LYCEUM OF TUAO

MODULE IN THE CHRISTIAN AND THE WORD

Scriptures John 1: 1-5

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light
shines in the darkness.

What is the Bible?

a. The Bible or “sacred scripture” is the written, inspired word of God. (Tim 3: 16-17).
b. The Bible is a fundamental source of Divine Revelation (John 21: 24-25)
c. Divine Revelation is God’s self-communication, the unveiling of the mystery of God and
his redeeming activity.
God’s salvific activity has been present from the beginning of time and made manifest to every
age and every generation.
His salvific work is evident in creation, in the covenants with the patriarchs, in the mighty works
of the exodus, in the choosing of the people, in the giving of the law and covenant of Sinai, in
the conquest of the promised land, in the sending of his Son. This is what we call salvation
history, God reaching out to us time and time again.
d. The fullness of divine revelation of God’s redeeming works is Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-
4) the promised, incarnate, eternal word of God made flesh of our salvation.
e. Jesus life (deeds, preaching, person), death (passion, suffering, cruxificion), resurrection
(victory over death) also known as paschal mystery unveils the totality of who God is
and his plan of salvation.
f. The fullness of revelation continues to be handed down to us through sacred tradition,
the living, authentic, unbroken, oral transmission of Jesus teachings and through the
bible.
What is the relationship between the bible and Sacred Tradition?

 Jesus said, “he who listens to you, listens to me; he who rejects you, rejects me; but he
who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” Luke 10:16
 Jesus words did not vanish with Jesus ascension, his teachings continued to live under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the apostles and their successors,
the Pope and the bishops, collectively known as the Magisterium or teaching body of
the Church.
  This oral teaching, this living memory, this unbroken reception of the living Word of God
from one generation of Christian bishops to the next is what we call sacred tradition.
The Magisterium is the guardian of this sacred tradition.
 The testimony about Jesus emerges from Sacred Tradition, under the guidance and
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Its context and content can only be understood in light of
the Sacred Tradition of the Church’s Magisterium.
 Together with Sacred Tradition the bible form one deposit of Divine Revelation
 Hence, that Vatican II, in its Dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum states: Consequently it is
not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainly about everything
which has been revealed.
 Therefore both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated
with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.
In the context of a living faith, then, Scripture is the living testimony of a lived history about the
relationship of a living God with a living people. The spirit who spoke through the prophets
(Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed), spoke in order to be heard and take effect.
It is primarily and oral and direct communication intended for human beneficiaries. The
scriptural text is therefore derivative and secondary. The scriptural text always serves the
spoken word.
It is not conveyed mechanically, but communicated from generation to generation as a living
word. Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord vows: As rain and snow descend from heaven,
watering the earth… so shall my word go from mouth, accomplishing that which I purpose.
Address of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew to the synod of Catholic
bishops gathered in Rome to reflect on the word of God in the life and in the mission of the
Church.

What is the meaning of the word Bible?

 The word Bible comes from the Greek word “Biblia” meaning “books”.
 The Greek word Biblia itself is derived from Biblion, meaning paper and book
 Hence, Byblos is the root word for Biblia. The name comes from the Phoenician port
Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.
 The phrase “The Biblia” , the books was used by Hellenistic Jews to refer to their sacred
books the Septuagint, in particular. This was the Greek version of the Hebrew
scriptures.
 The Christian scriptures was referred to in Greek as Ta Biblia as early as 223 A.D. The
word bible itself is not found in any book of the Bible.
How is the Bible divided?
  The bible is divided in two sections:
 a. OLD TESTAMENT
 b. NEW TESTAMENT
 The word testament means “Covenant” or “Contract” and is derived from the Hebrew
word “Berit”.
 The Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures comprises stories about an ancient covenant
between Yahweh and the Hebrews, as revealed to Moses. It also tells how this covenant
worked out.
 The New Testament includes stories and teachings about a new covenant between God
and humanity, based on the life of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
What is the Canon of the Scriptures?

 For Christians the books found in the Old and New Testament comprise the Canon of
Scriptures.
 The word Canon comes from the Greek word “Kanon” or Hebrew “qaneh” meaning a
reed, rule, list or measuring stick. The word was employed by ancient writers to denote
a rule or standard.
 Therefore, the canon of the Scriptures is the authoritative list of books that are
acknowledged as divinely inspired by the Church, and are set as the standards for
Christian teaching, preaching and edification.

How many Canons are there?

As the time of Jesus the question about the curiosity of the Hebrew Scriptures was an open
question. There was no official, universal canon. For instance, some Jewish like the Saducees
only recognized as binding the first five books of the Bible known as the “Torah” or “the law” in
Greek. The word Torah in Hebrew means “Teaching” or “Instruction”. Other Jewish groups like
the Essenes had a much longer canon, than the ones used by many Palestinian and Hellenistic
Jews. Most Jews in Palestine adopted containing the Tanak, an acronym for the Torah, The
Prophets, and The Writings. This canon contains 24 books and is known as the Palestinian or
the Masoretic Canon. This was the canon later adopted by the protestant reformers during the
16th century.

Jews outside Palestine known as Hellenistic Jews had all the books contained in the Palestinian
or Masoretic canon plus other books considered canonical by the Rabbis of this Jewish
communities in the diaspora, as well as some Rabbis in Palestine. Their canon was known as
the Alexandrian Canon or the Septuagint, translated by Jewish scholars in Alexandria Egypt
from early Hebrew and Aramaic versions of the Hebrew Scriptures. This canon is consisted in 46
books, and was written in Koine Greek around the year 250 BC. The Palestinian and Alexandrian
Canons were more normative than other canons at the time of Jesus and the early Church.
The Alexandrian canon was the canon of the Old Testament used and adopted by the apostles
and early Christian communities. It is the canon accepted and quoted by the Church fathers and
acknowledge as canonical by early Church councils such as Hippo 393 A.D and Carthage 397 AD.
It is also the version used by the writers of the New Testament when quoting the Old
Testament.
It was not until the year 90 A.D that the Palestinian Rabbis officially fixed their canon in the city
of Yavneh. In this council the Rabbis rejected the Septuagint version of the Old Testament
adopted by Christians. This decision by the Palestinian Rabbis was in part a rejection of
Hellenistic and Roman influences that colonized the region. The Romans destroyed the Jewish
temple in the year 70 A.D.
The fixing of the canon by the Palestinian community was also an attempt to radically break
away from Christianity and anything Christianity considered sacred or canonical. By the year 90
A.D Jews were heading in one direction and Christians in another, as two different entities.
The Palestinian Canon and the decision of the Rabbis of Yavneh was never recognized nor
adopted by early Christianity. It wasn’t until the 16th century that the reformers questioned the
canonicity of some of the books found in the Septuagint known as deuterocanonical, forcing
the Church to solemnly declared this books as divinely inspired and therefore canonical during
the fourth session of the Council of Trent in 1545.

 The books found in the Palestinian or Masoretic canon are known as Proto-canonical or
first canon.
 The books found in the Alexandrian canon or Septuagint but not found in the Palestinian
canon are known as deuterocanonical or second canon.
 The deuterocanonical books are: Tobit, Judith 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach or
Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and parts of Esther and Daniel not found in the Palestinian
canon, but found in the Greek version.
 Deuterocanonical books are sometimes intercalated with the other books in the Old
Testament in Catholic bibles or placed together in a separate section as done by St.
Jerome in his translation, the Vulgate.
 The classification into protocanonical and deuterocanonical books was developed in the
16th century by a Catholic Jewish convert and theologian named Sixtus or Siena.

WHO WROTE THE BIBLE?

The Bible was written by different human authors, mostly Hebrews, many of them unknown.
These sacred writers wrote under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit at different
times and places over a period of about a thousand years from 900 B.C to 150 A.D. These
human authors wrote from numerous geographical locations and cultures from Babylon,
Palestine, Egypt, Rome, and Corinth among others. They also wrote in different languages:
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. It was the Holy Spirit who moved these human authors to
communicate, to gather, to research, to edit, to pass on, and to write down their collective
experiences, stories, and oral traditions of faith. God did not dictate the Bible, the Holy Spirit
encouraged these human authors to freely cooperate, using their skills, language, culture,
talents, literary abilities, knowledge, oral traditions, and happenings to convey the people’s
experience of God’s self-communication
DID YOU KNOW?

 The Christian Canon based on the Septuagint was unchanged until the 16th Century
A.D., when the Father of the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther discarded the
Deutero-canonical books, because they contradicted essential aspects of his new
theological positions.
 Luther also attempted to remove from the New Testament the books of James,
Hebrews, Jude and Revelation, fortunately, he faced opposition from other reformers
and this did not happen.
 The Palestinian Canon used by Protestants has 24 books. This is due to the fact that
some books are fused together in one, as it is the case of the twelve Minor Prophets. 1
and 2 Samuel; 1 and 2 King; 1 and 2 Chronicles; and Ezra and Nehemiah are also
counted as one. For instance, 1 and 2 Kings is just Kings in the Palestinian Canon.
WHAT ARE THE SECTIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT?

 Catholic Bibles Torah or Pentateuch Historical Books Wisdom Books The Prophets
Deutero-canonical books.
 Hebrew Bibles
 The Law (Torah)
 The Prophets (Nebhim)
 The Writings (Kethubhim )
In the Hebrew Canon the Historical books are part of the Prophets and Wisdom books are
part of the writings.