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Stuff Early Christians Read Grace Church Bellingham Rick Brannan Mike Heiser Doug Mangum Matt Whitehead On Faithlife.com: http://faithlife.com/stuff-early-christians-read. Why Even Bother?. What do you learn from reading books about the Bible, but aren’t the Bible ?
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Stuff Early Christians Read Grace Church Bellingham Rick Brannan Mike Heiser Doug Mangum Matt Whitehead On Faithlife.com: http://faithlife.com/stuff-early-christians-read
Why Even Bother? • What do you learn from reading books about the Bible, but aren’t the Bible? • What could we learn by reading stuff early Christians read? • How they understood and applied Biblical material • What they got right • What they got wrong • Culture and method (both good and bad)
What Did They Read (or Hear)? • Early Christian Literature • Septuagint • Old Testament Pseudepigrapha • New Testament Apocrypha • Apostolic Fathers • Early Jewish Literature • Dead Sea Scrolls • Judaica
But Before Then? (Thanks Doug Mangum for the upcoming graphics)
Septuagint (Rick Brannan) • Greek Translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) • Included full Hebrew Canon (our OT today) • But added stuff: • Additions to Esther, Daniel • Apocrypha / Deuterocanon
Pseudepigrapha (Mike Heiser) • Pseudepigrapha are “falsely attributed writings” • Pseud = “false” • Epigraph = “writing” • (Does not mean “fake pigs”) • Written as if from people known from the Bible, but not: • Enoch • “Testaments” of Abraham, Job, Patriarchs • Life of Adam and Eve • Assumption of Moses
Dead Sea Scrolls (Matt Whitehead) • Biblical and Sectarian Scrolls • “Biblical” Scrolls are transcriptions of the Biblical text e.g. the Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest known edition of Isaiah • “Sectarian” Scrolls are non-Biblical material. This includes “pesher” (commentary on • Biblical text) and other material • like the Community Rule.
Apostolic Fathers (Rick Brannan) • Writings of those with direct connection to Apostles • Epistles/Letters to churches and to people • Sermons • Handbooks • Martyrdom • Apocalypse
New Testament Apocrypha (Rick Brannan) • Agrapha • Sayings attributed to Jesus, but not found • in the four canonical gospels • Fragments • Fragments of papyrus/parchment with gospel-like material, but not canonical • NoncanonicalGospels • Records of legendary and noncanonicalacts and sayings of Jesus • NoncanonicalActs and Letters • Records of legendary acts of the Apostles, letters involving Apostles, etc.
Judaica (Doug Mangum) • Why Include? • Because Christianity began as an offshoot of Judaism, • and in the early centuries the differences between the two were blurred. • What are they? • Talmuds • Mishnah • other material
Each presenter will have their own way of introducing the material. What follows is what Rick plans to do.
The Content • For each type of literature • What is it? • What is its relation to the Bible? • Examples • Why did early Christians (or Jews) read it? • Overview of Content • Examples, some large, of material. • Read sections
The Schedule(subject to change) • Session 1, October 3 • Introduction (Rick Brannan) • Septuagint (Rick Brannan) • Session 2, October 10 • Judaica (Doug Mangum) • Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls (Matt Whitehead) • Session 3, October 17 • Sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls (Matt Whitehead) • Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Mike Heiser) • Session 4, October 24 • Apostolic Fathers (Rick Brannan) • New Testament Apocrypha (Rick Brannan)
The End • Questions? • Contact: Rick Brannan rick@logos.com