How many christian
people in entire world adore their bible more than Jesus Christ? There are even
some rules to revere The Holy Bible made by current churches. For example, when
your Holy Bible fall accidentally, you must clean it and kiss it three times.
It sounds irrational, right? But it truely happens in a few churches. On the
other hand, there were times when christians burned all their Holy Bible to
declare their pure faith of God only. Is it a right thing to do?
The Canonisation of Christian’s Holy Bible
Christian Bible is
composed by Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and New Testament. Let’s use
terminology of “Hebrew Bible” instead of “Old Testament” here to respect Jews. The
arranging process of both of them is separated by very long time distance.
However, Hebrew Bible is related to New Testament. For Christians, New
Testament writes about the fulfillment of the redemption promised by God, which had been
prophesied in Hebrew Bible.
Hebrew Bible is
canonized by Jews themselves. They began to tell their religious stories from
one to another orally. It is called oral tradition. Then, they started to write
their stories so that their next generation could keep it. After that, their
writings were separated because of wars and exile. At the end of that period, they
collected the lost scrolls and writings about the works of God and they made
them their Bible. The scrolls and writings they collected were not intact, of
course. They were damaged by the weather and ages. Some of them were lost or
burnt.
The collected
writings is called “Codex” and it is used by translator to translate Hebrew
Bible into their languages. Hebrew Bible firstly translated to Greek, called “Septuaginta”. There are also apocrypha and pseudepigrapha beside the canonized Hebrew Bible. They are the
hidden texts which also wrote about Israelite and their God in history, but
were not included in Hebrew Bible. Catholics made the second canonisation by
putting the apocrypha into their bible
and call it deuterocanonic. Meanwhile,
Christians only translated the fixed Hebrew Bible.
New Testament also
started with oral tradition. The story of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of
God was told by one to another viva voce. About a generation after, educated
Christians wrote the reflection of Christ’s life story related with their
sphere situation. Christians in every different area had their own writings and
most of them did not recognize the writings from other Christians in other
areas. For those reason, the popes canonized New Testament. But, the
canonisation of New Testament was still controversial at that time.
Holy Bible as Icon of God
Every Christian
should have known that Holy Bible is not fallen down from heaven. It is made by
the hands of human to keep their religious stories. The one who came from
heaven to bring peace and salvation on earth is Jesus Christ, the incarnation
of God. Holy Bible is just a medium that helps Christians to know about the work
of God in history. It is only an icon of God. It is like a story about God's love to His creations. It makes us know about how God is, but it is not God.
So, how can your
bible save you from hell? You are saved by your faith of God, not your bible.
It will only help you to establish your faith of God. Abraham is blessed
because of his faith. So were Isaiah and the ohter prophets. When they were
alive, Holy Bible had not been composed. They were saved by their faith.
Appreciation
of Holy Bible
After we know that we should have faith of God
instead of adoring Holy Bible, our respect on Holy Bible is usually decreased. Should
we still respect it, then? Or it is fine if we let it be broken and do not keep it
properly? In my opinion, we do not have any necessity to burn or break our Holy
Bible. What do we get if we break our Holy Bible? It is only a waste of money.
It is better for us to keep it and use it as it’s function. You may burn your
bible after you can memorize every single word in it.
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