to write the books of the Bible, 08:30 the Bible is also the product of a community. 08:34 It's divinely inspired, but at the same time, 08:37 it has been somewhat shaped by communities of human beings 08:41 who were being guided by the Holy Spirit of God. 08:44 All right, it's time for a short commercial break, 08:46 and I hope you'll take advantage 08:47 of what the good folks at The Voice of Prophecy 08:49 are about to show you. 08:51 And I'll be right back after this. 08:53 [upbeat music] 08:56 [soft music] - Life can throw a lot at us. 08:59 Sometimes we don't have all the answers, 09:02 but that's where the Bible comes in. 09:05 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 09:07 Here at The Voice of Prophecy, 09:09 we've created the Discover Bible guides 09:12 to be your guide to the Bible. 09:13 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 09:16 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions, 09:19 and they're absolutely free. 09:21 So jump online now or give us a call 09:23 and start your journey of discovery. 09:26 - Before the break, 09:28 we were starting to talk about the Old Testament canon, 09:30 and I mentioned how the scriptures were formed 09:32 in a community of believers. 09:34 God revealed Himself to a covenant people 09:37 and they were inspired to share his thoughts 09:40 by committing them to paper, 09:41 or to be more accurate, parchment. 09:44 Parchment was actually made from animal hides, 09:47 and when we discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls 09:49 in the middle of the 20th century, 09:51 something like 90% of them 09:53 were written on parchment or vellum. 09:55 Normally, that kind of material 09:58 wouldn't have survived that long 09:59 because it's organic material, 10:01 but these scrolls survived for thousands of years 10:05 because they were placed in sealed clay jars 10:07 in a very arid desert climate. 10:10 So we kinda lucked out and against all odds, 10:12 we found them roughly 2,000 years after they were written. 10:17 The books of Moses or the Torah 10:19 were always regarded as sacred, 10:22 and they had a special place in the tabernacle 10:24 that marked them as being inspired by God Himself. 10:27 Deuteronomy 31 tells us that these inspired books 10:31 were actually kept inside the most holy place, 10:34 the innermost compartment of the sanctuary. 10:37 Some scholars think they were actually kept 10:39 inside the Ark of the Covenant, 10:41 while others and people like me believe 10:43 they were kept by the side of the ark. 10:46 This all happened at the time 10:48 when God was visibly present with His people, 10:50 leading them across the wilderness as a cloud by day 10:53 and a pillar of fire by night. 10:55 When the children of Israel pitched their camp, 10:57 that cloud would descend into the most holy place, 11:01 where the presence of God would literally dwell 11:04 between the cherub on the top of the Ark of the Covenant. 11:07 From that spot, God would communicate with Moses 11:10 and Moses recorded the evergreen material, 11:13 the stuff that would affect every generation 11:16 in the books of the law, 11:17 or the Torah, as it's come to be known. 11:20 In addition to the Torah, the Hebrew scriptures also include 11:24 the prophets and the writings. 11:27 So now we have three divisions of scripture, 11:30 the Torah, the prophets, and the writings. 11:33 In Hebrew, these three divisions are called 11:35 the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim. 11:38 When you take the first syllable of all three words 11:41 and you mash them together, you get the word "Tenakh," 11:44 which eventually became shorthand 11:46 for the entire Hebrew Bible. 11:49 Now, if you pick up a copy of the Hebrew scriptures 11:53 like this one, 11:55 Christians will find something really interesting 11:56 in the table of contents. 11:58 This has all the same books as the Christian Old Testament, 12:02 but they're arranged in a different order. 12:04 In later years, Christians rearranged the books in order 12:07 to have the prophetic books like Micah and Malachi 12:10 come right before Matthew's gospel 12:12 so it would be obvious to the readers 12:14 that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Messianic promise, 12:18 but the Jewish scriptures arranged them quite differently 12:21 so that Ezra and Nehemiah come near the end 12:24 and the final word in this entire book 12:27 is First and Second Chronicles. 12:29 That way, the scriptures end with the sack of Jerusalem, 12:33 the story of the Babylonian captivity, 12:35 and then a very brief mention of the Persian general Cyrus, 12:38 who liberated the Jews and allowed them to go home 12:41 to rebuild the Holy City and the temple. 12:44 Now, obviously those parts of the story were written 12:47 after the Babylonian captivity, 12:49 and so you can see that the process 12:51 of putting together a collection of authoritative holy books 12:55 actually took a lot of generations. 12:57 Now, some scholars dispute what I'm about to say 13:01 and with good reason, but a lot of people believed 13:04 that the Hebrew canon was finalized 13:06 at the Rabbinic Council at Jamnia 13:09 near the end of the first century, in about A.D. 90, 13:12 after the destruction of the second temple. 13:15 The theory suggests that this happened as a response 13:17 to the appearance of a brand new Jewish offshoot, 13:20 which was the Christians. 13:22 Suddenly they needed to define 13:24 what constituted real Jewish belief 13:26 in very definitive terms, 13:28 so they produced the Old Testament canon. 13:31 But in recent years, this theory has lost some ground. 13:34 And the famous 20th century Bible scholar F.F. Bruce 13:37 has said that it is probably unwise 13:39 to talk as if there were a council or synod of Jamnia, 13:42 which laid down the limits of the Old Testament canon. 13:46 But still, I want to draw your attention to this idea 13:49 because it highlights something important. 13:52 If that council really did finalize a list 13:55 of canonical books, they weren't creating a canon. 13:59 They were recognizing something that already existed. 14:02 And that's a really important distinction 14:05 because the way that secular historians tell the story 14:08 of Christianity, they say it was the faith community, 14:10 the church who created the Bible 14:12 without any need for God to intervene at all. 14:15 In other words, according to those folks, 14:17 the Bible is a purely human document, 14:20 and it only became authoritative because we decided it was. 14:24 But among people of faith, including me, 14:27 we recognized that God inspired these books, 14:30 and then we recognized those inspired books 14:33 in a finalized canonical list. 14:36 In other words, we didn't invent the New Testament. 14:38 We recognized it. 14:40 Of course, getting back to the Hebrew canon, 14:43 it was really important to make a distinction 14:45 between inspired and non-inspired books 14:48 because the 39 books of the Old Testament 14:51 were by no means the only treasured writings of the day. 14:54 There were other books like First and Second Maccabees, 14:57 which told the story of Israel's deliverance 14:59 from Greek oppression. 15:01 And we had other important documents as well. 15:03 They were very important books, 15:06 and I honestly believe everybody probably should read them 15:09 because of the historical context they give 15:12 for the scriptures. 15:13 But these books were never recognized as divinely inspired. 15:17 Why? 15:18 Well, for starters, they were written in Greek, 15:20 and the Jews rejected the notion 15:22 that God could inspire books 15:23 in anything but the Hebrew language. 15:26 But there were other issues as well. 15:28 The books of the Maccabees were simply written too late 15:32 to be considered scripture. 15:34 Other non-inspired historical books 15:37 largely had the same problem. 15:38 And Christians have noticed that Jesus never, ever quoted 15:41 from any of these apocryphal writings. 15:44 That's probably because in places, 15:46 they openly contradict the teachings 15:48 of the well-established scriptural books. 15:51 In modern times, there are Christian traditions 15:53 that have reintroduced these apocryphal books 15:56 into the Old Testament, but it's important to note 15:58 that the Jews never accepted any of these as scripture. 16:02 I remember as a new believer, 16:04 being confused about all these extra books 16:06 and portions of books 16:08 that appeared in some editions of the Bible. 16:10 And I was curious to know if maybe Protestants 16:12 hadn't made a mistake by not accepting these books. 16:16 Fortunately, though, I'm a pretty avid reader, 16:19 and I read through the works 16:20 of the famous Jewish historian Josephus really early on. 16:24 Josephus was born at about the time 16:27 when the early Christian church 16:28 was making its presence felt, and at one point, 16:31 he provides us with a list of the books 16:33 the Jews considered authoritative. 16:35 Here's what he said. 16:37 "For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, 16:40 disagreeing from and contradicting one another 16:43 as the Greeks have, but only 22 books, 16:46 which contain the records of all the past times; 16:49 which are justly believed to be divine; 16:51 and of them, five belong to Moses, which contain his laws, 16:54 and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death." 16:59 Now, of course, the Hebrew Bible that we have is 39 books, 17:02 and Josephus only mentioned 22. 17:04 That's because back in his day, 17:06 some of the books were combined with each other, 17:08 like First and Second Chronicles. 17:10 Lamentations and Jeremiah were lumped together, 17:13 and so were Judges and Ruth. 17:15 It's exactly the same material 17:17 as the 39 books that we have in the Old Testament, 17:20 just arranged a little differently, 17:22 but the fact is the Hebrew community never accepted 17:26 the apocryphal books as divinely inspired. 17:29 Important? Sure. 17:30 Informative and inspirational? Yeah, absolutely. 17:34 But they were never considered 17:36 to be a part of the inspired scriptures, 17:38 and honestly, nobody really did 17:40 until the Council of Trent in the 16th century, 17:43 when the Church of Rome included these apocryphal writings 17:46 in order to defend ideas that the Protestants were disputing 17:49 like the doctrine of purgatory. 17:52 And at some point, we'll get to that story as well, 17:55 but right now it's time for another quick break. 17:57 So I'll be right back after this. 17:59 [upbeat music] 18:02 [upbeat music] 18:04 - [Narrator] Here at The Voice of Prophecy, 18:05 we're committed to creating top-quality programming 18:07 for the whole family, 18:08 like our audio adventure series, Discovery Mountain. 18:11 Discovery Mountain is a Bible-based program 18:14 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 18:16 Your family will enjoy the faith-building stories 18:19 from this small mountain summer camp pen town. 18:22 With 24 seasonal episodes every year 18:24 and fresh content every week, 18:26 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 18:33 - And we're back. 18:34 And today we're doing part of a series 18:35 on the origins of the Bible, 18:37 and I think there's probably a pretty good chance 18:39 I'm gonna skip around through history a little bit, 18:42 sometimes looking at the earliest formation of the canon 18:44 and other times exploring the story of various Bibles 18:47 that had a real impact on the Christian community. 18:51 So I'm hoping you'll be patient with me 18:53 if we kind of do things out of order sometimes. 18:55 In fact, knowing me, there's a good chance 18:58 we'll even drop the series at some point 18:59 and then come back to it in the future. 19:02 One of the big ideas that's important to understand 19:05 is that the creation of the Bible 19:07 was a collaborative effort. 19:08 It all began with God. 19:11 He inspired the prophets 19:12 to convey His thoughts to the people, 19:14 thoughts that had universal application 19:17 and would prove to be important 19:18 to every generation of believers. 19:21 What that means is that there was human agency 19:25 in the creation of the scriptures. 19:27 The church didn't invent the Bible 19:28 the way that some secular scholars suggest. 19:31 We merely recognized it. 19:33 Among our Jewish cousins, there was a sizable effort 19:36 to keep the scriptures intact from generation to generation. 19:41 They went out of their way to prevent tampering 19:43 or even simple copy mistakes. 19:46 When you look at some of the older scrolls, 19:48 you'll find a note at the end of each book, 19:51 sometimes listing the number of words 19:53 that are supposed to be in that book, 19:54 or maybe mentioning the word 19:56 that's supposed to be in the very middle of the book 19:58 so that readers can check the copyist's work. 20:03 The scribes who produced copy after copy 20:06 of these important books 20:07 knew that this book was the voice of God, 20:10 and even one tiny mistake could change the meaning 20:13 of an entire verse. 20:15 Jesus kind of referred to that level of vigilance 20:17 when He told His disciples 20:19 that the moral law of God is permanent. 20:22 You might remember that He said, "For truly, I say to you, 20:25 until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, 20:30 will pass from the law until all is accomplished." 20:33 Now, the iota and the dot 20:36 were tiny little markings made by scribes 20:39 and they represented the finer details of the text. 20:42 Jesus said that those could never be changed, 20:45 and it kind of reminds us of the incredible care 20:48 that the covenant community took 20:50 when it came to preserving those sacred texts. 20:53 If you made a mistake in the small stuff, 20:56 you might inadvertently change the meaning 20:58 of an entire sentence, 20:59 and they knew that must never be allowed to happen. 21:03 Now, that doesn't mean the scribes never ever made a mistake 21:07 because, well, they did. 21:08 We know they did, but fortunately, 21:11 the Jewish community was incredibly careful. 21:14 And because we have so much manuscript evidence, 21:17 any mistakes that made it into the various manuscripts 21:20 are actually really easy to spot. 21:23 And when we discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls 21:25 back in the 1940s, we also found the entire book of Isaiah, 21:30 and much to the skeptics' surprise, 21:32 the book of Isaiah that we have today is virtually identical 21:36 to the ancient copy we found in a cave. 21:39 In other words, the text has been faithfully preserved 21:43 thanks to the diligence of scribes 21:44 who knew they were handling the word of God. 21:48 Now, that's hardly doing justice 21:50 to the birth of the Old Testament canon 21:52 because there are all kinds of fascinating stories 21:55 about the people who preserved these important books. 21:58 But what I'm trying to accomplish with this series 22:01 is just a really quick overview, 22:03 and eventually we'll talk about 22:04 the birth of the New Testament canon as well, 22:07 and we're gonna spend more time talking about that 22:09 because the New Testament actually has 22:12 a lot more detractors. 22:14 The canon of the Old Testament is pretty much settled 22:17 in the minds of most people, but in recent years, 22:20 the canon of the New Testament has been coming under fire. 22:24 You'll remember that in our last episode, 22:26 we touched on the historical fiction of Dan Brown, 22:29 who suggested that the Council of Nicaea 22:32 actually chose the four gospels that we have today. 22:35 Even secular historians know that Dan Brown made that up, 22:39 or at least he was repeating 22:41 really sketchy conspiracy theories. 22:43 But still, there are more questions 22:46 we should probably examine, 22:48 like the reappearance of the so-called Gnostic gospels 22:51 in the 20th century, books like the Gospel of Thomas. 22:56 There are people who would like you to believe 22:58 that those books were suppressed by the church 23:01 for political reasons. 23:02 And so in time, on some show, 23:04 we'll probably take a closer look at that. 23:07 But for now, I just want to underline 23:10 one really important idea. 23:12 The scriptures were born in a faith community. 23:16 They did not appear in isolation. 23:17 They didn't drop out of the sky. 23:20 They were produced by a covenant community of God's people 23:23 who were inspired by God Himself to write these documents. 23:28 So the Bible, in some ways, 23:29 is just a little bit like Jesus Himself. 23:32 The Bible calls Christ the Word, 23:34 and of course, we also call the Bible God's Word. 23:38 Jesus was fully human and fully divine 23:41 at the very same time, 23:43 and it turns out that's the case with the Bible as well. 23:46 It's an infallible document, 23:49 which means that it's never wrong, 23:51 but at the same time, it's a very human document, 23:54 which only makes sense because, well, 23:56 it was penned by human beings inspired by God to write it. 24:00 You can see their personalities, 24:02 their individual writing styles shining through the text, 24:05 but that doesn't make the Bible a purely human document. 24:09 And this is where I park company with secular historians. 24:12 The Bible was produced in a community, 24:15 but not really by that community. 24:17 And that's a really important concept because, well, 24:20 it actually explains one of the key differences 24:23 between the way that Roman Catholic 24:24 and Protestant Christians understand the origin 24:28 and the role of the scriptures. 24:30 All right, it's time for one last quick break, 24:33 but I'll be right back after this to wrap things up. 24:36 [upbeat music] 24:39 - [Narrator] Dragons, beasts, cryptic statues. 24:43 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid and confusing. 24:48 If you've ever read "Daniel - A Revelation" 24:50 and come away scratching your head, you are not alone. 24:53 Our free Focus on Prophecy guides are designed 24:56 to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 24:59 and deepen your understanding 25:00 of God's plan for you and our world. 25:03 Study online or request them by mail 25:05 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 25:09 - Fortunately, there's not much doubt 25:11 about the Old Testament books 25:12 that the Jews considered to be holy. 25:14 Their list of canonical books was settled 25:17 by the time the Christian church was born, 25:19 and what you'll find in the New Testament 25:21 is an awful lot of reverence 25:23 for those Old Testament scriptures. 25:25 Jesus quoted from them regularly 25:27 and even told us that "Scripture cannot be broken." 25:30 And when you get to the Book of Acts, 25:33 you find the disciples preaching from the Old Testament 25:36 in order to demonstrate that Jesus really was 25:39 the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. 25:41 And of course, Paul's letters do the same. 25:43 They repeatedly quote the Old Testament. 25:46 He builds his arguments on the authority 25:48 of those Hebrew scriptures. 25:51 Now, of course, our Jewish cousins wouldn't call it 25:53 the Old Testament, but just the scriptures because, well, 25:57 they don't acknowledge the New Testament. 25:59 In recent years, there's been this half-hearted attempt 26:02 to rename the Old Testament to recognize that fact. 26:05 So some people have taken to calling it 26:07 the First Testament instead, 26:09 but the habits of many centuries are really hard to change, 26:13 so that never really took root. 26:15 Today, some Christians assume 26:17 that we call it the Old Testament 26:18 because it's somehow defunct 26:20 and they treat it like an old car or an old sweater, 26:23 as if it's time to throw it away. 26:25 But it's really important to understand 26:27 how that terminology was born. 26:30 It wasn't talking about the book itself, 26:32 it was talking about the covenant. 26:35 In the first 39 books of the Bible, 26:37 we have God making a covenant with His chosen people, 26:40 and of course, as fallen human beings, 26:41 they actually failed to live up to that. 26:44 Then in the new covenant, Jesus becomes one of us 26:46 and keeps our end of the bargain for us. 26:49 It's still the same covenant, 26:51 but now God Himself has kept both sides of the agreement, 26:55 His side and ours. 26:57 As the New Testament church began to write 26:59 what they knew about Christ, 27:00 their writings quickly became very important 27:03 to the early believers. 27:04 In fact, at one point, 27:05 the Apostle Peter even calls Paul's writings scripture 27:09 when he complained that they were really hard to understand. 27:12 You'll find that in 2 Peter 3, 27:14 where Peter tells the believers 27:16 that false teachers were twisting Paul's writings 27:18 like they were twisting other scriptures. 27:21 This appears to contradict some modern scholars 27:24 who say the church came up with the idea 27:26 of a New Testament cannon hundreds of years after Christ. 27:30 But the internal evidence 27:31 that we actually find in these writings 27:33 suggests pretty strongly that the church recognized 27:36 the New Testament as it was being written. 27:40 And now I'm completely out of time. 27:43 But before I sign off, 27:45 let me encourage you to head on over to biblestudies.com, 27:47 where you'll find all the material you need 27:49 to really ground yourself in the Bible 27:51 and begin to understand it. 27:53 We've got courses that will carry you through 27:55 all the major themes of scripture, 27:57 as well as courses that focus on prophecy 27:59 like "Daniel - A Revelation," and you can't beat the price 28:02 because generous donors have made this available to you. 28:06 Thanks for joining me today. 28:08 I'm Shawn Boonstra, 28:09 and this has been another episode of "Authentic." 28:12 [upbeat music] 28:22 [upbeat music continues] |
Revised 2023-12-26