Talk:New Testament

Acts of the Apostles -- according to tradition, written by Luke

The author of the Acts of the Apostles identifies himself in the prologue as the same person who wrote the third gospel. If we accept Luke as the author of the latter, we must not shy away from attributing the Acts to him as well.

James, "the brother of Jesus"

Jude, counted among the "brothers of Jesus"

We should have a link to "brothers of Jesus", with an explanation of what degree of familiar relation (sibling or cousin) "brother" implied in the times and the culture of Jesus.

Is there any controversy regarding Jude ? I seem to recall Thaddeus (Jude) the apostle wrote it...

surely a better (and no less accurate) translation for 'synoptic' is "same view" (as in point of view) rather than "same eye"? And much as I love Austin Farrer (I regularly assign his book on Revelation), he's not the only critic to suggest that Q is an unnecessary construct. It's a whole school of thought, not restricted to pre-1960 English persons (my favorite critic of Biblical criticism is still Dorothy Sayers, whose take on the typical view of John is without equal - and entirely possible). --MichaelTinkler

Regarding the translation of "synoptic", remember that in Wikipedia, he who proposes, disposes. :) Go ahead and change it.

soulpatch, please don't go through the entire 'pedia changing AD to CE, just because you like it better. This kind of thing needs to be discussed by the Wikipedia community. --Ed Poor

Per discussion on the list, isn't CE clearly the more NPOV? Why should we revert this change? Graft

I agree with Graft. CE is preferable to AD, why change it back? And CE exists in several articles in the Wikipedia, so are you going to go and change all those from CE to AD? soulpatch

If there was discussion on the list approving CE over AD, I must have missed it. I thought it was settled just the other way. I'll ask Mav, who pays closer attention to such things. --Ed Poor

No decision was made, as far as I can tell, other than lots of expression of opinion. Mav expresses the point of view that

BC is still comfortably the dominant usage and since there aren't any pressing POV issues with it we should stay with it.

which is fair enough, except that I don't think it implies we should prefer BC to BCE or AD to CE, just that we shouldn't be making especial efforts to change from one to the other. But, if soulpatch wants to change AD->CE, i think NPOV is definitely in his favor. Graft

AD is religion-neutral in the same sense that "he" is gender-neutral. It is so, unless someone objects for partisan reasons. In that case, as far as I'm concerned, the only cost of the change to "CE" (like the change to "they"), is the stigmatization and politicization of the past, when these "POV" conventions did not have the implications that they do now. In short, not worth objecting to either way, in my personal opinion, and therefore better to yield to those who feel strongly. Mkmcconn

Because of the subject matter of this article, which didn't exist before Christ, all relevant dates are AD/CE, so I think we can lighten the prose by removing all of the noise abbreviations. I boldly made the change, if you think it is confusing, change it back. Stephen C. Carlson

Is there some documentation to support the blanket statements that

modern biblical scholarship, with the exception of Evangelicals, no longer believe that Jesus's immediate disciples wrote any of the books.

What is the definition of "modern", "scholarship" and "Evangelical" that makes the statement credible, that it is a distinctive of "Evangelicals" to believe that at least some, most, or even all of the books of the New Testament were written by their attributed author? Or, is the statement suggesting that such a finding is either not modern, or is not scholarship, if it occurs outside of Evangelicalism? In that case, is it an unproveable assumption?

Among the denominations which do not teach inerrancy include the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church

What is the definition of "inerrancy" that makes this statement credible? Especially in light of the statement later, that the Catholics and Orthodox consider Tradition infallible - do they consider Tradition to be a correction of errors in Scripture, or do they claim that Tradition infallibly interprets the Bible? If the latter and not the former then, it is irrational to conclude that they do not hold an infallible Scripture. I suspect that the statement means to imply an equivalence between "inerrant" and "literalistically infallible" (infallible if always interpreted in a literalistic sense where possible: "day" == "24 hours", "all the earth covered by a flood" == "every square inch of the face of the earth under water", 6,000 year old creation, etc.) Is that the case? Mkmcconn

The 6 days of creation may be seen in the light of the verse, "With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day" (quoting from memory, must look this up!).
The story of a world-wide flood was written down before the idea of the earth as a sphere was well-known. Plainly, it would talk a lot of water to cover Mt. Everest; what is it, 5 miles high? We're talking enough rain to increase the ocean's depth by 5 miles. The "covered by a flood" thing may have been meant to refer to all land within a conceivable distance; either that, or maybe the Bible isn't meant to be taken literally in every detail.

--Ed Poor

The inerrancy discussion is a muddle, and that it is probably hard to avoid because of the many definitions of inerrancy floating out there. I'm looking to making it a bit more specific, e.g. with regard to the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. Stephen C. Carlson

Literalistic interpretation should not be made to have anything to do with [should not be made identical to] inerrancy. There is a big difference between saying that "the Bible contains lies and gets the facts wrong", and "some classic interpretations of the Bible have been re-evaluated in light of later knowledge". The former is not compatible with inerrancy, but the latter certainly is. Mkmcconn

That's not for you or me to say. If theologians out there say that literalism and inerrancy are related, we have to report that. We're not trying to write an objective article but a neutral one. --Uncle Ed

Literalism (i.e. literalistic interpretation) and inerrancy are distinct issues, but related. The current N.T. article does address literalism, but does address inerrancy. It is my view that inerrancy is a largely evangelical view on the question of inspiration of the N.T., and other traditions have their own take on inspiration and so may not agree with the evangelical Chicago Statement on all particulars. Stephen C. Carlson

It is not objective or neutral to be counter-factual. Inerrancy is simply the doctrine that there are zero errors in the Bible. Some particular defense of inerrancy may be tied to some particular literal interpretation, and another defense may not be tied in such a way. They share the same assumptions about the Bible's trustworthiness, but differ concerning the reliability of a particular interpretation. These are very different things. Mkmcconn

In a particular group, their hermeneutic may require a literalistic interpretation of "God made a greater light to rule the day", and believe accordingly that the sun is the biggest light in the universe - but the fact that hardly anyone can be found who believes what used to be a common naive assumption about the relative size of the sun, is testimony to the fact that people gain insight into the Bible's intent by knowing more about the world that the Bible describes. It does not mean that people have discovered that the Bible was wrong about the size of the sun - they fixed their interpretation. If we report as though it were a fact that inerrancy is equivalent to literalistic interpretations, we will most definitely be misreporting the facts. However, I did over-state myself in saying they have nothing to do with one another. Literalism and inerrancy are not equivalent - they are very much distinct, is all I should have said. Mkmcconn

... history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: Since, for instance, nonchronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed. (from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy ) Mkmcconn

I'm not sure I entirely understand how to interpret that quote from the Chicago statement. The "poetry and poetry" and "hyperbole as hyperbole" part makes sense, and it suggests using common sense in interpreting biblical passages. Obviously, a poem that says "The Lord is my Shepherd" is not claiming that God is literally a shepherd. So poetry and poetic metaphors are obviously not to be taken literally. But I am not sure what to make about its statement about total precision not being expected or aimed at. Suppose (hypothetically speaking, of course) that the Bible gets a few historical facts wrong when it is making some grander theological claim, such as getting the name of a king wrong or otherwise making a historical error. Does the Chicago statement admit that this is possible but acceptable under its definition of "inerrancy" because the broader claim being made in the context of that historical inaccuracy is true and inerrant? Or is the Chicago statement saying that historical inaccuracies are impossible? soulpatch

This statement and similar ones, reject the presupposition that the Bible is only reliable when it's talking about things that are "non-factual". However, it cautions against imposing on Scripture an anachronistic measure of precision. There are many historical puzzles in the Bible - some caused by what we don't know, and others caused by what we do know. The Chicago statement advises religiously that these historical puzzles will be solved more reliably in the long run, by those who approach them in faith and reverence, than by cynicism and unbelief. Mkmcconn

I guess I still don't understand whether that means that the assumption is that the historical puzzles will always be resolved in favor of the Bible being correct. soulpatch

Moving discussion of the origin of the gospels to the Gospels page. Stephen C. Carlson