Introduction to the Bible

• The course enables students to appreciate the importance of the Bible from a spiritual and scholarly perspective.
• At the end of the course, students should be able to discuss the importance of the Bible from spiritual and scholarly perspectives.
• Students should be able to demonstrate the ability to give various interpretations to the Bible.
• Students should be able to explain the origins and development of the Bible.
• Students should be able to explain the cultural and geographical context of the Bible especially the history of Palestine.

Course Outline: Weeks 1-4

• Lesson 1 introduces the study of the Bible.
• The topics include the roots of Western Civilization and the cultural influence of the Bible.
• Lesson 2 focuses on defining what the Bible is.
• The topics include the Hebrew Bible, the English Bible, and The Jerusalem Bible.
• Lesson 3 discusses Canonicity which includes Old Testament, New Testament and Problem of Canonicity.
• Lesson 4 covers Approaches to the Bible.
• The topics include Prophetic Models of Inspiration and Contemporary Approaches to Inspiration.

Course Outline: Weeks 5-8

• Lesson 5 covers Interpretation, methods, and tools for studying the Bible.
• The topics include the History of Interpretation, Ways of Interpretation, Types of Biblical criticism, the meaning of hermeneutics, Towards an African Interpretation, and related disciplines.

Course Outline: Weeks 9-11

• Lesson 5 discusses the origins and development of the Bible.
• The topics include the Formation of the Hebrew Bible.
• The topics include the Formation of the Christian Bible.
• The topics include the process of translation.

Course Outline: Weeks 12-14

• Lesson 6 discusses the cultural and geographic context of the Bible.
• The topics include the shape of the Ancient Near East.
• The topics include the land called Palestine.
• The topics include vital evidence: archaeological discoveries.
• Lesson 7 is a recap of the main ideas.

Lesson One: What is the Bible?

• The word "Bible" comes from the Greek word "Biblia," meaning "books" or "written documents," especially those written on papyrus.
• It refers to books considered sacred and canonical by Christians.
• The Bible is the record of how God showed himself to humanity at a specific time and place.
• The Bible is a great masterpiece that begins in the Stone Age and ends in the Roman Empire.
• It has influenced laws, education, democratic ideals, and human rights.
• Emerging nations turn to the Bible for guidance in their search for identity.

The God and Message of the Bible

• The God of the Bible emphasizes exclusive claims, unlike other religious texts.
• Jesus asserts that he is the only way to know God.
• The earliest Christians accepted this view.
• A person must acknowledge Jesus Christ as God's only Son to know God truly
• The Message of the Bible states the Bible is an unfinished story.
• The core of the scripture unified message is about redemption through Jesus Christ.
• Each book contains divine revelation and contributes to the work of redemption.
• God addresses humankind after the fall into sin, articulating the message around Genesis 3:15.
• This message involves God initiating redemption, a true human redeemer, the bruising of the serpent's head, and the serpent bruising the heel of woman’s son.
• Genesis establishes the ground for the Israelite nation being able to exist.

Language and Structure of the Bible

• The Old Testament (OT) contains Aramaic sections plus some Greek words alongside primarily Hebrew.
• The New Testament (NT) uses Koine Greek with some Latin-influenced terms.

The Old Testament

• There are three main lists of OT books: the Hebrew Bible, English Bible, and Jerusalem Bible.
• The Hebrew Bible, known as TANAKH, divides into Torah (Law), Neviim (Prophets), and Ketubiim (Writings).
• The Torah or Pentateuch consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
• The English Bible follows the Greek Septuagint and has four sections: Law, Historical Books, Wisdom, and Prophets.
• The Jerusalem (Roman Catholic) Bible is similar to the English Bible but adds 17 books.
• The Historical books are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.
• The Apocrypha includes additional books written in Greek, accepted by Roman Catholics.
• In total the Jerusalem Bible has 49 or 56 books in the Old Testament.

The New Testament

• Discusses the teachings and person of Jesus as well as events in first-century Christianity.
• Composed of twenty-seven books attributed to eight authors.
• Not written all at once but in different countries to be sent to particular Churches.
• The first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are similar, while John is distinct.
• They're called the Synoptic Gospels as they are related by being together, and seeing together.
• It's suggested one of the Gospels was written using oral traditions.
• It's also been suggested that an earlier Gospel has been lost.
• Written fragments were also suggested to be used by the Synoptic authors.
• It's also been suggested that the Synoptic Gospels drew from each other.
• The most common view is that Mark and a hypothetical document called Quelle (Q) were used by Matthew and Luke.
• The Book of Acts was written by Luke, as revealed by external evidence and inferences from the book itself.
• The book was written while Paul was in prison in Rome.
• There are twenty-one or twenty-two epistles in the New Testament divided into Pauline and Non-Pauline Epistles.

Formation of the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Canon

• The Old Testament includes the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or protocanon, and deuterocanonical books.
• Readers used to assume that important leaders like Moses, Joshua, or Samuel had written these texts.
• Traditionally, Moses' authorship was deemed important due to credibility but is now considered unlikely.
• The Pentateuch has examples of inconsistency and lack of unity of the text.
• Examples are differences with Moses' death and also the pretense of Abraham.
• There are are different and multiple views on how the Bible might have been authored.
• The Documentary Hypothesis argues that the Pentateuch combines at least four distinct sources: J, E, D, and P.
• Yahwist (J) likely compiled in the Southern Kingdom around 950 BC by King Solomon, portraying God with human characteristics.
• Elohist (E) likely compiled in the Northern Kingdom around 850 BC by King Ahab, presents God as transcendent, reveals himself through dreams, angels, and prophets.
• Deuteronomist (D) concerns itself only with the final part , primarily in Deuteronomy, focusing on laws and theological ideas, compiled by prophet Hosea.
• Priestly (P) composed in the 6th century BC and begins with Genesis 1:1, written by priests.
• Most scholars now conclude that the first major period of literary production was not during the time of Moses but instead during the political peak of the southern kingdom of Judah.
• Critical scholars understand much of the Hebrew Bible to be a product of the Persian period.

Formation of the Christian Bible (New Testament Canon)

• The process of determining which books belong in the New Testament is called canon formation.
• The church was declaring a "rule" for faith and practice.
• The first list of "canonical" books was written by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, in 367 C.E.
• Before Athanasius, the early Churches acquired many writings of Paul for their texts. This included Gospels and the "Sayings Gospel Q".
• Marcion proposed rejecting the Jewish scriptures and embracing a new canon of only Luke and Paul but, that was rejected.
• Eusebius divided books into "acknowledged," "disputed," and "rejected" writings.
• Constantine asked Bishop Eusebius to produce fifty Bibles, indicating a move toward unifying the canon.
• The Roman Catholic Church only made an authoritative statement on content on April 8, 1546.
• The Roman Catholic canon includes the Old Testament Apocrypha, however not in Protestant Bibles.
• The term "canon" comes from a Greek word meaning a staff, straight rod, rule, or standard, implying straightness or norms.
• The canon comprises the writings of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments and is objective.
• If the word "canon" implies the status of the Bible by virtue of its inspiration, the word "canonicity" is often the recognition of this status by the church.
• The test for canonicity is inspiration.
• It involves the Spirit in inspiration, its witness to what He has inspired and is authoritative and providence of God,

Principles of Canonicity

• Accepted canonical books themselves refer to different books.
• The basic question was whether a book was prophetic which determined canonicity.
• A miracle confirms the word of God.
• Another test is to determine if the book contains the truth about God.
• The message must also have the power of God.
• For a book to be accepted by the people of God, it is tested that it comes from the pen of an apostle.

The Process of Translation

• The Biblical texts generally accepted by Biblical Scholars as closest to the original are Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
• The Jews of Alexandria undertook the translation of the Old Testament now known as the Septuagint.
• Origen arranges six versions of the Old Testament in parallel columns for comparative study.
• A Latin version of the Bible texts are needed in western regions with spread of faith through the Roman empire.
• In 382 the pope, Damasus, commissions Jerome to provide a definitive Latin version is his monastery at Bethlehem.
• Ulfilas is first to writes language down capture the sounds of spoken Gothic.
• The intention of St Jerome, translating into Latin with the hope that ordinary Christians in the Roman empire should be able to read scripture.
• Translating vulgar tongues is discouraged.
• The Greek brothers Cyril and Methodius, translate the Gospels and parts of the Old Testament into Slavonic.
• Writings into vernacular are radical demands on behalf of Christians.
• By the 16th century, the view that the personal knowledge of scripture is important.

19th-20th Century Bible

• In the 19th century, translations of the Bible are published in some 400 new languages.
• Many languages into which the holy text can be usefully translated.
• Expanding European empires of the 19th century , as well as translators in the missionaries encounter more.

Types of Biblical Criticism

• Biblical criticism, is the study of textual, compositional, and historical questions surrounding the Old and New Testaments.
• Biblical critics trying to understand what the bible is actually trying to say.
• Discovering the exact meaning of the Bible languages is a complex affair.
• The bible was written in foreign languages, mainly Hebrew and Aramaic.
• Scribes wrote the original scripts long before the invention of printing and made mistakes.
• Modern translations are based on Hebrew and Greek texts, so can know what the original authors were saying.
• Essential respects exactly all the original authors have written.
• Types of Biblical criticism consists of five categories which are textual, literary, form, source and redaction.
• Textual Criticism deals with the text itself to finding the most original biblical texts.
• Historical Criticism deals with the documents in their historical setting and promotes their interpretation.
• Literary Criticism, endeavors to establish the literary genres and to reach conclusions about their structure, date and authorship.
• Form criticism classifies literary material to principle forms.

Cont. Types of Biblical Criticism

• Source Criticism seeks to determine the sources to develop source for Biblical texts.
• Redaction Criticism concentrates on the end product,studying the way in which final authors that they used.
• Philological criticism is the study of the biblical languages in their widest scope of grammar, vocabulary and style.
• Tradition criticism is taken up where literary criticism leaves off, where there is reason to believe that this preceded the earliest documentary stages.

Types of Biblical Hermeneutics

• Hermeneutics is the method of interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature and philosophical texts.
• Some have argued that the interpretation must always be literal, with others arguing they have to have profound meaning
• The categories are the literal, moral, allegorical, Anagogical, typological, anagogical, mariological, and Analogical.
• Moral Interpretation are necessitated by the belief that it the rule not only of the faith but of conduct.
• allegorical interpretation, is also associated with written law.
• typological interpretation, or events in the old testiment new the new.
• The goal of hermeneutics is to reexamine to have that African biblical should be.

Towards an African Hermeneutics

• African biblical hermeneutic(s) interpretation of the Bible for transformation in Africa.
• Colonialism Colonization of the thought and. way of life.
• To break the hermenticialal hegemony and is a process of a tool.
• Another major means of colonization of African biblical is that of Eurocentric's..
• Also used an important role in biblical,
• African American's worldview to culture and life experience.
• To protect African identity
• Our task is to understand scriptures in and according to God or the culture.
• Has also is vigorous attempt use race to re-envision that this aspect can work
• To interpret scriptures making it very day by day life

Distinctiveness of African Biblical Hermeneutic(s)

• Main interpretation in communities that are usually marginalised.
• Africa bible and interpretation
• African identity has always been important. They are the key that the power can work.
• Blackening biblical in many of those aspects.
• African ancestors are a big part of where history has let to
• The biblical and christianitiy brings the relavnce and culture and culture as NT and Africa.
• Is the most accurate on what has come and gone through history.
• Combination of the culture in history and the new of society all over the world
• Interpretation it helps the euro over the top interpretation