Copy and Answer the Following during discussion

1. Who is the one who reveals himself? 2. Who were the people to whom he revealed himself? 3. Who is the man through whom God revealed himself? 4. What can we infer/deduce or conclude as the nature or quality of the Revealer Himself?

5. What do you call the book that contains the stories and events of Gods revelation? 6. What makes this book different from any other book that we know? 7. What do you call the agreement or alliance which God made with his people? 8. What is Gods aim in revealing himself to man through these people?

9. What are the two main parts of the Christian Scriptures? 10. Which part is initially the Scriptures used by Jesus himself? 11. Whose story is written in the gospels? 12. How long did it take for the Old Testament to be compiled in the present composition?

13.Whos national history is written in the Old Testament? 14.What are the books that were included in the Catholic Christian Scriptures but were not included in the Hebrew Bible? 15.It refers to the list of books of the Bible officially accepted by the Church for being inspired.

16.How many books are there in the Catholic Bible? 17.What is the first and what is the last book of the Bible? 18.Which is the original language of the Old Testament Scripture? 19.What do you call the acceptability of books of the bible believed to have been inspired? 20.What do you call our response to the Divine Revelation?

 fr. the Greek word apokalupsis translated as revelation which means unveiling
it is Gods personal loving communication to us of who He is and His plan to save us all in His love. (CFC 101)

Revelation from the word revelare which means to unveil or take away the cover of It is the "taking away the veil," God making Himself known through words and deeds in salvation history. (Cf. DV 2, 4, 6-11.)

God Reveals Himself through Creation

The first way God reveals Himself to us is through

creation. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork" (Ps 19:1).

God reveals himself to the Chosen People God Revealed Himself through the Scriptures God Revealed Himself in fullness through His Son, Jesus Christ

God Reveals Himself through Christ present in the Church God continues to Reveal Himself through the Sacraments

PURPOSE: GODS PLAN

to make all of us united with Him: COVENANT to make of humanity One FAMILY with God as the Father and all of us brothers and sisters To make know His love for humanity notwithstanding its UNFAITHFULNESS And because He loves us, he wants to save us from self-destruction: SALVATION

COVENANT

It is a solemn agreement between two parties. A religious covenant is a belief shared by members of a religious community that God has made a formal alliance or agreement with them or with humanity in general. This sort of covenant is an important concept in Judaism and Christianity, derived in the first

Examples of a covenant relationship

Covenant with Noah: God will not destroy humanity again Covenant between Abraham: God will make him the father of a great nation Covenant with between God and the Israelites I will be your God and you will be my people. Leviticus 26:12 Between Jesus and his apostles the New Covenant in which Jesus' sacrifice on the cross would atone for the sins of all mankind. (Matthew 26:28)

SALVATION

In theology, salvation can mean three related things: being saved from, or LIBERATION from, something, such as suffering or the punishment of sin also called DELIVERANCE; being saved for something, such as an afterlife or participating in the Reign of God also called REDEMPTION; or SOCIAL LIBERATION and healing, as in liberation theology.

Salvation Experienced by Israel

Joseph-sold as a slave in Egypt to save his people from famine Moses saved by the Egyptian princes to be able to save Israel from Slavery Cyrus I, King of Persia-gave Israel the freedom to return from Babylon to Judea But in all these I, even I, am Yahweh; and beside me there is no Savior. Isaiah 43:11

God Reveals Himself

God has made Himself known to us through Creation but also through the Old Testament. Finally God made Himself known to us by coming to live among us as Jesus Christ. We call this Divine Revelation.

Divine Revelation

God has chosen to reveal Himself bit by bit to us, not all at once. This revelation began with Adam and Eve who used to walk with Him in the Garden. Later to the Israelites They gave us the Old Testament which tells of Gods revelation to them.

Divine Revelation

All of the Revelation of the Old Testament lead to Gods greatest Revelation. For God so loved the world that he sent His only SonJesus Christ. [Jn
3,16]

Jesus chose Twelve Apostles and taught them everything they needed to know for salvation. This revelation to them, the gospel, was entrusted to those twelve and

Divine Revelation

The Apostles passed this revelation in two forms, Scripture and Tradition (Preaching). Together Scripture and Tradition form the deposit of faith, the full revelation of Christ. One without the other is lacking, though always valuable. Sacred Tradition includes teachings on the Trinity, Sacraments, and our Creed. With the death of the last Apostle (John ~100AD) there will be no further revelation. The Church simply looks deeper and deeper into what we have been given by Christ and his Apostles.

The Magisterium

The teaching office of the Church is called the Magisterium. The Church has the sacred duty to protect the deposit of faith, that is all the things God revealed to us. This is composed of the Pope and all the bishops in union with him. They cooperate with the Holy Spirit to teach all we know about God without error. There have been many explanations of the truth over 2000 years but the truths of our faith have

1.Finally our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, came to earth to reveal Divine truths to men. After His death, His Apostles and disciples wrote about Him and His teachings.
There are twenty-seven of these books, composing the New Testament. With the forty-six books of the Old Testament the Church gathered them together into one Book called Holy Scripture, or the Bible.

3. The deposit of faith which Jesus Christ entrusted to the Church is made up of two parts: a] Holy Scripture and b] Sacred Tradition, the latter being composed of the truths passed down by word of mouth, and not written down till after the death of Christ's Apostles and disciples, principally by the Fathers of the Church.

Towards a Complete Approach to the Bible

1. Accept the Bible as the Word of God

The

Bible is a library of books. Though the Bible contains 73 books, yet it appears to be only one book, far from being a library of books as it claims to be. In the ancient world literary works are written on rolls which were bulky and unwieldy. These rolls were made of papyrus and skins of animals. Papyrus is made from the papyrus plant, was durable when kept dry but became increasingly brittle. The book form called codex is either made of papyrus or skin animals, emerged only about a

Sacred Scriptures

The stories, events, poems, hymns of Gods Revelations to his people is contained in the SACRED SCRIPTURES. The Sacred Scriptures therefore are the WORD OF GOD WRITTEN IN THE LANGUAGE OF MAN. The Scriptures are sacred because it is written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is Inspired

The Holy Bible as the word of God written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit they have God as their author In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their own powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those thing which He wanted. (Vatican II, Constitution on Divine Revelation, ch.3, no. 11)

THE FORMATION OF THE SCRIPTURES

The Scriptures however was not formed in one sitting. It took 1000 years and countless authors before Gods Revelation was committed into writing.
Beginning

with Abraham-2000 BC Moses and the Exodus- 1300 BC Kingship of David 1000 BC Babylonian Exile 586 BC Birth of Jesus 0-4 AD Death of Jesus 27-30AD

The Development of the Bible The Old Testament

1. First stage: Word acted out: Gods actual revelation of Himself in the history of His people. 2. Second stage: Oral tradition:
The

Jewish people naturally desired to communicate and preserve their memorable experiences with God. They communicated these experiences orally in prose, poetry, songs, sermons, epics and other forms of communication common to them. This oral tradition of divine revelation was the longest of the stages of scriptural development.

Third stage: Writing and Editing Gradually some Jewish writers wrote a few accounts of some important events in their history. Even so, oral tradition continued side by side with the written accounts. It was common then that one important event had several oral accounts and a few written ones circulating in different parts of the country. For example, the story from Abraham to the threshold of the Promised Land in the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch) was written in

Two Parts of the Scriptures

Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures it contains the stories from the Creation up to the Maccabees when the corrupt Hasmonean dynasty rules Israel New Testament It contains the gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the epistles and end with the Book of Revelation Together, the Old Testament and the new Testament for the Christian Scriptures

Old Testament divisions

Torah or the Law-composed of the first five books of the OT commonly called the Books of Moses namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy Neviim or the Prophets = This division includes the books which cover the time from the entrance of the Israelites into the Land of Israel until the Babylonian captivity of Judah (the "period of prophecy") Kethubim or the Writings sometimes also known by the Greek title "Hagiographa" and

New Testament Divisions

Gospels the book that contains the words and deeds of Jesus, the Christ Acts the narrative that contains the life of the early Church Pauline epistles - letters written either by Paul or for Paul addressed to the communities and persons of the early Christian Churches Catholic epistles - The name given to the Epistle of St. James, to that of St. Jude, to two Epistles of St. Peter and the first three of St. John Book of Revelation the last book of the Bible also called Apocalypse and deals with the themes of the end times

How many are the books of the Bible?

Catholic Version=73
Old

Testament = 46 New Testament = 27

Protestant Version = 66
Old

Testament = 39 (plus 9 Apocrypha or Deuterocanonicals) New Testament = 27

Hebrew Bible = 24 (Some books are considered as one like Chronicles 1 & 2)

Canonicity

The word canon comes from the Hebrew word kaneh meaning a reed which can be used as a ruler. The Greek word for it kanon means a measuring rod. Applied to the Bible, the term canon refers to a norm of revealed truth, a rule of faith. So CANONICITY refers to the acceptability of certain list of books by the Church as be inspired and to contain a rule of faith and morals while CANON refers to the books accepted as authoritative by the Church.

Original Biblical Languages

Hebrew Bible- Hebrew this is the Bible of the Jews which probably Jesus read and studied. Septuagint Greek this is the Hebrew Bible as translated into Greek in about 200 BC New Testament Greek Koine or the common Greek of the New Testament era Vulgate Latin the Christian Bible translated into Latin by St. Jerome in about 400 AD (Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of God)

Faith as Our Response to Gods Revelation

If God make Himself known through revelation, therefore, our acceptance of His revelation is acceptance of God Himself. That is our Faith, our response to God. Because of faith we commit our whole self to God. Faith therefore is our acceptance and response to what God revealed to us through the Sacred Scriptures.

Characteristics of Faith

Faith is a free act. It is never forced upon us. Faith brings joy and ease to love God. Faith brings a deeper understanding of revelation. Faith brings people together to form a community.

What does "faith" mean in daily life?

Faith in general means the way we know, accept, and relate positively to others, especially the mutual trust, love, and fidelity we experience in family and friendships.

What is meant by "Catholic faith"?

Catholic Faith is "to know, love, and follow Jesus Christ in his Body, the Church" (PCP II 36). It is that attitude, activity, and process by which we, empowered by God's grace:
To

freely commit our entire selves to God, To offer our liberty, our understanding and our whole will to God who reveals Himself and His plan, and To willingly assent to His Revelation (cf. DV 5).