Looking at the Bible
Part One
Part One
The Bible serves as the basic text book for the Church. I plan to use this space in the next months to give you the basic parts of the Bible.
The word Bible means “book of books.” The dictionary meaning is “the Christian scriptures.” The Bible is composed of 66 books: 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament.
Imagine a book shelf with two shelves. The Old Testament sits on the first shelf with history, poetry, and prophets divisions as in your public library. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the language of Moses. Hebrew is a difficult language that reads from right to left. Verbs are symbols connected to the constants. Translations from Hebrew into English is very difficult.
The second shelf contains the New Testament. The New Testament contains gospels, history, and mostly letters to the early churches. Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the Biblical authors wrote the scriptures organically in Greek, the language of that time.
For worship, I use the Revised Standard Version which is the best scholarly translation of the original scriptures. Please note the difference between a translation and paraphrase. A translation takes the original texts from Hebrew and Greek and translates the Bible into best English for the present time. A paraphrase writes the Bible from the authors point of view. The Living Bible and The Message (Peterson) are examples of paraphrases.
Worship services on Sunday use the NRSV from the Revised Common Lectionary which most mainline congregations follow. The lectionary contains: readings from the Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle (letter) and the Gospel Lesson for each Sunday. The assigned scriptures are over a three year period beginning in Advent (before Christmas).
From June 2008 Pulse newsletter.
