The Holy Bible

1
The Holy Bible

• Its development

2
Facts surrounding the Bible

• The Bible has a long history.
• It was part of an oral tradition in both Judaism
  and Christianity.
• Many parts of the Hebrew Bible were written well
  after the events. Many of the events were
  transmitted orally through many years.
• Much of the New Testament was also written long
  after the events occurred.

3
More Facts

• It was written over a period of many years by
  various scribes, prophets, apostles, and
  disciples.
• There are well over 5,300 extant writings of the
  Greek New Testament.
• The Bible is written in Hebrew, Greek and
  Aramaic.
• None of the original writings exist today.

4
Realities

• There are dozens of translations of the Bible in
  many different languages.
• There are many ways of interpreting the Bible and
  events in the Bible.
• The interpretation of the Bible has changed over
  the years and is dependent on the culture.

5
Its Makeup

• The Christian Bible is made up of 66 books.
• 39 in the Old Testament
• 27 in the New Testament

6
The Christian Bible

• Old Testament
• The Law
• Genesis
• Exodus
• Leviticus
• Numbers
• Deuteronomy
• History
• Prophecy
• Poetry
• Wisdom

• New Testament
• Gospels
• Matthew
• Mark
• Luke
• John
• History
• Epistles
• Pauline
• General
• Prophecy

7
Theology and Critical Study of the Bible

• Scholars, in their attempt to understand the
  development of the Bible, employed various
  techniques in their work. These critical methods
  are still used today.

8
Biblical Criticism

• Textual Criticism is the attempt to determine the
  original text of the biblical books.
• Literary-source criticism is the effort to
  determine various literary sources upon which
  books of the Bible are based or from which they
  derive.

9
Biblical Criticism

• Form criticism is the endeavor to get behind the
  written of the Bible to the period of the oral
  tradition, and to isolate the oral forms that
  went into the written sources.
• Redaction criticism is a study of the activity of
  the biblical authors in shaping, modifying, or
  even creating material for the final product
  which they wrote.

10
Biblical Criticism

• Historical criticism employs all of the above
  and, in addition, draws upon the data and
  archeology and of secular historical sources. It
  tries to determine the authorship and date of the
  biblical books, and the establishment and
  interpretation of what actually occurred
  historically.

11
Biblical Criticism

• Comparative-religions criticism assumes that all
  religions follow certain common patterns of
  development. It explains the history of the
  Judeo-Christian faith in terms of these patterns.
• Structural criticism attempts to investigate the
  relationship between the surface structure of the
  writing and the deeper implicit structures that
  belong to literature as such.