Bible 101 Catch Up

Hey everybody! I'm finally posting up the slides from the last three lessons...as well as the rest of the slides. These slides will undergo a reorder and touch up before I do this series again, though. I think I've settled on a different order of the lessons that makes more sense.

Here are some quick summaries of the last three lessons:

Bible Languages and Translations

In this lesson we talked about how the words of the biblical authors get to us from them writing the original in Greek or Hebrew to us reading it in English. We discussed textual criticism and how experts look at many manuscripts form the last two thousand years to come up with what the originals looked like. We also talked about how various English translations differ based on which critical texts they translated from, and their method of translation. Some translations take a more word for word or literal approach, while others take a more thought for thought approach. Both approaches have theirs pros an cons my personal recommendation is to have at least two tranlsations that cover both. No translation is perfect.

Bible Study Tools and Methods

In short, their are LOTS of tools out there to help you understand and apply the Bible to your life. Just be aware that these tools are human made and are capable of mistakes and biases.

The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible

Christians are often accused of using circular reasoning to defend our beliefs that the Bible is the inspired. I think it is true that we cannot prove with observable facts what we believe. However, it is not unreasonable. If we believe the gospel of Jesus we have to accpet the gospel accounts of his life as at least true and historiclaly accurate. Once we do that, we see that they tell us Jesus believed that the OT was the inspired and authoritative This lays the foundation for what we believe.

Here are the slides: http://www.sendspace.com/file/exf0tv