Understanding the Bible | sunday morning adult education | 9.15a | Easter 2010, beginning April 11       

 

In some ways the Bible is very familiar to us — we read it often (or ought to) and many of us have been familiar with it since our early childhood. Some of us have particular Bibles that are dear to us, either because of how they look or the pictures they have in them or the people who have them to us. But how well do we really understand the Bible? — and by that I don't mean “How well do we grasp its story or its key themes?” Rather, I wonder whether we can answer the following questions:

 

• What does the word “Bible” mean?

 

• Where did the Bible come from?

 

• How did it get started?

 

• Who decided what goes in it?

 

• Why are its different books in the order they’re in, and who decided that order?

 

• Did it always look the way it looks today?

 

• If not, when did it start looking the way it looks today?

 

• Why is it so different from other books, with chapters and verses and concordances and what-not?

 

• Can we really trust its contents? That is, do we have reason to believe that it is what it says it is, and that its authors are who they claim to be?

 

Please join us in Adult Education on Sunday mornings in the Easter season to explore these and other questions!

 

 
suggested reading on the Gospel of Life

 

Evangelium Vitae [The Gospel of Life] Encyclical of Pope John Paul II (1995). Read the text online here.

 

God and His Image: An Outline of Biblical Theology revised ed. Fr. Dominique Barthelemy  (Ignatius Press, 2007).

 

Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice Francis Beckwith (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Though this book specifically concerns abortion, it contains a very strong argument for the value of all human life.

 

In His Image and Fearfully and Wonderfully Made Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey (Zondervan, 1987).

 

Created in God’s Image Anthony Hoekema (Eerdmans, 1994).

 

The Hungry Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia Susan R. Holman (Oxford University Press, 2001).

 

God Knows There’s Need: Christian Responses to Poverty Susan R. Holman (Oxford University Press, 2008).

 

The Rise of Christianity Rodney Stark (Harper, 1997).

 

The Christians as the Romans Saw Them 2nd ed. Robert Louis Wilken (Yale University Press, 2003).