Borg's Scripture Analysis

“Faith alone is the saving and efficacious use of the Word of God, according to Rom. 10{:9}” (16).

However, he also believes that the people who wrote the people had experiences with God, and that the Bible itself is a “human response” to God. Borg thinks that the origin of the Bible needs to be an either/or decision in order to simplify the conflict as well as our understanding of the Bible. He points out that if we believe the Bible is a divine-and-human product then we begin picking which parts are divine and which are human which would lead to further conflict.

Machen stated that the New Testament books “are regarded by all serious historians as genuine products of the first Christian generation.” (PAGE 18) The statement merely could be false without Machen’s willingness to terminate as un-serious all historians who ignore the validity and authority of the New Testament. The argument of the New Testament authenticity is still conflicted between in liberalism and typical denominations. A weakness in Machen’s argument on Doctrine was while Machen indicates that the New testament could be understood through the perspective of the “primitive Jerusalem church” (PAGE 22), no supportive agreement was found what the primitive church looked

Under the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, in what sense is the Bible authoritative? This is a question that has plagued the minds of many as a major element of historic Christian belief about Scripture as well as been a controversial topic of academic discussions. One of the major areas of conflict in the theological arena has been biblical authority as noted in

Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture is written by Joel Green, a New Testament scholar, and Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Prof. Green, has participated and contributed greatly on a wide range of topics related to both New Testament scholarship and theology.

Marcus Borg proposes a more relevant form of Christianity that he refers to as the “emerging paradigm,” which he then compares to “earlier paradigm” that is to be considered more “conservative-evangelical.” The emerging paradigm is outlined by the different ways to see the Bible through historical, metaphorical, and sacramental views. The earlier paradigm is characterized by seeing the Bible as a “divide product,” then goes on to explain why the Bible is a sacred scripture because it is the unique revelation of God created by traditional Christian language about the Bible and has a divine guarantee (7). This paradigm also includes “biblical literalism,” interpreting that everything in the Bible is considered to be factually true, such as Genesis creation. Another characterization is the “vision of Christian life” with three important features such as Faith being seen as believing, the afterlife being central, and there is a life of requirements and rewards. Lastly, the characterization of “modern product” and how this Western cultural history since the Enlightenment of the 17th century has affected Christianity. Borg then goes on to further discuss how these paradigms relate to the matter of faith; he refers to the four types of faith as Assensus, Fiducia, Fidelitas, and Visio.

What is faith? Is it a feeling, a thought, or a concept? As Martin Luther said in his book Freedom of a Christian, faith is “God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God.” When one thinks of faith, they maybe think about their personal relationship with God and the unconditional love He has. “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” The Word of God cannot be interpreted by any works but only by faith. Martin Luther had stated that, “It is clear that, as the soul needs only the Word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works.” (Janz, A Reformation Reader, pg 109)

Faith is the belief in a person, thing, or idea without concrete evidence of its certainty. Although in some arenas, such as science, it is looked down upon, faith is ever presence in people's lives. It takes faith to belief that a chair will support one’s weight. It takes faith to belief that others will fulfill their promises and responsibilities. John Donne, Robert Fink, and Annie Dillard are three authors who use faith as a topic for one of their works.

As Bart Ehrman states in Misquoting Jesus, “Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals.” In fact, Ehrman’s book and his standpoint on the validity of the Bible translations we do possess caused tens of thousands of Christians to abandon their faith altogether. Wallace uses Bart Ehrman’s book to segue into a discussion concerning the two main attitudes concerning Bible translations that should be avoided: radical skepticism in the case of atheists or agnostics, and absolute certainty in the case of Christians. The reason absolute certainty must be avoided is because there is no translation today that claims to have it all solved. There are thousands of textual variants among manuscripts because there are so many manuscripts. To close, Wallace asks the audience if they are ready to abandon their faith simply because they aren’t sure, and finishes with this statement: “No

In Core Christianity, Elmer Towns states, “Books of other religious were written by their founders in their attempt to find God” (Towns, 2007). Therefore, religious texts written and inspired by human thought only provide conclusions. “But the Bible is not a search for God; the Bible is God’s book to reveal Himself to the human race” (Towns, 2007). The dual authorship of the Scripture provides words with “convicting, convincing, converting power to all who honestly accept its message and believe in Jesus Christ” (Towns, 2007). Therefore, the credibility and reliability of the Word of God can only be known by applying it to one’s life and watching how its words and teachings

Faith is the sum and substance of life. Without faith, humans cannot achieve anything. If one was to observe all the greatest idea’s carried out in this world, one would find faith was the sole purpose. Look at Pi from Life of Pi, he was first enlightened by Hinduism; however, he discovers many more religions as he gets older. He becomes enlightened by Christianity and Islam. Pi’s religious curiosity creates anxiety in his family. It was tough for them to grasp why he practiced various religions. However, this did not stop Pi from staying faithful. This faith is put to test when he spends over 200 days stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena and a tiger named Richard

Nicholas Wolterstorff was raised in a Reformed environment, a tradition that taught him to accept God’s creation but to also be wary of the fallen capacity of creation and culture brought by human hands. Wolterstorff believes we should not necessarily welcome the things of this world but also should not reject them, a term he calls a differentiated yes and no. Van Sloten expands on this topic by arguing that Christians often see the Bible as the only source of truth. He believes that every truth found in the Bible has a ‘creational twin.’ He

The Transcendentalist notion of questioning the bible as a legitimate authority must have shaken the foundation

What is faith? Faith is something different to everyone. If you asked a hundred different people, it is possible that you would get many diverse answers. Religious faith and non-religious faith are two very distinct terms. Faith holds an extremely complex meaning when discussing it in the context of religion. Faith is a belief. That holds true to every religious and non-religious person. Every faith involves a decision. It is not about what we claim to believe, but what we actually do believe, that is true faith. Throughout this paper, I am going to discuss Christian faith, how it pertains to daily life and Christianity as a whole. I also intend to delve into George W. Forell's discussion of Christian faith and analyze and

Enkhmend Delgertsoo Brent Bellamy English 124 25 February, 2015 l "The Aleph" analysis The Aleph is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. According to the story, “The Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, it is also said that it takes the shape of a man pointing to both heaven and earth, in order to show that the lower world is the map and mirror of the higher, it is the symbol of transfinite numbers, of which any part is as great as the whole.” (Borges,1945). The author, narrator, tried to expand all of our points of view. In this short story, he tried to contain the whole universe. The author seems to give a chance to see what the author sees and his show to readers his universe. In the short story, author used new criticism and narratology.