Hello steemains, is another wonderful day.
Today we will look at the Bible
The Bible is derived from a Latin 'biblia', the Greek equivalent is 'biblios' meaning the book. Biblios is derived from 'byblospapyrus' the name of the scroll or materials used by ancient writers.
The Greek called the scrolls 'byblos' because it was obtained from 'Byblos', a part city of Phoenicia.
Characteristics of the Bible
The Bible consists of two sections Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT). It is made up of 66 books. The Bible was originally written in three languages - Hebrews, Aramaic and Greek.
The OT consist of 39 books and the NT has 27 books. A greater portion of OT was written in Hebrew and the Aramaic portions are found in Ezra 4:8-6:18, Daniel 2:4b-7:28
The ancient Hebrew Bible has three divisions-# The Torah(the law), the Nation (the prophets) and the Kuthubim (the writings)
The Old Testament Division :
The five books of Moses
The Early Prophets
The wisdom Books
The Latter Prophets
The New Testament Divisions
The four Gospels
The Historical Books of Acts
The Pauline Epistles
The general Epistles
The Book of Revelation
The NT was written in 'Koine' Greek. Archbishop Stephen Langton in the 13th century divided the Bible into chapters and others believe that Hugo Santo Caro, a Spanish. Divisions into verses was done in 1551 by Robert Strphenus
The unity of the Bible
Unity is one of the clearly recognized characteristics of the Bible
- Unity of purpose the story of the plan of salvation.
- Unity in its theme - Jesus Christ, His cross and his crown
Harmony of teaching - same doctrine in OT and NT
- Unity of development a steady progression from the creation to fall and on to the redemption and the final restoration
- Unity of the co- ordination of the prophesies
Production of the Bible
The Holy Scriptures are the authoritative, infallible revelation of God's character and will. Both the authority and the infallibility of this divine revelation come from the fact that the Bible is the word of God- the written expression of God's thought concerning mankind.
The Bible was written within the period of about 1600 years by about 40 authors of different Nationality, location and Background.
Sources
Revelation communicated through the Scriptures is of little value to us unless we have the assurance that the written record is an accurate statement of what God desiresd to reveal to mankind.
Both the revelation to the Prophets and their writings were safeguarded so that we may have full confidence in the Scriptures as the word of God.
Revelation
Revelation refers to the process through which the contents of scripture emerged in the minds of the Prophets and Apostles.
Inspiration
Inspiration on the other hand is the process through which the contents in the mind of the Prophets and Apostles were communicated in oral or written form for us to know God and serve Him, He has to reveal Himself to us.
The produtioof the original manuscripts of the OT and NT was under divine supervision. Paul speaks of scriptures as God's breathed (2 Timothy 3:16)
Peter adds that... "but the Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit " (2 Peter 1:21)
The process of being moved by the Holy Spirit is called inspiration
The Holy Spirit was the member of the Godhead that actively worked with the prophets, this control resulted in the Scriptures becoming for mankind an unerring and sufficient guide to salvation. Through inspiration, the Holy Spirit exercised control over the production of the original manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments.
Scriptural claims to divine inspiration
The scriptures claim to be divinely inspired. Many of the writers affirm repeatedly that God was speaking through them.
To the Christians the weightest testimony is that given by Jesus Christ concerning the Old Testaments inspiration.
Testimony of the Old Testament
Testimony of Jesus Christ
Testimony of the New Testament writers
Testimony of the Old Testament
The Old Testament writers frequently use expressions "the word of the Lord came to me", "thus saith the Lord", "the Lord said" and other similar expression more than 3800 times. Perfection is claimed for the law and the testimonies of God as given through the prophets. Some books also recognize the authority by allusion or direct quotation.
**Revelation - visions, dreams and direct instructions
Testimony of Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ frequently quoted from the Old Testament. He also proclaimed His acceptance of the Old Testament books
Matthew 4:14
Luke22:37
Testimony of the New Testament writers
The New Testament writers affirmed that the Old Testament books were inspired.
They frequently quoted from the Old Testament books
Divine inspiration written by inspired human beings
The Bible is a blending of the human and divine. Human beings received the revelation, and they wrote the Bible. The Spirit of God moved human beings to write : thus, record divine revelation in human language. The Bible writers describe the Spirits influence in giving them the revelation and in prompting their messages as they spoke or wrote.
2 Chronicles 15:1,2
Ezekiel 2:2
After giving the divine revelation to the Prophets, the Holy Spirit prompted and guarded it's delivery in either oral or written form.
Preservation
Moses instructed them to preserve the records. Until after the Babylonian captivity, the various writings were not put together by Ezra and Nehemiah. In AD 90, the Jess unanimously accepted the Old Testament as a"canon" in Jamnia. The gathering of the New Testament was different from the Old Testament - it took less time to preserve the records.
The BIble is God's inspired word. Though written by human being, it was the Holy Spirit who inspired them with thoughts, ideas and object information. It was the Holy Spirit who guided them in the preservation or communication of the message
