Book Comment: A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

 

In his book, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Dr. Gleason L. Archer presents a conservative discussion pf Old Testament canonicity, historicity, information about the Semitic languages, known textual problems, the “specific difficulties” presented by each book, archaeological evidences, how the Hebrew/Aramaic manuscripts were prepared and transmitted to new generations, and the challenges which can be presented by higher criticism.

Gleason sees the Old Testament as the preparation and the New Testament as the completion of the Christian message. He points out that “It made a great deal of difference that Greek was precise in expressing time values, and that Hebrew laid chief emphasis upon mode of action rather than upon tense.”

The survey takes each book verse by verse and discusses historical, textual, and modern questions. The text assumes some level of knowledge about archaeology, the Hebrew language, the history of the Middle East, various approaches to biblical criticism, and tends to become a little technical on some points. It is obviously intended for beginning college or seminary level students but is not above the understanding of the interested layman. Pastors and academics will definitely find it useful.

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises you to think for yourself.

Information you will need to search for this book:

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Book Comment: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

 

Almost everyone acknowledges that the original text documents of the New Testament have been lost. The originals were written on perishable materials and were hand copied onto other perishable materials to be distributed among the churches. Constant use, environmental factors, and sheer age led to the degradation of the documents which had to be recopied repeatedly. What we now have has been reconstructed from thousands of early textual fragments and the earliest known full copies of the books.

In the 120 pages of his book, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce presents a detailed but highly readable statement about the proofs that the modern New Testament as it stands represents as much as a 99.9 percent recovery of the original documents. Through the comparison of numerous copies, scribal errors and intentional editing can be detected and rejected. The oldest copies and those with the hardest to accept meaning (and therefore most likely to be "corrected" by the scribe) are favored.

Comparing the extant New Testament documents to those of secular antiquity, Bruce shows that the texts of the Christian scriptures are actually far better attested than those of universally accepted secular books.

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F.F. Bruce, who died in 1990, was a highly influential British conservative evangelical biblical scholar and university professor. He wrote numerous books and articles.  https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802867230/f-f-bruce/

Information you will need to search for this book: Bruce, F.F., The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downer’s Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 5^th ed., 1960).

A similar book with a very apologetic bent is:

Sala, Harold J., Why You Can Have Confidence in the Bible (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008).  (This is an apologetics book comparing the extant biblical documentation to that of classical documents from antiquity.)

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

The New Testament Church

"The primitive Church had no new Testament, no thought-out theology, no stereotyped traditions.  The men who took Christianity to the Gentile world had no special training, only a great experience - in which "all maxims and philosophies were reduced to the simple task of walking in the light since the light had come."  Burnett Hillman Streeter (1847-1937), British biblical scholar and textual critic, educator, educational administrator.  He wrote on religious philosophy and comparative religion.