Author: rosmg20

Paul definitely did not intend for his letters to be as widespread as there are today, and I find that very interesting. Paul never intended for his letters to be published in scripture, they were merely made to assist nearby churches who were struggling with their faith. Along with this unintentional publishing of Paul’s letters in the Bible, there is many theories and controversy. The biggest issue seems to be whether or not the letters were actually written by Paul himself. Again, as with anything else in the Bible, it is impossible to confirm whether or not Paul wrote all of the letters listed in the Bible, but it’s interesting to question nonetheless.

I find the topic of Biblical research itself to be fascinating. How does one confirm any theory with the only source to be one work, the Bible itself? All I’m aware of is that I never want to perform any kind of theology research in terms of confirming my theories, that seems like a very difficult job.

The Book of Psalms, commonly referred to as Psalms, and written as poems, is quite possibly the easiest book to read in the Old Testament and even in the Bible. A lot of wording from Psalms is used in song lyrics of hymnals for churches. Along with this, I found a theory by James Thirtle on Psalter’s music titles. His theory states that Psalter’s music titles were based on his personal observations with the intent to promote discussions and found outcomes to signifiant research. Thirtle believed he finally found the key for understanding the music titles in Psalms.

I myself cannot stake a claim on this theory because I most definitely have not studied Psalms enough. However, I do find this theory very fascinating to consider.

The story of Noah’s ark and the huge flood that God cast onto Earth is one of the most significant stories I remember from the church growing up. Revisiting the details and theories of the flood was super interesting to me. The different perspectives on the theories of the duration of the flood was what stood out to me most. Growing up I remember hearing over and over again: 40 days and 40 nights. However, I found the Priestly Writer’s version of 150 days to be very interesting. Time in the Bible is one of the most heavily debated subjects because there is no true way to tell if it was measured even remotely close to how we measure time now. I think it’s very possible that the flood could’ve lasted 40 days and 40 nights and also 150 days, it all depends on how you interpret it. 40 days and 40 nights could’ve just been used as more of a figure of speech for a long time, rather than an actual measurement. While there is no possible way of actually knowing how long the flood lasted, it’s still fascinating to ponder all of the different perspectives and ideas.

I don’t think I have ever considered the notion that Jesus could have possibly had siblings, even though through the discussion in the class and otherwise, it’s brought up in the Bible. When I was growing up going to church, I just assumed Jesus was an only child to Mary and Joseph. I can’t recall a time that Jesus’ siblings were ever brought up in a church service or even in Sunday school.

There are many theories as to how Jesus could have had siblings, and also a lot of controversy. If Mary was a virgin, how would it be possible for Jesus to have other older siblings? The majority belief seems to be that they were actually Joseph’s children from other marriages, making them half siblings to Jesus. However, even this belief is controversial in society, and the majority of Christians deem to form their own opinions on the topic.

It’s fairly obvious that even today, women are underrepresented in the church. In the catholic faith and in canon law, women still cannot hold the role of priests. Not to mention, the overwhelmingly low number of female pastors in the Christian faith. In the bible, there is a lot of arguably sexist statements and verses compared to our advancement of society here in 2020. However, as with everything in the Bible, it is all up to interpretation. I feel as if today, women are definitely slowly making their way up in authoritative roles in the church, as well as gaining the respect of their congregations and priors.

Honestly, this was definitely one of the more upsetting lectures to discuss and listen in on. I knew nothing of the existence of a “slave bible” prior to learning about it in this class, but with the time period, it sadly matches up with the time period of slavery being legal in the US. The proponents of slavery didn’t want their slaves to rebel by reading sections of the Bible that could justify why slavery is wrong and could cause them to rebel. Due to this, only about half of the New Testament remained, while the majority of the Old Testament was omitted.

In addition to the slave bible, slavery itself was debated in relations to the Bible over whether or not slavery is a sin. In the reading attached to the lecture, brothers “O.B. and J.B.” were at odds over slavery was sinful or not. Brother O.B. stated that yes indeed it was sinful because slavery itself goes against the Golden Rule of the Lord. While J.B. stated that nowhere in the Rule does it imply or state that slavery is wrong. Obviously, in modern times, this debate has long passed since the abolition of slavery. However, it’s very interesting to note all of the ties to religion over the issue of slavery,

After recently writing a research report on the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I found out a lot of interesting information. Firstly, these Gospels are referred to as “synoptic” – meaning of or forming a general summary – because of their similarities in wording, content, sequences..etc. These Synoptic Gospels in the New Testament are easily identifiable as some of the most well-known and recognizable books of the Bible because they discuss the majority of Jesus’ life on Earth.

Because of the similarities, some scholars believe that the Synoptic Gospels could’ve been used as sources for one another. According to Douglas M. Beaumont, who has a Ph.D from North-West University, about 90% of Mark’s material is found in Matthew, and about 50% is found is Luke, with about 250 verses paralleled in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. These issues in similarity is referred to as the “Synoptic Problem,” and has been studied for centuries. The issue was even pondered by Origen and Augustine.

Now, I don’t think there will ever be a clear solution for the Synoptic Problem, because the Gospels were written much prior to our time, it’s impossible to determine how they written and what sources the Evangelists used. However, it’s still very interesting to study all of the different perspectives and theories.

I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different perspectives and views on creation in class. Being raised going to church, I always just accepted the Adam and Eve creation story in the Bible and never really wondered how other groups of people might view creation. Out of curiosity, I looked into some of the other ways people think the world was created, and while a majority of the creation stories involve some sort of supreme being beyond worldly comprehension, there are some discrepancies. One example of this are the “diver-myths,” a belief that the earth was once covered with water and then brought to the surface. It was so interesting to me how many different perspectives there actually are, and we probably don’t even know about all of the possibilities.

I do still believe the Genesis story, however, this class has caused my to expand my view. We discuss this often in class, that the Bible should not always be taken literally, and almost everything is up to interpretation. Whether a man was actually created from next to nothing and a woman was made with the sole rib bone of a man or not, we all have the freedom to question and believe what we want from these stories.

I consider Michael W. Holmes to be a very reliable source. His credentials were easy to find because he is a professor and universities usually provide background information on their prominent faculty. He has a Ph.D in Theological seminary from Princeton University with an area of specialization in the New Testament. I would definitely trust the information he provides on Bible related studies because of his education and expertise.

Another search of Google provided me with information on a biblical scholar named Richard Bauckham. He specializes in New Testament Christology, Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, and many other areas. He shares the specialization on the New Testament with Holmes.

Through this lesson, I learned more about finding reliability in the sources I use by searching for information on the background of the author. Their education and specialization provide more clarity to how you should interpret the information they’re providing. It’s important to know that while there is a bias in nearly everything you find, if you can clearly identify the bias and where it comes from, the source still can be reliable.

Hi, everyone! My name is Mary Grace Ross. I’m from a small town called Monticello in central Illinois, (no, I’m not from Chicago). I’m a first year student here at Butler majoring in Strategic Communications. I really love it here so far and am hopeful that we get to attend in-person classes soon so I can meet all of you! A couple things about myself – I’m constantly listening to and downloading music (so if you have any song recommendations please send them my way!), I have a dog named Scout, he’s 1 and I miss him dearly, and my all time favorite TV show is Criminal Minds. I took this class to fill my TI requirement, but when given a few different options, I chose the one on the Bible as a Christian and out of curiosity to see what a college course on the Bible would entail. 

In response to what the Bible is, I’d say it’s a book that many people believe carry the principles and practices of religion. To me, the Bible represents how God wants His people to live. 

I’ve always been taught that the Bible was created by God’s disciples on His behalf. Obviously, He didn’t actually write it himself, but it’s still supposed to be crafted in a way that is almost as if He did. I don’t know the history specifically on how it was written and published, but I’m sure we will be talking about that as this course progresses. 

When I looked up “What is the Bible” on Google, I got a bunch of different websites from Wikipedia to religious websites to History.com, all offering different definitions. I would definitely not trust Wikipedia as a credible source of information, but I could see History.com as a more reliable source, depending on the author’s credentials. The religious websites would definitely offer more biased results, so if you were trying to complete a research project, I don’t know if I would gather all of my information from those sources.