Word of Life

By Emmanuel Gomes (Audio format click to listen ->  Spotify  narrated by Suharsh Xavier ) The Pentateuch is traditionally known as the five “Books of Moses”. It comprises of the first part of the Jewish and Christian canons of the Scripture. These books enjoy the distinction of inspired status by every sect of ancient Judaism (Samaritans, Sadducces, Pharisees, Essenes) as well as all major Christian communities.   “Pentateuch” comes from Greek words  pente  (five) and  teuchos  (roll, later coming to mean scroll). In Jewish tradition its also known as the Torah ( Hebrew meaning Law ).   The Pentateuch consists of – 1.      Genesis 2.      Exodus 3.      Leviticus 4.      Numbers 5.      Deuteronomy     Various Christian heresies denied its authority – most influential being  Marcion , a bishop in Italy in second century A.D. He rejected the entirety of Old Testament as being work of a false God, not of the one revealed by Jesus Christ. Also certain groups with roots in the Protestan

  By Emmanuel Gomes   This article concludes the introduction to the Old Testament, and discusses on how under the infallible authority of the Catholic Church the canon of the Scriptures according to Catholic faith was finalized.   There are video lectures at the end of this article. After studying this article, it is recommended to watch the four videos for a comprehensive understanding of the origins of the Bible.    From next article onwards, we will begin with the study of the Pentateuch, starting with the book of Genesis. For this Bible Study, we will be following the canonical order.   The Development of the Canon in the Early Church –   In the previous article , we saw how different sects of Judaism had divergent views on the Jewish Scripture during Jesus’s time. So when did the Jewish community reach a consensus on their canon as described in our first article?   Jewish traditions do not have a central authority like the Catholic Church and does not claim to hold infallible cou

By Emmanuel Gomes Most people today don’t give it much thought on how the Bible came to be in its current form. How did we get the Bible? Where did it come from? And most importantly of all, who decided on which books should be included in the Bible? In this and subsequent article(s) we will try to dig into these questions further. The main objective of this article is to – Give a historical insight (a timeline) on the development of the Bible (specifically the OT). What did the various sects of ancient Jews think about the Scriptures. What was the Jewish Scripture during Jesus’s time. What is the meaning of the word canon? ‘Bible’ comes from the ancient word for ‘book’ or ‘scroll’ (Greek  biblos).  The Old Testament is a collection of books (a library) written by human beings over the course of many centuries.  The answer to the questions mentioned above is what is known as the  canon  of Scripture. The word ‘canon’ comes from  kanon  (Greek) which itself comes from  qaneh  (Hebrew),