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In regards to his writings in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, Michael W. Holmes has plenty of biblical expertise to count as a reliable author in that sense. He has degrees from both secular and religious institutions, including a BA in history. That being said, he has a variety of knowledge about the Bible and its history, from multiple perspectives (although it is important to consider that a great deal of his experience has to do with the New Testament and Greek language exclusively). He also teaches at a religious, Baptist university, so this is important to consider with his professional and educational experiences that can create bias. 

After some brief Google research on New Testament experts, I found N. T. Wright listed as the “World’s Leading New Testament Scholar” on Forbes.com. (For basic research purposes, the questionable authority of Forbes on religious matters has been double-checked by some searching.Wright is indeed a New Testament scholar, even if he isn’t as widely acclaimed as Forbes claims.) He works at Oxford now, which isn’t as directly religious as Bethel University (where Holmes currently teaches), which may give him an interesting bias versus Holmes. He’s also British and has spent most of his academic time there, which may provide a different cultural perspective. Upon reading some of his works, Wright believes, in general, that the New Testament canon was not something that was later given authority but all of the books and scriptures have inherent authority. This is largely consistent with Holmes’ idea that the canon could mean a “guide” to which Christians were urged to conform. This idea hinges on Wright’s belief that the scriptures and thus the canon had automatic authority. 

The fact that Oxford University Press published Holmes’ writing (which signals a lengthy fact-checking and researching process given the prestige of the college) and that Wright currently works at Oxford is an interesting connection. Especially in regards to each other, the level of confidence in these writings is high and similar between the two. 

Overall, in this lesson, I learned how many factors go into a “reliable” source. Everyone has some form of bias, you just have to pick the right one for your project and cross-check your sources to find some sort of common ground. It was really difficult to find someone that multiple people found an “expert”, especially across denominations and parts of academia. We certainly rely on each other for their opinions and hard-earned research, and Wikipedia is no exception. I hope I can be someone trustworthy for these articles just like I would want the other editors to be. 

One of the biggest things that I gained from this lesson was finally being able to wrap my head around what the biblical canon really is. It is basically a list or catalogue of scriptures that reign authority, or the list of scriptures itself is authoritative. Another meaning it has is a ‘guide’ for living.

Something else that this lesson brought me to doing is making a Wikipedia account. When I first saw that we needed to make one for this class and that we will be making edits and changes on accounts throughout the semester, it really intimidated me, and I was definitely not expecting to do this in this course. When I ended up creating the account and was able to access and edit these different Wikipedia articles, I became really interested because I never knew how easy it was to edit these articles, but it also scared me because of how easy it was to do so. Just by creating an account and having the experience and power of making edits, it opened my eyes to how careful we have to be when finding sources that are reliable, not just on Wikipedia, but anywhere we’re looking.

As I was reading through this lesson, it showed me that it will be a lot more difficult to find reliable sources than just looking freely for information without thinking that it may be wrong or biased. Although this may be difficult, at least I now understand the importance of it based on my experience I had while making a Wikipedia account.

Hi, my name is Maxamillian Mead and I am a sophomore here at Butler. I am a double major in both Accounting and Finance. I am from Louisville Kentucky. I am taking this course in order to fulfill my TI requirement and to have a better understanding of my faith.

I would say the Bible is a collection of stories and first hand accounts of Jesus, his disciples and the word of God. The Bible is a great place where many people get their ethical and spiritual views because of this I would say that the Bible is a great source of guidance for many people. The bible Bible can answer many life questions and give guidance during tough times.

I know a little about the history of the Bible. I know that it was stories passed down for generations until eventually these stories were written down and compiled. I know the Old testament and the Torah are the same and show a connection between the Christian and Jewish faith.

When I researched “What is the Bible?” many articles, websites, and videos came up 831,000,000 results came up. Of all of these results not all of the sources are reliable and can be trusted. There are many bias sources when it comes to this topic. However as we talked about in class I would choose a reliable sources by researching the author and their background and go from there.

Hi! My name is Izzi Jordan. I am a sophomore at Butler with a major in health sciences and a minor in chemistry. I am from Las Vegas, Nevada (I know very exciting). I chose to come to Butler because I have a lot of family in Indiana, so it’s kind of a home away from home. I went to private Lutheran middle and high school, where I was required to take Faith classes every year and to attend weekly chapels, so that is where my interest in the Bible began. 

I would say the Bible is a compilation of the holy word. It has many stories that are meant to teach people about God and some historical events. The Bible is full of both law and gospel through stories told by Jesus himself and parables written to teach people. 

I don’t know a lot about the history of the Bible, but I do know that the process of canonization was very long. I know that it took many years and a lot of church leaders to determine which books should be in the Bible. 

If I google, “What is the Bible?” many Wikipedia articles and youtube videos come up. I know that not all of the sources are necessarily reliable. I would choose a reliable source by researching the author’s background in religious study. I would hope that someone sharing information on the Bible or any source would have a strong background in that specific subject. I would also probably choose to look at databases or google scholar if I was looking for an academic article on the Bible. 

Hello, my name is Justin Walthers and I’m a sophomore double majoring in Actuarial Science and Statistics. I’m from Herscher, Illinois, which is a really small town about an hour and a half south of Chicago. I decided to take this class for the TI requirement, but also because I’m interested in the history of the Bible.

I would describe a Bible as a collection of writings that contains everything about a specific religion. It would mainly describe all of the beliefs of the religion, and how someone that practices this religion should live their life.

I believe that a Bible would be written by many people throughout many years who thought they were inspired to write about their experiences or ideas of a certain religion. These collection of writings then likely would have been put together by historians who have greatly researched the religion.

When I google “What is a Bible?” many websites, like Wikipedia, come up. Youtube videos also come up. In order for me to tell if the information is credible I would want to know who wrote it, and I would also like to see where all of their information came from.

Hi everyone! My name is Sabrina Pasley and I am a junior at Butler. I am double majoring in biology and religion with a chemistry minor. I have not narrowed it down on what I would like to do after I finish undergraduate school, which I should probably start working on! Decisions are not my strong suit however, especially when the rest of my life depends on it!

Some things that are important to me are my family, my friends, and my plants. I have a 1-year-old nephew who lights up my world! I’m an avid plant mom also so if you ever want to talk plants hit me up.

I am taking this course not only to fulfill my TI credit, but it also goes toward my religion major. I started my college career as only a biology major, added a religion minor in my second semester of first-year, and become a double major in my sophomore year. I chose to add my religion major due to wanting a career in healthcare. I thought if I studied different religions during my undergraduate years, it would help me better care for all of my patients in my future.

I have very limited knowledge of the Bible. I grew up Roman Catholic, but stopped attending Sunday School after third grade and don’t really practice much anymore. Most of the knowledge I have comes from my first-year seminar, Faith, Doubt, and Reason, and my previous religion course I took, Theology from the Margins. I am excited to gain more information on it though!

Hi! I’m Megan Kaster, I’m a freshman and majoring in pharmacy. I’m taking this course, first off, because I need my TI requirement, but second off, I want to keep learning about my faith. I’ve been studying the Catholic faith my whole life and I want to keep that going.
To me the Bible is almost like a text book for the Catholic faith, its what we read and study to help us become better people and live the way Jesus wants us to. However, there are many things in the Bible that people don’t agree with. I don’t agree with some things that the Catholic Church teaches, because the people in the church aren’t perfect, and they can tend to interoperate things incorrectly.
The authors of the Bible is many people. For the Old Testament, it was, for many years, verbally passed down until people started to learn how to read and write. For the New Testament, it was many of Jesus’ Apostles and disciples that wrote the books down.
If you look up on google “the Bible” the first result is Wikipedia, then the next few are sites where you can buy a copy. I don’t find these sources reliable, because the internet is full of bias, and the bible can mean a thousand of different ways to every one who reads it.

• My name is Jaylah DeGout and I am a 5^th year from New York City majoring in Computer Engineering and Computer Science. I’m taking this course mainly to fill my TI requirement so that I can graduate this Spring. I am not personally religious at all, so I could not tell you the last time I even looked at the Bible, but I find learning about different religions to be pretty interesting.
• I think that a Bible in general mainly serves simply as a religious text which contains things like creation stories and a code of Ethics specific to that religion, in the form of stories.
• I have no idea who wrote the Bible, I just always assumed it was some kind of clergy.
• Generally, it seems like everything that appeared in the search results was very surface level, about the kinds of things that are in the Bible, but not any of the explanations of the content.
• None of them seems like they are very reliable sources; Wikipedia was at the top, which is typical, but then I also saw some blog postings, nothing that appeared to be a scholarly article or journal.

Hello everybody! My name is Noah Brandt and I am a junior here at Butler. I’m a Music Industry Studies and Statistics dual major. I’m taking this class to fulfill the TI requirement of Butler’s Core Curriculum, but the Bible does have relevancy to some of my family. I was hoping that this class would be mainly about applying biblical texts to the modern world.

To me, the Bible is a compilation of stories and anecdotes from Jesus and his disciples. These stories outline a moral and spiritual code for people to live by in order to create a peaceful and accountable society.

I don’t know much about the Bible. I was mainly told what was in the Bible when I was little (in a church preschool) rather than reading the passages myself. Outside of the few times I went to a Christian after-school program, the Bible never had a personal connection with me. I believe that most of what is written in the Bible are compilations of writings from different authors who followed Jesus. The Bible that we know today is assembled from different translations and interpretations of these authors.

When I Googled, “What is in the Bible,” I got a lot of Wikipedia articles, YouTube videos, blog posts, and religiously affiliated websites. With all of these different sources about one book, I can understand how it can be difficult to find reliable sources about a given topic in the Bible.

Hello everyone! My name is Dominique Quiroz and I am a sophomore this year. I am in my second year of pre-pharmacy. I am from Berne, which is a super small town in northeast Indiana. My family moved to Indianapolis after I graduated high school and now I commute to Butler. I am taking this class mainly because of the TI requirement, but also out of curiosity. I was raised going to church, and my town was pretty religious. I wanted to see what I could learn about the Bible from a different perspective.

In my opinion, a Bible is a book of books. It is the Christian/Jewish scripture and provides a sort of book of advice on how to best live your lives in your religion. A Bible contains the beliefs, practices, and principles that followers should listen to.

My preconception is that the Bible was written by a bunch of different men. Their writings are “the word of God” because he worked through them so that their words were his words. At least that’s what I remember from when I went to church.

When I Googled “What is a Bible,” I got a lot of results that were religiously affiliated websites. I also got a lot of Wikipedia pages. Most of these search results were “.com” with a few “.org” results in the mix. I’m super glad that we’ll be learning about which sources can be trusted and how to tell which ones are too biased to be used in research because if I had to do research about the Bible at this point I would be pretty lost.