If someone just handed you a book you’d never seen before without a word concerning what it was, would it strike you as something worth building a faith on? Can we allow the content of the text to speak for itself without projecting our preconceived notions onto it? Do you think spiritual truth would be self-evident?

All these books are scripture (sacred text) for different people, different religions.

• Why do we believe that one in particular is the word of God while viewing the others as works of man?

• Why do we find one text more worthy than another, more authoritative than another?

• What determines which book we embrace as sacred? How do we know which is the word of God? [pause] Because of what other human beings have taught us or because we have examined them honestly and objectively for ourselves and made our own judgment?
  

• If you’d been raised in some other religion or culture, taught that some text other than the Bible was "sacred scripture," do you think your feelings about what is and is not "scripture" would be different?

• Which comes first: faith or the canon in which we place our faith, on which we base our faith? Faith influences what is written as well as what is selected for canonization (yes, the books of the Bible were not always official scripture. At some point in the history of our religions, those in position of authority made a decision as to what to include in the Bible and what to leave out). Once chosen, it would seem that the canon comes first and faith is based on canon ("Jesus loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so"). But why believe the Bible? It is Church tradition and teaching which informs us of what is canon (accepted scripture) and what the canon tells us as to doctrine.

• If scripture is the "Word of God" it is the word of men who tell us this. Better to judge the Bible (or any book) by its content, for yourself, rather than taking someone else’s word for it. If you say "the Bible says it is the word of God," beware: ask yourself: who wrote those words you are reading? God or men?

Two basic kinds of scripture: understood to be…

• Revealed by God to man (western)

• Truth discovered by man (eastern)

• Teachings: Ultimate and absolute truths (timeless) (Shruti - heard)

• Narrative: Religious/cultural history (temporal) (Smirti - remembered)

• The "insider’s" story: that told by the faith tradition (e.g., "revealed by God to Prophets")

• The "outsider’s" story: That told by objective scholars and historians (e.g., "written by men, reflective of human beliefs and culture")

• Hebrew Bible contains: Narrative, praise of God and God’s words

• New Testament contains: Narrative, doctrine (epistles), Christ’s words

• Jewish: does not contain New Testament, is translated into English directly from the original Hebrew by Rabbis and Jewish scholars

• Christian: translated into English from Greek or Latin (which was translated from Greek)
  

The Bible is as much (if not more so) the words of men as it is the word of God, expressing what people believe, how they feel about God and how they respond to God:

• cf.: 1 Corinthians 7:25: "…I have no command of the Lord,…" (i.e., God did not say anything about this issue) "but I give an opinion" (a human being [the writer Paul] gives a human opinion).

• In the Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament"), when God spoke it is was through prophets who made it clear that it was God’s words they spoke: "And the Lord God said…," "Then the Lord said to Moses…" (Deut. 31:14), "Then the Lord said to me…" (Ish. 8.1), with Gods’ words following in quotes (depending on edition)

• Much of God’s direct words are mingled with narrative about what happened amongst the people - a history told by men through the eyes of the faith of men (i.e., "sacred history")

• Books like Psalms and Proverbs are liturgical texts (used in worship). They express human emotion and devotion toward God (i.e., "affective language", often indirect and metaphorical) rather than God’s instruction to men. Many Psalms (hymns) begin and end "Praise the Lord!" People say this as an expression of gratefulness to God.

Example: Psalm 146: "I will praise the Lord…" "I will sing praises to my God." Clearly, God is not the speaker here - a man is speaking to or in response to God.

• The creation story is a narrative about what happened and talks of God in the third person ("In the beginning God…" did such and such) with the exception of when the narrative tells us what God said (e.g.: "God said ‘Let there be light’ and there was light" - only "Let there be light" is the word of God. The rest of the sentence is narrative told by people).

History of the Bible: Canonization

• The Bible is actually a collection of books (biblia = little books, library)

• The Bible as we know it today took shape over many centuries and is as much the work of man as of God.

• For centuries scripture was transmitted orally, composed/revealed long before it was written down. The first Gospel (Mark) was not written until at about 40 years after Jesus died. Is oral transmission accurate? (c.f., game of "telephone")

• Each book was hand written as a separate scroll (continuous sheet of parchment [animal skin] rather than pages in a book).

• Many books were written which we do not find in our Bibles (e.g., some books in the Dead Sea Scrolls, some books in the Catholic Bible [Apocrypha]).

• By 1st cent. CE Hebrew authorities determined which texts were authoritative. Hebrew Bible found it’s final version by 1^st cent. CE

• The New Testament did not arrive in its final form until the 4^th century CE. Again, many books did not make the cut (e.g., Nag Hammadi) because they were considered "heresy" (i.e., contained different beliefs from what those in power believed: orthodox view).

How the Bible Got to be the way it is: Language

• The words might be the word of God but as a book, it is the product of man. God does not pick up a pen and write on paper. We might even question just how God "speaks" since God is not physical and therefore does not have lungs, tongue, mouth, vocal chords needed for speech as we know it.

• Did God reveal His word in English? [pause] No, the original language of the OT was Hebrew. Of the NT: Greek, later translated into Latin long before it was then translated into English (in any number of versions). Each translation is an interpretation ("it loses something in the translation"). So be wary of the books you place your faith in: are you really reading the word of God or the translation and interpretation of men?.

• Jesus did not speak Greek, but in the ancient, dead language of Arameic (Mk. 5:40-41: "Talitha Kum…"). The writers of the Gospels translated Jesus’ words into Greek so their Greek speaking readers would understand. The words of the Apostles/evangelists (letters of Paul, etc.) were in Greek.

• By the 1^st cent. BCE even the Hebrew Bible had been translated into Greek: The Septuagint. This was the version of the Bible used and understood in Jesus’ day. Translation often leads to misrepresentation: Ish. 7:14 (the Hebrew word "alma" meaning "young woman" translated into the Greek word meaning both "young woman" and "virgin" and was ultimately translated into the English word "virgin". This choice of the translator naturally played into the Christian belief regarding the virgin conception of Jesus but ignored the meaning of the original Hebrew.)

• Countless versions of the Bible exist, keeping the language up-to-date and meaningful to us. But each translation or each new version based on an older translation may lose (or gain) something, may add or change a nuance of meaning not intended in the original (so beware). The Bible you use may have some words in brackets or italic which indicates they are not in the original manuscripts (MK 15:2 NAS vs. KJ, MK 16:9-19+).