NAVAL CHAPLAINCY CORPS ACADEMY

(INTERNATIONAL BIBLE MINISTRY SEMINARY-

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL SCHOOL FOR INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE)

CHAPLAIN AUTHORITY FOR THE BIBLE

1. How God begin to inaugurate the new principle: the rule of law?

The first major step in this process was taken when God called Abraham to leave his native home,
changed his name to ‘Abraham’ – “the father of multitude” Ge 17:5, and established him as the
progenitor of the Hebrew people. From among the Hebrews God chose the family of Israel, and this
family built into a nation that destined to become the recipients and keeper of His written law.

2. When the scripture was began?

The scripture began about 600 years after the call of Abraham, that is, about 1400 B.C., the time
came for an inscribed revelation of the divine purpose to begin. It was to embody a history of the
preceding centuries, right back to the day of creation, and it was include God’s laws, promises,
prophecies and the continuing salvation-history of his people.

3. What is the meaning of BIBLE?

“Bible” is a collective term used to describe the group of books which Christians believe to contain
te only true and complete revelation of God’s will to the human race. The word “Bible” is derived
from the two Greek words (ta bibilia) which mean simply, “the books” . The early church added to
“bibilia” a distinguishing epithet such as “holy”, “divine”, “sacred”, “inspired” and this usage was
adopted without alteration into the Latin of the Middle Ages. From Latin the words have come into
English as “The Holy Bible”, and this expression is now used by us to refer exclusively to the
collected books of the Old and New Testaments.
4. What is the meaning of Scripture?

The word “scripture” is derived from Latin and means simply, “the writings”. We use it now to refer
exclusively in “sacred” writings, and especially the Bible.

5. What is “Canon”?

The term “canon” means “the collection of sacred books that constitutes the authoritative rule and
practice of the Christian church”. It is also come from a similar Greek word, “ kanon”, which means a
reed or a rod. From this the word came to mean “rule” or “standard”, and later still was applied to
any list of writings that made up a rule of faith or practice. To us it signifies the divinely inspired
scriptures that are the authoritative rule for our religion.

6. How the Canon begun?

Embedded in the Pentatauch are separate codes of the law that are older than the books in which
they appear. This shows that the writers of the canonical books often drew their material from other
sources. Some of these ancient sources underlie the Pentatauch, and are probable origin of the
records now contained in Genesis and in the first couple chapters of Exodus. The books of prophecy
also frequently show signs of being collections of oracles and exhortations, separately preserve,
separately spoken, and in most cases probably not edited into their present form until long after the
prophet’s death.

Many scholars considered that while Moses was the major author of the Penatatauch, it did not
reach its present general shape until about the time of Solomon; and certainly experienced further
emendation before being fixed in its canonical form. Thus, the canon began with the ‘book of the
covenant’ given by Moses to Israel.

7. How is the council of Jamnia become?

The Hebrew canon was fixed b the Jewish Council of Jamnia, which was held near the end of the first
century. This council was called because –

a. A growing number of sectarian, mystical, and apocalyptic writings were beginning to overwhelm
the canonical books, and it became necessary for the people to have some official statement as
to which works are authentic, and which were not.
b. Doubs existed about several commonly accepted books: Ezekiel, because his description of the
ideal temple and its ritual was different from Moses; Proverbs because 26:4 & 5 seemedto
contradict each oher; Ecclesiates, because of its overt cynicsm; Canticles and Esther, because
they lack any mention of God.
c. Various collections of books were in circulation, in Hebrew (Aramaic), Greek and other
languages, each of which differed in their contents, but all claiming divine authority.
d. Conflict was growing between Jews and Christians over the true teaching of scripture.
e. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. obliged the Jews to change
the focus of their national life from the altar to the scriptures – this made the task imperative of
fixing the limits of the writings that are deemed to be truly inspire by God.
f. Various edicts were issued against the scriptures by the secular authorities which compelled the
people to determine those books that were worth dying for, the remainder could be
surrendered without scruple

8. Why the Christian Canon did excluded and continually rejected the Apocrypha?

Apocrypha is the name given to a group of legendary, historical, didactic, and theological writings
produced between the time of Malachi and the end of the first century of the Christian era. It was
continually rejected and excluded at least by Protestant because there are other parts of Apocrypha
that does not hold little value for today’s world and were not deemed worthy to be read in public
worship , but were thought to be useful for private study.

9. How the New Testament Canon begun?

a. The first step in the formation of the NT canon was the oral teaching of the apostles and
Disciples of Christ, who told the stories of Jesus. This oral teaching developed into what has
become known as the kerygma, which means preaching or proclamation, the message of the
apostles as exemplified in the sermons recorded in Acts and elsewhere.
b. As the eyewitness began to die, the need for a permanent record of the life and teaching of
Jesus became evident.
c. There are indications in the NT that while he apostles were still living, and under their
supervision, collections of their writings began to be made.
d. The three synoptic gospel s began to circulate (Matthew, Mark, Luke) and then much later, the
gospel of John.
e. The first recognised “New testament” was gathered by a heretic. It was a collection of only 12
books put together by Maricon.
f. Around the end of the second century a document called Muratorian Canon contain list of all
our present books except Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, and 3 John
g. In the latter part of the second century a new movement sprang up in the church calling for the
restoration of the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy which after death of the
apostles had soon vanished from the churches.
h. By the second half of the fourth century the genuine apostolic writings had nearly al been
separated from the spurious, and an almost universal agreement had been reached concerning
the canonicity of the 27 books that still compromise the NT.
i. Two church councils were held at the end of 4 th century, the Council of Hippo and the Council of
Carthage, both of which issued lists of canonical books identical to our present NT, except that
some scholars still questioned the Revelation, and doubt continued to be expressed about Paul’s
authorship of Hebrews.
j. From that time the canon remained virtually unquestioned until the Reformation in the 16 th
century. At that time, Martin Luther classified NT books into: the most valuable – John, John I,
 Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, 1 Peter; the least valuable – Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation; of
mixed value – the remaining books

10. What makes Christian faith unique?

There are two special ways in showing the uniqueness of Christian faith: 1. Unique in its offer of
salvation, and 2. Unique in its view of scriptures.

Unique in its offer of Salvation

a. Subjective experience – salvation is made dependent upon a personal encounter with God, an
inner illumination, a vision, a voice, or some other transcendent or mystical experience.
b. Objective action – complying to what is written in the scriptures because some people base their
hope of salvation upon good works, or upon acts of religious devotion.
c. Ritual observance – to be carefully attends church and wholeheartedly enters into the worship
service and eagerly and regularly read the Bible.
d. Family relationship
e. Racial Origin – anyone who believes of Jesus will find its salvation
f. Obedience to Priesthood – the way to escape heave’s anger is to obey fully your priests, who are
the spokesmen on earth for the deity.
g. Ascetic practice – embedded that holiness depends upon what you deny yourself.
h. Personal sacrifice

11. What is the similarity of Bible & Koran?

They are similar into three ways:

1. Subject matter – they were both similar in honouring many of the great heroes of the Bible,
extols the life, ministry, and death of Jesus, fully acknowledging that he was sent by God to
proclaim the message of salvation to all people. It is also insisted that there is only one God.
Both contains scores of references to repentance, faith, the resurrection of the dead, the day of
the judgement, heaven, hell, and other familiar themes.
2. Claim of Inspiration – both are declaring that it was given holy to men and women, and
Mohamed.
3. Attitude of Believers – both believers love the Scriptures (Bible and Koran) more than they love
themselves.

12. What is the significant difference of Koran and Bible?

The significant difference of Koran and Bible is the record of God’s actions where all doctrines in the
Bible are based upon things God is said actually to have done in history. While in Koran, some
strange ethical stance were sometimes taught, like how Mohamed overpowered woman violently
and become free of guilt because he fulfilled his oath to Allah. Furthermore, the historical
discrepancies of Koran that they believed would not take effect on their doctrines. And lastly, the
revelation of God’s Person that the Bible is not just a book of knowledge about God, it is a self-
revelation of God to all who believe.

13. How Jesus did embody the Scripture?

Jesus saw something in scripture that no one before him had ever seen with such clarity and faith –

a. Jesus was a man of word – the greatest thing about Him is His relationship with the word of God
b. Jesus saw that there was life into the word – He was the first person who truly sees the need for
an inner revelation of the word that is why he found things in the scriptures that were hidden
from the disciples.
c. Jesus build an entire life and ministry upon revelation of the word – he gave word a new kind of
authority, a new kind of faith, a new kind of personal mastery, and a new kind of power that
conveyed to him. His teachings recognised that God is alive in scriptures, and accessible to all,
and God found in scripture through prayer.
d. Jesus committed himself to word – learning to obey what God is directed him to do despite of
him being the Son of God.

14. What are the proofs of authenticity of the Old Testament?

a. Ancient manuscripts – though there are no original manuscripts have been discovered, there are
in existence literally hundreds of copes of very ancient documents, some dating back in early
second century written in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, and other tongues.
b. Preservation of text – these books have been preserved similarly copied from its original form by
using Masoretic Text, which fixes the and develops set of vowel points to fix the pronunciation
of ancient Hebrew , which by the time of Christ was no longer used in daily life. Next, the
Septuagint that translates the Old Testament into Greek, made in the third century. Lastly, the
Dead Sea scrolls that contains copies of every old testament book.

15. What are the proofs of authenticity of the New Testament?

a. The combined writings of various secular historians such as Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonious, Josephus,
and others, show that during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius there lived a man named Jesus
who was recognised by many Jews as Messiah; that he taught and ministered in Judea; that he
was put to death by Pontius; that in spite of his death, his doctrines spread around the whole
empire in a short time; that those who followed him, worshipped him as God and that they
suffered cruel persecutions for his sake.
b. Tertullian, a Christian apologist who wrote about 180 A.D. gives evidence for the genuineness of
21 books of the NT.
c. Justin Martyr quotes from or mentions all four of the gospels. He also describes the churches
everywhere gathering on Sundays for the reading of the gospels and the prophets.
d. Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp were all personally acquainted with the
apostles.
16. Why do we need a standard of truth?

Only by having such unchanging standard of truth is possible to combat many “false prophets” who
are clamouring for attention. We need a sound doctrine, reproof, correction, which only a finalised
canon can provide.

17. What are the four basic approaches to the Bible?

The four basic approaches to bible are:

a. The Bible as nothing more than the national literature of the Hebrew people, a purely human
production, on a level with other religious and classical works.
b. The Bible asserts its truth for every person in every circumstance.
c. Some approach the Bible with a so-called neutral attitude toward its claims. They are sceptical,
for neutrality toward the Bible is impossible.
d. We hold the view that the Bible is the inspired, authentic, and reliable Word of God.

18. What do we mean by “Inspiration”?

By inspiration, it means that God accommodated himself to the style, personality and idiosyncrasies
of each writer. He supervised all that is written, divinely guiding and restraining the writers so that
nothing contrary to His purpose was admitted into the sacred text, nor anything omitted that was
necessary to his purpose.

19. What are the principles of Interpreting?

a. Inspiration differs from interpretation – we are told to study the word of God and meditate in
the scriptures day and night.
b. Not a science text book – the Bible should no be taken as a text book of grammar, science,
geology and so on.
c. Literary factors – not every statement of the Bible should be taken literally.

20. What are the three main sources of authority recognised by different Christian?
a. The church as the source of authority – some maintain that the church is the ultimate authority,
able to supersede the scriptures; others contend that the Bible and the traditions of the church
must be given equal authority and that they counterbalance each other; others argue that it
must be interpreted in the light of dogmas and the traditions of the church.
b. Reason as the source of authority – by asserting that men and women should depend only upon
their rational faculties; by accepting biblical statements only when they can be verified by
human reason.
c. The Bible and faith – if the Bible is the word of God, if it is so closely identified with God that its
the same as his word, then our approach to the bible must be the same as our approach to God.