Tab - The Word[s] of God

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Creation Or Evolution-
The Bible’s Story
G Lockwood.
In the beginning was the Bible and the Bible was with God……………… Now that would be easy. If it were that simple then this article would be a quick one, however it is much more complicated than that.

The big question – Who wrote the bible?

There are two ways of answering this question,
1) I could list all the people who wrote each book and then discuss if they were true authors or were there sub authors etc.
2) Or I could write about how the bible was compiled.

I have chosen answer question two as I think most Christians have little understanding of how the Bible came about (evolved). Now I don’t claim to be the full authority on this subject (however if you want to claim this then great). I have however done a little digging around and have compiled The Lockwood Bullet Point Evolution Of The Bible.

Before Jesus there was the Old Testament as we know it. This covers a large period of time in written form. Originally some parts of the OT were shared orally e.g. the first five books(the Pentateuch).
These were written down and as the years passed more books were written by prophets, historians, poets etc then around 200 BCE we see an attempt to form a cannon (authorised list) of scripture by different Jewish groups.
Soon came the Septuagint which was a set of scriptures produced for the Greek speaking world which Christians use for the basis of the Old Testament.
Then post Jesus’ time on Earth a number of other books were written about Jesus and the early church.
Many different books circulated within different churches, some are in our New Testament while others did not make it for numerous reasons.
There was much debate amongst the early church about which books should be included in a NT Cannon.
By 300 CE Eusebius recorded a NT Cannon only including 9 books.
Once the Emperor Constantine had become a Christian there started a series of Councils which would shape the Bible as we know it.(325-787 BCE).
By 400 BCE St Jerome produced the Vulgate Bible this included the Septuagint, deutrocannonical books (Books not in the septuagint but before the birth of Jesus) and the New Testament
Fast forward now to the Council of Trent (April 8th 1546) here the Catholics cannonised their version of the bible which was very similar to the vulgate.
In 1563 the Church of England adopted the Catholic cannon with the ecception of the deutrocannonical books saying that they were "for example of life and instruction in manners ... [but not] to establish any doctrine."
Apart from a little tweaking and debate the Bible has been pretty much the same since then. With the Protestant church not including the deutrocannonical books (the Apocrypha).


The list above is just a quick introduction to how the bible was created and there is much missed out due to time and I did not want to bore you, I hope this has proved helpful.

The Empty Church
By RS Thomas

Discuss by O.Howells

They laid this stone trap
for him, enticing him with candles,
as though he would come like some huge moth
out of the darkness to beat there.
Ah, he had burned himself
before in the human flame
and escaped, leaving the reason
torn. He will not come any more

to our lure. Why, then, do I kneel still
striking my prayers on a stone
heart? Is it in hope one
of them will ignite yet and throw
on its illumined walls the shadow
of someone greater that I can understand?

This poem by RS Thomas is one in which can be interpreted in a number of different ways. One way of interpreting it is to say that God, just as the bible says, does not live in building made by men, nor does he respond to ‘smells and bells’ and pious religious ceremonies whereby people’s hearts are far from Him, but instead comes close to those who earnestly seek Him in spirit and in truth.

The second part of the poem depicts RS Thomas on his knees earnestly seeking God with all his heart, but feeling frustrated with the act of prayer while wrestling with doubts that God will answer. However, this doesn’t stop him and he prays anyway in the hope that God will answer and that he may enter his presence.

The poem is really good in that it addresses the issues and difficulties that many people face when praying. In order to become disciplined at prayer you have to take the time to pray and have faith that you are being heard. Just like developing any relationship, you must constantly put in the time and effort – the same is true of prayer.

Some say that prayer changes God and that it causes Him to do things that without praying wouldn’t have taken place. Some say prayer changes the person praying and by spending time with God, they begin to understand what God’s will is as their desires change and line up with His. Some say both take place.

My bible...
Rebecca Owens

For me, the bible comes alive through small segments of script. I do not read it as most people would read a book, from front to back (which is probably just as well because the book is not in chronological order anyway). Instead I dip in and out, with the small knowledge I have of the different books (I find the books in the New Testament a bit more straight forward and easier to look in to) and start to read little bits of scripture or stories. As I am reading some sentences spring out, at this point I just tend to sit back and chill out meditating on the one word, few words, sentence or sentences and what they mean. I suppose sometimes this could be called a ‘revelation’ or as the thesaurus says an ‘eye-opener’. It’s like a light bulb going on inside of you, something that you didn’t know or understand before suddenly you see.

I do not approach the bible in a historical document like way but instead take it for the small scriptures as I have described above that it provides. This is only because I don’t have an in depth knowledge of the bible (probably because I don’t read the bible enough) to approach reading it in this way. I mainly shy away from reading the Old Testament as to me it reads more like a historical document and instead read the New Testament because it presents itself in more stories etc. which seem to have no historical or background knowledge attachments to them. However this is not altogether true and having some knowledge of the Old Testament would show that there is a link and relationship between the two Testaments. With this knowledge certain scriptures would make more sense and would come more alive. I’m not quite sure how to gain a greater knowledge of the Old Testament and the links between the two Testaments, but I presume a good way to start would be just to read it!