Introduction                   Oct 4, 2019        

We need to understand better the argument for the authenticity of the transmission of scriptures into the canon, and the dynamics of how the canon was formed together. This is a subject I have not really grappled with before the class, but coming to New York City, in the very liberal worldview world, it’s not difficult to be challenged about the authenticity of the Bible. Some have argued about the transmission of scriptures, and what happened to it, and the whole questions of man writing God’s word. It has produced a lot of angst among some Christians who are questioned and in turn cast a shadow in their minds of the authority of scriptures. The inerrancy of scriptures is also challenged by the liberal scholars, and have therefore influenced the faith of Christians. The worst is that the so called orthodox Christians are being shifted in their view towards liberal stand, and hence shipwrecked their faith. That is a real sad case, and I intend to learn and pray that what I have learnt from this class can be applied to help them and to argue for Christ. Of course, this will be further developed as this canon issue grows over the years.

Gospels Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were written between AD 50-90

Let’s get this right. All of the gospels were written by the apostolic circle in the 1^st century. Any manuscripts written in the 2^nd century were not included in canon. The apocryphal gospels, for instance were all written in the 2^nd-5^th century.

Jesus died at AD 33. The gospels were written barely like 30 years after his death. Therefore when the first manuscripts were published, it was exposed to readers who knew Jesus personally, walked with him, and witnessed some of the miracles Jesus did, and what Jesus taught, if any contradicted their memory of the record, they would have called it out and faced rebuttal.

The Rabbinic Way of learning

The Rabbinic way of learning in the old Jewish ancient tradition, is pretty much memorization word by word. Richard Balkan wrote extensively in his book and argued for the accurate word for word recording of the gospels and the teaching of Jesus in the Bible. Between AD 33- AD60, the messages with Jesus’ teachings, records of his miracles etc were all memorized and transmitted verbally, while, they were also, simultaneously, written down by the apostles and disciples.

The quantity and quality of Gospel Manuscripts, 2500 copies manuscripts

Talking about accuracy of the gospel and NT manuscript, there are 5,800 manuscripts of New Testament in view, 2500 copies of gospel , Latin 9000. And they all agree with one another with very minor differences, due to copying etc in the ancient world of 1st & 2 centuries. With this kind of quantity and copied manuscripts, and very little or hardly anything variance, this argues well for the confidence of the authenticity of the gospels. These overwhelming amount of manuscripts copied and copied in the 1^st century shows forth the strength of the accuracy of the transmission of the scripture.

Liberals Removed all Supernatural from the Bible

Be warned that liberal thinkers theologians in Germany in the enlightenment period, literally stripped off all supernatural deeds of Christ, and retained only the virtuous sayings and teachings of Jesus. Liberal theologians like Richtsl, Boltzmann etc have all done a great disservice to the Kingdom of God by following the god of rationalizing in rationalizing away all the supernatural that they couldn’t reason out. They essentially humanized a divine Christ and made it, so called palatable to human reasoning’s of the enlightenment period. This is dark, by denying the divinity of Christ, its is actually anti-Christ. Its demonic at the highest intellectual attack of Christ and Christianity overall.

All Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit

That’s in 2 Tim 3: ¹⁶ All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. This is the final stamp of approval from the divine transcendent God himself. All scripture is God breathed, caused into existence by the breadth of God himself. John 1 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That’s how authoritative the Word of God is. In John, Jesus is the Word, and God created the world through His Son Jesus Christ, also the Word. You can see the scriptures brings life, eternal life. Its no ordinary book.