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The Bible....
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The Bible is a small collection of 66 holy books. It was written over
1600 years by some 36 authors. The Bible is not a text book, a history
book, or a set of lessons laid out in a simple easy to read fashion.
Instead, the Bible contains "Salvation History" or records of God working
through His people to do His will for their best good. In short, the
Bible is about Jesus the Messiah of the
Old Testament and Jesus the
Savior of all the world in the New Testament. The
Old Testament people looked forward by
faith to His day. Today, using the Bible, we study
the long ages of history to find guidance and hope in our daily struggles.
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The 39 books of the Old Testament
are the earlier ones
and the 27 books of the New Testament are the later ones. The
Old Testament books are divided into three basic divisions.
Jesus referred to them as,
"...the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning
me." Luke 24:44. "The law of Moses" was a common Jewish expression for the
first five books of the Old Testament. The books of the
Old Testament
included in "the prophets," and are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, Kings, and the twelve smaller prophetic books. |
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The Apostle Peter said, "For prophecy never had its
origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along
by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:21 NKJV (New King James Version). The
Bible
writers had an overseer---the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit "carried along"
the writers so that they had an accurate recall of events they witnessed and
recorded. This is called thought inspiration. The Bible
writers were not mere robots writing down the words as if taking dictation. |
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A testimony to the accuracy and the dedication of the
people who hand-copied the Holy Scriptures over the years is one that was
confirmed with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in
1948. These very
ancient scrolls were discovered by three herdsmen who were tending their
sheep near a place in Israel called Wadi Qumran. They discovered the
scrolls after one playfully tossed a rock into an opening in a nearby
cliff. The young man called Mahmud the Wolf heard the stone strike
something that sounded like pottery. They lowered him into the opening and
he discovered what would become one of the greatest archeological
discoveries of all time. Hidden in the cave were ancient earthen jars
which contained manuscripts and copies of the Bible. |
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