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Christianity 1 – Religious figures and sacred texts – Booklet 4 and 51C AO1 and AO2 The Bible as a source of wisdom and authority in daily life:AO1 The ways in which the Bible is considered authoritative:as a source of moral advice (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14; Luke 6:36-37); as a guide to living (Psalm 119:9-16; Psalm 119:105-112); as teaching on the meaning and purpose of life (Genesis 1:26-28; Ecclesiastes 9:5-9) as a source of comfort and encouragement (Psalm 46:1-3; Matthew 6:25).AO2The relative value of the Bible as teaching on the meaning and purpose of life.The extent to which the Psalms studied offer a guide to living for Christians.What is the Christian Bible?The English word ‘bible’ comes from the Greek words ta biblia: ‘the books’. The Christian Bible is a collection of sacred books bound together in two volumes known as the Old Testament and the New Testament.The Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew. It is the sacred scripture of the Jewish religion as well as being sacred to Christians. Protestant Bibles have 39 Old Testament books, the same as in the Hebrew Bible. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have 46, because they include other books, known collectively as the Apocrypha, which Protestants consider to be deuterocanonical (a second list of sacred books considered to be genuine).The Old Testament was written and edited by many authors over a period of many centuries. It tells the story of God’s engagement with the people of Israel from the earliest times until their return to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon in 538BCE. It is worth remembering it was the Bible used by Jesus.Key quote ‘The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. (St Augustine)The New Testament was originally written in Greek. It was 27 books, each one focusing on Jesus. There are:54317906985Gospels –Acts –Epistles - Revelation - 00Gospels –Acts –Epistles - Revelation - The Bible can be read in many ways: as great poetry, as a law book or a history book, or as a basis for theological reflection. For Christians, however, its main aim is practical. The Gospel of John (20:31) identified that aim as follows: ‘these (things) are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’ Christians believe that the Bible gives instruction on the meaning and purpose of life, and that it is both a guide to everyday living and a source of comfort and encouragement. The Bible as a source of moral advice (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14; Luke 6:36-37)Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 New International Version (NIV)13?Now all has been heard;????here is the conclusion of the matter:Fear God and keep his commandments,????for this is the duty of all mankind.14?For God will bring every deed into judgment,????including every hidden thing,????whether it is good or evil.Luke 6:36-37 New International Version (NIV)36?Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.Judging Others37?“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.b. What moral advice is given in Ecclesiastes and Luke 6?2. The Bible as a guide to living (Psalm 119:9-16; Psalm 119:105-112); Psalm 119332676512700In pairs/threes use psalm 119 and the material on p.4 to compose a rousing sermon to be preached to a group of young enthusiastic Christians about ‘how they should live their lives in 21st Century UK’.00In pairs/threes use psalm 119 and the material on p.4 to compose a rousing sermon to be preached to a group of young enthusiastic Christians about ‘how they should live their lives in 21st Century UK’.How can a young person stay on the path of purity?????By living according to your word.10?I seek you with all my heart;????do not let me stray from your commands.11?I have hidden your word in my heart????that I might not sin against you.12?Praise be to you, Lord;????teach me your decrees.13?With my lips I recount????all the laws that come from your mouth.14?I rejoice in following your statutes????as one rejoices in great riches.15?I meditate on your precepts????and consider your ways.16?I delight in your decrees;????I will not neglect your word.105?Your word is a lamp for my feet,????a light on my path.106?I have taken an oath and confirmed it,????that I will follow your righteous laws.107?I have suffered much;????preserve my life, Lord, according to your word.108?Accept, Lord, the willing praise of my mouth,????and teach me your laws.109?Though I constantly take my life in my hands,????I will not forget your law.110?The wicked have set a snare for me,????but I have not strayed from your precepts.111?Your statutes are my heritage forever;????they are the joy of my heart.112?My heart is set on keeping your decrees????to the very end.[a]3. The Bible as teaching on the meaning and purpose of life (Genesis 1:26-28; Ecclesiastes 9:5-9) ECCLESIASTES 9:5-9The author of the book of wisdom known as Ecclesiastes was seeking to show that life apart from God was futile, vain and meaningless – ‘vanity of vanities’ is the great refrain of the book. According to tradition, the author was Solomon, the magnificent king of Israel. Who but Solomon would be in a position to try out all that life has to offer, and then conclude that all of it was essentially unsatisfying? Who else but Solomon had everything, yet ended his life urging people to seek God above all?5 For the living know that they will die,but the dead know nothing;they have no further reward,and even their name is forgotten.6 Their love, their hateand their jealousy have long since vanished;never again will they have a partin anything that happens under the sun.7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart,for God has already approved what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white,and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife,whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has givenyou under the sun—all your meaningless days.For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labour under the sun.(Ecclesisastes 9:5-9, NIV).Solomon’s initial approach to life seems gloomy and pessimistic. Death is the end and life is purposeless. We stare at death and wonder what life is for. Then he seems to change his outlook. When we live with the divine perspective, with an awareness of God and of meaning, then we can eat and drink with joy and enthusiasm, and delight in relationships of men and women. The ironic tone of the final sentence – that this is our toilsome labour – reminds us that our attitude to events is what defines how worthwhile life is, not the events themselves. Ultimately, if God lives, my living in the present can be worthwhile. If God lives, my having lived in the past can have real meaning.d. According to Ecclesiastes what is the purpose of human life?The Bible as a source of comfort and encouragement (Psalm 46:1-3; Matthew 6:25).Angus Toplady, an eighteenth century Anglican priest, is supposed to have written the hymn Rock of Ages on a playing card whilst sheltering from a storm in the Mendip Hills in 1776. It speaks of a refuge and hiding place – ‘let me hide myself in thee’ which re?ects exactly the idea in Psalm 46. And in 1872, when a ship was sinking in the Bay of Biscay, a man who was saved was asked what the passengers were doing when the ship went down. He said that the last he heard was “Rock of Ages,” sung in unison by the doomed passengers.1 God is our refuge and strength,an ever-present help in trouble.2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give wayand the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,3 though its waters roar and foamand the mountains quake with their surging.(Psalm 46:1-3, NIV).Jesus’ words in Matthew also speak of comfort in times of stress and anxiety. Much of the stress of modern living is induced by two features: our busyness and the proliferation of choices. But also in a world where the Christian faith seems marginalised, we may also be anxious about jobs, our own identity and the prospect of death. Can we find fulfilment if we are constantly worrying about life?25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? (Matthew 6:25, NIV).ChristianityThe Bible, like all sacred texts, reads differently from the perspective of faith. Here personal application becomes a pressing need and part of the life of devotion to God. But interpretation itself is not without its problems. The Old Testament scholar Brevard Childs reminds us of the need to respect both the historical context and the challenge for the modern reader who seeks to find ways that the ancient texts addresses his or her own culture.As an example of how one Christian believer uses Scripture, the Methodist founder John Wesley, describes how in his evangelical tradition he aims to be ‘the man of one book’.“I want to know one thing, the way to heaven—how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! …Let me be homo unius libri [a man of one book]. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone: only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his Book; for this end, to find the way to heaven.“ (Sermons, John Wesley)But Wesley also recognised the lack of clarity that sometimes attends a reading of the text:“Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate? …I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, “comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” I meditate thereon, with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable.” (John Wesley, Sermons)We might conclude that to read the Bible uncritically is to be in danger of pouring our own meaning into it, of forcing it to produce guidance and structures it does not in reality contain. It is to make it re?ect our culture rather than to transform it.238125251714000217297092710left762000e. Summarise how the Bible can comfort and encourage Christians using the images and information below and p.6:f. Complete the AO1 task belowAO2 Is the Bible a Reliable Moral Guide?Source David Lose in the Huffington post“The Bible’s value, above all, is as a guide to lives. And we mean to all of our lives, whether one is religious or not, whether one is Christian, Jewish, or from another religion or no religion.”My reaction to what I’m sure they believed was a relatively innocuous sentence was as unexpected as it was unbidden: Really?! Is the primary value of the Bible really as a moral guide? My mind went immediately to the many and various offenses listed in the Bible that call for the death penalty: murder and kidnapping, which perhaps shouldn’t surprise, but also adultery, homosexual practice, cursing a parent, owning an animal that repeatedly attacks others, and being a “medium or wizard” — and all this from only two chapters (Exodus 21 and Leviticus 20). And these, of course, are just capital offenses; there are numerous others that call for losing various body parts or being expelled from the community.To be sure, there are also many important and salutary laws that we might well heed today, including caring for the most vulnerable, loving one’s neighbour, releasing the debt of those overwhelmed by their obligations, always making provision for those who are poor, not taking vengeance on others, planting and harvesting in a manner that today we would call “sustainable,” and not lending money in a way that disadvantages the borrower — and all of those also from a small set of chapters. (Ex. 22-23, Lev. 19, 25). Think how different our debates about health care, relief for those facing foreclosure, agricultural policy and the regulation of banks would be if we consulted these passages.ChristianityNotice, though, that the chapters from which the “good” laws come are disturbingly close to those containing the “bad” ones. And that’s just the problem: the Bible seems regularly and simultaneously to offer counsel that we deem both awful and excellent. In what way, then, can it serve as a reliable moral guide? One approach to this question — the one followed by a majority of progressive Jewish and Christian scholars — is to place these passages in their original context, explaining their “foreignness” so that we can either 1) understand their highly contextual nature and thereby recognize that they do not apply today or 2) re-appropriate and apply their more salutary content to our context. This approach, as Friedman and Dolansky capably demonstrate, can be tremendously productive. But at times it falls painfully short, for while it may be true that the verses calling homosexuality an abomination, for instance, should be considered temporary and contextual, one needs to question whether this law (and many others) was just at any time or under any circumstances.What, then, are those who read the Bible to do? Shall we just pick and choose the laws and commandments that appeal to us and disregard the others? Curiously, I’m tempted to answer a qualified “yes.” I do so largely because I suspect the Bible was never intended to serve primarily as a moral reference. Rather, I think that the Bible comes to us as a collection of confessions of faith of the ancient Israelites and Christians about the nature and character of God and was intended to invite readers into relationship with that God. From that relationship a commitment ?ows to leading a certain kind of life. Theology, that is, precedes morality, as one’s view of God — angry or loving, judgmental or gracious — greatly in?uences how one relates to neighbour and world.Question - “Theology precedes morality” - DiscussHintsDavid Lose argues there are contradictions within the Bible’s view of moral issues and some of the most severe injunctions against certain types of behaviour (e.g. The abominations of Leviticus and the practice of stoning adulterers etc.) come alongside other moral ideas we still accept (love your neighbour as yourself -Leviticus 19:18) that none of them can be interpreted before we first have a view of the character of God and our own social context. The confession of faith – the basic beliefs about what Godis like and how God acts in history, come before the moral codeThe problems of using the Bible as a source of wisdom and authority in daily lifeIntroduction / Key termsAllegorical a means of interpretation of Scripture that looks for symbolic meaning significance in parallels between the Old Testament and the New such as the exodus from Egypt as an allegory of the Cross.Authority the grounds for obedience to Scripture based on authorship and reliabilityHermeneutics the study of interpretationInspiration the breathing in of life to Scripture by the act of the Holy SpiritInfallibility a doctrine developed in the United States that says that theBible is unambiguously trustworthy and trueChristianityThe Two Horizons of HermeneuticsHermeneutics is the study of biblical meaning and interpretation – from Hermes the messenger of the Greek gods. However, there are two horizons of hermeneutics, the horizon of the author’s own time some two thousand years ago and the horizon of our own time. So much has changed between the two horizons, and so the issue becomes: how can the horizon of the bible address, encourage and advise us in our own time? How can the bible possibly be a source of moral advice, or a source of comfort? How do we escape captivity to our own cultural views and understandings?Because of this, many see that the goal in interpreting the Bible is to fuse the two horizons whilst respecting differences in both, and being able to bring our critical and philosophical judgement to bear on each.ChristianityProblem of the Bible as source of wisdom and authorityThe Pontifical Biblical Commission of the Catholic Church expresses both the problem and thegoal:A difficulty derives from Sacred Scripture itself: biblical writings were redacted at least nineteen hundred years ago and belong to distant epochs in which life conditions were very different from those of today. Many actual situations and problems were completely unknown in these writings and therefore one may think that they can offer no appropriate answers to these problems.Consequently even if the fundamental value of the bible as an inspired text is acknowledged some people retain a strong sceptical attitude and maintain that Scripture is of no use for offering solutions to the numerous problems of our times. Present humanity is confronted every day with delicate moral problems continually presented by the sciences and by globalization; even convinced believers have the impression that many of our past certainties have been annulled; just think about such themes as violence, terrorism, war, immigration, distribution of wealth , respect for natural resources, life, work, sexuality, genetic research, the family and community life.Faced by such complex problems one is tempted to marginalize, totally or partially, Sacred Scripture. In this case too, though for a variety of motives, the sacred text is laid aside and solutions to the grave and urgent problems of today are sought elsewhere. (Pontifical Biblical Commission, 2006)ChristianityActivity:g. Make a list of bullet points of the problems identified above of using the Bible as a source of wisdom and authority in daily life.h. Can you add further bullet points of your own?(Some possible examples might include the emergence of the critical historical study of the Bible, the emergence of philosophical objections to the idea of God acting in history in the way that Scripture describes, and to the morality of aspects of the biblical account and developments in literary theorythat have raised new ways of thinking about what it means to read and interpret texts)i. How far do you think the problems identified are actual problems to using the Bible as a source of wisdom and authority in daily life?j. Read the essay – highlight in one colour any arguments that suggest the Bible contains valuable teaching – in another colour highlight anything that doesn’t.k. Write up an evaluative essay plan ‘The Bible provides valuable teaching on the meaning and purpose of life’. Evaluate this viewl. Read the essay – highlight in one colour any arguments that suggest the Psalms studied contain a guide to living – in another colour highlight anything that doesn’t.m. Write up an evaluative essay plan ‘The Psalms studied do not provide a useful guide to living’. Evaluate this view.o. ................
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