A clear, human telling of a story too many have mistaken for a fax from heaven.
What strikes me most: even when the early editors wove multiple voices into the text, modern inheritors still demand a single, perfect one. Control replaces wonder.
The Gnostics whispered this long ago: the treasure was never the scroll—it was the capacity to read with a living mind.
Thank you for taking the time to write this brief history lesson. I loved it! I had a pastor who loved the King James Bible version and had trouble with my Celebrate Recovery version which helped bring it alive for me. He loved the poetry and I loved the life application.
Thank you for a easy to understand brief history. I always understood that God worked through fallible humans to bring His God-breathed words to us but I think what's shifting for me is how to engage with the Bible not as a rule book or perfect history but as a dialogue and way of understanding the story of us and God. You said it better though.
Thank you Joe for a really good summary of what the Bible is and isn't. It is really helpful to have it written, succinctly, in one place. I was a teacher once and I used to tell stories to children (4 to 11 year olds) often using myself as a character within the stories. Afterwards children used to say 'Is that true?' meaning is that real (particularly charming in the one where I turned, temporarily, into a dragon). I would answer them with a coin and ask them if they thought the pound or 20p was real and explain that the coin is a piece of metal with an idea attached, it is real because we believe it to be real. I think the Bible is similar, it is true to the extent that we believe it to be true (as you say it doesnt have to be and largely isn't) but indisputably it is a magnificent historical document.
The Bible almost has a divine status in the minds of many evangelicals, with their version of Trinity being Father, Son, and Holy Bible. Because of an absence of deep spiritual life and engagement with the Holy Spirit. We have become theologically possessed, not critiquing the Bible from a historical or cultural context, but blind acceptance of divine utterance, based on II Tim 3:16 'All scripture is inspired of God....'
You rightly began by discussing what various groups regard as scripture - Protestant vs Catholic vs Orthodox vs Syriac Bibles. Hebrew OT vs Septuagint vs Masoretic texts. Codex Vaticanus vs Sinaiiticus, vs Peshitta New Testaments.... The list could go on. The books are a mixture of baby and bathwater IMO, but my opinion is of course subjective.
God can speak to us through all of these texts as He could also speak to us from reading something in the NY Times or Washington Post. But of course when if comes to the Gospel accounts, the life of Jesus and the apostolic Epistles, these are gold in the sense that they are first century writings and eye witness accounts of the one we call Lord, and the developing fledgling, organic yet powerful Spirit led Ekklesia, and issues these apostolic authors were addressing and trying to get through to the believers of The Way.
An excellent history and appraisal of the scriptures. Thank-you
Fascinating. The fidelity of the texts we have today to what we know about the original texts really is truly remarkable, highly unusual in literary scholarship. There are modern writers whose works we have copious copies of with far fewer "definitive" versions than most any version of the Bible you could name. Perhaps this is God inspired. Perhaps it is evidence of the importance of these texts to generations of believers. Regardless, it's an amazing accomplishment.
A clear, human telling of a story too many have mistaken for a fax from heaven.
What strikes me most: even when the early editors wove multiple voices into the text, modern inheritors still demand a single, perfect one. Control replaces wonder.
The Gnostics whispered this long ago: the treasure was never the scroll—it was the capacity to read with a living mind.
Thank you for reminding the room.
— Virgin Monk Boy
Thank you for taking the time to write this brief history lesson. I loved it! I had a pastor who loved the King James Bible version and had trouble with my Celebrate Recovery version which helped bring it alive for me. He loved the poetry and I loved the life application.
Thank you for a easy to understand brief history. I always understood that God worked through fallible humans to bring His God-breathed words to us but I think what's shifting for me is how to engage with the Bible not as a rule book or perfect history but as a dialogue and way of understanding the story of us and God. You said it better though.
Thank you Joe for a really good summary of what the Bible is and isn't. It is really helpful to have it written, succinctly, in one place. I was a teacher once and I used to tell stories to children (4 to 11 year olds) often using myself as a character within the stories. Afterwards children used to say 'Is that true?' meaning is that real (particularly charming in the one where I turned, temporarily, into a dragon). I would answer them with a coin and ask them if they thought the pound or 20p was real and explain that the coin is a piece of metal with an idea attached, it is real because we believe it to be real. I think the Bible is similar, it is true to the extent that we believe it to be true (as you say it doesnt have to be and largely isn't) but indisputably it is a magnificent historical document.
The Bible almost has a divine status in the minds of many evangelicals, with their version of Trinity being Father, Son, and Holy Bible. Because of an absence of deep spiritual life and engagement with the Holy Spirit. We have become theologically possessed, not critiquing the Bible from a historical or cultural context, but blind acceptance of divine utterance, based on II Tim 3:16 'All scripture is inspired of God....'
You rightly began by discussing what various groups regard as scripture - Protestant vs Catholic vs Orthodox vs Syriac Bibles. Hebrew OT vs Septuagint vs Masoretic texts. Codex Vaticanus vs Sinaiiticus, vs Peshitta New Testaments.... The list could go on. The books are a mixture of baby and bathwater IMO, but my opinion is of course subjective.
God can speak to us through all of these texts as He could also speak to us from reading something in the NY Times or Washington Post. But of course when if comes to the Gospel accounts, the life of Jesus and the apostolic Epistles, these are gold in the sense that they are first century writings and eye witness accounts of the one we call Lord, and the developing fledgling, organic yet powerful Spirit led Ekklesia, and issues these apostolic authors were addressing and trying to get through to the believers of The Way.
An excellent history and appraisal of the scriptures. Thank-you
Fascinating. The fidelity of the texts we have today to what we know about the original texts really is truly remarkable, highly unusual in literary scholarship. There are modern writers whose works we have copious copies of with far fewer "definitive" versions than most any version of the Bible you could name. Perhaps this is God inspired. Perhaps it is evidence of the importance of these texts to generations of believers. Regardless, it's an amazing accomplishment.
History is good. I like history and have invested a lot of time studying all kinds of history -- including the bible. See this link for my take on it: https://www.thewaywesee.com/religiondetoxnetwork/mystery/gods-written-word-and-gods-spoken-voice/bible-history