...Theology of the Four Gospels The first three gospels are sometimes called the 'synoptic' or same view gospels. This is because they each cover teaching and miracles by Jesus that are also covered in another account. The fourth gospel, John, writing later, recounts Jesus' other words and miracles that have a particular spiritual meaning. All four gospels present Jesus as both the Son of God and son of man. In this paper information will be provided that describes the major theological differences between the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Information will also be provided that describes a theological perspective of the gospel of John. Finally, information in this paper will include how ones understanding of the various theological perspectives presented in the four Gospels can be used as an additional tool to facilitate the proclaiming of the Four Gospels. Theological Differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John The Gospel According to Matthew The first three books of the New Testament have been identified as the synoptic gospels. These books are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The first book of the New Testament is identified as the book of Matthew. Matthew was one of the first twelve disciples of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 9:1; 10:1-4 and therefore an eye-witness. Matthew records more of Jesus' teaching concerning God's heavenly kingdom than the other writers, Mark, Luke, or John. In the first four books of Matthew, the miracle story of Jesus’...
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...The Gospel and the Four Gospels In the beginning the New Testament is given in metaphor as described as a turtle. The New Testament should be treated just like a snapping turtle. You do not know that it’s a snapping turtle until your each out for it and it quickly snaps back at you. You have to be very careful in approaching both, we have to take into consideration that dealing with them both we have to not only look at the impression or the first impression they give off. You would think you can trust a turtle because it’s so harmless, but you don’t know until you reach out. The New Testament is innocent until you start to read and you start to see that it’s definitely different from your other readings. The first four documents will give us a more mature look about the New Testament. The content of the message is that its important when reading and studying the four Gospels. You have to recognize that each of the Gospels are written and specifically designed for a certain audience and group of people. Matthew is written for the Jewish audience. Mark is written to the Romans. Luke is written to the Greek. John is written to the Christian that is born again. Even though they all generally, but not always, include events that are the same but gives different information from a certain event. The biggest difference in the four Gospels is that God is reaching out to everyone. He created us all different but the bible was that one source that will make us all alike. He creared...
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...each sacred text, what type of literature is in each canon, authorship of the text and how it is used in practice. Structure of each canon Christians believe the Bible is their sacred text. The Bible is a library of 66 books and is made of two parts, Old Testament (39 books) and New Testament (27 books). The Old Testament...
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...the New Testament, the Historical Jesus, and How Manuscripts Can Reveal What Texts Conceal Tom Dykstra I grew up with a picture of Paul traveling through Asia and Europe, founding congregations, counseling and teaching the men and women who had given their life to Jesus. If he could not visit them, he sent letters. When Paul died, his letters were kept as treasures. Each church that had received one of his letters saved it, had it read during worship services, and exchanged copies of the letter with other congregations close by. Later the congregations tried to complete their collection. But this view does not match the uniformity of manuscript evidence. --David Trobisch 1 It is even more remarkable that attempts to reconstruct the supposed document 'Q' (the lost collection used by both Matthew and Luke postulated by those who argue that Matthew and Luke are independent) use text-critical terminology to describe their activities. However, since all they are doing is making selections from a twentieth-century printed text, which does not even presume to provide confidently the text of the four-Gospel collection, never mind that of the independent first-century texts, this use of language must be dismissed as illusory. --David Parker 2 Modern scholarship has produced detailed biographies of Paul, massive multi-volume inquiries into “the historical Jesus,” and mountains of exegetical literature that claims to extract the author’s meaning from each word of each New Testament book...
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...CHHI 301, Research Paper 1 The New Testament Canon I have asked myself many times the question of where the bible came from. Was it divine prophesies, or was it simply a mish mash of letters, writings, and books all crammed together into one volume. How and when it was decided which books and letters was would be included, and who decided that? In this paper we will discuss how the New Testament was put together and the origins of the New Testament Canon. The New Testament is a very young document that dates from around 1,900 to 2000 years old. This may seem like a long time ago, but compared to the age of the Old Testament, and other recorded ancient writing it is really pretty recent. It is commonly accepted by most rational thinking people that the Bible as we currently have it today, didn’t just appear one day, but was put together by many different writers, and by many different scholars. So this begs the real question how did the current New Testament come to being and who besides God was behind the publication of the New Testament Canon. I will try in this research paper to paint a picture of how the New Testament Canon came to be, who was involved and what the process was that was used to select the books that were ultimately used. Most scholars agree that the early writers were not aware, or even intended to have books or letters published in the New Testament, they were simply writing to a specific audience. As an example when Paul wrote...
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...Running Head: THE NEW COVENANT FOR ALL MANKIND The New Covenant: New Testament Canionization? Abstract The canonization of the New Testament evolved over 400 years following the death of Jesus, influenced by social upheaval, different cultures, and political pressures of the era. This paper examines how the 27 books of the New Testament were formulated, recognized as Holy Scriptures, and eventually declared for inclusion in the new canon. It will examine how the new scriptures were evaluated using a new four-step criterion, determining which books were divinely inspired. It will also examine a new classification system, created to help determine which writings were acceptable, disputed, or rejected from consideration. Finally, the decision of which books to include in the New Testament is addressed during four major councils held by the church during the fourth century. The New Covenant: New Testament Canonization. After the death of Jesus, the apostles, and other followers, spread the word of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The primary method of teaching was by way of oral communication, spreading the message by word of mouth. As time went by, and the Apostles started to die, the first efforts were made to capture their life with Jesus into written word. The dissemination of these works was a slow process due to the hindrance in transportation and the inability to mass produce the writings. The ability to capture and fully understand these divine works...
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...then what can the righteous do?’” In his statement he expresses the truth behind the fact that the Christian faith resides on the fact that the Bible is inerrant. Interesting enough the Bible of today with its 66 books, 39 Old Testament, and 27 New Testament are very similar to the bible of the early church. In the words of Herman Ridderbos, "the history of the Canon is the process of the growing consciousness of the Church concerning its ecumenical foundation.” People have often wonder why certain books made into the Bible, but others did not. In this paper will look how we got the Bible we have today and what movements, people, and doctrines effected. Old Testament Canon The Old Testament known to Christians in the Bible is what is known to Jews as the Tanakh. This is made of the writings of the Laws, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Jesus Christ stated in Luke 24:44 “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Initially the Jewish Canon was closed by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 BC. That was some 250 years prior to the Synod of Jamnia. The Old Testament Canon was officially finalized at the Synod of Jamnia in AD 90 by a council of Jewish rabbi’s. Much of the dispute laid with the Apocryphal and Pseudepigrapha Books (unknown authored apocalyptic letters). While this council was decided upon by...
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... the first printed Bible Page semi-protected Part of a series on The Bible The Malmesbury Bible Canons · Books [show] Authorship · Development [show] Translations · Manuscripts [show] Biblical studies[show] Interpretation[show] Perspectives[show] Wikipedia book Bible book Portal icon Bible portal v · t · e The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, "the books") is a canonical collection of texts sacred in Judaism and Christianity. There is no single "Bible" and many Bibles with varying contents exist.[1] The term Bible is shared between Judaism and Christianity, although the contents of each of their collections of canonical texts is not the same. Different religious groups include different books within their Biblical canons, in different orders, and sometimes divide or combine books, or incorporate additional material into canonical books. The Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, contains twenty-four books divided into three parts: the five books of the Torah ("teaching" or "law"), the Nevi'im ("prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("writings"). Christian Bibles range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church canon. The first part of...
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...text book, The Essence of the New Testament: A Survey (2012), and the New Testament documents. Chapter 1: How We Got the New Testament 1. How many documents does the New Testament consist (1)? 27 2. The New Testament was written approximately between AD ¬¬¬_45___ and _100___ (1). 3. What materials were the New Testament documents written upon (1)? Leather and paper scrolls 4. What are the original New Testament document called (1, 2)? autograph 5. What is a codex in reference to the early New Testament writings (2)? Modern day books 6. What is the name of the Latin codex collection (2)? Ta Bibla 7. In the study of the New Testament, to what does the term canon refer (2)? Authoritive books 8. What three languages did God choose as the media for his self-revelation (2)? Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek 9. The Old Testament was primarily written in ____Hebrew__ (2). 10. Parts of the Old Testament were written in __Aramaic____ (2). 11. The New Testament was written in __Greek____ ______(2). 12. New greek______ ______was the language of the common people during the first century AD (2). 13. Why do you think God allowed the autographs to vanish (3)? To avoid biliolatry 14. In spite of the absence of the autographs, approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts and an additional 13,000 fragments of the New Testament documents exist, providing significant manuscript evidence for New Testament scholars (3). compared to early writings 15. Motivators for canonizing the New Testament...
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...The Book Of Matthews Terrell Campbell Theology 210 Professor Lombardo April 29, 2015 The gospel according to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. The book of Matthew basically tells how the Messiah, Jesus Christ, rejected by Israel, finally sends the disciples to preach his gospel to the world. It does not so much indicate a literary genre but characterizes the contents of the book: good news about Jesus Christ. The book of Matthew may be considered a Midrash theological interpretation on the gospel of Mark. Matthew, whose name means “gift of the Lord,” was a tax collector who left his work to follow Jesus (Matthew 9:9–13). In Mark and Luke he is called by his other name, Levi. Although the author did not record his name within the text itself, the first book found in the New Testament has historically been credited to the writing of Matthew, a tax collector and one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. Some New Testament scholars doubt the authorship of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew, like all the other New Testament gospels, was originally anonymous and only attributed to Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, later in the second century. The author relied on Mark's Gospel for everything he knew about the life and mission of Jesus. There are two lines of evidence that proves the authorship of Matthew, the superscription of the ancient manuscripts and the patristic witness. According to...
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...Name Date In the New Testament, the Last Supper refers to the last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples on the night of his betrayal. This last meal mentioned in different terms in different texts. These terms include the Lord's Supper, Eucharist, communion and mass. The last supper serves as an encouragement and a unifying factor to Christians. It binds them in fellowship of love, trust and mutual acceptance. Sharing of the last supper is one of the orders that Jesus gave to his church. It is ideally Christian’s remembrance of Jesus, acknowledgement of his presence, confident hope in his second coming, fellowship with him and his people, self-examination, thanksgiving and gratitude. 1This paper explores the last supper event as presented by the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and 1st Corinthians. Historical Background of the Last Supper The last supper concept dates back to the early times in the Old Testament where Jews used to celebrate the Passover. The Passover ritual entailed an opening course where the paterfamilias spoke a blessing over the first cup of wine. The preliminary dish comprised green herbs, bitter herbs and a sauce made of fruit puree placed over a table also containing a bowl of salt and water to remind the partakers of the tears...
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...Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus A Critical Book Review Lee Strobel, New York Times bestselling author of twenty books, including four which received ECPA awards, is an atheist turned Christian after a two year investigation of Jesus. He became a Christian in 1981. Strobel worked at the Chicago Tribune for 14 years as an award winning legal editor. He has a Bachelor of Journalism which he received in 1974 from the University of Missouri. He also earned a Master of Studies in Law Degree in 1979 from Yale. Washington Post has referred to him as the evangelical communities most popular apologists. The Case for Christ captures your attention and holds it from page one. It has a very interesting and easy writing style in which Strobel writes in first person. He uses his investigative reporter background to shape the way this book is set up. He proves that Jesus really is the son of God, using a sequence of interviews with 13 well respected Evangelical apologists. The book begins by Strobel using five lines of evidence: eyewitness, documentary, corroborating, scientific and rebuttal. Craig Bloomberg, PhD; whose doctorate is in New Testament, is the first to be interviewed. Bloomberg alleges that Papias and Irenaeus confirmed that the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John making them eyewitness testimony. He goes on to dismiss the Gospel Q hypothesis saying it is “nothing more than a hypothesis.” (p. 26) He explains that...
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...The Canonization of the New Testament When we think about the New Testament in our Bibles today most of us pay little attention to, or have little regard for the history that surrounds how it came to be. This is partly because of the high position we as Evangelicals have for our Bibles. We are taught that the Bible is infallible and never contradicts itself. I agree whole heartedly that the Bible is God's Holy Word and infallible non contradictory. But two weeks ago if you were to ask me how the Bible was put together or "canonized", I would have told you that there was some sort of council that decided which books should be in there, but ultimately it was God's sovereign will. Now the last part would be correct, but the rest is at best debatable. So how was the Bible put together? Since the argument is extremely complex and much of the details are lost or were never recorded, we will be exploring the different events that drove the movement, along with several different opinions of when the Bible was Complete or Canonized. There were two particular movements during the second century that made the Church realize a need to have a compilation of books that were universally accepted. The first movement, although not as well know, was Marcionism. This heretical sect was started by Marcion who was born into Christianity but had a deep dislike for Judaism and the material world. He believed that the God and Father of Jesus are not the same as the creator Yahweh, and it was...
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...BIBLE BOOK SUMMARIES INSTRUCTIONS For these assignments, you will write a 150–170 word summary for 5 books from the Old Testament and 5 books from the New Testament. You may select which five books to summarize, but must include at least one book per genre in the following fashion: 1. Old Testament: Must include at least one narrative, law, prophecy, and wisdom book. 2. New Testament: Must include at least one gospel, narrative, epistle, and apocalyptic book. Since a sample of Genesis has been provided in the Summary Template do not include this book in the OT Project. Summaries that are not 150–170 words in length will be penalized. Also, short summaries may have additional points reduced for lack of complete information. In each of the summaries, identify the following four characteristics: 1. The Basic Genre (Please identify the genre in the first sentence of your summary.) 2. Key Themes/Purposes identified 3. Major Events and personalities for narrative, law, gospel, and narrative 4. Major issues/concerns addressed in prophecy, wisdom books, epistles, and apocalyptic Use your textbooks as you identify each of the four characteristics in the summaries. Remember, the Fee textbook explains how to identify and interpret genre. Additionally, a study Bible will be a great tool to help you craft your summaries. However, you will want to paraphrase the data into your own words to avoid plagiarism and course failure. You will submit your summaries...
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...Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary BOOK REVIEW How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth A Paper Submitted to Dr. Myron Kauk In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Course Hermeneutics NBST 610 – B10 LUO By Joseph G Misiaszek L23730440 15 September 2013 Fee, Gordon D., and Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2003. The Bible was written for everyone to read is the belief of Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart as they wrote this book to help ease the average person into reading the Bible for understanding, thus making the Bible more accessible and more applicable to the everyday layperson. Fee and Stuart break down their book into logical divisions as they start with the need to interpret and selecting a good translation. They take the time to walk the reader through the different translations, not only showing the differences in them but also walking the reader through choosing a translation that is best. They do this by answering the seven questions of language: original language, receptor language, historical distance, formal equivalence, functional equivalence, free translation, and theory of translation. From choosing translations the authors logically break down the Bible into genres and discuss how to exegesis each type of genre accordingly. Another strong aspect of this book is the fact that the authors have used numerous amounts of Scriptural references in their text, thus...
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