Feed: Christian Bible - AggScore: 14.0

Christian Bible

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Christian Bible

How did the Christian Bible emerge as the most important testament of Christian teaching?

What developments spurred the canonizing process? Identify and explain the fundamental literary structure of the New Testament and discuss reasons for maintaining the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament.

It was a very shaky process. Ultimately, Constantine's Council of Nicea was FUNDAMENTAL in determining which books would become canon, and which books/manuscripts would be defined as heretical. Before the stories of the Bible were recorded, they were passed down through oral tradition. It only took two or three centuries after Christ for the early Christian Church to be fairly divided. DIfferent church outposts had different views regarding canon. That's when Constantine called the Council of Nicea together to try and identify some common ground, before things got more out of hand. There's so much history surrounding the formation of what we now call the Bible. Check out "Banned from the Bible". It gives a lot of insight into how the canon was formed, and it focuses on which books were left out. For Christians, maintaining the Hebrew torah as part of the Old Testament (OT) is INTEGRAL. Christians believe that certain messianic prophecies that were recorded in the OT corroborate the Christian belief in Christ as the Messiah. The OT also tells the story of the creation, gives valuable genealogical records, and is a great "prequel" to the New Testament. Christians believe that the truth New Testament is eloquently complemented by the OT. Others, however, disagree. Many former Christians, like myself, see countless contradictions between the NT and OT; between the teachings of Christ and the teachings of the ancient Hebrews. And of course, Jews don't think that the OT prophecies of the Messiah were referring to Jesus, which is huge. Muslims have different views on this as well. All in all, the reason the OT is still in the Biblical canon is tradition.

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