Before delving into specific biblical doctrines, we need to first think about what the bible is. In this lecture you’ll learn what the bible says about itself, some reasons to believe God inspired it, as well as the major types of biblical scholars and how they approach scripture. This episode, along with the last one, serves to round out the introduction to this course.
—— Notes ——
bibliology: one’s understanding about the bible
- what is the bible?
- a library of 66 books
- written by 40 people
- how should you interact with it?
claims that God inspired the bible
- Matthew 1.22-23
- Mark 12.36
- Acts 1.16
- Acts 3.18
- Acts 4.25
- Acts 28.25-26
- Hebrews 3.7
- Hebrews 10.15-17
- 2 Timothy 3.16
- 2 Peter 1.16-21
- Revelation 1.1-2
reasons why I believe the bible is genuinely inspired
- it claims it
- predictive prophecy
- unflattering honesty
- medical insights
- martyrdom
- archeology
some more reasons
- ear-marks of eye-witnesses
- historicity of the resurrection of Jesus
- changed my life
- incredible preservation
- survived some Israelite and Judean kings who disregarded it (Manasseh->Amon->Josiah)
- survived 70 year exile in Babylonia
- survived Antiochus Epiphanes who tried to destroy the Torah
- survived destruction of Temple in a.d. 70
- survived destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 135
- survived several Muslim empires
- survived all the crusades
- OT survived in high quality manuscripts (Aleppo, Leningrad, DSS, LXX)
- Diocletian tried to destroy the NT
- NT survived in over 5,000 Greek mss
- 531 language for whole bible, 1329 languages for NT
dichotomy today between bible-believing and bible-critical approaches to doctrine
- refer to youtube video of my lecture on Losing Faith from 500
- enlightenment gave rise to intense philosophical and biblical criticisms
- most bible professors in most secular universities examine the bible from an atheist worldview
- some Christians affirmed these criticisms but tried to save Christianity
- Schleiermacher (1822): feeling of absolute dependence; entering into Christ’s perfect God consciousness
- Albrecht Ritschl (1852): kingdom of God = community of brotherly love (focus on Jesus’ ethics not miracles)
- Adolf Harnack (1886): fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man, worth of each soul, love rather than law
- Walter Rauschenbusch (1917): social gospel movement—focus on humanitarian needs
- other Christians dug in and fought the criticisms
- John Locke (1695) published The Reasonableness of Christianity
- William Paley (1802) early proponent of intelligent design
- Charles Hodge (1874) defended infallibility and attacked Darwinism
- Fundamentalist Movement (1910)
- In 19th and 20th centuries the liberals and conservatives fight it out
- major denominations split (Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans)
- as universities go liberal and biblical conservatives leave and start new schools
- 1806 Harvard splits to form Andover Theological Seminary
- 1908 Lyman Stewart started BIOLA; he’s the man who funded the 1910 “The Fundamentals”
- 1929 Princeton splits to form Westminster Theological Seminary
- 1976 Liberty University Founded a