Reading the Bible
The Christian Bible, which proclaims God's love
for the world in Jesus Christ, is the witness of the church, not the
literal, infallible or inerrant word of God.
In the New Testament Jesus of Nazareth challenges
Jewish leaders and is crucified for treason by Pontius Pilate, the Roman
governor of Palestine. The first church in Jerusalem is founded by Peter
and the disciples, but led by James, the brother of Jesus. Paul
takes the gospel to Gentiles and Greek-speaking Jews in cities
throughout the Roman Empire.
In the first century the Roman Emperor demanded
worship as the Savior of the world.  Jews
and Christians, who resisted this idolatry, were persecuted. In
the mid 60s Paul and Peter were executed in Rome for treason, and James
was killed in Jerusalem for denouncing the temple authorities.
Jews in Palestine revolted in 66, but four years later Roman armies
captured Jerusalem, destroyed its temple, and crucified thousands of
Jews outside the city walls.
These apocalyptic events led Greek-speaking
Christians to proclaim among Jews that Jesus is the promised Messiah and
to tell Gentiles that Jesus is the reigning Son of God.
The church began without the Bible. The
first Christians, like Jesus and his disciples, read the Torah, the
Prophets and the Writings of the Jews as scripture. Paul's letters
were written in the 40s and 50s, and the gospels were written in the
last third of the first century. But there was considerable
controversy in the early church about what writings ought to be read as
scripture. These arguments were resolved in the fourth century
after Emperor Constantine was converted and required church leaders to
preach a unifying message throughout the Roman Empire.
Listen
to what some of the visitors have said about this challenging web site.
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"Without reading this site's
answers to my questions, I would have been lost forever. Thank
you."
Heather
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"I must say that while I do not
agree with everything you have written, I have read more of my Bible in
the last two weeks than ever before."
Kevin
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"I am so glad I started reading
your website. I have had to struggle with some of the doctrine
when it just does not make sense. I believe God gave us our minds
so we can use them."
Anna
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"Thanks so much for your
summaries. They have been a great help and a useful resource in my
study of God's word."
Erik
I am guided in my interpretation of the Christian
Bible by the Creeds and the Reformed Confessions of the church.
Moreover, I understand a scripture text in the context of the whole
Bible, as part of the church's witness to its faith in God in Jesus
Christ.
In worship, Bible study and prayer we
can inquire about God's will, as we understand it in scripture and in
the witness of the church, and we can seek the grace of God to live more
faithfully. However, our
witness to God should include a humble confession that we do not
speak for God, but for ourselves and for our church.
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Sermon
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Revised 12 November
2005
What is the Christian
Bible? Jesus and his disciples of heard the scrolls of Jewish
faith read in Hebrew and Aramaic, as did the Jewish Christians of the
first church in Jerusalem. This was their Bible. Paul and
other Greek-speaking Christians read the Septuagint, the Greek
translation of the Hebrew scriptures, as their Bible.
After the Council of Nicea in 325, which
produced the Nicene Creed, church leaders spent the rest of the fourth
century arguing over what writings should be in the Bible. At the
end of the century the Roman Empire authorized a Greek Bible with the
New Testament, as we know it, and a reordered Septuagint, as the Old
Testament.
In the sixteenth century Protestant
reformers translated the Old Testament from Hebrew scriptures authorized
by rabbis around 100 CE, which omits part of the Septuagint. This
is why Catholic Bibles have more books in the Old Testament than
Protestant Bibles.
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