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Internal Consistency Of The Bible
Disputes regarding the internal consistency and textual integrity of the Bible have a long history. Classic texts that discuss questions of inconsistency from a critical secular perspective include the ''Tractatus Theologico-Politicus'' by Baruch Spinoza, the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' of Voltaire, the ''Encyclopédie'' of Denis Diderot and '' The Age of Reason'' by Thomas Paine. Consistency For many believers, the internal consistency of the Jewish and Christian scriptures is important because they feel that any inconsistencies or contradictions, or, for some, particular kinds of inconsistencies or contradictions, could challenge belief in the truth of their contents and the view that they are of divine origin. On the subject of the Jewish text, B. Barry Levy writes about the Torah that "the textual integrity of every biblical book should be extremely important to those interested in either the Hebrew Bible or classical Jewish thought". Levy also writes that, "Despite the po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcendentals
The transcendentals (, from transcendere "to exceed") are "properties of being", nowadays commonly considered to be truth, unity (oneness), beauty, and goodness. The conceptual idea arose from medieval scholasticism, namely Aquinas but originated with Plato, Augustine, and Aristotle in the West. From the time of Albertus Magnus in the High Middle Ages, the transcendentals have been the subject of metaphysics. Although there was disagreement about their number, there was consensus that, in addition to the basic concept of being itself (), unity (), truth () and goodness () were part of the transcendental family. Since then, essence (), otherness () and, more recently, beauty () have been added. Today, they are found in theology, particularly in Catholic thought, as unity, truth, goodness and beauty. History Parmenides first inquired of the properties co-extensive with being. Socrates, spoken through Plato, then followed (see ''Form of the Good''). Aristotle's substance theory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonah
Jonah the son of Amittai or Jonas ( , ) is a Jewish prophet from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE according to the Hebrew Bible. He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, one of the minor prophets, which details his reluctance in delivering the judgment of God to the city of Nineveh (near present-day Mosul) in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After he is swallowed by a large sea creature () and then released, he returns to the divine mission. In Judaism, the story of Jonah represents the teaching of repentance in Judaism, the ability to repent to God for forgiveness. In the New Testament of Christianity, Jesus calls himself "greater than Jonah" and promises the Pharisees "the sign of Jonah" when referring to his resurrection. Early Christian interpreters viewed Jonah as a ''type'' of Jesus. Jonah in Islam is regarded as a prophet and the narrative of Jonah appears in a surah of the Quran named after him, Yūnus. Many modern Bibl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ezekiel
Ezekiel, also spelled Ezechiel (; ; ), was an Israelite priest. The Book of Ezekiel, relating his visions and acts, is named after him. The Abrahamic religions acknowledge Ezekiel as a prophet. According to the narrative, Ezekiel prophesied the destruction of Judah's capital city Jerusalem. In 587 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem, destroyed Solomon's Temple, and sent the Judahite upper classes into the Babylonian captivity. However, Ezekiel also prophesied the eventual restoration of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. It is believed he died around 570 BC; Ezekiel's Tomb is a Jewish religious site in Mesopotamia. Three decades later, in 539 BC, the Persian empire conquered Babylon and the Edict of Cyrus repatriated the exiles. The name "Ezekiel" means "God is strong" or "God strengthens" in Hebrew. Biblical account The author of the Book of Ezekiel presents himself as Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, born into a priestly ( kohen) lineage. The aut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeremiah
Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with the assistance and under the editorship of Baruch ben Neriah, his scribe and disciple. According to the narrative of the Book of Jeremiah, the prophet emerged as a significant figure in the Kingdom of Judah in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC. Born into a Kohen, priestly lineage, Jeremiah reluctantly accepted his religious calling, call to prophethood, embarking on a tumultuous ministry more than five decades long. His life was marked by opposition, imprisonment, and personal struggles, according to Jeremiah 32 and Jeremiah 37, 37. Central to Jeremiah's message were Bible prophecy, prophecies of impending divine judgment, forewarning of the nation's idolatry, social injustices, and moral decay. According to the Bible, he prophesied t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neviim
The (; ) is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''), lying between the () and (). The Nevi'im are divided into two groups. The Former Prophets ( ) consists of the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings; while the Latter Prophets ( ) include the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. Synopsis The Jewish tradition counts eight books in ''Nevi'im'' out of twenty-four books in the Hebrew Bible. There are four books of the Former Prophets, including Joshua and Judges, and the collected ''Books of Samuel'' and ''Books of Kings'' are each counted as one book. Among the four books of the Latter Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel account for three books, followed by the "Twelve" (: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi), which is counted as a single book. The development of the Hebrew Bible canon placed the Book of Daniel as part of the "Writings, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maimonides
Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. He was born on Passover eve 1138 or 1135, and lived in Córdoba, Spain, Córdoba in al-Andalus (now in Spain) within the Almoravid dynasty, Almoravid Empire until his family was expelled for refusing to convert to Islam. Later, he lived in Morocco and Egypt and worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher. During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on Halakha, Jewish law and Jewish ethics, ethics with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the History of the Jews in Egypt, Jewish community in Egypt, his writings also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mosaic Authorship
Mosaic authorship is the Judeo-Christian tradition that the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, were dictated by God to Moses. The tradition probably began with the Deuteronomic Code, legalistic code of the Book of Deuteronomy and was then gradually extended until Moses, as the central character, came to be regarded not just as the mediator of law but as author of both laws and narrative. The books of the Torah do not name any author, as authorship was not considered important by the society that produced them, and it was only after Jews came into intense contact with author-centric Hellenistic culture in the late Second Temple Judaism, Second Temple period that the rabbis began to find authors for their scriptures. By the 1st century CE, it was already common practice to refer to the five as the "Law of Moses", but the first unequivocal expression of the idea that this meant authorship appears in the Babylonian Talmud, an encyclopedia of Jewish traditio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randel Helms
Randel McCraw Helms, also known as Loyce Helms (born November 16, 1942, in Montgomery, Alabama) is an American professor of English literature, a writer on J. R. R. Tolkien and critical writer on the Bible. Biography Helms studied at University of California, Riverside, B.A. 1964, University of Washington, Ph.D. 1968, then taught from 1968 at the University of California as assistant professor of English, before becoming professor at the Department of English, Arizona State University. In 2007 he established the Randel and Susan McCraw Helms Homecoming Writing Contest for undergraduate students. Writings on William Blake As Loyce Randel Helms he wrote his dissertation on William Blake: ''Artful Thunder: a Literary Study of Prophecy'' He has also written on Blake's "Everlasting Gospel" (1980). Writings on Tolkien Helms's many writings on J. R. R. Tolkien include journal articles on topics such as the structure and aesthetics of ''The Lord of the Rings'', and the books ''Tolkien's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gospel Harmony
A gospel harmony is an attempt to compile the canonical gospels of the Christian New Testament into a single account. This may take the form either of a single, merged narrative, or a tabular format with one column for each gospel, technically known as a synopsis, although the word ''harmony'' is often used for both. Harmonies are constructed for a variety of purposes: to create a readable and accessible piece of literature for the general public, to establish a scholarly chronology of events in the life of Jesus as depicted in the canonical gospels, or to better understand how the accounts relate to each other. Among academics, the construction of harmonies has been favoured by conservative scholars, though one scholar, B. S. Childs, opposes this. Students of higher criticism see the divergences between the gospel accounts as reflecting the construction of traditions by the early Christian communities. Among modern academics, attempts to construct a single story have largely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Barton (theologian)
John Barton (born 17 June 1948) is a British Anglican priest and biblical scholar. From 1991 to 2014, he was the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. In addition to his academic career, he has been an ordained and serving priest in the Church of England since 1973. His research interests and extensive publications have been in the areas of the Old Testament prophets, the biblical canon, biblical interpretation, and Old Testament theology. From 2010 to 2013, he researched ''Ethics in Ancient Israel'', having been funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. Barton is a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2007. As of 2013, he continued to assist in services and other activities in the parish of Abingdon, in which he resides. Early life and education John Barton was born on 17 June 1948 in London, England. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Barker (minister)
Joseph Barker (11 May 1806 – 15 September 1875) was an English preacher, author, and controversialist. Of changeable views, he spent a period of his life in the United States, where he associated with leading abolitionists. Early life Barker was born 11 May 1806, at Bramley, near Leeds, where his father was employed in the woollen manufacture. He was the fourth son of a family of eleven, and was engaged as a wool-spinner. His childhood was one of privation, and his education was chiefly at a Sunday school. His parents were Wesleyans; he was enrolled a member of the community, in which he became an occasional preacher, and then a home missionary and exhorter. After about three years of probation and trial, he was a local preacher. He was then sent to a Methodist school at Leeds, kept by James Sigston. Leaving the Wesleyan communion, Barker joined the ministry of the Methodist New Connexion. In this body he officiated for a year, 1828–9, as assistant to the superintendent of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
