A Surprising Fact about the Christian Bible (2022-02-17) ​

0:00:02 one of the very surprising things one
0:00:04 learns when one studies history and
0:00:06 reads the works of scholars
0:00:09 is that the new testament was not
0:00:11 originally seen by christians as
0:00:15 inspired by god or the word of god or on
0:00:18 an equal footing with the jewish
0:00:20 scriptures and this is quite remarkable
0:00:23 because today we have the holy bible the
0:00:25 christian bible with the old and the new
0:00:27 testament and these are seen as equal
0:00:30 and both authoritative word of god but
0:00:33 they weren't originally seen that way
0:00:36 now i want to discuss very briefly why
0:00:38 this might be the case i'm going to read
0:00:39 just a few uh paragraphs from this
0:00:42 excellent book a history of the bible
0:00:44 the book and its faiths
0:00:47 by john barton who had the privilege of
0:00:50 interviewing on this very channel who is
0:00:52 john barton well the back cover tells us
0:00:55 he's the professor of the interpretation
0:00:57 of holy scripture at the university of
0:01:00 oxford in other words he's a biblical
0:01:02 scholar and he has been a priest in the
0:01:05 church of england so he's a committed
0:01:07 christian uh but also one of the world's
0:01:09 leading biblical scholars and this book
0:01:12 was published just a couple of years ago
0:01:13 and i highly recommend it if you want a
0:01:16 really good thorough scholarly
0:01:18 understanding of the history and the
0:01:20 origins and the interpretation of the
0:01:23 bible
0:01:24 so in chapter 10 just just a few
0:01:26 paragraphs just to show
0:01:28 why
0:01:28 the early the early christians the early
0:01:30 church did not view the new testament as
0:01:33 the word of god remarkable because today
0:01:35 christians do so what happened when did
0:01:38 it happen
0:01:39 um what are the facts so john barton
0:01:42 will be our guide and he says
0:01:44 in chapter 10 headed christians and
0:01:47 their books
0:01:49 by the end of the first century ce at
0:01:52 the end of the first century a.d the
0:01:54 books now in the hebrew bible
0:01:57 the accumulated literature of ancient
0:01:59 israel had acquired an official status
0:02:02 for jews
0:02:04 which christians whether jews or
0:02:06 non-jews took for granted
0:02:09 when they are quoted in either christian
0:02:12 or jewish sources it is with formulas
0:02:16 such as it is written or as scripture
0:02:20 says there is a certain formality and
0:02:24 weight about these books
0:02:26 many of which even from the start claim
0:02:30 authority as a word from god
0:02:34 this is particularly clear for example
0:02:36 in deuteronomy it's one of the earlier
0:02:38 books of the bible and he quotes a few
0:02:40 lines from deuteronomy chapter 30 to
0:02:42 give you a flavor of how
0:02:45 this sounds
0:02:46 see i have set before you today life and
0:02:50 prosperity death and adversity if you
0:02:53 obey the commandments of the lord your
0:02:55 god that i am commanding you today
0:02:57 by loving the lord your god walking in
0:03:00 his ways observing his commandments
0:03:03 decrees and ordinances then you shall
0:03:06 live and become numerous and the lord
0:03:08 your god will bless you in the land you
0:03:10 are entering to possess
0:03:13 but if your heart turns away and you do
0:03:16 not hear but are led astray to bow down
0:03:19 to other gods and serve them
0:03:22 i declare to you today that you shall
0:03:25 perish
0:03:26 end quote deuteronomy 30
0:03:28 15 onwards so you get a really strong
0:03:32 claim to be a word of god god himself is
0:03:34 speaking
0:03:36 uh this is formal you know this these
0:03:38 are the scriptures absolutely
0:03:41 john barton continues the possibility
0:03:43 that further books might still be added
0:03:46 to the collection was not yet fully
0:03:48 excluded
0:03:49 but there is no doubt about the status
0:03:51 of the books that have come down to us
0:03:54 as the hebrew bible so they're basically
0:03:57 a word of god they claim to be the word
0:03:59 of god very clearly spoke with that
0:04:01 authority
0:04:02 barton continues
0:04:05 the new testament on the other hand did
0:04:08 not
0:04:09 begin life as a collection of sacred
0:04:12 writings at all
0:04:15 but as occasional literature
0:04:18 highly important but not sacrosanct wow
0:04:22 i mean that's quite shocking when you
0:04:23 think about it what's occasional
0:04:25 literature well it's like a letter so
0:04:27 paul writes a letter to the corinthians
0:04:29 an actual letter so it's not god
0:04:32 speaking like in that amazing quote from
0:04:34 deuteronomy
0:04:36 each of paul's letters john barton says
0:04:39 is addressed to a specific situation in
0:04:42 one of the local churches
0:04:45 and though he no doubt intended his
0:04:47 letters to be kept and re-read they were
0:04:50 not holy in the way that the hebrew
0:04:53 scriptures unequivocally were now i'm
0:04:56 going to give an example here which john
0:04:58 barton doesn't give but just to really
0:05:00 drive that point home
0:05:02 i want to read from
0:05:04 paul's letter uh to the corinthians
0:05:06 called in our bibles i'm going to read
0:05:08 here from harpercollins study bible
0:05:11 uh what we now call first corinthians
0:05:14 chapter seven and it's just a verse and
0:05:17 he's talking in this letter about his
0:05:19 directions for marriage so it's very
0:05:22 much you know how to live as a good
0:05:23 christian in corinth
0:05:25 and then he says in verse 12 something
0:05:27 very interesting paul is writing this
0:05:30 to the rest i say i and not the lord
0:05:34 that if any believer has a wife who is
0:05:36 an unbeliever and that she can sense to
0:05:39 live with him he should not divorce her
0:05:42 so paul's giving instructions about how
0:05:44 to live
0:05:45 as a christian concerning marriage but
0:05:48 know what he says
0:05:49 to the rest i say i paul
0:05:52 i am not the lord
0:05:54 so his teaching is not from god this is
0:05:57 not revelation these are not
0:05:58 commandments ordinances and god he's
0:06:01 giving his view his opinion
0:06:04 he you know this is a church that he
0:06:05 founded in corinth how different from
0:06:08 the uh the jewish scriptures uh
0:06:11 particularly that deuteronomy passage i
0:06:13 declare to you and i speak and i declare
0:06:17 fascinating
0:06:18 so the gospels because what about the
0:06:20 gospels the gospels treated so solemnly
0:06:24 in later christian life and liturgy
0:06:26 because by the way if you go to um a
0:06:28 typical catholic service on a sunday and
0:06:30 i've seen this many times you'll often
0:06:32 see the scriptures the bible brought uh
0:06:35 held aloft particularly very high mass
0:06:38 the scriptures are carried forward to
0:06:40 the front maybe the priests would be
0:06:42 carrying them to the altar so they're
0:06:44 highly regarded uh and treated the great
0:06:47 solemnity in ritual and liturgy that's
0:06:50 today
0:06:52 but john barton says the gospels that's
0:06:54 matthew mark luke and john
0:06:56 treated so solemnly in later christian
0:06:58 life
0:06:59 are the distillation of traditions about
0:07:03 jesus
0:07:04 and as such
0:07:06 were also naturally highly regarded and
0:07:09 copied for subsequent generations but
0:07:12 they were not seen
0:07:14 by the first christians as verbally
0:07:17 exact
0:07:18 there was no tradition as there was in
0:07:21 judaism of precise copying of the text
0:07:25 with the consequence that the new
0:07:28 testament manuscripts vary greatly
0:07:31 and none is authoritative
0:07:35 so this tells us a lot the fact that
0:07:37 they were not seen by early christians
0:07:39 as verbally exact they weren't that
0:07:41 concerned with the precise wording it
0:07:43 was not like
0:07:44 how muslims view the quran or how jews
0:07:48 view the words of moses actual
0:07:50 revelation
0:07:52 so that meant consequently in the early
0:07:55 times
0:07:56 that there were many divergences and
0:07:57 differences between the texts
0:07:59 because they were not verbally carefully
0:08:02 copied
0:08:03 john barton continues yet eventually
0:08:06 what we call the new testament books did
0:08:10 become scripture in much the same sense
0:08:12 as the old testament that is after all
0:08:16 how most christians see them today
0:08:20 and in this chapter uh he goes on to
0:08:22 talk about when that happened
0:08:24 why that happened uh and the whole
0:08:27 historical process which i won't go into
0:08:29 now
0:08:30 and just to summarize he says thus the
0:08:32 attitude of early christians to what we
0:08:35 call the old and new testaments was in
0:08:38 the beginning radically different
0:08:41 and only over time did the collections
0:08:44 even out and come to be seen as two
0:08:47 components on an equal level
0:08:50 of a holy bible
0:08:53 isn't that interesting
0:08:55 and he compares again you compare it
0:08:56 with judaism and islam right from the
0:08:58 beginning as soon as the words came out
0:09:00 uh were given to the prophet muhammad
0:09:03 upon bihis they were understood to be
0:09:05 revelation and were treasured as such
0:09:07 and memorized and eventually written
0:09:09 down as scripture right from the very
0:09:12 very beginning and the same in the
0:09:13 jewish scriptures the particularly the
0:09:15 pentateuch and the torah is the scene as
0:09:18 the word of god but the early christian
0:09:21 writings were not
0:09:23 uh they were not seen as inspired yes
0:09:25 they contain extremely important
0:09:27 material and yes it must be preserved
0:09:30 but it wasn't on the same level at that
0:09:32 time as the jewish scriptures only much
0:09:35 later in later centuries
0:09:38 did the two come together to form what
0:09:40 we call today a holy bible and the irony
0:09:43 here is that when very conservative
0:09:45 christians or fundamentalist christians
0:09:47 particularly talk about well let's go
0:09:48 back to the beliefs of the first
0:09:50 christians let's purify our faith and
0:09:52 reform it and go back to the beliefs of
0:09:54 the early christians if they did that
0:09:58 they would stop believing that the new
0:09:59 testament was the word of god because
0:10:02 the early christians didn't believe that
0:10:05 there's a huge irony and of course in
0:10:07 the for the early christians there was
0:10:08 no new testament anyway and no one in
0:10:10 the first century had the new testament
0:10:12 it hadn't been put together as a canon
0:10:15 and that came
0:10:16 much later in the following centuries
0:10:19 so
0:10:20 the whole point of this very brief video
0:10:21 is just to show you that
0:10:23 learning uh the truths about one's faith
0:10:27 as a christian or a jew or muslim can
0:10:29 actually change
0:10:31 one's mind and change one's perceptions
0:10:34 of the historical truths and facts of
0:10:36 the case i certainly found that to be
0:10:38 true for myself
0:10:39 and i invite you to go on the same
0:10:42 journey of discovery by listening to
0:10:44 scholars reading their works
0:10:46 not uncritically accepting it but
0:10:48 nevertheless attending to what they have
0:10:49 discovered what they have uncovered for
0:10:52 us
0:10:53 and that can change our world view and
0:10:55 that's and that can be for the better
0:10:57 anyway till next time