New Testament Canon and Chronology

Good evening Everybody's so excited to be here.

I say good evening So listen when you came in tonight if tonight's your first time ever being here You might not have noticed but there is a sign-in sheet on the table as you walk in that is the Statement that lets me know how often that you are here and according to the syllabus This is an eight-week course you are required to be here at least six of the eight weeks Or you forfeit your opportunity to earn a certificate unless there is some kind of emergency with which you speak to me beforehand And we will be able to determine if you're able to take a portion of the class via video But this class is not just about listening to the lectures this class is about Being in class and engaging with one another so if you're not here.

It's not as Interesting and it's not as informative, and it's not as much as you could now I know there are some at home some people can't be here You can still earn a certificate if you don't come But I encourage folks to be here because there's there especially now that we're back in the Learning Center We did a whole semester in the sanctuary Which is that room that we have worship in and I absolutely hated it Because I felt like it was eight Really long sermons.

I didn't feel like people were engaging.

I didn't feel like people were really Doing what we normally do in class when we come down here.

We're sitting at the tables.

We're sitting in class This is the atmosphere that I was going for and this is what I'm hoping for and one of the things I am looking forward to in the next week or two is having this desk lowered We call this mega desk This was bought and purchased for this classroom, and this actually came from a professor at Duke University So it has a little bit of history But it's too big and when I'm behind it.

I feel like I'm hiding from you all So we're going to have it cut down by about two inches Just so that I'm able to just so I'm able to manage a little better if you think it's bad for me brother Mike It's really bad when he teaches all you see is the top of his head So we're going to have a little a little bit of change in the in the weeks ahead Tonight we're beginning a survey of the New Testament in our survey of the Old Testament I asked a series of questions at the beginning of that course, and I want to ask those same questions tonight.

I'm not actually Requiring that you answer me out loud, but I do want you to answer these questions in your heart I want you to answer these questions on your in yourself and the questions are these How many of you feel confident that you could give a synopsis of every book in the New Testament, okay? How many of you know for certain you could name all the books in the New Testament? Okay, a few of you, but when I said the Old Testament a lot of people just you know and Lastly how many of you know for certain you know how many there are? Okay that one maybe Everyone can feel a little bit more confident about when we talked about the Old Testament It was a big question see the thing is about the New Testament is when we were in the Old Testament There wasn't a lot of confidence Because a lot of folks especially New Testament Christians haven't spent a lot of time in the Old Testament So right away there was a big lack of confidence in the room, but tonight I see some of you shaking your head like yeah, I think I could do that and I like that I like that confidence.

I like you coming in strong.

You're excited, but I want to Just sort of at least for a moment remind you that with familiarity comes complacency and Oftentimes we are so familiar with the New Testament that we are actually not as familiar as we thought Because we've spent more time there.

We feel comfortable there And so we don't realize how much we don't know So everybody take out a sheet of paper write one to ten We're going to have our first pop quiz first night first day first test right away.

They got a piece of paper, right? one through ten and By the way, I want to mention if you are familiar with Yale University Yale University used to be well I guess they still have Yale Divinity School used to be a seminary used to be one of the greatest seminaries in the world now it is more of a Liberal school when it comes to teaching the Bible liberal in every area But particularly when it comes teaching the Bible, but I did in preparation for this class I listened to some lectures from Yale's religious studies professor.

He was teaching a course on New Testament I was going to be teaching a course on New Testament So I was interested the classes were free online, so I decided to listen and he started his Survey of the New Testament with this ten question test So the test you're taking right now is actually not one that I wrote but one that came from professor Dale Martin of Yale University So this is ten questions from Yale University and they are all yes or no questions so you will write on your paper either yes or No, and the question is These things are in the Bible Yes, or no, so that's how you're going to if I say these things are in the Bible We give you ten things and when I say these things you're going to say yes, that's in the Bible or no, it's not Okay, number one the immaculate Conception is in the Bible.

Yes or no the immaculate Conception is in the Bible.

Yes or no, please.

Don't look at the person beside you.

They probably don't know either Number two, this is a quote Love bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things.

That's in the Bible.

Yes or no number three At Jesus's birth three wise men or Kings Visited the baby Jesus number three three wise men visited Jesus at his birth Yes, or no, that's in the Bible question is is it in the Bible? Yes, or no number four Another quote is this quote from the Bible from each according to his ability to each according to his need Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? From each according to his ability to each according to his need Number five the doctrine of the Trinity is that in the Bible? Yes, or no? These are not trick questions they are not and Well, I didn't write this quiz so you can't blame me for being trick question, but they are all thoughtful questions Thank you.

Hey, there you go.

They're thoughtful questions Well numbers number six quote Another quote you are Peter and upon this rock.

I will build my church.

Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? Number seven Peter founded the church in Rome.

Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? number eight After his death Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem.

Yes or no? Number nine after his death Jesus appeared to his disciples in Galilee Yes, or no? And again, the question is is this in the Bible? last but not least Peter was martyred by being crucified Upside down.

Is that in the Bible? Yes, or no? Have I got your answers Ready to go through the answers one at a time Ready to go anybody need an extra minute All right want to be fair Number one the Immaculate Conception.

Is that in the Bible? Yes or no? Who said yes raise hand raise hand.

Yes raise hand.

No All right.

The answer is no.

It's not in the Bible the Immaculate Conception is a false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that actually says that Mary was Conceived without sin so that she could be the sin less bearer of Christ See the Catholic Church teaches that Mary is sinless along with Jesus And so the Immaculate Conception is not what we normally think of as Jesus's conception, but it is a false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the conception of Mary Number two love bears all things believes all things.

Is that in the Bible? First Corinthians 13.

I hope that we'd get that one.

Okay Number three at Jesus's birth three wise men and or Kings visited the baby Jesus It's it's doesn't say what? Doesn't say how many and doesn't say it was at his birth either Yeah, it doesn't say it was at his birth.

It could have been anywhere between birth to age two Yeah.

All right.

Number four from each according to his ability to each according to his need.

Is that in the Bible? Where is it from? Yeah, Communist Manifesto Yeah, yeah that is not in the Bible But a lot of people think it is a lot of people here You know cleanliness is next to godliness and they assume that's a biblical statement Number five.

This is the one that Daisy wanted to fight me over Already five minutes into class and she's one to argue the doctrine of the Trinity.

Is it in the Bible? Yes or no? technically the answer is no the foundations of the doctrine of the Trinity or in the Bible But the Bible does not clearly say God is one in essence and three in person These three persons are in co-equal co-eternal and distinct.

That's the doctrine of the Trinity The Bible does not say those things in that way.

So I would say yes, it's there but it is a theological deduction That is made from the text.

It is not an explicit Statement unless of course you want to argue about the common Johannium, which is a place in John's writings where there is a place where he says there are three that bear witness in heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are one but that is one of the most disputed texts from the ancient code of say Ancient codexes and so I would say it actually is not part of the legitimate writings of John So that would be the only place that we could say it was and it's debated So it's a if you want if you wrote yes, I'm not going to take all points Of course, I'm not grading this anyway, but I'm not going to take points off But it was a opportunity to you could say yes or no and on that when you'd sort of be right Yes, no, but yes, yeah, all right number six you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church Yes, that's in the Bible Matthew 16.

Okay Peter founded the church in Rome Yeah, anybody say yes Okay, it's it's very common Christian tradition, but it's not in the Bible That's the question.

Is it in the Bible not whether or not it's tradition But whether or not some of the Bible doesn't say anything about who founded the church in Rome, so we don't know Number eight after his death Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem Actually, yes that is found in one of the Gospels All right Yep, and number nine is after his death.

He he appeared to his disciples in Galilee.

Yeah, it actually says both there Yeah, yeah, so remember Jesus appeared for over a period of 40 days appeared over 500 people so there's more than one appearance and So this is not a trick question But it's a reminder that Some of the Gospels focus on his appearances in Galilee some focuses on focus on his appearances in Judea and Jerusalem So there's a you have to make a harmonization and understand that there was both And that's an important the reason why there's two questions Last but not least Peter was martyred by being crucified upside down.

That's in the Bible.

Yes or no? No, I'm a trick some of you can just you changed It's not the Bible.

No that that is very common Christian tradition Dating very early in the church's history, but there is nothing in the Bible about the death of either Peter or Paul We know they died Because they're not still alive But we do not know the Circumstances for certain tradition says Peter was crucified upside down tradition says Paul was beheaded.

Anybody know why? Because Paul was a Roman citizen and it was against the law to crucify a Roman citizen It was considered to be an ignoble death And therefore a Roman citizen could not suffer that form of death Peter could be crucified Paul could not because of his Roman citizenship so the tradition is Peter died on the cross as Jesus did but upside down and Paul died by Beheading was that fun Everybody's so excited.

Okay.

Well by the end of this course I hope that you have a better familiarity with the New Testament than you came a lot of you came Already knowing a lot about the Bible.

I know some of you are pastors and Bible teachers And so I hope that this will be an encouragement and a time of growth for you And even if you came in very early in your Christian walk and you're still getting your feet wet This class will still benefit you as well It will not go over the heads too far But it also will not drag so low as to not be able to benefit anyone so this class is made to allow for a benefit for all different types of Christians in different areas of their walk.

So thank you all for coming.

And if you don't know who I am, my name is Keith I'm the pastor here at Sovereign Grace and we started this program a few years ago Sovereign Grace Academy as A way to provide biblical study ministries for people that is affordable and by affordable we don't charge so that's about as affordable as you can get the only thing you have to pay for to come here is you have to pay For your books and if you did not purchase the books required for this class I would ask that you please do so before next week the book that is required for this class is This massive tomb the believers Bible commentary.

This was the same book we used for the Survey of the Old Testament.

It is the book we're using for the survey of the New Testament And when you're done with this course, you can use it to protect your home because it's self-defense worthy It's the size of you know, a nice brick.

It's a very big tool now I did have somebody asked me is this the best one volume commentary? No, it's not there are places I would disagree with this especially regarding Dispensationalism and if you're not familiar with what dispensationalism means I'll be dealing with that somewhat later in the course But I do think that it is valuable.

I think it has some really good source material here I also think it has some really good articles and most of what you'll be reading for this class are the articles In fact, everyone should have read prior to this class if you had the syllabus you should have read Introduction to the New Testament if you did not read introduction to the New Testament Please add that to this week's reading list and make sure that when you come next week you read Not only this week's readings but read next week's as well So that you come in ready to go and let's let's very quickly look over what the readings are If you have your syllabus take it out if you do not we had some copies made So, please get a copy of the syllabus And let's walk through what is going to be required in this class on the first page under course overview It says this court this excuse me This course will survey the key figures themes and theology of the New Testament Students will be introduced to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and the resultant growth of the New Testament Church following his death burial and resurrection Students will also look at the prophecies surrounding his return Our goals are to learn the categories and chronology of the New Testament canon to summarize the purpose and theology of the individual New Testament books to recognize the historical contribution of key New Testament figures and To examine the continuity and discontinuity of the Old and New Testament You must have a Bible.

We will do Bible readings in this class You can use any translation you want Well, you can bring anyone you want, but if you bring the message, I'm not going to call on you to read Just so you know Yes Please don't You know again We won't have a lot of time to discuss the value of different types of Bible translations But if you come to the hermeneutics class if you were part of that last year, you know We talked about why different translations are better than others and why we want to seek for a more literal translation if possible so I use the English Standard Version if you have a new American Standard Bible, it's very similar if you have the CSB or what's it called in CSB home at home and yeah, that one's pretty good.

It's newer And then of course the old NIV is not terrible.

It's a dynamic equivalent, but it's not terrible KJV Whatever you choose is fine.

The Believers Bible commentary.

I also recommend Introducing the New Testament by DA Carson and Douglas Moo.

Would you hold your copy up brother so they can see what that looks like Tim? Thank you That is introducing the New Testament by Doug Moo and DA Carson if you do not know who DA Carson is you need to the a Carson is one of the preeminent New Testament scholars in the world and Doug Moo is no slouch either So that book is a tremendous help and it's a small book as you can see now there is a bigger book show them the bigger book brother this one costs about three times as much and But it is basically the course book for many New Testament classes that are doing a survey in the New Testament So if you are interested I would recommend both of those books and if you buy those books, then the benefit is you don't have to take notes Just underline the book There's a lot of my notes come out of the book So yeah, so you should still take notes But the reality is a lot of what I'm going to be talking about is derived out of books like that So if you have those books, they're a helpful tool for what we're doing Introduction to the New Testament by the same two authors Carson and Moo the the small book is basically the the condensed version it's the cliff notes version of the big one and I use the small one in preparation for the class because it's so accessible and easy All right on the next page.

You'll notice course requirements You have to be here, of course, unless you are taking this class online You have to be here.

And if you are not here, it will count against your grade You get to two passes and then it begins to be a major issue Reading assignments your reading assignments are in the syllabus.

We'll look at those in a moment notebook The notebook is basically this every week.

I ask that you take notes in class.

I also give you handouts in class You're required to keep up with the notes and the handouts and at the end of the semester Whenever it's time to finish the last class I will walk around and I will check your notebook if you are trying to earn a certificate If you're not earning a certificate, I don't care Because you're just auditing but if you are earning a certificate your notebook is part of the work that you're turning in So you have to have your notebook if you didn't bring a note pad tonight or a book tonight Just pick up a yellow pad or anything You know that for next week and bring it with you and keep up with it and at the end of the class Show it to me the most important thing that you'll do if you're earning a certificate is the Research project it is 40% of your grade If you don't do it, you don't get a certificate Of course The research project will be assigned during the final class each student will be assigned one book from the New Testament The student will write a synopsis of the book including authorship purpose and theme theological insights and Christological significance This analysis will be submitted in the following format and explains the format you can use either APA or MLA style formatting But it must be formatted properly and I have been rather lax in Migrating when it comes to form in the past couple of years Because I know a lot of you it's been a long time since you've been in school and things like that So I give a lot of grace when it comes to proper Formatting but my wife and I are she's helping me do grading now My wife is an English teacher, you know, she teaches so she's being a little more rough than I am She's being a little more a little a little harder with that red pen than I've been So just remember when you're when you're we're seeking here to have college level work You know, we want to do as good as we can do as well as possible And and I you know, I understand some of you again.

It's been a long time since you've been out of school So if you need help writing your paper Come see me If you if you need help with formatting if you need help with Understanding how to put a paper together some of you maybe haven't done that in a long time.

Please come see me That's what I'm here for.

I want to help you.

I want to help you produce as good of a paper as you can Okay.

All right.

Last but not least the last page is the Course schedule and has our focuses for each night content to be covered and the assignment that is due each week when you come in look at that assignment that is due and That's what you should be doing.

Most of the assignments you will see are simply reading assignments In fact, I think all of them this time are reading assignments.

They're reading articles from the The Commentary that you guys are supposed to purchase So if you read the introduction to the New Testament tonight next week You're going to read introduction to the Gospels and BBC, of course stands for believers Bible Commentary not the British Broadcasting Company.

Just be clear about that And You'll notice each week we're going to deal with a different subject tonight when we finally do get to the lesson We're going to begin looking at the canon of the New Testament and the chronology of the books of the New Testament Next week.

We're going to look at a survey of the synoptic Gospels Then we're going to look at a survey of the Autopic Gospel and then in week four We're going to look at a survey of the history book the book of Acts then in week five This is not in your syllabus, but you may want to write in a little note at the beginning of week five We are going to have a short pop quiz on what you've learned so far Just to let me know how we're doing if we're going too quickly or if we need to go back over a few things So there will be a short quiz at the beginning of week five And I guess it's no longer a pop quiz because pop quiz usually means surprise, but now that you know, it's coming It's no longer surprise There may be a short final at the end.

It won't be any more than just 10 or 12 questions But just to see how much information you've been able to retain through the course So that's the syllabus.

They may have any questions good Also, you'll probably notice that I talk kind of fast because I only have an hour and a half a week with you And I do try to give you a restroom break at some point So even that takes away part of my time So we I talk fast and go through a lot of information very very quickly.

Is there any questions before we begin? All right Tonight's lesson is going to be dealing with the New Testament Canon and chronology We're going to look at chronology and dating We're going to look at Canon and apocryphal writings and we're going to look at Old Testament and New Testament Continuity and discontinuity.

I want to ask this question before we start.

Did everybody get a copy of the handout when you came in? Everyone should have gotten a copy of the handout if you didn't Janice, there should be one over there On one side, it's got the chronological order of the books on the other side.

It's got the New Testament Antilagomena Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, please make sure you have that because we'll be going over both of those now brother I'm going to use my board But Megadesk is going to be a problem for you tonight However, when we lower it, hopefully Megadesk will no longer be an issue But I'll try to keep my writing somewhat close to the top.

How many of you were in the survey of the Old Testament? Okay, remember how when we went over the Old Testament? I said that our English Bibles are not arranged by the Chronology, but they are arranged by category Remember we talked about the Old Testament It was the books of Moses and then you had the books of history and then you had the books of poetry Then you had the books of prophecy both major and minor, right? That's the categories of the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible is different.

If you pick up a Hebrew Bible, it's written It's ordered more chronologically and it's actually numbered differently We have 39 books in our Old Testament in the Hebrew Bible There's only 24 books because they combine the prophets into one book and there's a few other places They don't have first and second Kings.

They just have Kings and so they drop from 39 to 24 but it's still the same books It's just differently ordered and they order it differently because they're more concerned about the chronology than the category of the book but again as Westerners and Looking at English Bibles and we look at our Old Testament we see Categories and the same thing happens when we look at the New Testament the three categories of New Testament writing are as follows history epistolary and Apocalyptic we have history books.

We have epistolary books and we have Apocalyptic books underneath history what books would constitute the history of the New Testament? Well, we can include who said X that's not wrong But we would start with the Gospels because even though the Gospels are a different genre of literature than acts They are still biographical history.

So we would say under the category of history we would have the synoptic and the atopic gospel, but for now, we'll just write the Gospels and Under history we would also put the book of Acts now epistolary refers to Well, we're going to talk about this more when we study the writings of Paul, but an epistle is a letter and so we talk about the epistles and So the epistles would constitute which ones? Which books? Okay, so we talk about the Pauline epistles and then what we call the general epistles Okay, so we have the Pauline epistles and the Pauline epistles can be further subcategorized you have prison epistles you have the Pastoral epistles, is that what you said brother? Well, those are the universal that's the that's the general epistles, yeah, so And then of course with Paul you have personal epistles to Timothy and to those so but under the epistles We have basically the majority of the New Testament.

So we have five history books Right, and then the rest except one Would all fall into the category of epistolary books not books but epistles and then the last one would be the Apocalypse of John also known as the book of Revelation, I don't know why I wrote John I meant Well, John did write it and it is the Apocalypse of John, but let me just make sure I'm not confusing anyone all right, so this makes up the The groupings of books and it makes it up by category But now I'd like for you to take out your handout because I want us to consider when these books were written now Before I take you into this sheet.

I want to make something clear all of the dates on this sheet are estimations None of the books came with a date inscribed upon it So everything we Do in regard to dating ancient literature has to do with what we call internal evidence and external evidence an Example of internal evidence would be something that's mentioned in the book as having already happened Well that would tell you that that is something that if we know the date of that thing that happened Then we know when the book had to come after for instance in the Gospel of Luke We read that Jesus was born when Kyrenius Was the governor of Syria? Right there tells us something about the dating of the birth of Jesus Christ.

So we call that Internal evidence it makes a mention of something else that can be dated Therefore we can look at that internal evidence and we can make certain conclusions based upon that internal evidence now External evidence would be like the finding of a manuscript Maybe we find like for instance the Gospel of John There were some who used to believe that the Gospel of John could have been written as late as the end of the second century because they didn't believe John wrote the Gospel of John and They believed that it was written way after the life of Jesus and way after the life of John and so there were there were people who would go to the mat and say John was written in the end of the second century but then We began to find through archaeological discovery things like papyri manuscripts pieces of manuscripts and a very early copy of the Gospel of John a piece Of the Gospel of John was found and it was dated to the early second century not the late second century somewhere between 100 and 125 So what does that tell us it tells us by the early? Second century there were already copies of the Gospel of John that were in circulation Which means that the Gospel of John had to predate because you can't predate Or you have to predate a copy With the original so this pushes the original well into the first century You understand how the difference between internal and external evidence there you have both ways of judging the way a book will Be be dated so based upon that when we look at this understand all these are estimations all these are based on Internal and external evidence We can't go into all of the internal and external evidence of every book because there's 27 books And we have not a lot of time, but I'm going to give you a few things to think about as we go through the first book of the New Testament most likely written earliest would have been the book of James and It is written in the late 40s now for a moment.

I want you to think of a timeline in your mind Jesus was born when Christmas Day year zero Just kidding One there is no year zero and It's not exactly how dating worked back then We don't know when Jesus was born, but the whole Quirinius being governor Syria thing probably puts his birth in our calendar turn somewhere around 4 BC So Jesus would have actually been born before Christ In that regard because it puts his birthday is somewhere around 4 to 6 BC.

He is born therefore if he lived 30 years That would put his death burial and resurrection Somewhere in the third decade of the first century somewhere in the 20s Right it would have been 20s to 30s Now we look at that as the starting point of the New Testament Church Because 40 days after Jesus was resurrected He ascended 10 days after that was the day of Pentecost birth of the New Testament Church And what happens at the birth of the New Testament Church the church begins to expand out and goes from Jerusalem to Judea Samaria and all the world right Paul and the other missionaries take the gospel all throughout the world and this happens in a period of about 20 years So we go from the 30s when Jesus death burial and resurrection up to about the 50s the end of the time the period of the Acts and now we have The writings that begin so James becomes one of the earliest writings the next book to be written according to What I believe and what I'm teaching is I believe was the book of Galatians Why do I believe Galatians was written in 48? This is a very important Argument Galatians is written for one particular purpose And if you've never studied Galatians the purpose of the book of Galatians is Paul is defending his gospel against those who have brought a false gospel into the region of Galatia and They are teaching that you must be circumcised to become a Christian That particular debate Became the argument at the Council of Jerusalem the Council of Jerusalem happened in 49 So if Paul is making an argument to the Galatians after the Council of Jerusalem It would make sense that he would have mentioned.

Oh and by the way all of the Apostles have already decided this is the Position that the church has taken but because Paul does not mention the Council of Jerusalem This puts the writing of Galatians most likely in the year 47 or 48 I would take probably 48 to get it as far as close to the Council of Jerusalem as possible in fact I think the events in Galatia probably were one of the issues that spurred the Council of Jerusalem to begin with by the way Where is Galatia? It's where we right now would call Turkey So Asia Minor Southern Asia Minor you read in Acts 13 14 you read about Lystra Iconium and Derby all of those cities.

That's the area of Southern Galatia Now there are some people who believe that Paul wrote Galatians to the northern Galatians and that it was written in the mid 50s But and I taught on Galatians for a long time at set free and I I don't have time tonight to make all of the arguments, but I believe Internal evidence would suggest it's the southern Galatians.

It's the Lystra Derby and Iconium and that the purpose is that Paul has planted these churches Someone has come behind him has argued that his gospel is false that it didn't include the law and Paul is now saying that You cannot be justified by law, but you're justified by faith only and that is his argument and I believe that it becomes then the first letter of Paul to any church Therefore Galatians and when we get to the survey of the Pauline epistles We will talk about the value of Galatians Galatians is a little Romans If you are a reformed theologian like me and you have great Love for the book of Romans, then you should love Galatians as well because Galatians came first Galatians is Paul's theology in Condensed form which will later become the book of Romans in an expansive more systematic view So Galatians very important being the what I would believe first letter of the Apostle Paul written before the Jerusalem Council I didn't mean to take that much time But you understand all this is all important for when these books come about because this provides for us a chronology If you do happen to listen to the guy from Yale He'll argue that first Thessalonians was the first book and a lot of people do First Thessalonians was early and I think Galatians came first But I already told you why but first Thessalonians is very early first and second Thessalonians And then first and second Corinthians also in the early to mid 50s Romans is mid to late 50s Philippians late 50s early 60s And then we have our first and you might want to make a little mark with your pen our first introduction of a gospel the gospel of Mark May or may not be the first gospel written But for the sake of this timetable I'm arguing at least for now that it was Possibly one of the first written.

Yes There's debate on that when we get to the synoptic problem, which is going to be a part of next week's class I'm going to talk about the question of sourcing in the Gospels because it is very clear that Luke had access to Matthew and Mark Because he even says I've did it.

I've done research and you know the first chapter of Luke He talks about the fact that he that he interviewed people and in compiled information So the question of whether or not Luke had access to Mark and Matthew is almost a certainty But there is a there is an argument that can be made for what's called the Thean Supremacy, which means Matthew was first and Mark drew from him But the typical consensus among scholars and remember most scholars are liberals you have to be careful the typical consensus is that Mark and supremacy that Mark came first and that Matthew drew heavily from Mark and Luke drew heavily from both Matthew and Mark and Luke and Rather John came later and was why he's called the atopic gospel because his gospel from a different perspective altogether presents Jesus in a much more divine and Much clearly much more clearly regarding his divinity.

So when we get to the synoptic problem, I'll discuss more about that.

But yes, I think that I Think there's a lot to be said from a Thean supremacy, but for the sake of this sheet I put Mark first, but it is possible that Matthew came before Mark There are some some evidences that that's possible and I like it.

I'll give you just I'll tip my hand I do like the idea that Matthew came first because Matthew ties The Old Testament and the New Testament together by being the gospel writer who speaks to the Jewish community Using their own scriptures think about how much Matthew uses the scriptures of the Old Covenant Bringing in Jesus is the fulfillment of this Jesus is the fulfillment of that and all of the writers do that but not like Matthew Matthew has this very Fault very key focus on proving Jesus is this promised King and so I tend to have in my heart The the belief and again, I can't prove it But the belief that Matthew provides sort of a link between Old Covenant and New Covenant theology, so But but again, I'm going against scholarship at that point Most of the scholars would say Mark and some even believe in a source called Q which is an undiscovered source, I don't believe in Q and I'll talk about why that next week, but that's Q is a Q Q is a Q Q is a theory if you got three books that all say the same thing But they all say different things because that's what you got right with the Gospels the synoptic Gospels They all say the same things But they all also say different things like the demoniac, right? You got the demoniac one place.

You got two one place.

You only got one think about the angels at the Resurrection some of them say there's one some say there's two some say they run, you know outside sometimes they were inside And so you have to you have to harmonize all of this and the way that some scholars have sought to harmonize it is to Say there's a there's a source.

We don't have that all three of them drew from and that was the source called Q The problem with the Q source is I think it's an unnecessary Theory based upon a desire to say there's something that's been lost You'll notice in you'll notice in So much of Liberal scholarship there is this idea that we're missing something about Jesus There's something wrong with the message that we have where we have something that we we have a Bible that's missing Some key piece of evidence about Jesus that if we just had that piece We know he wasn't really God in the flesh or if we just had that piece We know he wasn't really born of a virgin or if we just had you know There's always this sort of search for this one piece and and and Q becomes sort of this Sort of the shining city on a hill for the for the liberal, right? I have this thing that's out there that nobody has evidence of but we believe it happened And so they look for it and they want to they want to they want that to be their their silver bullet for the fundamental You know Fundamentalists, so all right.

So moving down the list you'll notice we have Colossians Philemon Ephesians first Peter Matthew, of course mid 60s.

Now you'll notice next to Matthew.

I wrote the temple is still standing That is key Matthew talks about the temple Still being there Which means that he was written before? 8070 that is a key piece of internal and external evidence Internally, he talks about the temple still being there externally.

We know it weren't there in 71 It was gone in 70 when Emperor Titus comes in and wipes it out and destroys the temple So and I want to give another piece of information I personally believe that all of the New Testament books are written before 8070 But there are some books that I have questions about the later writings of John Revelation and even the Gospel of John could be after 70, but in my In my reasoning you say well, why would you believe all the New Testament books are written before 70? Because none of them mention it It is a huge watershed moment in the history of Christianity because that is the moment where God sealed the fate of the old covenant sacrifices.

He said no more There has not been a sacrifice in the temple in 2,000 years and it ended in 8070 was Jesus himself Who said this generation will not pass away until these things take place and a lot of people think that's talking about his return But it could be referring to the destruction of the old covenant system This is why in the book of Hebrews we write we read that the old covenant is becoming obsolete and is passing away But it doesn't say it's passed away yet Because Hebrews comes before the passing away point wins the passing away point 8070 that just that temple is destroyed and that's when the old system passes away when we talk about the book of Acts we're going to talk about that the book of Acts is a survey of the period between the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new covenant because the beginning of the new covenant the end of the old covenant is Actually like this See the new covenant begins with the coming of the Holy Spirit the death, burial and resurrection of Christ But the old covenant doesn't end there the old covenant ends with the destruction of the temple And there's a period of transition between the old covenant new covenant That's what acts is about acts is about that transitional period between the old covenant and the new covenant Which is an overlap in? biblical history So all of this chronology is important to understand where things fall you guys tired yet if I lost you Keep keep keep strong.

Don't fall asleep Okay So moving on down you'll notice I put all of the books before 8070 except Possibly the gospel of John and the epistles of John.

I said they could be 85 As even as late as 90 and 95 we know John lived to the end of the first century He's the only Apostle that we do not have tradition that he was martyred and Some argue that all the New Testament was written prior to 70 That's a position I take and if that's the case then John and the epistles of John would have been written somewhere between 1068 and 69 so that would be the difference you got a question Bob.

It's okay Yeah, when we get to week 8 of this semester I'm going to talk about how you interpret Revelation and they're they're basically four schools of interpretation and the preterist school, which is the One that I tend to fall into most closely partial preterism would would depend upon The book of Revelation being written before 70 if the book if it can be proven that the book of Revelation came after 8070 than the preterist position would fall apart So so yes where you put the dating of Revelation is very important.

Yeah small.

I'm sorry.

What's your name, brother? Shorty I called you smalls.

I was thinking of a movie That's one of the yeah, what what I'm saying if he doesn't say the temple is still standing But he writes as a person who doesn't know that it's going to be destroyed You understand what I'm saying? So what you just quoted would be one of the passages that indicate that the writer himself doesn't If the temple was already destroyed there would have likely have been language of When the temple fell or before the temple fell But we don't have any of that which indicates that the writer is still looking and seeing the temple is still there Yeah, I don't believe so that that again goes back to the question of eschatology I would say most of our eschatology today has been skewed by a futuristic Interpretation looking forward to things that have already taken place Yeah so That's it.

That's it.

That's an argument for another day, though I know a lot of people don't agree with me, but it's an important.

It's an important thing to consider All right One of the things that you should note by that sheet that we just looked at is the progression through the letters They deal with issues within the church early letters like Galatians deal with a young newly formed congregation later letters like first and second Timothy are applying structure to the established church In early acts we see the prototypical deacons being called in late first Timothy We see the deacons being given their qualifications, and this is what they their office will look like So you see progressive Revelation in the New Testament you see things begin to be codified and explained and and firmed up when you look at the New Testament from a a Not a categorical perspective, but from a chronological perspective, and you see that you see the early issues Gentiles are they In the same covenant we are are they full members of this covenant.

That's huge in the early books You know it's still dealt with later, but it's it's the main argument.

That's happening early on and So we see those types of things and again the pastoral epistles.

How's the church to be run? That's Pete.

That's Peter No, it's got in the Acts chapter 10 Yes, and that's we see that again a part of progressive revelation Peter's told eat He goes no I've never eaten anything unclean and God says what I've made clean don't make don't call unclean And I say thank God every time I go to Sonny's and get a pork sandwich And I'm very blessed to live on this side of the of the covenant in that regard But yes, that's a that's a progress progress and revelation brother Tim Yeah Yes And you mix them all up, then you can have a skewed view of those things and still Looking for things to come Absolutely, it's interesting that you say that We know speaking in tongues is a huge deal right people make a huge deal out of speaking in tongues How many books of the Bible mentioned speaking in tongues you may know? Three which ones are they Huh The book of Acts is the primary source for the subject of tongues.

It's mentioned three times in Acts Acts 2 acts 9 acts 19 No, I'm sorry acts 2 acts 10 and acts 19 are the only three times It's so it's mentioned only three times even in the book that talks about it the most it's mentioned in 1st Corinthians and chapters 12 through 14 which deal with spiritual gifts and it is Given a passing reference in Mark 16 in another one of those passage Which is considered to be one of the spurious passages if you read your Bible at Mark 16 There's a portion after which it says this was not in the earliest manuscripts yeah, and that's the only part in the Gospels that mentioned speaking in tongues and I I Make I make the argument that that part is should not be a part of Mark Mark has a tendency in his writing to end End abruptly and if you read it and end at chapter 16 verse 8 It seems as that's where it should end and then there's this extra part about he who believes in his baptized to be saved My followers are going to drink poison and all this stuff it's all this really strange stuff that doesn't really seem to connect to the to Christ and And so I would argue that the the latter part of Mark is is not part of the original of Mark's writing so having said that if Mark 16 9 through 20 is part of Mark's original then it would be the third instance of the The speaking in tongues, but that didn't that amazing though that whole denominations formed on the idea of speaking tongue It's only mentioned in three books and in those three books.

It's only mentioned It's only mentioned a few times.

You have three times in Acts and a few times in First Corinthians and only one passing reference doesn't he say we say speaking in tongues in Mark.

I think it says something they will speak With unknown tongues, I think it's the term that she used but it's It's a very obscure reference the one in mark I I think even if mark even if that is a legitimate passage I think to prove that that's what Jesus was talking about.

The the modern expression is speaking in tongues.

I think we very difficult Yes That's okay, that's what we're here for that's why I want to Yeah, the Is it was that it okay.

Yes.

Um, I don't know if you had I don't want to interrupt you In the King James Version There is an introduction of the term unknown and If you have a King James Version and you look up when it talks about tongues and it uses the word unknown That word is italicized and in the King James Bible The reason why words are italicized is it means that is an added word? It's not part of the original manuscript the King James translators added the word unknown To identify that the people who were given the gift of tongues were speaking languages.

They did not know they were unknown but the Pentecostal movement the which which is an early 20th century movement Saw the word unknown and interpreted that to mean nobody knows it.

It's a heavenly spiritual angelic language and therefore the unknown means it's not a language but a What I would say repetitive monosyllabic sound and and that's the way I describe most modern tongue speaking is repetitive Monosyllabic sound what is the syllable? It's just this, you know noise, right? And it's rah rah bah bah dah dah.

Those are syllables or sounds and it's monosyllabic.

It doesn't it doesn't have the Characteristic of language It doesn't have and the word Glossa the word used for tongue means language and So I do believe I think Justin Peters is correct on this and when I talked to first Corinthians I dove into this deeper I do believe that when the early church was given the gift of tongues It was an ability to speak in a language that they had not previously learned For instance if I were to go today to Mexico, I don't speak Spanish So therefore I would be unable to share the gospel But God could give me the ability without studying To speak in a language that I'd never studied and that would be a miracle and it would be a verifiable Legitimate miracle if I started speaking Spanish, it would it would I mean it'd be pretty bueno But but that's that that I think I think Peters is on to something They're the only issue I would take with it is when you get to first Corinthians 14.

Paul speaks about the Well first Corinthians 13 He talks about the tongues of angels and some people think that that means there's an angelic language and in chapter 14 He does seem to talk about a language that is only God understands And so that has to be interpreted in light of acts Because acts tells us that people did understand the language So what does it mean when it says only God understands it and I don't have time to go into it right now I still think it's real languages I think what he's saying only God would know if nobody if I started speaking Spanish and none of y'all spoke Spanish The only people who know what I was saying was me and God Because none of you speak Spanish and I think that's how you should understand Paul's Position there in 14, but that particular position is highly debatable I remember here.

We used to have people in our church that came here.

Some of them believe that they spoke in tongues They never did it in church because we said we wouldn't want them to have outbursts and worship But they would say they would do it in the shower at home like that's how they prayed and I had issue with it, but I I didn't make an issue of it So so again, it becomes you know becomes an interpretive thing, but there's like I said, there's so little said about it That's the problem is so little is said about it and you make a whole Denomination a whole movement out of one thing.

That's that has so little evidence.

Yes, sir That's Acts chapter 8.

Yeah, or I'm sorry Romans 8 that that I think is referring to the fact that there are times when we do not know what to pray for and The Spirit prays in our stead Jesus said, you know when I go away, I will send you another comforter and he will be with you And so I don't think that necessarily is referring to Sound but I will say this and and maybe this is a I don't know if this is the best interpretation but I'll tell you this there have been times where I have prayed and I have groaned in my prayers because I was Under the conviction of the Spirit or I was hurting and there were no words that I could say But there were certainly Feelings of grief that I was feeling and I don't know if that would have anything to apply to that But I think that there could be a potential application from my own my own experience but I don't think that it proves the Position of the of the the tongue-speaking of I don't think that that would prove their position.

No, I know you're not I'm just saying if somebody used that passage I would say it's too obscure I don't think it's enough to make an evidentiary.

This is this So that's that's where I would stand on that all right, so we understand a little bit more now about the Chronology of the New Testament and the importance of understanding the chronology of the New Testament.

All right well now we're going to move to the subject of the canon of the New Testament and I don't think we're going to get a break.

Anybody desperate for a break.

Y'all need two minutes Five minutes five minute break and we'll come back take a five minute break.

It's okay Well, we don't have a whole lot of time left so we're going to spend our last remaining minute By the way, y'all enjoyed so far.

Yes.

Good.

Is this what you're hoping for? First night enjoying it good Now we're going to talk about canon and we're going to talk about the apocrypha So let's first talk about the word canon with one n-c-o-n-o-n The word canon refers to the listing of books that are in Our New Testament we talked about the canon of the New Testament FF Bruce Preeminent Greek scholar said this he said when we speak of the canon of Scripture the word canon has a simple meaning It means the list of books contained in Scripture The list of books recognized as worthy to be included in the sacred writings of the worshiping community in a Christian context we might define the word as the list of writings acknowledged by the church as documents of the divine revelation The first clear application of this term to the scriptures is attributed to Athanasius in ad 376 so the the use of the word canon is later in church history than when the canon actually was created and this brings us to the question of How was the canon created and this is a very important Question because it deals not only with history But it also deals with theology Comes to the question of how do we know that the books that we have are the books that we should have? How do we know that there are 27 books? And that there's not a 28th book floating around out there somewhere Or maybe that one of the books that we do have should not be there Historically Christians have tried to answer this question in a somewhat practical way They would try to answer this question by giving a practical answer well the reason why we accept these books is because they're written by the Apostles Then you come to Mark and you say wait Mark wasn't an apostle and you get to Luke and you say wait a minute Luke wasn't Luke wrote acts as well So you got Luke and acts? Neither by an apostle Luke may have even been a Gentile so we have an issue there We have the writings of Paul Pretty much everyone knows who he is He was an apostle Then we have of course Hebrews have no idea who wrote Hebrews well we have some idea, but we don't know for sure Then we come to the writings of Peter John James Jude James and Jude were not apostles James and Jude were half brothers of Jesus So the question of they were all written by apostles that doesn't really stand up to historical scrutiny However, we could take a step back and say all of those people.

I just mentioned were closely associated With the Apostles and as we're going to see next week Mark writes in Association with Peter most likely there's early church evidence that suggests that Mark is Writing Peter's gospel so Mark would relate the story of Jesus from Peter's perspective and Then we have Luke who is the companion of who? the Apostle Paul so we have Apostolic authority, but you see that takes a step out from the traditional Well, they're all written by the Apostles when they're not all written by the Apostles So we have the question of where you know these and then we have the big question.

What about Thomas? There's a gospel out there called the gospel of Thomas which some here's what's interesting about liberals all the liberals try to date the New Testament books as late as possible because they want them to not be written by the Guys whose names they bear But when it comes to the gospel of Thomas they're so desperate for Thomas to be in the list that they'll put Thomas as early as the 60s 70s and 80s of the first century and and there's really no warrant for that Thomas most likely is a second century Gnostic work Not a first century Gospel, it's pseudepigraphal which means it has a false name attached to it But that leads to another thing most of the writings in the well not most but a lot of the New Testament writings are Anonymous Matthew Mark Luke and John none of them except John say who wrote them Matthew doesn't say Matthew wrote this So we are relying somewhat on historical tradition as to the authorship of these books But that's an important as to regarding the question of Authenticity, I do believe Matthew wrote Matthew and I'll talk about that more next week but the question of Authorship and all of these things come into play with the question of whether or not these books should be within the canon Now I want to make a very important distinction.

You've you've met you may or may not be familiar with the term inspiration But if you're not I want to very quickly define it for you.

You've all heard maybe that the Bible is inspired by God Well, the word inspiration actually comes from the Greek word theopneustos Which means God breathed comes from 2nd Timothy 3 verse 16, which says all scripture is God breathed But here's here's here's the kicker for that when Paul says all scriptures God breathed.

He's not talking about the New Testament Because at that time there was no New Testament Paul's writing the New Testament at that point so it had not come together so when Paul says all scripture is God breathed he's referring to the Old Testament, but it's important, but I'm going to give you to give you a moment of pause and then I say but That doesn't mean the New Testament isn't scripture The point that I'm making is Paul is not talking about the New Testament in 2nd Timothy 3 16.

He's talking about the Old Testament Later in the book of I Think it's 1st Peter, but it could be wrong could be 2nd Peter But there's a in the writings of Peter Peter refers to Paul's writings as scripture so it's clear that within the first century the gospel writers and the Apostles were recognizing the contributions of Paul as Being on par with the writings of Isaiah Jeremiah and all of the other writers of scripture Because Peter refers to Paul's writings as scripture so when we talk about Inspiration we're talking about the subject of God breathing out his word and his man being used as the Mediator of that word writing it down.

He's the medium of giving that word and So that's inspiration that is not the same as canonization Because inspiration is God giving the writing Canonization is the church recognizing that God gave it and there's always a time between inspiration and canonization Because there's a time between God giving it and it being recognized and so when we talk about Inspiration and canonization.

I will give you another quote.

This is from Geisler and Nix this is from their book on the subject of the canon Inspiration indicates how the Bible receives its authority Whereas canonization tells how the Bible receives its acceptance Authority comes from God Acceptance is recognized by the church So the reason why that's important to distinguish is the church doesn't give the Bible authority But the church recognizes the authority That's been given by God You say that doesn't sound much of a difference.

It's a huge difference it's a theological difference because they're not picking up books and saying I Hereby grant this book the authority of being from God.

No They are examining the books and saying these books We recognize are from God and that's a difference Because one the Roman Catholic Church will tell you they gave the Bible its authority That's not that's backwards And you understand the distinction now when it comes to the idea of canon It's important to understand that the early church was not so concerned It seems with putting together a canon until a man came along by the name of Marcian Marcian lived in the middle of the second century remember how the centuries are marked So the second century is 100 to 199.

All right, so he would have lived right around 150 ish and Marcian Was if I remember correctly he was a He was a Person who had a lot of wealth he donated a lot of money to the church and he began to teach things that were false because of that the church gave him the money back and expelled him and You know basically returned the gift and said we'd rather you not but what he taught Was he taught that the Old Testament God was an evil deity That he was a demi-urge.

He was false God and So he disconnected the Old Testament from the writings of the New Testament Sounds like a few pastors today Disconnecting the Old Testament from the New Testament And he said the God of the Old Testament is an evil vindictive Demi-urge the God of the New Testament's a God of love All right, and so he takes and Separates the Old Testament New Testament then he goes into the New Testament And he takes out much of the New Testament all of Matthew and in fact the only gospel if I remember correctly I'm the gospel he kept was Luke and that when he highly edited to remove all references to the Old Testament God You take out all the references to the Old Testament God in the New Testament.

You're not left with a whole lot some Paul but not a lot and So he saw Paul as his hero because he saw Paul is disconnecting from the Old Testament law All right, and so he saw himself as a Pauline teacher Well, he was he was Put out of the church.

He was not his teachings were not accepted and years ago I did a lesson and I thought it was kind of clever, so I'll share it with you It was I did a lesson called the Marcians are coming Like the Martians are coming to the Marcians are coming because that's honestly the the Marcian doctrine of The Old Testament God is evil and we should edit the Bible to only include the love of God that is modern evangelical Christianity modern evangelicals typically find themselves lockstep with Marcians philosophy and so I Did a lesson like said the Marcians are coming there.

They're here.

All right Marcian tried to get the church to divorce itself from God's righteousness and his holiness so in response to this we see a higher focus on the subject of which books should and should not be included in the New Testament which books qualify and so We have something called the moratorium Canon the moratorium canon.

This is the earliest Listing of books not including Marcian because we know Marcian was a heretic.

This is the earliest listing of books that we would say are Close to what we have today The moratorium canon also called the moratorium fragment is an ancient list of New Testament books It is the oldest such list.

We have found the original document, which was probably written in Greek is dated to about 180 and Yes, what 80 180 would have been a late 2nd century 80 180 Yeah, yeah so Mmm late 2nd century and we had the moratorium canon But understand this it did not include all the books that your New Testament has today I'm getting there.

Yeah, I ran me There were certain books in the New Testament that did not receive universal recognition within the church immediately for instance the one big one was revelation I Want you to think for a moment you live in the second century and you are past a book That you begin to read and you notice right away.

It's got ten headed dragons with horns and beasts and people coming out of the sea and Blood to the hilt of the the the horse's bridle, you know, you're reading this and you're going Yeah, I mean honestly be honest if you had no knowledge of anything and you went and read the book of Revelation you might have some questions I Mean, I mean can't we be honest All right revelations powerful book, but it did not receive universal recognition immediately So it was one of the ones where people were questioning it's not in the moratorium fragment Neither is Hebrews.

Nobody knew who wrote Hebrews.

It wasn't all of the letters of Paul begin Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ You get the Hebrews doesn't say who wrote it.

It's not ascribed to Peter or anyone else And so that was one that had questions There are others but 22 of the 27 books of Our New Testament were there the ones that are most important and this is what I really want you to understand The ones that were most important the four Gospels that we still Understand as the four Gospels were in the moratorium Canon which tells us that by the end of the second century Nobody thought Thomas was part of the Bible.

Nobody thought Judas was part of the Bible Nobody thought any of these Gnostic works were to be included so early on There was a recognition that the Gospels were Matthew Mark Luke and John Okay, there were only a couple of books that were had question marks and primarily it was either dealing with content as in Revelation or with Authorship as with Hebrews by the time we get to the fourth century These questions had been answered the church had recognized the 27 books that we now have and that's when we get to Athanasius As I mentioned to you earlier and Athanasius is I think it I think it's in my notes here I think it was in his festival letter.

There was a Canon list and it matches our canon listed today.

Am I right on that Alan? You know, I'm talking about the festival letter You're my you're my check man on that I know I know you've done a lot of study on the history of the text and That's important So that's that's important to know and you say I don't like that I wish the church just automatically accepted every book that can't do you really? See, that's the guy see when you really start to think about it And you start to think there was actually some critical analysis that went into these things you start to understand why it matters But I want to give you this thought as a drawing to a close the Canon is Not an artifact of revelation I'm sorry.

Excuse me.

I said that wrong.

The Canon is not an object of revelation.

The Canon is an artifact of revelation Let me say it again.

The Canon is not an object of revelation.

It is an artifact of revelation.

Here's what that means an Object of revelation is something that God reveals God reveals the gospel of Luke Right, but God never sent down a list of books and said here's the list When you open your Bible to that first page and it's got all those books listed that is not inspired so what we have is we have a List that's uninspired with books that are inspired.

Why should we trust such a thing? because and this is where the theology comes in if God is If God's purpose was to give us his word then we must also believe that it is God's purpose that we would know what it is and So therefore it comes down to an issue of theology More so than practicality or even history It's a theological the issue of Canon is a question of theology if God's purpose is to give us his word Then it would also fit his purpose that we would know what his word is And what's interesting you go around the world today? not many Christians are Arguing what book should be in the New Testament? It's typically the unbelievers who are arguing you need to put in Thomas because he's crazy, you know or whatever.

I Never heard a believer say, you know, I think Thomas sounds like Jesus you ever read Thomas It's not even a gospel it's a list of sayings that were supposed to have come from the mouth of Jesus and Some of it is just directly ripped off from the true gospel.

Some of it is direct quotes of the Gospels but a lot of it is just odd Sayings that have no tie to any historical statement of Christ that we know anything about And of course you get to the gospel Mary Magdalene the gospel Judas These are all likely 2nd century some even 3rd century works not even close to the time of the original writers.

So So that would for me would answer the question.

Yes, sir.

I don't understand what you say If that's true, then we don't have the evidence of it there I Am unaware of any evidence for such a thing.

I Know I said I was ending.

Let me say one last thing Because I didn't get to the last thing on our list, which is Old Testament New Testament continuity This is really quick.

And since we did take a break, I'm going to take two more minutes of your time two more minutes understand that the Old Testament and the New Testament have many major differences not the least of which the Old Testament was written within a community of faith and it was kept and Passed down within a community of faith.

The New Testament was written and spread abroad among many people in different lands and therefore there is a different there is a different type of progression and and and what we would would say is God's Providential care of keeping the text pure and passing it down was different with the Old Testament and the New Testament Here's here's the example.

Here are the differences Old Testament was written over a period of 1,500 years New Testament was written over a period of 50 years huge difference Old Testament makes up 77% of the Bible New Testament makes up 23% Old Testament was written in Hebrew and some Aramaic New Testament was written in Greek Old Testament focuses on physical Israel New Testament focuses on spiritual Israel So those are some of the differences now the similarities Both Testaments present the same God very important Remember Marcion taught that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament.

That's not what the Bible teaches Exactly Both Testaments maintain a single grand meta-narrative Here's the meta-narrative of Scripture creation, fall, redemption, restoration That is the grand meta-narrative of Scripture and both Testaments testify to that grand meta-narrative creation, fall, Redemption, restoration and both Testaments are ultimately about Jesus Christ He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament He is the story of the Gospels and he is the reason for Acts and the epistles and he is the one who comes in Revelation So I hope tonight was an encouragement to you a good way to kick our class off We spent a little time on our syllabus.

So that's why we went a little late next week We will continue with a survey of the synoptic Gospels Everybody, let's pray Father, thank you for this time in class I pray it's been beneficial to your people and I pray that you'll lead us home safely tonight in Jesus name.