WEBVTT - Hour 2: How We Got the Bible 0:00:08.660 --> 0:00:11.720 Hello friends. It's time for the second hour of Open 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:16.460 Line with Doctor Michael Moody Radio's Bible Study Across America. 0:00:16.489 --> 0:00:20.240 Today is a special pre-recorded edition of Open Line, so 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.950 don't call. Today we're focusing on the inspiration and authority 0:00:24.950 --> 0:00:27.320 of the Bible. How do we get the scriptures? I'm 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.970 Michael Melnick, dean of the undergraduate school at Moody Bible Institute. 0:00:32.060 --> 0:00:35.959 Joining me today is Trish McMillen, producer of Open Line. Also, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.470 Doctor Jim Coakley, professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute, 0:00:39.470 --> 0:00:42.920 and Doctor Steven Sanchez, professor of Bible at Moody as well. 0:00:42.950 --> 0:00:46.130 Both of these men are contributors to the Moody Bible Commentary, 0:00:46.130 --> 0:00:49.220 and I thank you for your participation in that. Everyone, 0:00:49.220 --> 0:00:51.710 keep your Bibles open. Go get a second cup of coffee, 0:00:51.710 --> 0:00:54.230 because we're going to go right back to our discussion 0:00:54.230 --> 0:01:00.210 of the scriptures. And we've talked about inspiration and inerrancy 0:01:00.210 --> 0:01:03.090 and authority last hour. But this hour we're going to 0:01:03.090 --> 0:01:06.060 talk more about how we get the Bible. So Trish, 0:01:06.390 --> 0:01:07.619 you want to pick it up there. 0:01:07.650 --> 0:01:10.710 I do. Okay. So my first question which will get 0:01:10.709 --> 0:01:13.950 us into the next ones is can you define canon. 0:01:13.980 --> 0:01:15.570 That's kind of what we're going to talk about. Now. 0:01:15.569 --> 0:01:16.800 What is the canon. 0:01:17.490 --> 0:01:20.220 We're not talking about weaponry here. Okay. 0:01:20.370 --> 0:01:21.900 So this is actually spelled differently. 0:01:21.930 --> 0:01:24.450 This is not Pirates of the Caribbean here. That's not 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.980 what we're doing. We're talking about a word that means 0:01:29.010 --> 0:01:33.330 a measuring rod of some sort. The word canon comes 0:01:33.330 --> 0:01:36.630 to us as canon, and the suggestion is a stick, 0:01:36.660 --> 0:01:39.720 an instrument that was used to measure things. And now, 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:44.370 by extension, by metaphor, that becomes a way of describing 0:01:44.370 --> 0:01:47.370 either the books that measured up to a certain standard 0:01:47.370 --> 0:01:50.220 or the books that become the measuring standard by which 0:01:50.220 --> 0:01:51.840 we measure other things. 0:01:52.110 --> 0:01:54.930 And so, you know, people use the word canon. We're 0:01:54.930 --> 0:01:56.940 talking about the canon of scripture, the books that should 0:01:56.940 --> 0:01:57.660 be in the Bible. 0:01:57.690 --> 0:01:57.990 Right? 0:01:58.020 --> 0:02:00.240 The way people use it, they should understand it. Because 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.190 I hear students all the time talking about the canon 0:02:02.220 --> 0:02:02.970 of Star Wars. 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.100 Or the canon of Western literature. Yeah. Yes. 0:02:05.130 --> 0:02:07.800 Yeah. And so we're talking about, you know, which are 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.410 the key books that everyone should read in Western literature, 0:02:10.410 --> 0:02:15.149 or we're talking about the canon of the Star Wars movies. Right? Uh, 0:02:15.510 --> 0:02:19.470 and and so when we're talking about books of the Bible, 0:02:19.470 --> 0:02:23.340 we're saying these are those that are the word of God. 0:02:23.340 --> 0:02:26.700 This is the inspired scripture, these and we're talking about 0:02:26.700 --> 0:02:29.250 the Old Testament canon, and we talk about the New 0:02:29.250 --> 0:02:33.270 Testament canon, which books were included in the Bible. That's 0:02:33.270 --> 0:02:35.040 what we're talking about when we talk about canon. All right. 0:02:35.070 --> 0:02:37.080 It's an important distinction, because not all the books that 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.120 were out there in the ancient world made it in. Right. 0:02:39.150 --> 0:02:41.370 And so it's important to know which ones are the 0:02:41.370 --> 0:02:42.359 authoritative ones. 0:02:42.389 --> 0:02:44.490 And even as we were talking about last hour, there 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.700 are other writings that the authors in the Bible will 0:02:47.700 --> 0:02:49.350 reference that are not in the Bible. 0:02:49.380 --> 0:02:52.380 Right? Yeah, they will actually use other sources that are 0:02:52.380 --> 0:02:55.770 not biblical. They're they're just extra biblical books. 0:02:55.950 --> 0:02:58.360 Mhm. Yep. So they're also. Yeah. And they will also 0:02:58.389 --> 0:03:00.940 then have all sorts of other things that are going 0:03:00.940 --> 0:03:03.340 on that influence some of this stuff. So this is 0:03:03.340 --> 0:03:07.000 where we have some tradition, because we are resting upon 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.730 those who have wrestled with this in the past. So 0:03:09.730 --> 0:03:12.220 it is somewhat subjective. You know, some of the things 0:03:12.220 --> 0:03:15.940 because they had rules or canons about canonicity, but we 0:03:15.940 --> 0:03:18.250 could talk about some of those, but they did follow 0:03:18.250 --> 0:03:21.850 some semblance of orders to why they viewed certain certain 0:03:21.850 --> 0:03:24.579 books as authoritative and some that got left out. 0:03:24.610 --> 0:03:27.550 Okay. And as you mentioned, there's an Old Testament canon 0:03:27.550 --> 0:03:31.329 and a New Testament canon. Michael. Mhm. Um, so how 0:03:31.330 --> 0:03:33.639 was the Old Testament canon recognized? 0:03:33.669 --> 0:03:36.880 I'm going to jump in here because I had the 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:41.620 authoritative expert for my course that I took this in seminary. Uh, 0:03:41.620 --> 0:03:45.460 he wrote the book, uh, A General Introduction to the Bible. 0:03:45.490 --> 0:03:47.410 He wrote the book From God to Us. His name 0:03:47.410 --> 0:03:51.670 was Norman Geisler, and he was he's quite a respected person. 0:03:51.670 --> 0:03:53.260 And I think one of the things that he said 0:03:53.260 --> 0:03:56.360 about canon is especially important. Now, we talked about all 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:58.490 these different tests of canonicity and all this. But the 0:03:58.490 --> 0:04:01.040 main thing that he said is that when books of 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.510 the Bible were written, the people of God immediately received 0:04:05.510 --> 0:04:08.600 them as the Word of God. It wasn't like they 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.190 were saying, well, we're going to test this one out 0:04:10.190 --> 0:04:11.960 and see if it's the Word of God. It was 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.920 immediately received as the Word of God. And so and 0:04:15.950 --> 0:04:19.070 that's why I don't think like the books of the Bible, 0:04:19.100 --> 0:04:24.770 of the Hebrew Bible were the the literature of Israel. 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.670 They were not. They were the literature of the remnant 0:04:28.700 --> 0:04:31.400 of Israel. They were books written to the faithful of 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.130 Israel to give them the Word of God. And they 0:04:34.130 --> 0:04:37.430 immediately received it as such. And then they passed it on. 0:04:37.430 --> 0:04:39.890 And as books were received, they were added to this 0:04:39.890 --> 0:04:42.770 collection of books. And then, of course, there's the the 0:04:42.770 --> 0:04:46.550 guy that I think is most significant. And the rabbinic 0:04:46.550 --> 0:04:50.150 writings say he's significant to this as well. I think 0:04:50.150 --> 0:04:54.260 even the Bible says he's significant, and that's Ezra. Ezra. 0:04:54.500 --> 0:04:57.290 Ezra is the guy. He's a biblical author, and he's 0:04:57.290 --> 0:05:00.710 putting it all together in the final form of what 0:05:00.710 --> 0:05:02.630 the Hebrew Bible is supposed to be. And I want 0:05:02.660 --> 0:05:05.000 to jump in with a passage that that I think 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:09.859 is pretty important for understanding this. It's from Ezra chapter seven, 0:05:09.860 --> 0:05:15.650 verse ten. And it's Ezra had determined in his heart 0:05:15.650 --> 0:05:19.849 to study the law of the Lord, the Torah. And 0:05:19.850 --> 0:05:23.390 then it says to obey it and to teach its 0:05:23.390 --> 0:05:26.479 statutes and ordinances in Israel. The interesting thing about the 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:31.310 word obey there it it can mean to form it. 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.670 So not only does he want to, I think he 0:05:34.670 --> 0:05:37.040 wanted to obey it, but what he did is he 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.860 studied the Torah. And Torah is a word that really 0:05:39.860 --> 0:05:41.300 referred to the law of Moses. But it could be 0:05:41.300 --> 0:05:44.330 expansive to the whole Hebrew Bible, and he formed it. 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:48.020 He put the final shape to everything under the superintending 0:05:48.020 --> 0:05:51.859 of the Holy Spirit and then taught it, gave it 0:05:51.860 --> 0:05:55.740 to Israel. And so that's why we I would conjecture 0:05:55.740 --> 0:05:59.400 that the close of the Bible happens under at that point. 0:05:59.430 --> 0:06:00.270 At that point. Yeah. 0:06:00.300 --> 0:06:02.640 I think it's important to remember that the people of Israel, 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.300 speaking specifically of the Hebrew Bible, they were already trained 0:06:06.300 --> 0:06:08.520 to listen for the voice of God. They knew this 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.950 before they came into the land. They are going to 0:06:10.950 --> 0:06:14.279 be other voices speaking. God tells them, you might have 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.890 a prophet who comes and tells you to worship another God. 0:06:16.890 --> 0:06:20.190 And they ask, well, how will we know? He gives 0:06:20.190 --> 0:06:23.340 them some tests. Their ears were already tuned, as it were. 0:06:23.339 --> 0:06:25.770 And so when a prophet shows up, he says things 0:06:25.770 --> 0:06:29.070 that are theologically accurate. They welcome that as the Word 0:06:29.070 --> 0:06:32.250 of God. It's not a committee sitting there saying, I wonder, 0:06:32.250 --> 0:06:34.650 should this, should this be included or that one? They 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:36.630 hear it, they know what it is and they keep it. 0:06:36.810 --> 0:06:38.460 The other things they put to the side. 0:06:38.460 --> 0:06:42.630 And in the intertestamental period, we already see books of 0:06:43.170 --> 0:06:46.950 that are not part of Scripture. For example, in the 0:06:46.950 --> 0:06:50.070 Maccabees it talks about how there's no prophet in Israel anymore, 0:06:50.100 --> 0:06:52.070 but they're going to look forward to another one. They 0:06:52.100 --> 0:06:52.610 hope another one. 0:06:52.820 --> 0:06:54.620 He didn't come back from the exile. Yeah. 0:06:54.650 --> 0:06:59.000 And then the other passage. There's one that makes a 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:03.020 tripartite division. I believe it was the Ecclesiasticus makes a 0:07:03.020 --> 0:07:05.150 three fold division of the Hebrew Bible, the law of 0:07:05.150 --> 0:07:07.580 the prophets and the writing and the writings. And and 0:07:07.580 --> 0:07:08.930 we see that in the New Testament. 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.720 Does that because he refers to that same tripartite kind 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:12.320 of division? 0:07:12.350 --> 0:07:15.110 Yeah. He he talks about that. Luke 24, the law 0:07:15.140 --> 0:07:16.220 of the prophets and the Psalms and the. 0:07:16.220 --> 0:07:18.500 Psalms, which is Psalms as the writings, as the first. 0:07:18.500 --> 0:07:19.010 Book of the. 0:07:19.010 --> 0:07:19.880 Writings, the largest. 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.720 Book. Yeah. And and I've got one that I a 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.390 passage of Scripture where you talk about the Old Testament 0:07:26.390 --> 0:07:32.540 canon is in Luke 1511. And, uh, now remember, the 0:07:32.540 --> 0:07:35.990 order of the books of the Bible in the Hebrew 0:07:35.990 --> 0:07:38.750 Bible are different than the ones that we have in 0:07:38.750 --> 0:07:42.020 our English Bible. Uh, our English Bible, the order is 0:07:42.020 --> 0:07:45.140 based on the Septuagint, but in the Hebrew Bible it 0:07:45.140 --> 0:07:49.310 was quite different. And in Luke 1511. Uh, do I 0:07:49.310 --> 0:07:50.860 have the wrong verse? I may have the wrong verse. 0:07:51.250 --> 0:07:53.920 I do have the wrong verse. Uh, but it's, uh, 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:58.480 the point of it. 1151 I'm sorry, I'm saying. 1511 I'm, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.500 I'm having a little moment here. 1151 here it is. Uh, 0:08:02.500 --> 0:08:06.760 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, 0:08:07.090 --> 0:08:09.880 who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. 0:08:09.910 --> 0:08:12.340 It's also in Matthew chapter 2335, because I was going 0:08:12.340 --> 0:08:13.510 to talk about that same verse. 0:08:13.510 --> 0:08:14.740 And so what you have. 0:08:15.340 --> 0:08:16.630 Genesis two Chronicles. 0:08:16.660 --> 0:08:19.960 Yeah. So the first book of the Hebrew Bible is Genesis. 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.840 The last book of the Hebrew Bible is Second Chronicles. 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.320 And these two events, the the blood of Abel, happens 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.310 in Genesis. The blood of Zechariah takes place that that 0:08:30.310 --> 0:08:32.320 death takes place in Second Chronicles. 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.229 Chapter 24, verse 20. So if our listeners want to 0:08:35.230 --> 0:08:36.040 look at it. Yeah. 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.560 So what what Jesus is saying is from the first 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:40.900 book of the Bible to the last book of the Bible, uh, 0:08:40.900 --> 0:08:43.150 there's going to be judgment for those who resisted the 0:08:43.150 --> 0:08:44.140 prophets of God because. 0:08:44.140 --> 0:08:46.270 They always have from the beginning to the end. 0:08:46.300 --> 0:08:49.790 Exactly. And so but on a secondary note, what Jesus 0:08:49.820 --> 0:08:50.390 is recognizing. 0:08:50.390 --> 0:08:51.860 The boundaries of the canon, the boundaries. 0:08:51.860 --> 0:08:54.800 Of the canon. I think that's very cool. So I 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.820 would say, and I think that that Steve, we both 0:08:58.820 --> 0:09:02.540 said it's not the tests that matter as much. We've 0:09:02.540 --> 0:09:03.079 been hearing. 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:05.239 The voice of God in these, and they knew it. 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.250 And they received it, and they were accepted as the 0:09:07.250 --> 0:09:11.720 word of God. That's right. So now there is some 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.569 people who say, there are some people who say that 0:09:14.570 --> 0:09:17.960 there was a council of Jewish people, of rabbis who 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.530 determine the Bible. That's the council of Yavneh. We're going 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.280 to talk about that. But when we come back. So 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.650 everyone listen, this is really important stuff. We're going to 0:09:27.650 --> 0:09:30.080 talk about the Council of Yavneh. Uh, it really wasn't 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:31.400 a council, but we're going to talk about that when 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.100 we get back. You're listening to Tricia McMillan, Jim Coakley, 0:09:34.100 --> 0:09:38.330 Steve Sanchez and me, Michael Radonich. We're talking about how 0:09:38.330 --> 0:09:40.729 we got the scriptures and why we can trust them. 0:09:40.730 --> 0:09:43.160 So don't go away. We're going to be right back. 0:09:43.190 --> 0:09:46.520 Stay with us and keep listening in on the conversation. 0:09:52.700 --> 0:09:56.300 Are you looking to deepen your grasp of Paul's powerful epistles, 0:09:56.300 --> 0:10:00.559 the Moody Bible commentary on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians 0:10:00.590 --> 0:10:04.189 is your key to unlocking these treasured books with clear 0:10:04.190 --> 0:10:10.189 explanations and practical insights. This resource illuminates Paul's teachings on grace, unity, joy, 0:10:10.190 --> 0:10:13.579 and the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. Request your copy 0:10:13.580 --> 0:10:16.070 of this Moody Bible Commentary excerpt. When you give to 0:10:16.100 --> 0:10:25.370 open line, call (888) 644-7122 or visit Open Line radio.org. Every weekend, 0:10:25.370 --> 0:10:28.340 open line is here to help you understand God, the Bible, 0:10:28.340 --> 0:10:31.640 and the spiritual life. You ask the questions and I 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.880 try to answer straight from Scripture. When you become a 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.000 kitchen table partner, you're not only keeping this program on 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.839 the radio and internet, you're helping others to hear the truth. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.679 And you'll receive exclusive benefits like regular Bible study moments 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.390 by me, offering insight and encouragement. Become a kitchen table 0:10:49.390 --> 0:10:56.800 partner by calling (888) 644-7122 or go to Open Line radio.org. 0:11:03.460 --> 0:11:06.280 Welcome back to Open Line. I'm Michael Ray Dolnick, and 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.730 it's a really fun and special hour that we're first 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.310 hour was about the inspiration and authority of the Bible. 0:11:12.340 --> 0:11:15.130 If you missed that, go back and listen. But this 0:11:15.130 --> 0:11:17.530 hour we're talking about how he got the Bible. Tricia 0:11:17.530 --> 0:11:19.600 McMillan is here kind of making sure that we all 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.510 stay on task. And she's the producer of Open Line. 0:11:22.510 --> 0:11:25.059 Jim Coakley, professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute, is 0:11:25.059 --> 0:11:27.760 joining me, as well as Steve Sanchez, another professor of 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.340 Bible at Moody. And we are talking about how we 0:11:30.340 --> 0:11:32.740 got the Bible. We were talking about the Old Testament canon, 0:11:32.740 --> 0:11:36.699 and I raised the issue of Yavneh, which is where 0:11:36.700 --> 0:11:40.930 Judaism sort of reformed itself after the destruction of the temple. 0:11:40.929 --> 0:11:45.969 In the the Greek term, it's called Jamnia. And so 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.329 now they had a role in determining the Old Testament canon. 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:50.439 What was it? 0:11:50.470 --> 0:11:53.349 Well, let's say what it wasn't. It wasn't? Oh, we've 0:11:53.350 --> 0:11:55.960 got a lot of books laying around here. Let's pick 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.689 a few and make a canon for ourselves. It was because. 0:11:58.960 --> 0:11:59.559 There was already a. 0:11:59.590 --> 0:12:01.720 Canon. They already knew what the canon was. That's right. 0:12:01.750 --> 0:12:05.050 So they're reaffirming. They're acknowledging there are some questions at 0:12:05.050 --> 0:12:08.230 the margins about books that are difficult to interpret, but 0:12:08.230 --> 0:12:11.589 that's vastly different from saying, let's make a canon for 0:12:11.590 --> 0:12:14.230 ourselves and sanctify it as authoritative. 0:12:14.260 --> 0:12:18.309 Yeah. They said, well, they were asking. They already accepted 0:12:18.309 --> 0:12:20.110 the canon. We see it in the New Testament. Jesus 0:12:20.140 --> 0:12:23.439 already has accepted. That's right. The canon. But they say, well, 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.000 what about the Song of Solomon? That seems a little 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:26.770 too sensual. Right. But. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.140 So it's really more an ongoing discussion to see what 0:12:29.140 --> 0:12:31.450 are we going to do about these books, like Steve said, 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.060 is that the margins that, you know, like, do we 0:12:34.059 --> 0:12:35.710 really want to Proverbs. 0:12:35.740 --> 0:12:38.530 Yes. Yeah. That's a little bit. They think they think 0:12:38.530 --> 0:12:42.040 Proverbs could be illogical. Why? Because one verse says answer 0:12:42.070 --> 0:12:44.950 a fool. Another verse says, don't answer a fool. Instead 0:12:44.950 --> 0:12:47.470 of understanding that it's wisdom. So they're talking about that. 0:12:47.470 --> 0:12:51.130 They're talking about disaster and unspiritual book because God's name 0:12:51.130 --> 0:12:54.340 isn't mentioned. Mentioned. Yeah, they're talking about Ecclesiastes seems kind 0:12:54.340 --> 0:12:56.620 of skeptical in places. Right. And so they're. 0:12:56.620 --> 0:13:01.060 Taking his words as authoritative when it's Solomon's using about life. Yeah. 0:13:01.059 --> 0:13:05.170 But the most influential rabbi there, Rabbi Akiva, he kept insisting, yes, 0:13:05.170 --> 0:13:08.500 these are the words of God. These are. And we shouldn't. 0:13:09.010 --> 0:13:11.710 He wasn't saying we should include them. He was saying, 0:13:11.710 --> 0:13:14.530 let's not get rid of them. They're in the canon already. 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.530 That's important. They already know what's between the covers of 0:13:17.530 --> 0:13:18.130 the book. 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.710 Yeah. And I always think it's important that we know 0:13:20.710 --> 0:13:22.630 when it comes to canon, what they were really doing 0:13:22.630 --> 0:13:25.179 is these new books were showing up. Remember, this is 0:13:25.179 --> 0:13:29.860 between the years 70 and 100. About 120 new books 0:13:29.860 --> 0:13:32.920 are showing up. They're called the New Testament, and they 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.970 actually allude to them. And these rabbis at Yavneh, they 0:13:36.970 --> 0:13:39.910 don't like it. Right. And so what they're saying is, 0:13:39.910 --> 0:13:42.770 do these not those. We don't want to accept their 0:13:42.770 --> 0:13:46.520 authority because they're excluding the New Testament from the canon. 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.010 It's not their job. There is not really to decide 0:13:49.010 --> 0:13:51.859 what the Hebrew canon is. It's what they wanted to 0:13:51.860 --> 0:13:54.620 do was to exclude the New Testament canon. So we 0:13:54.620 --> 0:13:57.740 have to be really careful about that. Okay, New Testament canon, 0:13:57.740 --> 0:14:00.950 let's move to that. Do you have a question about that, Trish? 0:14:01.309 --> 0:14:05.450 Uh, just just how how was it recognized? 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:08.270 Yeah, it was a little different, don't you think, than in. 0:14:08.270 --> 0:14:10.219 Some ways it's different. In other ways it's the same. 0:14:10.220 --> 0:14:12.500 I think Christians hear the voice of God. They know 0:14:12.500 --> 0:14:15.500 these texts. They recognize the people who are writing them. 0:14:15.500 --> 0:14:18.290 Peter is going to refer to Paul's writings, and he's 0:14:18.290 --> 0:14:20.780 going to refer to them as the scriptures. He recognizes 0:14:20.780 --> 0:14:23.330 in them the same voice of God. And so in 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:27.560 that sense, the the process is not that much different. 0:14:27.590 --> 0:14:31.370 They hear God speaking in these texts and they trust them. 0:14:31.370 --> 0:14:34.070 So and even in the first century, we have Clement 0:14:34.070 --> 0:14:36.530 of Rome, who's already quoting from some of these books. 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.020 And so already eight of the books are already mentioned 0:14:39.020 --> 0:14:43.050 by 95 A.D.. Bf5+, so they're clearly being already seen 0:14:43.050 --> 0:14:44.850 as authoritative very early on. 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.970 Yeah, I think it's interesting because even the New Testament 0:14:47.970 --> 0:14:52.860 is accepting it right away. Uh, here's here's what I 0:14:52.860 --> 0:14:59.190 mean by that. Jude cites Peter. Mhm. Peter cites Paul 0:14:59.190 --> 0:15:01.950 as scripture. And if you want to see that, that's 0:15:01.950 --> 0:15:05.430 in second Peter 315 and 16, he even says that 0:15:05.430 --> 0:15:06.750 Paul's hard to understand. 0:15:06.780 --> 0:15:07.470 Like the other. 0:15:07.470 --> 0:15:08.910 Scriptures. Yeah. Yeah. 0:15:08.910 --> 0:15:09.720 That's amazing. 0:15:09.750 --> 0:15:12.690 Yeah. And so he says to him, as Scripture, Paul 0:15:12.690 --> 0:15:17.430 quotes Luke as Scripture in first Timothy 518. He quotes 0:15:17.460 --> 0:15:20.790 Luke ten seven. Uh, obviously he knew about Luke's writing, 0:15:20.790 --> 0:15:25.200 but he quotes it as Scripture. And so the New 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.530 Testament is actually quoting other New Testament books. And so 0:15:28.650 --> 0:15:33.750 it shows us these books were being immediately recognized as Scripture. Uh, 0:15:33.750 --> 0:15:38.070 and in many times, the letters that Paul wrote and 0:15:38.070 --> 0:15:41.040 Peter wrote and James wrote. They weren't just written to 0:15:41.070 --> 0:15:42.870 one time cyclical letters. 0:15:42.870 --> 0:15:45.000 They were being passed around. Yeah. 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.330 Why? Because they were considered the word of God. And 0:15:48.330 --> 0:15:51.120 so I think that's so important that we recognize it 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:56.550 was not Constantine. Uh, Trish can, uh, confirm this. We 0:15:56.550 --> 0:15:58.680 get a lot of people asking if it was the 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:04.200 Emperor Constantine who decided on what books will be in 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.810 the New Testament. Where are they getting that from? 0:16:06.810 --> 0:16:10.500 No more than Jamnia decided on what's in the Old Testament. 0:16:10.590 --> 0:16:12.660 I think they're getting it from a worse source. Yep, 0:16:12.690 --> 0:16:17.970 they're getting it from Dan Brown. And because at the 0:16:17.970 --> 0:16:19.950 Council of Nicaea, where Constantine was, who is. 0:16:19.950 --> 0:16:21.930 Dan Brown, some of our listeners may not know The 0:16:21.930 --> 0:16:22.350 Da Vinci. 0:16:22.350 --> 0:16:24.540 Code. He wrote this book of fiction. And he asserts 0:16:24.540 --> 0:16:27.030 in there that Constantine decided which books the New Testament 0:16:27.030 --> 0:16:29.610 to include, and the ones he didn't like. He excluded 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:34.920 nothing whatsoever at the Council of Nicaea in 325. I think, uh, 0:16:35.340 --> 0:16:37.930 nothing had to do with the scripture they were dealing 0:16:37.930 --> 0:16:43.090 with the deity of the Lord Jesus. No no no no. 0:16:43.510 --> 0:16:46.390 That was not the decision. You can see much earlier 0:16:46.390 --> 0:16:49.750 on that there were the New Testament books, as you said, Jim. 0:16:49.780 --> 0:16:52.180 Yeah, there's a number of I mean, the idea of 0:16:52.180 --> 0:16:55.420 Polycarp acknowledged 15 of the books by 108, and it 0:16:55.420 --> 0:16:57.729 just keeps on exponentially getting better. Now, there are just 0:16:57.730 --> 0:17:00.010 like the Old Testament, some books that are so at 0:17:00.010 --> 0:17:03.190 the margin second Peter and some others, but generally, by 0:17:03.190 --> 0:17:05.230 and large, there was wide acceptance of both. 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:06.100 Nobody's disputing the. 0:17:06.130 --> 0:17:06.910 Gospels, right? 0:17:07.090 --> 0:17:08.530 Just like nobody disputed the Torah. 0:17:08.530 --> 0:17:12.100 But today they say we found this gospel, the Gospel 0:17:12.100 --> 0:17:15.370 of Mary Magdalene. Yeah. Or the Gospel of Judas. 0:17:15.369 --> 0:17:18.580 Competing Christianity's at that time, and some are suppressed. But 0:17:18.609 --> 0:17:21.220 is that what's actually happening? Maybe they were put away 0:17:21.220 --> 0:17:24.400 because they were untruthful and the church recognized there's not 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.100 the ring of truth in these gospels. Put them aside. 0:17:27.100 --> 0:17:28.600 These are the ones we can trust. 0:17:28.630 --> 0:17:32.170 Exactly. And moreover, some of them are really late. Yes. 0:17:32.260 --> 0:17:35.350 Very late. In fact, there are no early ones. And strange. 0:17:35.380 --> 0:17:38.930 They're they're their second, third, fourth centuries. It's not like 0:17:38.930 --> 0:17:42.740 they were there from the beginning. These other gospels, they're 0:17:42.740 --> 0:17:48.830 just they're actually Gnostic books that the Gnostics are saying, oh, wait, wait, 0:17:48.830 --> 0:17:51.110 we just found this book. It was written by Peter. 0:17:51.109 --> 0:17:53.750 They're making this up, right? And and they're adding it 0:17:53.780 --> 0:17:58.640 much later, trying to change the truth of the gospel. So, yeah, 0:17:58.670 --> 0:18:00.679 the I think it's so crucial that we know that 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:02.629 it wasn't they were sitting around, of course, they were 0:18:02.630 --> 0:18:04.609 looking for some sort of I think the reason the 0:18:04.609 --> 0:18:07.399 church has accepted them, they wanted them to be either 0:18:07.430 --> 0:18:12.260 apostolic or linked to an apostle. Yeah. 0:18:12.530 --> 0:18:15.290 I think that's key. The idea that is there somebody 0:18:15.290 --> 0:18:18.169 that we know of that's apostolic authority that's associated with 0:18:18.170 --> 0:18:21.110 these books? Yeah. Somebody who saw Jesus, somebody who was 0:18:21.109 --> 0:18:23.120 with Jesus, someone who was with the disciples, that kind 0:18:23.150 --> 0:18:23.570 of thing. 0:18:23.570 --> 0:18:26.420 So the gospel of Mark really reflects what Peter, Peter 0:18:26.450 --> 0:18:30.560 and the Gospel of Luke is linked to. Paul. Paul authorized, 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.800 I believe the writing of Luke acts to for him 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.480 to go to the Greco-Roman world and have a book 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.440 that he can show about the church and Jesus, Jesus, 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.800 and then the church. And so there those books are 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.580 linked to apostles. And so that's what they're looking for. 0:18:47.609 --> 0:18:50.340 Does this book, whether an apostle wrote it or not? 0:18:50.369 --> 0:18:52.260 Does it have the ring of apostolic authority? 0:18:52.350 --> 0:18:54.390 That's not very different from what's going on in the 0:18:54.390 --> 0:18:57.750 Hebrew Bible, the Torah. Moses wrote it. No one's going 0:18:57.780 --> 0:19:00.510 to dispute that. Yeah. And there are other attestations of 0:19:00.510 --> 0:19:04.410 these books. Samuel, Jeremiah, Isaiah. We know these are authoritative 0:19:04.410 --> 0:19:07.560 men who speak with God's authority, not their own. That's 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:09.030 why their writings are trustworthy. 0:19:09.030 --> 0:19:11.130 So that's what it is. What and how. 0:19:11.130 --> 0:19:14.850 Was the order of the New Testament determined? That's in 0:19:14.850 --> 0:19:16.200 our English Bible. Is that the. 0:19:16.230 --> 0:19:18.120 That's a very good question, because most of the time 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.700 people are surprised that it's not by when they were written. 0:19:20.700 --> 0:19:23.399 It's often by size. Roman starts out as one of 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:25.590 the largest of Paul's letters, and we get smaller and 0:19:25.590 --> 0:19:27.690 smaller as we go. So it's not on a linear 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:29.610 chronological timeline, but they do. 0:19:29.820 --> 0:19:31.890 Well, first you have the Gospels. There's some sort of chronology. 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:32.820 You get the Gospels. 0:19:32.850 --> 0:19:33.450 Then acts. 0:19:33.510 --> 0:19:35.880 Then you get acts. I mean, when I teach acts, 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:37.889 I always tell everyone. Here's what I want you to do. 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.740 I want you to read the first verses of Romans 0:19:40.740 --> 0:19:43.080 and see if you know what this means. If you 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.359 don't have the book of Acts, it's the great bridge 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:50.100 from the Gospels to the epistles. And, and so. And 0:19:50.100 --> 0:19:52.830 then you get the letters. So you've got the story 0:19:52.830 --> 0:19:55.379 of Jesus, the story of the church, the letters of 0:19:55.380 --> 0:20:00.300 the church, and then the culmination with the book of revelation. 0:20:00.300 --> 0:20:03.419 So it's size and chronology in a sense. 0:20:03.420 --> 0:20:04.980 There's a little bit of both. But the idea that, 0:20:05.010 --> 0:20:07.020 you know, Galatians is probably one of the early ones, 0:20:07.020 --> 0:20:08.850 how come it's not first after we read the book 0:20:08.850 --> 0:20:10.470 of acts? Yeah, it's because they were. 0:20:10.500 --> 0:20:11.189 It was smaller than. 0:20:11.220 --> 0:20:14.400 Romans, than Romans. And Romans is a very key book. Yeah. 0:20:14.430 --> 0:20:17.850 So that's how it was. And I think that that's 0:20:17.850 --> 0:20:21.600 really important. But there are other books there. The in-between books. 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:26.220 Yes, several, several people asked and wanted to know why 0:20:26.220 --> 0:20:32.040 the Apocrypha is not included in some Bibles. Yeah. 0:20:32.350 --> 0:20:36.040 I think the best answer for Protestant Christians is that 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:40.060 the Jewish community never accepted these books as authoritative scripture. 0:20:40.090 --> 0:20:43.480 The original Bible of the early church is the Old Testament. 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.600 The Hebrew Bible and the Hebrew Bible did not include 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.870 these books, the apocryphal books in their canon. And so, 0:20:49.869 --> 0:20:52.690 as the church takes it over, they take with them 0:20:52.690 --> 0:20:56.500 the books that the the Old Testament believers trusted. 0:20:56.530 --> 0:21:01.930 Yeah, some people think that the reason the Apocrypha is 0:21:01.930 --> 0:21:06.850 included in some Bibles is because the Septuagint had it, 0:21:06.850 --> 0:21:10.000 but it really didn't. The earliest records we have from 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.790 Josephus and others, where it talks about the books of 0:21:12.790 --> 0:21:15.550 the Bible in the Septuagint, did not include the Apocrypha. 0:21:15.580 --> 0:21:18.730 Josephus is very careful to enumerate the books, and they 0:21:18.730 --> 0:21:20.230 don't include the apocryphal books. 0:21:20.260 --> 0:21:23.170 And so what happened was in the fourth century or so, 0:21:23.170 --> 0:21:26.919 there was a version, a copy of the Septuagint made 0:21:27.190 --> 0:21:31.570 that included the Apocrypha, not the original, but a later cop. 0:21:31.570 --> 0:21:33.639 And then they said, well, let's conclude these two because 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:37.659 they're holy books. And somehow that's I think, let's get 0:21:37.690 --> 0:21:39.940 gets translated into the Vulgate. 0:21:40.060 --> 0:21:42.250 It's important Jerome understood a distinction. 0:21:42.250 --> 0:21:44.109 Don't know what the Vulgate is. It's a Roman, a 0:21:44.470 --> 0:21:48.369 Latin version that Jerome did in the fourth or fifth century. 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.250 That's right. And he understood the distinction. Yeah. And he 0:21:51.250 --> 0:21:55.150 made notes and separated out those apocryphal books. Yeah. But 0:21:55.150 --> 0:21:57.730 as they were published and republished and reprinted and reprinted, 0:21:57.730 --> 0:22:00.910 those notes and those distinctions fell away and people just 0:22:00.910 --> 0:22:01.840 worked them right in. Yeah. 0:22:01.869 --> 0:22:03.790 They were just kind of good religious books. 0:22:03.820 --> 0:22:06.970 They're very kind of intriguing reads. I remember when I 0:22:06.970 --> 0:22:08.949 was in seminary, I read the Apocrypha because it's kind 0:22:08.950 --> 0:22:10.570 of like, what do we do with these books? I 0:22:10.570 --> 0:22:12.760 remember reading The Book of Judith and thinking, wow, this 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.790 would make a great movie. Yeah. It's like, wow. Why? 0:22:15.820 --> 0:22:18.130 Why does somebody take this up? But now again, it's 0:22:18.130 --> 0:22:21.370 not authoritative. It's not inspired. It's not inerrant, but it 0:22:21.369 --> 0:22:23.740 just kind of is an interesting read in terms of 0:22:23.740 --> 0:22:24.640 a narrative story. 0:22:24.670 --> 0:22:27.850 And the book of First Maccabees is very helpful. History historically. Yeah. 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.700 But nevertheless, it is not. And in fact first Second 0:22:31.700 --> 0:22:34.700 Maccabees is cited in the book of Hebrews in Hebrews 0:22:34.700 --> 0:22:39.439 1132 through 40. It mentions, uh, a woman, uh, who 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:43.250 those who were were looking for a better resurrection, and 0:22:43.250 --> 0:22:45.920 they refused to disobey God. That's a reference to Hannah 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.490 and her sons from the Maccabees. So there are things 0:22:49.490 --> 0:22:51.650 that were true that happened in them, but they are 0:22:51.650 --> 0:22:55.219 not inerrant. They are not inspired. So how do they 0:22:55.220 --> 0:22:59.030 get in? What's the issue? It's the Reformation. 0:22:59.060 --> 0:23:00.530 How how do they get out? 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:00.859 Yeah. 0:23:00.859 --> 0:23:04.070 Well, here's what happens. They really were not accepted as 0:23:04.100 --> 0:23:07.670 the Bible. And then the Reformation comes along and they 0:23:07.670 --> 0:23:10.730 say sola scriptura and some of these doctrines being taught 0:23:10.730 --> 0:23:13.159 are not in the Bible. And so we're not going 0:23:13.190 --> 0:23:16.460 to believe them anymore. And so in the Counter Reformation, 0:23:16.460 --> 0:23:18.619 the church says, well, they may not be taught in 0:23:18.619 --> 0:23:21.200 the Bible, but they're taught in the Apocrypha. And so 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:22.639 what are we going to do? We're going to make 0:23:22.670 --> 0:23:24.290 sure the Apocrypha is now we're going to do. 0:23:24.290 --> 0:23:25.040 Scripture, right? 0:23:25.070 --> 0:23:25.369 Yeah. 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:29.280 So those are now called the deuterocanonicals Canonicals. A second cannon, 0:23:29.550 --> 0:23:32.760 not lower than, but alongside equal of authority to the 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:34.889 first cannon. The Council of Trent declares. 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:37.770 So you have, like an Old Testament canon, an Inter-testamental canon, 0:23:37.770 --> 0:23:40.590 which is the Apocrypha, right? According to the authority of 0:23:40.590 --> 0:23:43.110 the church and then the New Testament canon. But it 0:23:43.109 --> 0:23:47.160 is it's really a 16th century addition to the Bible. 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:50.460 It is not original to the Bible. So it was 0:23:50.460 --> 0:23:52.770 it was over an argument about doctrine. They said, well, 0:23:52.770 --> 0:23:54.750 we're going to find verses that back it up. It's 0:23:54.750 --> 0:23:57.330 in the Apocrypha. Let's put it in now. So that's 0:23:57.330 --> 0:23:59.730 that's where it comes from. So there are a lot 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.810 of people that want to know about the Apocrypha, but uh, 0:24:04.500 --> 0:24:08.400 but nevertheless, uh, we're not going to say that they're 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:10.560 part of the word of God. Although when I came 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:13.620 to Moody Bible Institute as a teenager, as a freshman, 0:24:13.619 --> 0:24:17.609 and I took New Testament survey, the first two weeks 0:24:17.609 --> 0:24:18.780 or so of the course, we had to read the 0:24:18.780 --> 0:24:22.590 whole Apocrypha because it kind of bridges into the New 0:24:22.590 --> 0:24:23.580 Testament and helps us. 0:24:23.700 --> 0:24:26.189 There is that gap of knowledge between when Ezra passed 0:24:26.190 --> 0:24:28.260 off the scene to when we come to Jesus and 0:24:28.260 --> 0:24:31.649 John the Baptist. So the Book of Maccabees does kind 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:33.750 of fill us in with some of those details. Yeah, I. 0:24:33.750 --> 0:24:36.959 Think that that is really important that we recognize that, 0:24:37.410 --> 0:24:39.660 that that it's not a bad thing to read. It's 0:24:39.660 --> 0:24:42.600 just not the authoritative word of God. And there are 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:46.230 many people who listen to this, and they would come 0:24:46.230 --> 0:24:50.129 from a different tradition, and they they would like to 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:52.920 read the Bible and they have the Apocrypha. I say 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:56.010 go for it, read it. But the main thing to read, 0:24:56.010 --> 0:24:59.250 read the scriptures. You know, what you want to do 0:24:59.250 --> 0:25:03.090 is read God's authoritative Word of God. Now there's a 0:25:03.090 --> 0:25:04.889 bunch of questions about the Apocrypha. Did we kind of 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:07.619 cover all this? We did. Yes. Yeah. That that's really 0:25:07.619 --> 0:25:10.919 important that we we know where they came from, what 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:14.490 they are. And yeah, you can read them, but they're not. 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:18.900 I read a lot of literature. I because I teach 0:25:18.900 --> 0:25:21.179 courses here that includes the Mishnah and the Talmud and 0:25:21.180 --> 0:25:23.070 things like that. But I always say they're not the 0:25:23.070 --> 0:25:25.990 wonderful words of life, nor nor is the Apocrypha. 0:25:26.170 --> 0:25:28.210 Just like we would read ancient Near Eastern texts from 0:25:28.210 --> 0:25:30.340 the time of the Old Testament to kind of fill 0:25:30.340 --> 0:25:31.450 us in with details or a good. 0:25:31.450 --> 0:25:32.709 Devotional that we love. 0:25:32.740 --> 0:25:34.960 Yeah, but what we want to really read is the 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:38.710 Word of God, the Bible, which are the wonderful words 0:25:38.710 --> 0:25:41.050 of life. We're going to be right back with more 0:25:41.050 --> 0:25:44.050 of your questions right here on on Open Line, my guest, 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:47.200 Jim Coakley, Steve Sanchez, Trish McMillan's kind of riding herd, 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:49.780 making sure we stay on top of things. Uh, my 0:25:49.780 --> 0:25:52.510 name is Michael Radonich. Stay with us. We'll be right back. 0:25:58.600 --> 0:26:01.960 We're so glad that Febc partners with Open Line with 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:06.550 Doctor Michael Radonich, bringing the Febc mailbag every week. Learn 0:26:06.550 --> 0:26:09.459 how far East Broadcasting Company is taking Christ to the 0:26:09.460 --> 0:26:13.990 world at febc. Org on their weekly podcast. Until all 0:26:13.990 --> 0:26:16.900 have heard with Ed Cannon, you'll hear stories of lives 0:26:16.900 --> 0:26:20.710 changed by Messiah all across the globe. Again. You can 0:26:20.710 --> 0:26:23.110 hear the podcast when you visit febc. 0:26:23.109 --> 0:26:26.770 Dawg. That's fake dawg. 0:26:37.000 --> 0:26:40.119 Welcome back to Open Line. My name is Michael Melnick, 0:26:40.119 --> 0:26:42.580 and I am so glad you're listening today to this 0:26:42.580 --> 0:26:46.359 great pre-recorded discussion. We're talking about how we got the 0:26:46.359 --> 0:26:49.510 Word of God. The first hour was about the inspiration 0:26:49.510 --> 0:26:52.330 and authority of the Bible. If you missed it, go 0:26:52.330 --> 0:26:55.929 back to the website and listen online or download the podcast. 0:26:55.930 --> 0:26:58.900 I think you're really going to like it. This hour 0:26:58.930 --> 0:27:02.139 of focusing on how we got the Bible producer Trish 0:27:02.140 --> 0:27:04.780 McMillan is here. Jim Coakley is my guest. He's a 0:27:04.780 --> 0:27:08.740 professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute. Steve Sanchez, also 0:27:08.740 --> 0:27:11.560 a professor of Bible at Moody and both contributors to 0:27:11.590 --> 0:27:14.859 the Moody Bible Commentary. I'm grateful for their help today 0:27:14.859 --> 0:27:17.890 as we talk about these important questions. Let's go right 0:27:17.890 --> 0:27:19.090 back to it, Trish. 0:27:19.330 --> 0:27:22.270 All right, Elizabeth Rodas in North Carolina, she listens on 0:27:22.270 --> 0:27:24.680 the mobile app and says, what? Why was the book 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:30.830 of the Psalms included in the Bible if it's primarily songs? Okay, 0:27:30.950 --> 0:27:32.240 who wants to take that one? 0:27:32.270 --> 0:27:37.219 You know the Psalms. The Psalms breathe with emotion. And 0:27:37.220 --> 0:27:41.270 they they live in the world of joy and pain 0:27:41.270 --> 0:27:44.540 and delight and suffering. And I like to read the 0:27:44.540 --> 0:27:46.940 Psalms and say to myself, this is this is God 0:27:46.940 --> 0:27:49.310 showing me how to worship, how to delight in him, 0:27:49.310 --> 0:27:51.679 how to deal with pain, how to complain, and at 0:27:51.680 --> 0:27:54.350 the same time have faith in the one who promises 0:27:54.350 --> 0:27:57.830 to take care of me. Without the Psalms, we'd lose 0:27:57.859 --> 0:28:00.170 a lot in how we relate to God. A lot 0:28:00.170 --> 0:28:01.430 of that instruction. 0:28:01.460 --> 0:28:03.380 That's what I love about the whole scriptures, is because 0:28:03.380 --> 0:28:05.780 we have something for everybody, so to speak. We have 0:28:05.780 --> 0:28:08.240 history time. We have letters. If you want to know 0:28:08.240 --> 0:28:10.550 exactly what to do. But then we also have these 0:28:10.550 --> 0:28:13.699 wisdom books that also kind of especially with the Psalms, 0:28:13.700 --> 0:28:16.730 give us what's if I if I'm in pain, if 0:28:16.730 --> 0:28:18.889 I have been suffering, what words can I have? Well, 0:28:18.890 --> 0:28:21.169 I can use the psalmist to kind of voice back 0:28:21.180 --> 0:28:23.700 to God, what I'm experiencing. And so it's a great 0:28:23.700 --> 0:28:25.020 thing to have in the scriptures. 0:28:25.050 --> 0:28:26.760 Okay, I'm going to go back to what we were 0:28:26.760 --> 0:28:30.480 asked earlier by someone. How do they decide which books 0:28:30.630 --> 0:28:33.090 of the canon in the Hebrew Bible? One of the 0:28:33.090 --> 0:28:36.000 things I think that caused the remnant of Israel, the 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:38.760 faithful of Israel, to receive these books immediately is that 0:28:38.760 --> 0:28:42.480 they were looking for a messianic message. And there is 0:28:42.480 --> 0:28:44.430 a messianic message. I believe in every book of the 0:28:44.430 --> 0:28:49.530 Hebrew Bible, and the Psalms are no different. I really 0:28:49.590 --> 0:28:51.570 a lot of us don't realize this, that the Psalms 0:28:51.570 --> 0:28:54.120 were written over a long period of time, but there 0:28:54.120 --> 0:28:56.430 are Psalms from the exile. There are psalms from after 0:28:56.430 --> 0:28:59.220 the exile, like Psalm 126, when the Lord brought back 0:28:59.250 --> 0:29:03.120 the captive ones from Zion. Psalm 137 is in the exile, 0:29:03.360 --> 0:29:04.770 which is Psalm 90. 0:29:04.800 --> 0:29:06.270 From Moses, which is earthly. 0:29:06.300 --> 0:29:08.640 Long period of time. But then they were made into 0:29:08.640 --> 0:29:13.020 a book after the return from exile. And one of 0:29:13.020 --> 0:29:16.740 the key themes of the Book of Psalms is the king. Yes. 0:29:16.980 --> 0:29:20.790 And some of those who hold something called form criticism 0:29:20.820 --> 0:29:24.750 have called those royal psalms, even if that's right, if 0:29:24.750 --> 0:29:28.110 they're royal psalms, who's the king in the Post-exilic period, 0:29:28.110 --> 0:29:32.340 there is no king there waiting for the return, the 0:29:32.340 --> 0:29:35.610 coming of the king. And and so the king. This 0:29:35.610 --> 0:29:39.090 is about the Messiah. And it's it's designed to teach 0:29:39.120 --> 0:29:42.480 us about the Messiah. David uses he wrote 73 Psalms. 0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:45.240 I think David is using his own home movies, so 0:29:45.240 --> 0:29:47.820 to speak, his own experiences to teach us about that 0:29:47.820 --> 0:29:50.700 future king. And that's how we have to read the Psalms. 0:29:50.700 --> 0:29:54.540 And so, uh, there are great insight into the messianic 0:29:54.540 --> 0:29:56.850 message of the Hebrew Bible. That's why it's included. 0:29:56.850 --> 0:29:58.980 It's wonderful too, because Psalm one, I think we have 0:29:58.980 --> 0:30:01.380 read the word keep the law, but then Psalm two, 0:30:01.410 --> 0:30:03.900 kiss the son, you know, worship him. And then Psalm eight, 0:30:03.930 --> 0:30:05.910 you know the king's rage. And so you're right. There's 0:30:05.910 --> 0:30:07.530 something going on here as the kings are raging. Yeah, 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:09.060 something about Psalm one. 0:30:09.060 --> 0:30:10.530 As you read the word, guess what? You're going to 0:30:10.530 --> 0:30:13.680 find Psalm two. You're going to find, uh, the king. Yeah. 0:30:13.860 --> 0:30:16.650 So that's that's what I would say about why the 0:30:16.650 --> 0:30:18.030 Psalms were included. 0:30:18.040 --> 0:30:20.469 Okay. So with that, so you have these Psalms that 0:30:20.470 --> 0:30:23.530 are written over a long period of time will move 0:30:23.560 --> 0:30:26.530 kind of into transmission. How we actually got the written 0:30:26.530 --> 0:30:30.670 word of God are those Psalms being written down and 0:30:30.670 --> 0:30:33.190 passed out in pieces of paper? I mean, how how 0:30:33.220 --> 0:30:35.950 are people knowing these? How have they collected all of 0:30:35.950 --> 0:30:39.880 these Psalms or any of the other Old Testament, especially books? Um, 0:30:39.880 --> 0:30:43.030 how was that passed down from generation to generation? 0:30:43.360 --> 0:30:46.030 We really don't have a whole lot of information about 0:30:46.030 --> 0:30:48.370 that because we don't have the manuscripts, the transmission of 0:30:48.370 --> 0:30:50.920 those texts from that time. But we do know, as 0:30:50.920 --> 0:30:53.320 we already talked about, that there is time that's developed 0:30:53.320 --> 0:30:55.600 even in Proverbs. You get to the end of the 0:30:55.600 --> 0:30:57.790 book of Proverbs, that these are the Proverbs of Solomon 0:30:57.790 --> 0:31:01.090 in which the men of Hezekiah collected. It's like, huh? 0:31:01.120 --> 0:31:03.340 I thought Solomon wrote it all, but there was still 0:31:03.340 --> 0:31:06.190 some more floating around that Solomon wrote that the men 0:31:06.190 --> 0:31:09.790 of Hezekiah, which is 100 years plus later, that are 0:31:09.790 --> 0:31:13.180 now now put together along with what we already established 0:31:13.180 --> 0:31:16.210 with Solomonic proverbs. And so there is this kind of 0:31:16.240 --> 0:31:18.560 work in progress kind of thing, but it is at 0:31:18.560 --> 0:31:20.930 the end inspired and what God wants to have in 0:31:20.930 --> 0:31:21.590 the scriptures. 0:31:21.620 --> 0:31:23.810 Yeah. And then there's structure, even to the book of Proverbs, 0:31:23.810 --> 0:31:26.540 the way it's put together. The the point of that 0:31:26.540 --> 0:31:31.850 is that we don't know how they preserved, but they 0:31:31.850 --> 0:31:35.630 did preserve Psalm 90, and they did preserve the Psalms 0:31:35.630 --> 0:31:39.440 of David, and they did preserve the Psalms of Asaph. 0:31:39.440 --> 0:31:42.710 And what happens is at the end they're put into 0:31:42.710 --> 0:31:46.100 a book and they're structured there's five volumes to the 0:31:46.100 --> 0:31:49.340 book of Psalms and so forth. I always think that 0:31:49.340 --> 0:31:53.959 probably someone like Isaiah, he kept a journal and he 0:31:53.960 --> 0:31:56.390 would write down events. But that's not what we have 0:31:56.390 --> 0:31:59.630 in the book of Isaiah. Then he takes all these 0:31:59.630 --> 0:32:02.090 things that he probably wrote down, and he forms it 0:32:02.090 --> 0:32:02.750 into a book. 0:32:02.780 --> 0:32:05.450 It's an anthology. It's his greatest hits. But it's now 0:32:05.480 --> 0:32:06.560 but now it has structure. 0:32:06.590 --> 0:32:11.660 It's got structure purpose. Yeah. So, so that's why how 0:32:11.660 --> 0:32:13.340 it was I. 0:32:13.340 --> 0:32:13.459 Don't. 0:32:13.790 --> 0:32:14.510 We don't know. We don't. 0:32:14.540 --> 0:32:15.950 Know. But they're copying. 0:32:16.220 --> 0:32:19.010 They're passing down. And later generations are aware of the 0:32:19.010 --> 0:32:19.940 copies that they have. 0:32:19.970 --> 0:32:22.070 We have things like the Torah where it says that 0:32:22.070 --> 0:32:23.150 Joshua copied it. 0:32:23.270 --> 0:32:23.720 Right. 0:32:24.200 --> 0:32:27.860 There are things that are copied, and that's how it 0:32:27.860 --> 0:32:28.310 was done. 0:32:28.310 --> 0:32:32.690 But so is this mostly oral tradition or. We don't 0:32:32.720 --> 0:32:35.150 know that either. I mean, it was a different time 0:32:35.150 --> 0:32:39.320 where we weren't writing notes down on various electronic devices. 0:32:39.320 --> 0:32:40.910 So we they were thinking. 0:32:40.940 --> 0:32:41.480 No, but they were. 0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:44.780 Capable of writing. Yeah. I mean, I think writing is key, 0:32:44.780 --> 0:32:47.630 and Israel's not the only culture in the ancient Near East. 0:32:47.630 --> 0:32:49.820 There are lots of others, and they're all writing too. 0:32:49.850 --> 0:32:52.400 And so the idea that it's just an oral tradition, 0:32:52.400 --> 0:32:54.140 I don't think that goes far enough. It doesn't give 0:32:54.170 --> 0:32:56.240 enough credit, if you will, to the to the people 0:32:56.240 --> 0:32:59.360 of the land. Things are being spoken and they have 0:32:59.360 --> 0:33:02.660 writing material. They're capable of writing things down. And that 0:33:02.660 --> 0:33:06.650 really is what preserves the text more than fallible human memory. 0:33:06.650 --> 0:33:08.780 It's we wrote this down. Did he actually say that? 0:33:08.810 --> 0:33:10.310 Yes he did. Look, here it is. We've got it 0:33:10.310 --> 0:33:10.910 written down. 0:33:10.910 --> 0:33:12.920 So, Moses, when he's writing the Pentateuch. 0:33:12.950 --> 0:33:13.640 Clearly he's. 0:33:13.640 --> 0:33:16.560 Got genealogies that that were written down that he's using. 0:33:16.560 --> 0:33:18.510 There may have been some stories that he wrote down 0:33:18.510 --> 0:33:21.510 about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that weren't written. Maybe they were, 0:33:21.510 --> 0:33:24.150 but they were passed down to him from Jochebed, his mom, 0:33:24.150 --> 0:33:26.700 who raised him. And so he knew some of the 0:33:26.700 --> 0:33:27.990 stories of, of Israel. 0:33:27.990 --> 0:33:30.540 And we also know the kings were supposed to write it. 0:33:30.540 --> 0:33:33.600 Here's Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 18. Now it should come 0:33:33.600 --> 0:33:35.550 about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom. 0:33:35.550 --> 0:33:37.800 He shall write for himself a copy of this law 0:33:37.800 --> 0:33:40.620 and a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. 0:33:40.620 --> 0:33:43.770 So we already know that kings and leaders were supposed 0:33:43.770 --> 0:33:46.290 to rewrite what was passed down from Moses. 0:33:46.590 --> 0:33:48.060 And Moses was commanded to write. 0:33:48.060 --> 0:33:49.710 It was commanded to write it. And so he is 0:33:49.710 --> 0:33:52.620 writing going on now. How do they preserve it? On 0:33:52.620 --> 0:33:55.200 what materials? Now here it mentions a scroll. Was it 0:33:55.200 --> 0:33:57.660 on clay tablets? Was it on animal skins? Was it 0:33:57.660 --> 0:34:00.420 on papyrus? All these things? That's the kind of stuff 0:34:00.420 --> 0:34:03.360 we're kind of missing in terms of the material culture 0:34:03.360 --> 0:34:05.760 that this stuff was written on. Yeah. 0:34:07.020 --> 0:34:10.200 So I think it's vital that we know that even 0:34:10.200 --> 0:34:12.120 if there were oral traditions, by the time they get 0:34:12.120 --> 0:34:13.100 into the Bible. 0:34:13.130 --> 0:34:14.630 Written down there, written down. 0:34:14.630 --> 0:34:15.200 And passed down. 0:34:15.230 --> 0:34:16.670 And aren't you thankful that you have the Word of 0:34:16.670 --> 0:34:18.680 God written down? Yeah. I mean, you don't have to 0:34:18.680 --> 0:34:21.920 rely on your memory, your mood. You turn to a book. 0:34:21.950 --> 0:34:24.470 This is what it says. There's confidence that it's the 0:34:24.469 --> 0:34:26.480 word of God and you move forward. Yeah. 0:34:26.510 --> 0:34:28.790 I do think, though, there are some things that do 0:34:28.820 --> 0:34:32.780 show that there was a morality to these stories, especially 0:34:32.780 --> 0:34:35.930 because their structures repeated kind of patterns. And it's like 0:34:36.050 --> 0:34:39.230 you could see how a storyteller could have memory aids 0:34:39.230 --> 0:34:41.480 to kind of tell the story of judges or tell 0:34:41.480 --> 0:34:44.029 the story of Joshua with these kind of devices that 0:34:44.030 --> 0:34:46.910 are there. Now, of course, they did ultimately write them down, 0:34:46.910 --> 0:34:50.090 but I think there is Aids for oral storytelling of 0:34:50.090 --> 0:34:50.750 the scriptures. 0:34:50.780 --> 0:34:51.440 Yeah, yeah. 0:34:51.469 --> 0:34:58.069 So all right, um, kind of moving into translations and 0:34:58.070 --> 0:35:02.810 some of those things. We'll start with the King James controversy. Um, 0:35:02.810 --> 0:35:09.109 and some contention about, um, that text. Um, yeah. Maybe 0:35:09.110 --> 0:35:11.450 I'll just start there and let you take it from there. 0:35:11.469 --> 0:35:14.740 What are some of the controversies surrounding that? Do we 0:35:14.739 --> 0:35:16.480 get a lot of questions about this? 0:35:16.510 --> 0:35:20.049 The issue that people say now, there are most people 0:35:20.050 --> 0:35:23.200 who say, oh, we should keep the King James as 0:35:23.200 --> 0:35:27.730 the Authorized Version, as the only true Bible they're saying, 0:35:27.730 --> 0:35:29.470 because they like the archaic language. 0:35:29.500 --> 0:35:32.169 Right. It feels more spiritual when they read it. 0:35:32.200 --> 0:35:33.160 But that's it. 0:35:33.190 --> 0:35:37.149 Yeah, that's really not what drives a lot of this controversy. 0:35:37.180 --> 0:35:39.460 What drives it? And that's why there can be a 0:35:39.460 --> 0:35:43.330 new King James Version is particularly with the New Testament. 0:35:43.420 --> 0:35:47.710 It was believed that the, the, the way to understand it, 0:35:47.710 --> 0:35:52.569 that there were families of texts of ancient texts of 0:35:52.570 --> 0:35:57.969 the New Testament and the Byzantine family from the Byzantine 0:35:58.000 --> 0:36:01.839 church had the most of those. In fact, they had 0:36:01.930 --> 0:36:03.670 they just because that was really the only one that 0:36:03.670 --> 0:36:06.100 they had, it kept getting copied over and over and 0:36:06.100 --> 0:36:08.170 over again. So they were the most of those. And 0:36:08.170 --> 0:36:11.450 then the New Testament, the the King James Bible is translated. 0:36:11.450 --> 0:36:15.170 What's the Greek text? They have the Byzantine, and so 0:36:15.170 --> 0:36:18.740 they translated it from that. That was in the year 1611. 0:36:18.770 --> 0:36:21.170 There were other versions in English before that, the Geneva 0:36:21.200 --> 0:36:25.399 Bible and so forth. Then what happens as time goes on? 0:36:25.430 --> 0:36:28.340 I'm going to let some of my other professors come 0:36:28.340 --> 0:36:30.739 in at this. We're going to join this in just 0:36:30.739 --> 0:36:34.760 a moment. Uh, we've got the King James produced based 0:36:34.760 --> 0:36:37.550 on the Byzantine or the majority of the manuscripts that 0:36:37.550 --> 0:36:41.270 we have. And then something happens and we're going to 0:36:41.270 --> 0:36:45.379 talk about that when we come back. So if you're listening, 0:36:45.380 --> 0:36:46.430 you may be teasing us. 0:36:46.460 --> 0:36:47.300 He's teasing us. 0:36:47.360 --> 0:36:48.260 Cliffhanger. 0:36:48.590 --> 0:36:51.260 You want to know what happened? Why? We have other versions. 0:36:51.260 --> 0:36:53.570 This is what we'll tell you when we come back. 0:36:53.600 --> 0:36:57.379 You're listening to Steve Sanchez, Jim Coakley, Trish McMillan and me, 0:36:57.410 --> 0:36:59.450 Michael Wright. So don't go away. If you want to 0:36:59.480 --> 0:37:02.509 know why there's this controversy about the King James Bible. 0:37:02.540 --> 0:37:12.540 Stay with us. This is open line. People frequently think 0:37:12.540 --> 0:37:15.480 of Christmas as a Christian holiday and Hanukkah as a 0:37:15.480 --> 0:37:19.140 Jewish celebration. But if we really understood Christmas, we see 0:37:19.140 --> 0:37:22.080 that it's deeply connected to the Jewish people. I mean, 0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:25.530 we even sing born as the King of Israel, now 0:37:25.530 --> 0:37:28.230 Chosen People Ministries, one of open lines underwriters and a 0:37:28.230 --> 0:37:31.050 ministry that brings the good news to Jewish people around 0:37:31.050 --> 0:37:34.500 the world, is offering Christmas through Jewish eyes. This free 0:37:34.500 --> 0:37:38.400 booklet will show just how Jewish Christmas really is. For 0:37:38.400 --> 0:37:40.950 your free copy of Christmas Through Jewish Eyes, just go 0:37:40.950 --> 0:37:45.000 to the Open Line website. Open Line radio.org. Scroll down. 0:37:45.000 --> 0:37:47.279 You'll see a link that says A free gift from 0:37:47.280 --> 0:37:50.100 Chosen People Ministries. Click on that. You'll be taken to 0:37:50.130 --> 0:37:51.720 a page where you can sign up for your own 0:37:51.719 --> 0:38:02.520 copy of Christmas Through Jewish Eyes. Welcome back to Open Line. 0:38:02.520 --> 0:38:04.980 My name is Michael Melnick, and we're talking about how 0:38:04.980 --> 0:38:08.730 we got the Bible. My guests are Jim Coakley, Steven Sanchez, 0:38:08.730 --> 0:38:12.090 and Tricia McMillan. Last segment, we were talking about the 0:38:12.090 --> 0:38:15.989 Byzantine manuscripts that those were the most frequently copied, and 0:38:15.989 --> 0:38:18.509 so therefore they had them the most when they first 0:38:18.510 --> 0:38:21.900 began to translate the Bible into English. Well, then what happens? 0:38:21.900 --> 0:38:25.050 We start finding new manuscripts. There are new manuscripts, and 0:38:25.050 --> 0:38:25.980 when they're analyzed. 0:38:26.219 --> 0:38:28.020 They're really old manuscripts, older. 0:38:28.020 --> 0:38:31.380 Manuscripts. And the general assumption is that if it's older, 0:38:31.380 --> 0:38:35.129 it's closer to the original, less opportunity for things to change. 0:38:35.130 --> 0:38:38.580 People start to incorporate these new manuscripts into new editions 0:38:38.580 --> 0:38:41.580 of the Greek New Testament, which then they use to 0:38:41.610 --> 0:38:44.880 translate new versions of the New Testament in other languages. 0:38:44.910 --> 0:38:47.279 And so people are thinking to me, they always say, well, 0:38:47.310 --> 0:38:50.070 the King James had this verse this way, and now 0:38:50.070 --> 0:38:51.570 it's taken out. 0:38:51.600 --> 0:38:53.940 As if someone did that intentionally to ruin. 0:38:53.940 --> 0:38:55.080 Something. Yeah, to take something out. 0:38:55.080 --> 0:38:58.439 I'm thinking of the verse in First John. Uh, people 0:38:58.440 --> 0:39:01.980 complain to me about that. The verse was taken out about, uh, 0:39:01.980 --> 0:39:05.219 the Trinity. Yeah. The Trinity in verse six, uh, Jesus 0:39:05.219 --> 0:39:07.420 the Messiah. He is the one who came by water 0:39:07.420 --> 0:39:10.420 and blood and not by water only, but by water 0:39:10.420 --> 0:39:13.690 and by blood. And the spirit is the one who testifies, 0:39:13.690 --> 0:39:16.360 because the spirit is the truth. When I look at 0:39:16.360 --> 0:39:19.870 the footnote here in my Bible, it says other manuscripts 0:39:19.870 --> 0:39:23.170 include these testify in heaven, the father, the word, and 0:39:23.170 --> 0:39:27.250 the Holy Spirit. Well, that obviously found its way into 0:39:27.250 --> 0:39:30.070 the Byzantine or that majority text. At a later time. 0:39:30.070 --> 0:39:32.650 Some scribe was trying to help along with the Trinity. Right. 0:39:32.680 --> 0:39:34.000 And they added those words. 0:39:34.000 --> 0:39:35.530 So let's talk about the Trinity. Yeah. 0:39:35.530 --> 0:39:38.170 And they stuck those words in. And now we find 0:39:38.170 --> 0:39:39.279 the earlier manuscripts who. 0:39:39.280 --> 0:39:40.060 Say, no, not there. 0:39:40.090 --> 0:39:43.480 That's not there. So when we do a modern translation 0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:47.140 that's based on the earliest and best versions, it's not 0:39:47.140 --> 0:39:49.270 going to have that. They'll put it in a footnote. 0:39:49.330 --> 0:39:50.469 That's right. Yeah. 0:39:50.650 --> 0:39:52.930 In some cases mine actually doesn't have it in the footnote. 0:39:53.050 --> 0:39:54.520 Oh, it doesn't even have it in the footnote. That's 0:39:54.550 --> 0:39:55.390 the ESV. 0:39:55.480 --> 0:39:57.279 The Hcsb at least gives you the footnote for all 0:39:57.280 --> 0:39:58.569 the people that are going to have a heart attack 0:39:58.570 --> 0:40:01.900 when they don't see that. But that's because it wasn't 0:40:01.900 --> 0:40:05.080 in the earliest and the best manuscripts. So. 0:40:05.110 --> 0:40:07.480 But let's talk though we're only talking about a handful 0:40:07.480 --> 0:40:10.570 of these kind of major passages like first John five six, 0:40:10.719 --> 0:40:14.259 like the woman caught in adultery. John chapter eight, like 0:40:14.260 --> 0:40:16.030 the ending of the gospel of Mark. Those are the 0:40:16.030 --> 0:40:19.600 three biggies. But then we're really talking about minor kind 0:40:19.630 --> 0:40:21.640 of issues. Did they say Lord Jesus Christ or just 0:40:21.640 --> 0:40:24.969 say Jesus Christ? Okay, we're not changing at all anything 0:40:24.969 --> 0:40:27.729 about who Jesus Christ is. It's just maybe a little 0:40:27.730 --> 0:40:29.590 label that might be at issue. 0:40:29.620 --> 0:40:31.630 Okay, so people get mad about Westcott and Hort. What 0:40:31.630 --> 0:40:33.730 was the role of Westcott and Hort in this development 0:40:33.730 --> 0:40:34.990 of New Testament manuscripts? 0:40:34.989 --> 0:40:38.140 These guys are compiling a new Greek text, a new 0:40:38.140 --> 0:40:41.050 critical Greek text, and using that term in the best 0:40:41.050 --> 0:40:43.960 sense of the word, that then becomes the text that 0:40:43.960 --> 0:40:46.060 modern translations are used from. Yeah. 0:40:46.060 --> 0:40:48.190 So what they're doing is they're working with the earliest. 0:40:48.219 --> 0:40:48.610 That's right. 0:40:48.640 --> 0:40:50.170 And so people are going to want to say bad 0:40:50.170 --> 0:40:52.420 things about them. I don't know anything about their spiritual life. 0:40:52.420 --> 0:40:55.990 I don't know anything about what kind of people they were. 0:40:56.020 --> 0:40:56.530 I just. 0:40:56.530 --> 0:40:57.339 Never got people say. 0:40:57.340 --> 0:40:58.120 Not so good things. 0:40:58.150 --> 0:40:59.020 Yeah, I don't know. 0:40:59.020 --> 0:41:01.270 But I do know this. They produced the best and 0:41:01.270 --> 0:41:04.610 earliest manuscripts. And as more and more study has been done, 0:41:04.610 --> 0:41:08.420 they find they found earlier ones and even better tests. 0:41:08.420 --> 0:41:12.650 And so that's that's why the modern. That's why I 0:41:12.650 --> 0:41:15.140 say you need a modern translation, because we don't want 0:41:15.170 --> 0:41:19.460 to treat people often treated the Byzantine text as if 0:41:19.460 --> 0:41:21.440 it was the very thing that Paul wrote or that 0:41:21.440 --> 0:41:22.850 Matthew wrote, and it wasn't. 0:41:22.940 --> 0:41:23.630 I think it's important. 0:41:23.660 --> 0:41:25.760 You've said this already just to repeat it. We're talking 0:41:25.760 --> 0:41:29.150 about a New Testament conversation, whether it's a King James 0:41:29.150 --> 0:41:32.060 or an ESV or a Net Bible, the Old Testament, 0:41:32.060 --> 0:41:35.989 we're depending all on the same manuscript, the Leningrad Codex. 0:41:35.989 --> 0:41:38.660 That's the one everyone is using. So this is basically 0:41:38.660 --> 0:41:40.130 a New Testament conversation. 0:41:40.160 --> 0:41:40.520 Yeah. 0:41:40.550 --> 0:41:43.190 And of course, there are variant readings in the Old Testament. 0:41:43.190 --> 0:41:43.730 Of course there are. 0:41:43.760 --> 0:41:46.550 And I know, for example, in the hcsb the version 0:41:46.550 --> 0:41:49.850 I use, they will sometimes take a well, almost every 0:41:49.850 --> 0:41:53.720 Christian Bible I know translates Psalm 22 as they pierced 0:41:53.719 --> 0:41:57.650 my hands and my feet. 2216 however, in the Masoretic 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:00.770 Text it says, as a lion, my hands and my feet. 0:42:00.770 --> 0:42:04.049 And so we go with the variant reading there. The 0:42:04.050 --> 0:42:07.350 thing is, we're doing good textual criticism. That's exactly that's 0:42:07.350 --> 0:42:09.990 the point. And we want to base our Bibles on 0:42:09.989 --> 0:42:14.609 the best, earliest, strongest understanding of what the original text said. 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:18.540 That's right. And Psalm one 4513 is longer in modern versions, 0:42:18.540 --> 0:42:20.670 in many cases, because one of the Dead Sea scroll 0:42:20.670 --> 0:42:24.330 fragments suggests that, hey, this extra verse has an extra 0:42:24.330 --> 0:42:26.760 few lines to it. And we've now found that that 0:42:26.760 --> 0:42:30.270 wasn't discovered until 48, 47, 48. And now we add 0:42:30.270 --> 0:42:32.280 that back in. Yeah, it's been preserved for us. 0:42:32.310 --> 0:42:32.609 That's it. 0:42:32.610 --> 0:42:36.180 So that's that's what we're doing. And so I think 0:42:36.180 --> 0:42:39.180 that King James was a great translation. It was beautiful 0:42:39.180 --> 0:42:42.990 in its day. There are better translations today. And we 0:42:42.989 --> 0:42:45.840 would do well to use a good modern translation. 0:42:45.840 --> 0:42:48.000 If somebody says, I love the King James because of 0:42:48.000 --> 0:42:51.630 its cadence, because it's, you know, that that's great. But 0:42:51.630 --> 0:42:53.760 if you say, well, it's the authorized text, then you 0:42:53.760 --> 0:42:56.040 shouldn't be reading any others. I think that goes beyond 0:42:56.100 --> 0:42:57.270 a mistake. The and by the way. 0:42:57.570 --> 0:42:59.009 I think the new King James Version is one of 0:42:59.010 --> 0:42:59.850 the best translations. 0:43:00.060 --> 0:43:01.410 Of the Old Testament. Yep. Yeah. 0:43:01.440 --> 0:43:03.660 So King James is actually easier to memorize than a 0:43:03.690 --> 0:43:05.790 lot of the other ones are because of the cadence 0:43:05.790 --> 0:43:07.590 and the English that they had. So it's a very 0:43:07.590 --> 0:43:08.850 good translation. Yeah. 0:43:09.450 --> 0:43:13.410 All right. Roger had asked us if there regarding the 0:43:13.590 --> 0:43:16.950 differences between the modern translations, if you could give him 0:43:16.980 --> 0:43:20.460 a good reference material that will help them better understand 0:43:20.460 --> 0:43:23.549 the differences between the modern Bible translations, what are the 0:43:23.580 --> 0:43:25.890 what are the differences that you would say in the 0:43:25.890 --> 0:43:26.700 modern ones? 0:43:26.700 --> 0:43:29.490 The thing we talk about with Bible translation is a 0:43:29.489 --> 0:43:33.630 formal versus functional. Formal are translations that are trying to 0:43:33.660 --> 0:43:37.950 follow as closely as they can. The original source language, 0:43:37.950 --> 0:43:41.640 Greek or Hebrew functional ones, are ones that are trying 0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:44.310 to get a little bit more the sense of what's 0:43:44.310 --> 0:43:47.250 being communicated, rather than necessarily the same word order or 0:43:47.250 --> 0:43:49.890 things like that. And a lot of times people think, oh, 0:43:49.920 --> 0:43:52.410 the more formal is the better, but that's not always 0:43:52.410 --> 0:43:55.290 the case. I remember hearing about a tribe in Brazil 0:43:55.290 --> 0:43:58.410 where negation happens if you negate something, if you say 0:43:58.410 --> 0:44:02.540 something twice. So that's how they would say no is 0:44:02.540 --> 0:44:04.250 you say it twice. Well, what are you going to 0:44:04.250 --> 0:44:06.590 do if you translate the Gospel of John? Truly, truly, 0:44:06.590 --> 0:44:08.629 I say to you, you must be born again. Yeah. 0:44:08.660 --> 0:44:11.930 So you could be formal, but then you're actually communicating. 0:44:11.930 --> 0:44:15.050 You don't need to be born again. Ah. And so 0:44:15.050 --> 0:44:16.910 all of a sudden they decide, okay, you can see 0:44:16.910 --> 0:44:20.509 how cumbersome and how tricky this is to say, well, 0:44:20.510 --> 0:44:23.330 I'm trying to communicate what God's Word is saying. Do 0:44:23.330 --> 0:44:25.310 I go with the formal and say it has to 0:44:25.340 --> 0:44:27.710 say same thing twice, but they will hear it that 0:44:27.710 --> 0:44:29.570 I don't need to do it. So this is the 0:44:29.570 --> 0:44:31.550 challenge that we have with Bible translation. Yeah. 0:44:31.550 --> 0:44:34.400 So what we're saying is that some are much more 0:44:34.400 --> 0:44:35.210 rigid in English. 0:44:35.210 --> 0:44:36.260 Let's just stick to English. 0:44:36.290 --> 0:44:39.110 And others want to say and that would be a 0:44:39.110 --> 0:44:43.280 a formal translation and then others would be more dynamic equivalence. 0:44:43.550 --> 0:44:45.979 How would we say the very same thing, but say 0:44:45.980 --> 0:44:47.660 it as we speak today in English? 0:44:47.690 --> 0:44:51.110 Every translation is on a spectrum. A formal or that 0:44:51.110 --> 0:44:54.379 dynamic side. It's not that they're not inspired. Sometimes people 0:44:54.380 --> 0:44:55.760 will say, well, that one's too far and that one, 0:44:55.880 --> 0:44:59.480 it's not inspired. No, no, no, it's a translator. Translation committee. 0:44:59.510 --> 0:45:02.660 Trying to take those words from the original language and 0:45:02.660 --> 0:45:05.690 render them in a manner that you can understand easily. 0:45:05.930 --> 0:45:08.900 That's all it is. And so. Okay, so favorite translations. 0:45:08.930 --> 0:45:11.660 Boy, I, I was what am I doing if I'm 0:45:11.660 --> 0:45:14.540 studying the trying to read in English what's underlying the 0:45:14.540 --> 0:45:16.729 Greek and Hebrew? I read the New American Standard, but 0:45:16.730 --> 0:45:18.920 I also read a lot of other translations as well. 0:45:18.950 --> 0:45:21.230 I'm using the ESV these days. I grew up on 0:45:21.230 --> 0:45:24.049 the new King James. I like the new Living Translation 0:45:24.050 --> 0:45:27.290 at times. I've been using one produced by Tyndale, the 0:45:27.290 --> 0:45:30.200 Immerse Bible, and it gives you a nice read. When 0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:33.259 I need detail study, I often turn back to my MNAs. 0:45:33.590 --> 0:45:37.190 I like the New American Standard for detailed study. I 0:45:37.190 --> 0:45:40.160 like the ESV. It's also a very good. I think 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:44.360 it's a formal translation, very accurate. I use on a 0:45:44.360 --> 0:45:47.630 daily basis the Holman Christian Standard Bible, which has now 0:45:47.630 --> 0:45:48.320 been revised. 0:45:48.350 --> 0:45:49.879 Christian Standard, Bible Standard. 0:45:50.090 --> 0:45:53.060 CSB, the CSB, and I haven't really read through the 0:45:53.060 --> 0:45:56.029 new version yet, but I still like the Holman CSB, 0:45:56.060 --> 0:46:00.680 the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Uh, I think balances formal 0:46:00.680 --> 0:46:01.820 and easy to they like. 0:46:01.820 --> 0:46:04.339 To call it the optimal translation trying to balance between 0:46:04.340 --> 0:46:04.760 formal and. 0:46:04.760 --> 0:46:05.510 Functional. They're a. 0:46:05.510 --> 0:46:06.140 Little marketing. 0:46:06.140 --> 0:46:06.410 There. 0:46:06.680 --> 0:46:09.680 Thanks for this program today. Thank you Jim. Thank you, Steve, 0:46:09.710 --> 0:46:12.680 for joining me. That was Jim Coakley Steve Sanchez thanks 0:46:12.680 --> 0:46:15.260 Trish for riding herd, getting this all together for us, 0:46:15.260 --> 0:46:18.590 making sure that we answered the questions that you sent in. Remember, 0:46:18.590 --> 0:46:20.630 you can keep in touch with Open Line during the 0:46:20.630 --> 0:46:24.680 week by going to our website, Openline radio.org. That page 0:46:24.680 --> 0:46:28.160 has everything you need, whether it's past programs, email links, 0:46:28.160 --> 0:46:30.379 or if you want to send your questions in, there's 0:46:30.380 --> 0:46:33.290 a link to Ask Michael a question. Whatever you're looking for, 0:46:33.290 --> 0:46:35.810 you'll find it there. Keep reading the Bible. We'll talk 0:46:35.810 --> 0:46:38.870 about it next week. Open line with Doctor Michael Melnick 0:46:38.870 --> 0:46:42.080 is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody 0:46:42.080 --> 0:46:43.489 Bible Institute.