THE BIBLE
WHERE DID IT COME FROM?
"Thy
word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path"
Ps 119:105
The question we are examining is a broad
one which can be approached from several different viewpoints as
follows:
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A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Ultimately,
Christians believe that the Bible is The
Word of God.
By this we mean that the Bible is the product of God's working with his
people in such a manner that his instruction to mankind is in a written
form that contains truth and is presented in a manner that is
trustworthy.
Christians speak of the Bible being handed down to man by the inspiration
of God through his Holy Spirit.
By inspiration Christians believe that God has through his Holy Spirit empowered
men to record His will and message in a manner that conveys His will
accurately.
Inspiration does not mean that God has dictated the words
recorded, but that he has empowered the writer to communicate God's will
accurately in the writers own chosen language.
Thus we have the Apostle Paul writing to the Romans in his own chosen
language, Greek, but in that writing being empowered by the Holy Spirit
to express the truth of God's will and message accurately.
The same principle applies to the books of both Testaments, the Old and
the New. The chosen language of the Old Testament having
been Hebrew (with some sections coming to us in Aramaic, a
language derived from Hebrew).
The chosen language of the New Testament having been Greek.
These languages are not some form of Holy Spirit language, but the
common language of the people receiving the writings.
Jewish and Christian scholars believe that God has worked through his
faithful people to evaluate, treasure, and collect the Sacred Writings
that manifest God's will and purpose into Sacred Collections (the Jewish
Collection and the Christian Collection).
The process of this evaluation and collection we call the canonization
of the Scripture.
Canon is a technical term that refers to those books that have
stood the test of religious accuracy and wide spread use, that manifest
God's will and purpose, and that have become the standard of faith for
the Jewish and Christian communities.
The net result of this process we refer to as the Bible, a collection of
Sacred Writings from both the Jewish and Christian communities of faith.
Christians thus refer to the Bible as the inspired Word of God in that
in the Bible they believe they can learn God's will and instruction for
faith and life.
Theologically, Christians believe the Bible to be the joint product of
God working through His Holy Spirit in the lives of men who recorded
God's will carefully and accurately in the language of their day.
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