#Cenon bibe jr full#

The presence of these widely divergent opinions complicates greatly the study of the OT canon. It may be a revelation from God only in a general sense of experiential revelation, not in the sense of factual divine truth.

#Cenon bibe jr full#

The corollary to the critical view is that the OT is full of error, historical, factual, and doctrinal. There is today wide diversity in the critical camp, but there is unanimity in the belief that the historic Christian view of the origin of the OT and its canonization is wrong. The prophetic books should be divided among the prophetic authors and several of their successors, or the prophets wrote nothing at all. Older critics said that the Pentateuch was written by four or more authors or schools of authors (J, E, D, and P) as late as 1000 years after Moses. Some extreme views, as the Swedish view of oral tradition, hardly admit any of the OT may have been written down before 400 b.c. All deny the genuineness and early date of the OT books as a whole. The school of thought often called higher criticism includes several varied positions.

The Pentateuch was written by Moses, the prophets by those men whose names are mentioned, the Davidic Psalms by David, and the history books written at a time roughly contemporaneous with the events concerned. To be more specific: The conservative scholar has always believed that the OT is what it says it is, and that it arose in the way it claims. It need not end there, however, for such ancient factual, extant witness is in full accord with the teachings of Jesus Christ on the canon. In a real sense the study of the OT canon could begin and end with the witness of Jesus Christ. ChristвЂ™s teaching and work guarantee to the Church the possibility of a real factual revelation from God, and also that the OT canon embodies that very revelation as Scripture. He is also heavily influenced in all these matters by the teaching of Christ. He utilizes freely every scrap of evidence remaining. He freely confesses that full information on the OT canon is no longer available. The conservative scholar is not without bias.

It is more important to assess the evidence bearing on the subject with care, and also to judge whether opposition to the historic view of the canon stems from compelling argument or from theories previously adopted on other grounds. It is clear that conservative and liberal Christians approach the subject of the OT canon from very different viewpoints. Study of the OT canon in such circles is a study of the history of the growth of the error of Biblical acceptance and belief on the part of the Christian Church. Since the rise of rationalism and its penetration into the citadels of the Christian faith, it has become common to deny the possibility of the supernatural, and with this denial the Bible has been dissected and challenged in many ways. In former ages most of the students of the Bible believed it to be true and accepted its supernatural teachings. or more there has arisen a sharp divergence of opinion among Biblical scholars which deeply affects questions of canonicity.

Opinions may, therefore, differ somewhat, depending upon the viewpoint of the observer and the confidence he places in the evidence that is available. Especially in the OT field the matter is complicated by the fact that much of this process took place in the distant past for which historical evidence is very scanty. There are actually two points to consider in discussing the principles of canonicity first, why the books are authoritative and divine, and second, when and how they were accepted by the Church and collected into a canon. Church rules are called вЂњcanon lawвЂќ clerical vestments are sometimes called вЂњcanonics.вЂќ The most widely used sense of the word refers to the canon of Scripture i.e., the list of books regarded by the Church as authoritative and divine. It has come to refer largely to the standards of the Church. The acceptance and collection of the inspired books of the OT canon includes the history of the acceptance of the OT books, the reasons why they were accepted and collected, and the divisions of the books, and also why other books called Apoc.