This article in my series about the Biblical Canon will be short, although the footnotes are extensive. In the first few hundred years after Jesus's resurrection, the church was trying to understand which books were in the canon. God made the canon, but it was still up to the church to recognize which books were appropriate for use.
Have you ever walked into a crowded room and seen some faces which are vaguely familiar, but you can't remember the...
What do the words Scripture and Canon mean? In modern times, some people have defined the word Scripture to mean books inspired by God, while defining Canon as a list of scripture which can not change. With these definitions, the scriptures existed early in the church, but the canon took a long time to form. Did the early church have a canon? Was the canon formed in the fourth or fifth century, as some people claim? The Catholic Church...
In 2015, a Christian
documentary was released named Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus. Many scholars believe the
Exodus as described in the Bible never happened, and many archaeologists agree
that opinion. The purpose of Patterns of
Evidence: The Exodus is to show that archaeologists are looking for
evidence from the wrong time period, so naturally there wouldn't be evidence of
the Exodus. A few simple calculations using dates the Bible gives leads...
I had planned on
seeing the new documentary Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy
on opening night and writing a review for today's article, but the projector in
the theater wasn't working, so my plans have changed. The Moses Controversy is scheduled to be shown again on
Saturday, March 16th, and Tuesday, March 19th, so hopefully I'll be able to
write a review for next weekend, but by then it will be to late to see it in
Johannes Gutenberg introduced the movable type printing press to Europe in 1450. The first major book printed on the press is known as the Gutenberg Bible, an edition of the Latin Vulgate, in 1454-1455 AD.
Prior to the printing press, the Bible (and other documents) were copied by hand. The two Latin words manu (with the hand) and scripta (written) form the word manuscript, or "written with the hand". Scribes took great care to accurately...