1. 1 The Bible as Sacred Scripture

2. 2 Views on Biblical Inspiration/Revelation

3. 3 The “Traditional” Way The Bible is THE WORD OF GOD TAWOGFAT (The Authoritative Word of God for all time) Hence, it is eternally valid, inerrant (cannot mistake / no errors), and has supreme authority and value over and above any other writing. In it we find the very words of God (At right) St. Matthew & the Angel

4. 4 The Humanistic View: The Bible as Literature A very humanistic way of seeing the Bible It’s an interesting piece of literature written by two ancient communities – (1) Ancient Israel and (2) Early Christianity It’s a CLASSIC – a piece of literature with STAYING POWER because: it expresses universal human experiences and it defies any definitive interpretation

5. 5 The Bible and Empire Why did the Bible become so influential Connection with Empire Roman Empire became Christian beginning with Constantine The Western World adopted Christianity Many Western Countries became empires. Christianity was spread throughout the world. Wherever Christianity took root, there the Bible was also considered important and sacred

6. 6 The Bible as Ambivalent Like all pieces of great literature, the Bible reflects human reality. Human reality is made up of good, bad, and neutral elements. Hence there is an ambivalence in the Bible in that it reflects the humans who wrote it down – inspired yet flawed, beautiful in some respects, repugnant in others

7. 7 A Middle Way? Bible as Human but also Divine Many in the mainline Christian tradition view the Bible BOTH as (1) Human Words and (2) Divine Words. In this view, all the things that were said about the Bible as literature are accepted. But this view does not stop at that …

8. 8 This view is also based on faith – on a deep belief that God is real, that God has been and can be experienced, and that God has actually revealed who s/he is and how humans ought to live in order to find ultimate peace

9. 9 What does“Revelation” mean in the mainline Christian Tradition? What is depicted in these paintings is not exactly the mainline Christian concept of revelation

10. 10 A “Complex” View of Revelation In this view, it is accepted that: Each book in the Bible has gone through a very complex process before it came to be in the form in which we find it now in the Bible That complex process consists of elements such as authors, editors, human realities both beautiful and ugly, interpretations, etc., etc., etc…. Nevertheless, through it all, there is still something in the Bible which eloquently speaks to us about the deepest mysteries that we humans try to understand, namely, who God is, how humans should live

11. 11 The Notion of Revelation in the Mainline Christian Tradition God has self-revealed (shown us who God is and shown us how to live) in a special way through: the foundational experiences of ancient Israel and early Christianity … the most important parts of which came to be written down and collected in what is called the Bible