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  • P1. Interfaith Dialogue
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  • C1 Introduction
  • C2 Monotheism (Muslim Perspective)
  • C2 Monotheism (Christian Perspective)
  • C3 Prophets (Christian Perspective)
  • C3 Prophets (Muslim Perspective)
  • C4 Holy Qur'an, Scriptures and Their History (Muslim Perspective)
  • C4 Holy Qur'an, Scriptures and Their History (Christian Perspective)
  • C5 Family and Marriage (Christian Perspective)
  • C5 Family and Marriage (Muslim Perspective)
  • C6 Spiritual Experience (Muslim Perspective)
  • C6 Spiritual Experience (Christian Perspective)
  • C7 Concept of Holy War (Christian Perspective)
  • C7 Concept of Holy War (Muslim Perspective)
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Chapter 4

Holy Qur'an, Scriptures and Their History

Christian Perspective

How and why did The Scriptures come to be written?

The English word "Bible" comes form the Greek ta biblia, which means "the Books", a name well chosen since the Bible is a collection of many individual works and not the product of a single person. In the Christian Bible there are two sections—the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament or Christian Scriptures. The Old Testament has either 39 books (in Protestant and Jewish editions) or 46 books (in Catholic editions). The New Testament has 27 books. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have seven extra books within the Old Testament because they relied on the Greek translation of the Hebrew, which includes the seven extra texts as well as some additions in other books. These extra books and additions are called deuterocanonical (meaning "second canon") or apocryphal (meaning "hidden").

It must be remembered that the scriptures are largely the religious history of the Jewish people. Even the New Testament or Christian Scriptures was written by Jews with the exception perhaps of Luke-Acts. The New Testament is the early Christian community's reflections on the remembered life of Jesus and how to live as follower of Jesus. Most of the characters are still Jews so both Testaments are very Jewish texts. They are not writing historical documents but religious historical texts and cannot be taken literally. It is necessary to ask—not—"Did this happen as the scriptures describe it?"—but rather—"What is the message or meaning of the text?"

The Bible was written by a great number of different authors, most of them unknown, over a period of nearly 2000 years. It was not written as a single text. It is in fact a collection of a variety of documents including texts of law, history, poetry, wisdom, and prophecy. A "Map" of the Old Testament would look something like this:

 

A "Map" of the Old Testament

* Indicates that the book is one of the extra Catholic or deuterocanonical books. ** Indicates some extra deuterocanonical material in them. The Book of Ecclesiastes is deuterocanonical as the italics suggest. But it goes by a few other names, which are listed in brackets underneath.
HEBREW BIBLE		CATHOLIC BIBLE
The Law Torah
5 books of the Law		The Pentateuch Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy
The Prophets Nevi'im
Former Prophets	Later Prophets	The Prophets
Joshua Judges 1 & 2 Samuel 1 & 2 Kings	Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habukkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi	Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habukkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi Daniel** Lament Baruch *
The Writings Ketuvim
	The Historical Books	The Wisdom Books
Psalms Proverbs Job Song of Songs Ruth Lamentations Ecclesiastes Esther Daniel Ezra Nehemiah Chronicles 1 & 2	Joshua Judges Ruth 1 & 2 Samuel Ecclesiastes 1 & 2 Kings 1 & 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Esther** Tobit* Judith* 1 & 2 Maccabees*	Job Psalms Proverbs Song of Songs Wisdom* Ecclesiastes* (Sirach)* (Ben Sira)*

The Hebrew Bible and the Christian Scriptures have had a long and chequered process of development. The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is basically composed of three sections—The Law or Torah, The Prophets or Nevi'im and the Writings or the Ketuvim. Tanach is the Jewish title for the Old Testament as it an acronym of the three sections named above. The Law is the first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These books contain the ancestral history and myths of the Israelite people as well as their story of the Exodus from Egypt. The Covenant they entered into with God is also a central part of the Torah.

The Books of the Former prophets—Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings follow the Torah. The Book of Joshua writes of the entry into Canaan—the promised land—by the Israelites and the Book of Judges tells of those leaders who governed the people before the monarchy. The Books of Samuel present the rise of the monarchy in Israel with the first three kings being the most famous—Saul, David and his son Solomon. After Solomon's death the kingdom divided in two—the Northern Kingdom or Samaria and the Southern Kingdom or Judah. The Northern Kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 BCE and the southern kingdom ended with the Babylonian invasion and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587 BCE. This was the time of the Babylonian exile for some of the Jewish population of Judah—the leaders, the educated and the blacksmiths were taken into captivity to Babylon.

After the establishment of the Monarchy—there seemed to be a need for Prophets! Hence we have the beginning of the classical prophets in the eighth century BCE with prophets like Amos, Hosea, First Isaiah and Micah. Prophecy continued until after the exile to as late as the fourth century BCE.

It was during the exile that Jewish scribes and scholars completed most of the editing and writing of the Old Testament. Thus this was an important time for the development of the scriptures. The people in exile felt that they had lost everything. Their homeland, their rulers, their capital city, Jerusalem and above all the Temple. It was a catastrophe of enormous proportions. To cope with and try to understand their fate the educated scribes wrote their stories, history, traditions and Laws to preserve them for their own people and for future generations. Did they know that they were writing scriptures?—Probably not but we will never know the answer to that question.

A map of the New Testament would look something like this:

The New Testament or Christian Scriptures

* These latter letters are considered as not directly from the hand of Paul but edited later.
Letters of Paul	Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon, Ephesians*, Colossians*, 2 Thessalonians*, 1 & 2 Timothy*, Titus*
Gospels	Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
History	Acts of The Apostles
Other Letters	Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude
Apocalyptic	The Book of Revelation

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Have the contents of The Scriptures changed over the centuries to be what it is and as we know it today?

From its very beginning in the oral traditions of the Hebrew people, about 4000 years ago, the contents of the bible has changed and changed again. In fact it was difficult to find bibles that were exactly alike until the invention of the printing press in 1454 and the Paris Uni editions with pecia method. Even today the New Jerusalem Bible and the original Jerusalem Bible, while substantially the same, are not identical. Nor is the New Revised Standard Version absolutely identical to the Revised Standard Version. Before the great invention of the printing press Bibles were hand copied mainly by monks. Such hand written texts led to copiers' errors and each monastery included the books they wanted. The Protestant Canon of the Old Testament was settled around the time of the reformation, of course, and the Catholic official list of Old Testament books was finally decided by the Council of Trent. Nevertheless, although there have been variations in the text due to copying errors and the inclusion or exclusion of various books, the theological content of the Bible has remained unchanged.

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The interpretation of The Scriptures: Is it a literal or theologically based understanding?

It is important to remember that the original languages of the bible are Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament and Koine Greek for the New Testament. We English speakers generally read the bible in translation and every translation is an interpretation. It is often an interesting exercise to compare different English translations to see how they can change the meaning of the texts. Thus a literal interpretation of the bible is not possible and certainly not advisable. We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic—a language akin to Hebrew. But the New Testament is written in Greek so Jesus' words are in Greek not Aramaic. Thus we have a translation of Jesus' teachings so we do not have the exact words of Jesus right from the start. They are remembered and translated some forty, fifty, sixty years after Jesus' death when the Gospels were written.

Such facts about text transmission are important to keep in mind when reading the scriptures. The Catholic Church in several Vatican documents reminds us that the scriptures come to us through a human agent and reflect the history, society, culture and theology of the time and people who wrote them. Thus knowledge of Jewish history, society and religion provides us with a more complete understanding of the texts and equips us to interpret them more accurately.

Interpretation of the scriptures must always come from an informed understanding of the background of the texts. Finally, the way to read the Bible is meditatively, prayerfully and intelligently. Do not be afraid to ask questions of the text. There are many contradictions and strange sounding statements in the bible and we must interpret them according to our times and culture. Pope John XXIII said "the texts do not change; it is our interpretation of them that must change". We need to interpret the Bible in a way that is relevant to the 21st Century so that it continues to remain a relevant and living text.

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Glossary of Terms

Apocrypha

Those books not included in the Hebrew or Protestant Bibles but are included in the Catholic versions. In Catholic circles they are also called Deuterocanonical e.g. the Book of Tobit.

BCE

(Before the Common Era) = BC (Before Christ)

Canon

Those books considered part of the official Bible. Thus there is a Jewish and Protestant canon and a Catholic and Orthodox canon.

CE

(Common Era) = AD (Anno Domini)

Christian scriptures

A more ecumenically sensitive manner of naming the New Testament.

Deuterocanonical

Literally "second canon"

Hebrew scriptures

A more ecumenically sensitive manner of naming the Old Testament. Tenach is the word used by Jews.

Masoretic text

The standard Hebrew text of the Old Testament with vowels that were added by the Masoretes.of the 8th to the 11th centuries CE.

Pentateuch

The first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. From the Greek pentateuchos meaning "book of five volumes".

Pseudopigrapha

Literally "false writings"—it refers to those books not included in any canon e.g. the Book of Jubilees.

Septuagint (LXX)

The Greek translation of the Old Testament dating from 3rd century BCE.

Targum

Aramaic translation of the Old Testament.

Tenach

Jewish name for the Old Testament—abbreviation of Torah (Law), Ne'vi'im (Prophets), Ketu'vim (Writings).

Torah

The same as Pentateuch this word refers to the first five books of the Bible. It is a Hebrew word meaning "law".

Vulgate

The Latin translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew done by Jerome in 5th Century CE.

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Some Basic Reading

• Anderson, B. W., The Living World of the Old Testament, 4th ed., Longman, 1988
• Boadt, l., Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, Paulist, 1984
• Bright, J., A History of Israel, SCM, 1972
• Burkett, D. An Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins Of Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002
• Charpentier, E., How to Read the Old Testament, SCM, 1981
• _________ How to Read the New Testament, SCM, 1981
• Fallon, M. The Four Gospels: An Introductory Commentary. Sydney: CAE, 1980
• Goosen, G. & Tomlinson, M. Studying the Gospels. Melbourne: Harper Collins, 1994
• Gottwald, N., The Hebrew Bible; a socio-literary introduction, Fortress, 1985
• Miller, J. and Hayes, J., A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, SCM, 1986
• Ryan, M., (ed.), Reading the Bible. Tuggerah: Social Science Press, 2003
• The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1990
• The New Jerusalem Bible, DLT, 1985