Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke called the Gospel of Luke, or Luke, is the third of the four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, ministry, death and ascension of Jesus Christ. Luke is the longest book in the New Testament; the cornerstone of Luke–Acts' theology is "salvation history", the author's understanding that God's purpose is seen in the way he has acted, will continue to act, in history. It divides the history of first-century Christianity into three stages, with the gospel making up the first two of these – the arrival among men of Jesus the Messiah, from his birth to the beginning of his earthly mission in the meeting with John the Baptist followed by his earthly ministry, Passion and resurrection; the gospel's sources are the Gospel of Mark, the sayings collection called the Q source, a collection of material called the L source, found only in this gospel. Luke–Acts does not name its author. According to Church tradition this was Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but while this view is still put forward the scholarly consensus emphasises the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters.
The most probable date for its composition is around AD 80–110, there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century. Autographs of Luke and the other Gospels have not been preserved, as is typical for ancient documents; the earliest witnesses for Luke's gospel fall into two "families" with considerable differences between them, the Western and the Alexandrian, the dominant view is that the Western text represents a process of deliberate revision, as the variations seem to form specific patterns. The fragment P 4 is cited as the oldest witness, it has been dated from the late 2nd century. The oldest complete texts are the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, both from the Alexandrian family. Codex Bezae shows comprehensively the differences between the versions which show no core theological significance; the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles make up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts. Together they account for 27.5% of the New Testament, the largest contribution by a single author, providing the framework for both the Church's liturgical calendar and the historical outline into which generations have fitted their idea of the story of Jesus.
The author is not named in either volume. According to a Church tradition dating from the 2nd century he was the Luke named as a companion of Paul in three of the letters attributed to Paul himself, but "a critical consensus emphasizes the countless contradictions between the account in Acts and the authentic Pauline letters." An example can be seen by comparing Acts' accounts of Paul's conversion with Paul's own statement that he remained unknown to Christians in Judea after that event. Luke admired Paul, but his theology was different from Paul's on key points and he does not represent Paul's views accurately, he was educated, a man of means urban, someone who respected manual work, although not a worker himself. The eclipse of the traditional attribution to Luke the companion of Paul has meant that an early date for the gospel is now put forward; some experts date the composition of the combined work to around 80–90 AD, although some others suggest 90–110, there is evidence, both textual and from the Marcionite controversy that Luke–Acts was still being revised well into the 2nd century.
Luke–Acts is a religio-political history of the Founder of the church and his successors, in both deeds and words. The author describes his book as a "narrative", rather than as a gospel, implicitly criticises his predecessors for not giving their readers the speeches of Jesus and the Apostles, as such speeches were the mark of a "full" report, the vehicle through which ancient historians conveyed the meaning of their narratives, he seems to have taken as his model the works of two respected Classical authors, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who wrote a history of Rome, the Jewish historian Josephus, author of a history of the Jews. All three authors anchor the histories of their respective peoples by dating the births of the founders and narrate the stories of the founders' births from God, so that they are sons of God; each founder taught authoritatively, appeared to witnesses after death, ascended to heaven. Crucial aspects of the teaching of all three concerned the relationship between rich and poor and the question
Bible
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures. Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews and Rastafarians. What is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups; the Hebrew Bible overlaps with the Christian Old Testament. The Christian New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. Among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about what should be included in the canon about the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible differ among Christian groups. Roman Catholics, high church Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of the Bible and sacred tradition, while Protestant churches, including Evangelical Anglicans, focus on the idea of sola scriptura, or scripture alone.
This concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only infallible source of Christian teaching. The Bible has been a massive influence on literature and history in the Western World, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type. According to the March 2007 edition of Time, the Bible "has done more to shape literature, history and culture than any book written, its influence on world history is unparalleled, shows no signs of abating." With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, it is considered to be the most influential and best-selling book of all time. As of the 2000s, it sells 100 million copies annually; the English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the same word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin and from Koinē Greek: τὰ βιβλία, translit. Ta biblia "the books". Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra "holy book", while biblia in Greek and Late Latin is neuter plural, it came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.
Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια tà biblía tà ágia, "the holy books". The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book", it is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, "Egyptian papyrus" so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia was "an expression. Christian use of the term can be traced to c. 223 CE. The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. By the 2nd century BCE, Jewish groups began calling the books of the Bible the "scriptures" and they referred to them as "holy", or in Hebrew כִּתְבֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ, Christians now call the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible "The Holy Bible" or "the Holy Scriptures"; the Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and it was divided into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne and is now cited by book and verse.
The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in earlier oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, it is known as the Codex Vaticanus; the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus. Professor John K. Riches, Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, says that "the biblical texts themselves are the result of a creative dialogue between ancient traditions and different communities through the ages", "the biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural and ecological – varied enormously". Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh, says that the Old Testament is "a collection of authoritative texts of divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing."
He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it written by God and passed to mankind. Parallel to the solidification of the Hebrew canon, only the Torah first and the Tanakh began to be translated into Greek and expanded, now referred to as the Septuagint or the Greek Old Testament. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from oral traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that: Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, but the results have not been too encouraging; the period of transmission is short: less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Mark's Gospel. This means that there was little time for oral trad
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is the first book of the New Testament and one of the three synoptic gospels. It tells how the promised Messiah, rejected by Israel sends the disciples to preach the gospel to the whole world. Most scholars believe it was composed between AD 80 and 90, with a range of possibility between AD 70 to 110; the anonymous author was a male Jew, standing on the margin between traditional and non-traditional Jewish values, familiar with technical legal aspects of scripture being debated in his time. Writing in a polished Semitic "synagogue Greek", he drew on three main sources: the Gospel of Mark, the hypothetical collection of sayings known as the Q source, material unique to his own community, called the M source or "Special Matthew"; the divine nature of Jesus was a major issue for the Matthaean community, the crucial element separating the early Christians from their Jewish neighbors. The title Son of David identifies Jesus as the healing and miracle-working Messiah of Israel, sent to Israel alone.
As Son of Man he will return to judge the world, an expectation which his disciples recognise but of which his enemies are unaware. As Son of God he is God revealing himself through his son, Jesus proving his sonship through his obedience and example; the gospel reflects the struggles and conflicts between the evangelist's community and the other Jews with its sharp criticism of the scribes and Pharisees. Prior to the Crucifixion the Jews are called the honorific title of God's chosen people; the oldest complete manuscripts of the Bible are the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, which date from the 4th century. Besides these, there exist manuscript fragments ranging from a few verses to whole chapters. P 104 and P 67 are notable fragments of Matthew; these are copies of copies. In the process of recopying, variations slipped in, different regional manuscript traditions emerged, corrections and adjustments were made. Modern textual scholars collate all major surviving manuscripts, as well as citations in the works of the Church Fathers, in order to produce a text which most approximates to the lost autographs.
The gospel itself does not specify an author, but he was a male Jew, standing on the margin between traditional and non-traditional Jewish values, familiar with technical legal aspects of scripture being debated in his time. The majority of modern scholars believe that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and that Matthew and Luke both drew upon it as a major source for their works; the author of Matthew did not, however copy Mark, but used it as a base, emphasising Jesus' place in the Jewish tradition and including other details not covered in Mark. An additional 220 verses, shared by Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark, from a second source, a hypothetical collection of sayings to which scholars give the name "Quelle", or the Q source; this view, known as the Two-source hypothesis, allows for a further body of tradition known as "Special Matthew", or the M source, meaning material unique to Matthew. The author had the Greek scriptures at his disposal, both as book-scrolls and in the form of "testimony collections", and, if Papias is correct oral stories of his community.
These sources were predominantly in Greek, but not from any known version of the Septuagint. The majority view among scholars is that Matthew was a product of the last quarter of the 1st century; this makes it a work of the second generation of Christians, for whom the defining event was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in AD 70 in the course of the First Jewish–Roman War. The Christian community to which Matthew belonged, like many 1st-century Christians, was still part of the larger Jewish community: hence the designation Jewish Christian to describe them; the relationship of Matthew to this wider world of Judaism remains a subject of study and contention, the principal question being to what extent, if any, Matthew's community had cut itself off from its Jewish roots. There was conflict between Matthew's group and other Jewish groups, it is agreed that the root of the conflict was the Matthew community's belief in Jesus as the Messiah and authoritative interpreter of the law, as one risen from the dead and uniquely endowed with divine authority.
The author of Matthew wrote for a community of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians located in Syria (Antioch, the largest city in Roman Syria and the third-largest in the empire, is me
Second Epistle to the Corinthians
The Second Epistle to the Corinthians written as 2nd Corinthians, is a Pauline epistle and the eighth book of the New Testament of the Bible. Paul the Apostle and "Timothy our brother" wrote this epistle to "the church of God, at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia". While there is little doubt among scholars that Paul is the author, there is discussion over whether the Epistle was one letter or composed from two or more of Paul's letters. Although the New Testament contains only two letters to the Corinthian church, the evidence from the letters themselves is that he wrote at least four and the church replied at least once: 1 Corinthians 5:9 refers to an early letter, sometimes called the "warning letter" or the "previous letter." 1 Corinthians The Severe Letter: Paul refers to an earlier "letter of tears" in 2 Corinthians 2:3–4 and 7:8. 1 Corinthians does not match that description, so this "letter of tears" may have been written between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians1 Corinthians 7:1 states that in that letter Paul was replying to certain questions regarding which the church had written to him.
The abrupt change of tone from being harmonious to bitterly reproachful in 2 Corinthians 10–13 has led many to speculate that chapters 10–13 form part of the "letter of tears" which were in some way tagged on to Paul's main letter. Those who disagree with this assessment say that the "letter of tears" is no longer extant. Others argue that although the letter of tears is no longer extant, chapters 10-13 come from a letter; some scholars find fragments of the "warning letter", or of other letters, in chapters 1–9, for instance that part of the "warning letter" is preserved in 2 Cor 6:14–7:1, but these hypotheses are less popular. The book is divided as follows: 1:1–11 – Greeting 1:12 – 7:16 – Paul defends his actions and apostleship, affirming his affection for the Corinthians. 8:1 – 9:15 – Instructions for the collection for the poor in the Jerusalem church. 10:1 – 13:10 – A polemic defense of his apostleship 13:11–13 – Closing greetings Paul's contacts with the Corinthian church can be reconstructed as follows: Paul visits Corinth for the first time, spending about 18 months there.
He leaves Corinth and spends about 3 years in Ephesus.. Paul writes the "warning letter" in his first year from Ephesus. Paul writes 1 Corinthians from his second year at Ephesus. Paul visits the Corinthian church a second time, as he indicated he would in 1 Corinthians 16:6. During his last year in Ephesus. 2 Corinthians 2:1 calls this a "painful visit". Paul writes the "letter of tears". Paul writes 2 Corinthians; the letter does not indicate where he is writing from, but it is dated after Paul left Ephesus for Macedonia, from either Philippi or Thessalonica in Macedonia. Paul made the third visit after writing 2 Corinthians, because Acts 20:2–3 indicates he spent 3 months in Greece. In his letter to Rome, written at this time, he sent salutations from some of the principal members of the church to the Romans. In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he again refers to himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and reassures the people of Corinth that they will not have another painful visit, but what he has to say is not to cause pain but to reassure them of the love he has for them.
It is shorter in length in comparison to the first and a little confusing if the reader is unaware of the social and economic situation of the community. Paul felt the situation in Corinth felt attacked; some challenged his authority as an apostle, he compares the level of difficulty to other cities he has visited who had embraced it, like the Galatians. He is criticized for the way he speaks and writes and finds it just to defend himself with some of his important teachings, he states the importance of forgiving others, God’s new agreement that comes from the Spirit of the living God, the importance of being a person of Christ and giving generously to God’s people in Jerusalem, ends with his own experience of how God changed his life. Easton's Bible Dictionary writes, This epistle, it has been well said, shows the individuality of the apostle more than any other. "Human weakness, spiritual strength, the deepest tenderness of affection, wounded feeling, irony, impassioned self-vindication, humility, a just self-respect, zeal for the welfare of the weak and suffering, as well as for the progress of the church of Christ and for the spiritual advancement of its members, are all displayed in turn in the course of his appeal."
—Lias, Second Corinthians. George H. Guthrie – professor at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee Larry Welborn – Professor at Fordham University in The Bronx, New York Textual variants in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians First Epistle to the Corinthians Third Epistle to the Corinthians 2 Corinthians 11:19 Authorship of the Pauline Epistles Come-outer Oiketerion "Corinthians, Epistles to the". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7. 1911. Pp. 150–154. Online translations of Second Epistle to the Corinthians: Online Bible at GospelHall.org 2 Corinthians public domain audiobook at LibriVox Various versionsCommentary articles by J. P. Meyer on Second Corinthians, by chapter: 1–2, 3, 4:1–6:10, 6:11–7:16, 8–9, 10–13
Apostles
In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles the Twelve Apostles, were the primary disciples of Jesus. During the life and ministry of Jesus in the 1st century AD, the apostles were his closest followers and became the primary teachers of the gospel message of Jesus. In modern usage, missionaries under Pentecostal movements refer to themselves as apostles, a practice which stems from the Latin equivalent of apostle, i.e. missio, the source of the English word missionary. For example, Saint Patrick was the "Apostle of Ireland", Saint Boniface was the "Apostle to the Germans", Saint José de Anchieta was the "Apostle of Brazil" and Saint Peter of Betancur was the "Apostle of Guatemala". While Christian tradition refers to the apostles as being twelve in number, different gospel writers give different names for the same individual, apostles mentioned in one gospel are not mentioned in others; the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles during the ministry of Jesus is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels.
After his resurrection, Jesus sent eleven of them by the Great Commission to spread his teachings to all nations. This event is called the Dispersion of the Apostles. There is an Eastern Christian tradition derived from the Gospel of Luke of there having been as many as 70 apostles during the time of Jesus' ministry. In early Christianity, Paul, is referred to as an apostle, because he was directly taught and commissioned by a vision of Christ during his journey to Damascus; the period of early Christianity during the lifetimes of the apostles is called the Apostolic Age. During the 1st century AD, the apostles established churches throughout the territories of the Roman Empire and, according to tradition, through the Middle East and India; the word "apostle" comes from the Greek word ἀπόστολος, formed from the prefix ἀπό- and root στέλλω and meaning "messenger, envoy". It has, however, a stronger sense than the word messenger, is closer to a "delegate"; the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament argues that its Christian use translated a Jewish position known in Hebrew as the sheliach.
This ecclesiastical meaning of the word was translated into Latin as missio, the source of the English "missionary". In the New Testament, the majority of the apostles have Hebrew names, although some have Greek names. Many Jews at the time had Greek names as well as Hebrew names. Mark 6:7–13 states that Jesus sent out these twelve in pairs to towns in Galilee; the text states that their initial instructions were to drive out demons. They are instructed to "take nothing for their journey, except a staff only: no bread, no wallet, no money in their purse, but to wear sandals, not put on two tunics", that if any town rejects them they ought to shake the dust off their feet as they leave, a gesture which some scholars think was meant as a contemptuous threat, their carrying of just a staff is sometimes given as the reason for the use by Christian bishops of a staff of office in those denominations that believe they maintain an apostolic succession. In the Gospel narratives the twelve apostles are described as having been commissioned to preach the Gospel to "all the nations", regardless of whether Jew or Gentile.
Paul emphasized the important role of the apostles in the church of God when he said that the household of God is "built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone". Although not one of the apostles commissioned during the life of Jesus, Paul, a Jew named Saul of Tarsus, claimed a special commission from the risen Jesus and is considered "the apostle of the Gentiles", for his missions to spread the gospel message after his conversion. In his writings, the epistles to Christian churches throughout the Levant, Paul did not restrict the term "apostle" to the Twelve, refers to his mentor Barnabas as an apostle; the restricted usage appears in the Revelation to John. By the 2nd century AD, association with the apostles was esteemed as an evidence of authority. Churches which are believed to have been founded by one of the apostles are known. Paul's epistles were accepted as scripture, two of the four canonical gospels were associated with apostles, as were other New Testament works.
Various Christian texts, such as the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions, were attributed to the apostles. Bishops traced their lines of succession back to individual apostles, who were said to have dispersed from Jerusalem and established churches across great territories. Christian bishops have traditionally claimed authority deriving, by apostolic succession, from the Twelve. Early Church Fathers who came to be associated with apostles, such as Pope Clement I with St. Peter, are referred to as the Apostolic Fathers; the Apostles' Creed, popular in the West, was said to have been composed by the apostles themselves. The three Synoptic Gospels record the circumstances in which some of the disciples were recruited, Matthew only describing the recruitment of Simon, Andrew and John. All three Synoptic Gospels state that these four were recruited soon after Jesus returned from being tempted by the devil. Despite Jesus only requesting that they join him, they are all described as consenting, abandoning their nets to do so.
Traditionally the immediacy of their consent was viewed
First Epistle to the Corinthians
The First Epistle to the Corinthians referred to as First Corinthians and written 1 Corinthians, is one of the Pauline epistles of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle says that Paul the Apostle and "Sosthenes our brother" wrote it to "the church of God, at Corinth" 1 Cor.1:1–2 although the scholarly consensus holds that Sosthenes was the amanuensis who wrote down the text of the letter at Paul's direction. Called "a masterpiece of pastoral theology", it addresses various issues that had arisen in the Christian community at Corinth; this epistle contains some well-known phrases, including: "all things to all men", "through a glass, darkly", "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child". There is consensus among historians and Christian theologians that Paul is the author of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; the letter is quoted or mentioned by the earliest of sources, is included in every ancient canon, including that of Marcion.
The personal and embarrassing texts about immorality in the church increase consensus. However, a passage may have been inserted at a stage; this passage is 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, the authenticity of, hotly debated. Part of the reason for doubt is that in some manuscripts, the verses come at the end of the chapter instead of at its present location. Furthermore, Paul is here appealing to the law, uncharacteristic of him. Lastly, the verses come into conflict with 11:5 where women are described as praying and prophesying; as well, 10:1–22 is sometimes regarded as another letter fragment, interpolation, or inserted midrash because, among other things, this section seems to equate the consumption of idol meat with idolatry, but Paul seems more lenient regarding its consumption in 8:1–13 and 10:23–11:1. Such views are rejected by other scholars who give arguments for the unity of 8:1–11:1. About the year AD 50, towards the end of his second missionary journey, Paul founded the church in Corinth, before moving on to Ephesus, a city on the west coast of today's Turkey, about 180 miles by sea from Corinth.
From there he traveled to Caesarea, Antioch. Paul returned to Ephesus on his third missionary journey and spent three years there, it was while staying in Ephesus that he received disconcerting news of the community in Corinth regarding jealousies and immoral behavior. It appears that based on a letter the Corinthians sent Paul, the congregation was requesting clarification on a number of matters, such as marriage and the consumption of meat offered to idols. By comparing Acts of the Apostles 18:1–17 and mentions of Ephesus in the Corinthian correspondence, scholars suggest that the letter was written during Paul's stay in Ephesus, dated as being in the range of AD 53–57. Anthony C. Thiselton suggests that it is possible that I Corinthians was written during Paul's first stay in Ephesus, at the end of his Second Journey dated to early AD 54. However, it is more that it was written during his extended stay in Ephesus, where he refers to sending Timothy to them; the epistle may be divided into seven parts: Salutation Paul addresses the issue regarding challenges to his apostleship and defends the issue by claiming that it was given to him through a revelation from Christ.
The salutation reinforces the legitimacy of Paul's apostolic claim. Thanksgiving The thanksgiving part of the letter is typical of Hellenistic letter writing. In a thanksgiving recitation the writer thanks God for health, a safe journey, deliverance from danger, or good fortune. In this letter, the thanksgiving "introduces charismata and gnosis, topics to which Paul will return and that he will discuss at greater length in the letter". Division in Corinth Facts of division Causes of division Cure for division Immorality in Corinth Discipline an immoral Brother Resolving personal disputes Sexual purity Difficulties in Corinth Marriage Christian liberty Worship Doctrine of Resurrection Closing Paul's closing remarks in his letters contain his intentions and efforts to improve the community, he would first conclude with his paraenesis and wish them peace by including a prayer request, greet them with his name and his friends with a holy kiss, offer final grace and benediction:Now concerning the contribution for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia… Let all your things be done with charity.
Greet one another with a holy kiss... I, write this greeting with my own hand. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha; the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen; some time before 2 Corinthians was written, Paul paid them a second visit to check some rising disorder, wrote them a letter, now lost. They had been visited by Apollos by Peter, by some Jewish Christians who brought with them letters of commendation from Jerusalem. Paul wrote this letter to correct. Several sources informed Paul of conflicts within the church at Corinth: Apollos, a letter from the Corinthians, the "household of Chloe", Stephanas and his two friends who had visited Paul. Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians, urging uniformity of belief ("that ye all speak the same thing and that t
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). . Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.
Thessalonians public domain audiobook at LibriVox Various versions