NT281: The New Testament
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- How To Apply For New Testament Cornerstone Certificate: If you have worked your way through all of the video segments for each Summer Session course, it is time to write your reflection paper and to apply for your New Testament Cornerstone Certificate! Please write a one page (750 word max) reflection paper about each Summer Session course. The paper may be the genre of your choosing (e.g., opinion, response, summary, critique, application, review, etc.). After you have completed the one paper for each Summer Session course, apply for your New Testament Cornerstone Certificate by emailing programsofstudy@faithlife.com. The email should include: -Your Full name -Your Mailing address -Attach all 3 essays (750 word max) in a PDF or Word Document We will review the essays and mail New Testament Cornerstone Certificates of Completion within 7-10 business days.
- Thank you all so much for working through this course together. I’ve appreciated the comments and community notes very much. It is great to have our notes remain as added lasting content for this course that we can switch on and off. Feel free to add more to the community note discussions as you review this material in the future. One of the great parts of the Faithlife Group community component to Mobile Ed courses is that you don’t have to lose the community after the cohort experience ends. Please don’t forget to write a one page (no more than 750 word) reflection paper for the course. Email it to programsofstudy@faithlife.com. The paper may be writtenin the genre of your choosing (e.g., opinion, response, summary, critique, application, review, etc.) This is the last requirement for this portion of the New Testament Cornerstone certificate program. I want to see how many people can earn this certificate this summer. The next course, NT211: The Gospels and Acts, is already on its second day. I’ll look forward to seeing the discussion in that course this week. Please join in if you haven’t done so already. https://faithlife.com/mobile-ed-summer-session-nt211 Thanks again for the discussions and the shared encouragements to continue learning about the New Testament.NT211: The Gospels and ActsMobile Ed Summer Session: NT211faithlife.com
- Quick note from Dr. Brueggemann: I noticed that quite a few people joined NT281 sometime after the start of the moderated summer sessions. If you did that, or if you fell off the schedule and continue at your own pace, I would encourage you to post to the discussions page for this course. I'll continue to moderate and interact with those postings, and maybe some of your fellow scholars will continue contributing and following the discussions.
- In considering the content of this course, it has struck me that besides the practical application of increasing my own familiarity with the Biblical text and the critical process, the primary use I will find for the content is the practical application of apologetics, which Dr. Heiser addresses in particular ways. The process by which the New Testament has been transmitted to us is not a simple one, though not overly complicated, either (as some would make it out to be). In an age when skepticism towards Christianity seems almost state-sanctioned, speculation about the complexity of New Testament transmission flourishes on ignorance of the actual process involved. Dr. Heiser presents the course material in such a way that all Christians should be able to cut-their-teeth on it in helpful ways: to come to a deeper and more mature view on inspiration; to develop a respect for the history of transmission; to see through speculations regarding the unreliability of the text of the New Testament that are periodically leveled in the public square; to begin to speak knowledgeably about the process of textual criticism. Dr. Heiser begins the course by clarifying his terms. I found this refreshing, as so much discourse these days seems to be undertaken without doing so: people speak at cross-purposes, without really hearing or understanding one another, simply because they assume common understanding of certain terms and neglect the task of clarification. In this he examines the name given to this collection of books: why we call them, collectively, the New Testament and what we mean by doing so. With these foundational matters addressed, he proceeds to look at Biblical inspiration, and what we mean when we call Scripture the Word of God. Inspiration should be seen as the process whereby God uses particular people at particular times, armed with particular ways of expressing themselves, so that what He intends to convey is conveyed. In part, God’s inspiration is not recognizable until the community of faith spends time with the text and hears Him speaking to them through it. What such a view of inspiration effects is a respectable faith that is not so easily dismissed by wider society as are some views that people hold to. A large section of the course focuses on the transmission of the texts of the New Testament. This history is valuable, though I will skip summarizing it here as space is limited and I hope to look to the course’s instruction on Textual Criticism. By the time we arrive at the protestant translations of the Greek texts, there are really two primary groups of texts/traditions that we are concerned with: the Alexandrian and the Byzantine. The discipline of Textual Criticism, which Dr. Heiser describes in quite helpful ways, is the process whereby the ancient manuscript evidence is collated, examined, and a translation made – not just from one particular manuscript, but from the end result of this examination. This is a rigorous and meticulous process which is largely unappreciated by society, as evidenced in the arguments that are popularly levelled against Scripture. Arguments against the reliability of the New Testament based on the time frame, or on textual variants, or on human error in transmission, or on intentional textual corruption due to scribal faith-bias – none of these arguments holds any water when the process of textual criticism is understood. This, then, becomes a valuable discipline for apologetics. It turns out that Christians aren’t unreasonable and unreasoning (ie. un-critical), when it comes to Scripture. In many ways I found this course to be refreshing for me – both because it reminded me of things I had learned before and because the manner in which these things were taught was respectful of the faith. I would recommend this course to others.
- I recommend a 3 part series from Day of Discovery titled: The Bible - Why Does it Endure? with Drs Daniel Wallace and Peter Williams. We showed it to our adult Bible class along with some Bible study on the subject. The series is available on DVD to purchase or it can be viewed on their web site: http://dod.org/programs/the-bible-why-does-it-endure-part-i/ Part 2 and part 3 are also available to view online.
- Thanks, Jim! I'll check it out.
- Consider that Peter likely advised the writting of MarkIf we consider that Peter likely advised the writing of Mark, then this concept is even more important. Peter wouldn't have made up this rebuke. It would only be included if it was real.NT211 Introducing the Gospels and Acts: Their Background, Nature, and Purposethat Christ would be raised, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the world beginning from Jerusalem. It says, “You are witnesses of these things.” “Witnesses” is a
- In Segment 54 where Dr. Heiser discusses the Johannine Comma, he say that 1st John 5:8 wasn't in Erasmus' first edition and that it is considered by most to be "inauthentic". When doing some additional study concerning the Johannine Comma, I noted that the Lexham Bible Dictionary says the following: "The comma, or short literary clause, claims that the three persons of the Trinity remain one God. The later addition to the text of 1st John 5:7-8 is italicized (I've used Caps) in the following quote: "For there are three that testify IN HEAVEN- THE FATHER, THE WORD, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT- AND THESE THREE ARE ONE. AND THERE ARE THREE THAT TESTIFY ON EARTH- the Spirit, and the water, and the blood- and these three are in agreement." It appears that the part of verse 8 not capitalized is indeed in the text of the NT. Am I accurate in my assessment or have I missed something?
- Course reflection: It can be expected that many who take this course will be familiar with the material in several of the segments: this course was very helpful in its comprehensive approach and identifying and filling in many gaps, also in clarifying the significance of some less well understood facts and concepts. Given the major focus of the course was on the origin and transmission of the Greek New Testament, it gave rise to several questions which will warrant further study and for which answers may not always be readily available. 1. Given the chronological scope of the NT is between 50 and 100 AD, and that the Apostles were sent out to the ends of the earth to spread the Gospel (orally) before this period of documentation, what ancient non-Greek manuscripts might exist in churches established by those Apostles who ventured outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, based on local attempts to document what they had been taught? (Discounting Gnostic material and what is known as the Gospel of Thomas). An example might be whatever the church in Kerala (India) might have from before the colonial period. 2. Given that there appears to be some legitimacy in the concept that Galilean Aramaic (akin to Syriac) would have been more likely than Greek as the language of early local oral transmission of the Gospel stories, is it possible that the original Greek NT autographs were written by amanuenses who not only did the writing but also the translation into Greek based on dictation in Aramaic? This might help explain some of instances cited in the reference below to suggest that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke had Aramaic originals. (ref: Old Syriac Gospels, Studies and Comparative Translations. Wilson E. Jan (2003), Gorgias Press, LLS:SYRGSPSTDY) 3. Several segments of the course highlight areas where the consensus on available ancient Greek NT manuscripts differs from the Latin (presumably Jerome’s) Vulgate. Given the timeframe (and location in Bethlehem) in which Jerome translated the NT into Latin, it would seem likely that Byzantine majority text manuscripts were not the only source Jerome used. Is there information available to us regarding which if any currently identified Greek NT manuscripts were used by Jerome to produce his original Latin version of the NT? For example, was Vaticanus already in Rome by this time or was this available to Jerome in Bethlehem and subsequently sent to Rome? Or are there sufficient obvious differences between Vaticanus and Jerome’s Latin to suggest the Jerome had access to other manuscripts now lost to us (subsequently destroyed or placed where they have not yet been re-discovered), but did not have access to Vaticanus? (Ref: Saint Jerome. Cutts, Edward L. SPCK, LLS:LTNFTHRSCUTTS02 ) Two suggested improvements to the course came to mind: a. The word “discovery” related to Tischendorf and Sinaiticus seems a little inappropriate. According to codexsinaiticus.org, on their page on the History of Codex Sinaiticus, there is a written record re the existence of the Codex as early as 1761 following a visit by Vitaliano Donati. In the next paragraph it is stated that some time between 24 May and 1 June 1844, the monks at Saint Catherine’s brought the Codex to Tischendorf’s attention. “Discovery” would seem appropriate when someone stumbles across or unearths an artifact that was previously unknown to other living persons. In this case it would seem that the existence of Codex Sinaiticus was well known to the monks in the St. Catherine’s Monastery and it would seem logical that the Greek Orthodox hierarchy in this region were also aware of its existence. It was the western church that was made aware of the nature and importance of the Codex by Tischendorf. b. The various Quizzes and Final Exam would benefit from having the text of the Bible passages, rather than just the reference available when questioning the nature of the variants they contain. (eg: It would be helpful if “Philemon 2” could bring up the actual text on mouse-over)Codex Sinaiticus - HomeCodex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. The Codex Sinaiticus Project is an international collaboration to reunite the entire…codexsinaiticus.org
- Congratulations on your completion of Summer Session: NT281 How We Got The New Testament! We hope you have enjoyed these ten days of video lectures and we encourage you to continue your studies by completing the Logos Mobile Ed New Testament Cornerstone Certificate!Logos Mobile Ed Summer SessionStudy under Drs. Darrell Bock, and Craig Evans and earn a New Testament certificate during the m.Ed Summer Session program.www.logos.com
- I just found a Lutheran discussion of canon that raises an interesting question for this class. The source is http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/thinking-about-the-canon-a-lutheran-view The Lutheran approach to Scripture begins with faith in Jesus and confession of belonging to the apostolic church. This implies two basic premises: 1. It is the apostolic witness to Jesus that tells us who he is as opposed to secret oral traditions of gnostic communities (thus we accept the four canonical Gospels, and not spurious gnostic texts). 2. “Scripture” is whatever Jesus pointed to as authoritative (which according to the Gospel records is apostolic teaching and the Old Testament). Now the fact is you have to begin somewhere. So this is where Lutheranism begins, and if you look at the records we have, this is where many in the early Church began as well. The problem is that these two rules don’t immediately define a list of books, but push us to revisit which books are in fact part of this confession. After all, what did Jesus mean by “Scripture?” Which NT books are actually apostolic? Thus the canon is for us primarily a historical question rather than a doctrinal question. But when you look at the early history of the Church, while some NT books are universally attested as apostolic testimony to the Gospel, some, such as Revelation, James, and Philemon, were heavily disputed. There is little evidence that Palestinian Jews in Jesus’ day would have understood the Old Testament Apocrypha to be included when Jesus referred to “Scripture,” and acceptance of these books as divinely inspired by later Christians was hardly universal, even in the century before the Reformation. An authoritative, absolutely reliable, Scripture requires an authoritative, absolutely reliable table of contents, but there is no easy way around the historical question. Rome answers by asserting that the Holy Spirit guided the Council of Trent to vote correctly on the truth, and Protestants tend to look for earlier, divinely guided events leading to canonization. The Lutheran approach to this problem is surprising in that we don’t seek to establish such a table of contents. We hold that the lack of definitive historical evidence cannot simply be eliminated by properly consecrated people getting together and taking a Spirit-guided vote, and so there ultimately isn’t anything we can do about it. In other words, no amount of voting, liturgical development, or theological reflection can answer for us whether Hebrews was written by an apostle or at least a close associate. The evidence just isn’t there. So what’s our answer? Well, go back to that word, “canon.” “Canon” means “rule.” So the point of a canon isn’t to just have some final Table of Contents on which to draw up a dogma and so that we can excommunicate everyone who refuses to stop asking the historical questions, it’s to have a rule of faith for settling doctrinal disputes and the like. Thus the Lutheran approach to the canon is to have a rule of interpretation essentially defined by the certainty to which we can establish a book’s origin: 1. A dogma must be established by the universally attested books (homolegomena). 2. Dogma may be corroborated by the contested books (antilegomena), and they may be read for historical background, advice, and other edifying purposes, but no dogma can be established from the antilegomena alone, nor can the antilegomena be pitted against the homolegomena. An example of the application of this is that Lutherans will never make some particular interpretation of Revelation a church-defining issue. Yes, we preach from it, write commentaries in it, and read it in our lectionaries, but because the early church witness to the origin of this book is divided, our confessional principles on eschatology are ultimately drawn from the Gospels and Epistles. This principle also leaves the door open to textual criticism, which is why we have no trouble with including the longer ending of Mark in our Bibles or the story of the adulterous woman. Textual criticism is always a problem for people who insist on an inerrant canon of divinely inspired texts. Does your inspired canon of inspired texts include the longer ending of Mark or not? The conservative principle fuels the Lutheran belief that the entirety of the Gospel is repeated again and again throughout Scripture. While some readers, both Protestant and Catholic, may feel that the conservative principle eliminates their ability to proof-text their favorite doctrines, I challenge you to question yourself along the following lines: Do I really believe that an essential truth of the Christian faith was only ever referred to by one person in the entirety of the Biblical witness? Do I really believe that a whole multitude of biblical writers were so ineffective and communicating the essential truths of the faith, despite many of them overtly setting out to do this, that only only one writer in one book ever managed to nail it on this issue? Finally, I would ask the following rhetorical questions: Is not the conservative principle truly the most “catholic” in that it listens to the entirety of the early Church when dealing with the canon rather than trying to vote the first three centuries out of existence, forbids nothing traditionally used by Christians in teaching and worship, and seeks to avoid unnecessarily dividing the Church? Is it not the most “protestant” in that it upholds Scripture as the source and norm of faith and scrupulously avoids establishing binding dogmas upon things that may in fact not be Scripture at all? In my opinion, it is those things and more. I think it is the most manifestly reasonable and unobjectionable approach to Scripture, yet few churches in the world seem to think so.Thinking About The Canon: A Lutheran View | internetmonk.comThis second post in our discussion of canonization is from a frequent Internet Monk guest, Lutheran blogger Josh Strodtbeck. Josh will tell us about the Lutheran concept of the Canon, which is quite different from what many may assume.www.internetmonk.com
- "Do I really believe that an essential truth of the Christian faith was only ever referred to by one person in the entirety of the Biblical witness? Do I really believe that a whole multitude of biblical writers were so ineffective and communicating the essential truths of the faith, despite many of them overtly setting out to do this, that only only one writer in one book ever managed to nail it on this issue?" I do not know what to think about the above paragraph. Specially when the context before it talks about the book of Revelation. It seems to me that the original message giver (from God's reality) was Jesus Christ Himself, so is one of the most authoritative books in the Bible in my perspective. It clearly depicts one appointed Judge: Jesus Christ, to do what He must: grant eternal life to those that had faith in Him and accepted Him as Lord and Savior. Lake of fire to those whose names were not in the book of life. Simple, to the point, directly from God. Are we going to ask God to help us be hot, or will we be lukewarm, and spit into the tribulation? What makes christianity different is prophecy: that has come to pass, that is happening, and that will happen. Revelation is the ultimate revelation so to speak. God out of love let us know what to expect so we do not fail the test. Blessings.