Bible Stories

Types of writing

There is also much in the Bible other than history and its interpretation. For example:

• Prayer: ‘Out of the depths I cry to thee, 0 Lord! Lord, hear my voice!’
• Joyful praise: ‘Bless the Lord, 0 my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name!’
• Practical maxims: `Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!’; ‘A cheerful heart has a continual feast’.
• Prophetic warnings: ‘Turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, 0 house of Israel?’; ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.’
• Ethical teaching: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’;

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.’

With most of this material the historical question Did it happen?’ does not apply. The value of the psalms, for instance, lies in the way they embrace the whole range of human emotion; joy and sorrow, hope and disappointment are all there and are brought into relationship with God. The psalms have been used for 3,000 years, because we can so easily identify with them, make them our own and encounter God through them. So history is not the sole channel by which God makes himself known. He reveals himself and speaks to people in many ways.

The Book of Bible

The Bible has a status and authority greater than that of any other Christian writing.

However valuable and important the writings of great Christians, they can never compete with those books which together form the ‘canon‘ of Scripture. For the term ‘canon‘, from the Greek word for ‘rule’ or ‘measure’, indicates those writings which are held to make up the authoritative yardstick for belief and practice.

There is a truth to be preserved, and so a canon is necessary to provide the means for distinguishing truth from error. Once a canon exists, the test of whether later beliefs and practices are truly Christian is whether they conform to the canon. Writings included in the canon of the Bible are thereby given a status different from all subsequent Christian writings.

Why this selection?

How and why did these particular writings qualify for inclusion in the biblical canon, and not others? The answer to this is complex and, particularly with regard to the Old Testament, we do not always know as much as we would like.

Sometimes we simply have to accept on faith that the right selection was made, although certainly the experience of reading some of the books rejected from the New Testament canon (such as Gospel of Peter, Letter of Barnabas) serves to heighten our appreciation of the vitality and authority of the books that were accepted. Nonetheless, certain principles of selection can be seen:

Many biblical books are connected with key figures: Moses, David, Solomon and the prophets in the Old Testament; the apostles in the New. Not all the writings thus connected were necessarily written by these people. It is highly unlikely that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes or that Paul wrote Hebrews (though often associated with Paul, Hebrews is in fact anonymous). But the essential point is that these Bible books are historically welded to the key moments in the history of salvation which these people represent.

Jesus and the early Christians regarded the Jewish Scriptures as of unique and permanent value. It is on their authority that the Old Testament

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