greetings to you all in the precious name of our lord and savior jesus christ uh i thank god for this wonderful evening god has given us in our lives so that we could gather in this manner to learn from the word and i welcome all of you who have come have taken out their time and come in this evening time to sit together and study from the world and meditate from the world people from different parts of the globe has joined us and it is a blessed time and i also thank the servant of god john c philip uncle who has taken out his time and who has come here to divide us god's word and we as we know the topic is about bibliology so we will be uh meditating on that studying more in the deeper truths about bibliology and uh let us see god's blessings on in today's class so that we may all be strengthened uh and learn more about bibliology shall we bow on our heads and pray gracious god loving heavenly father we thank you for this beautiful evening time that was given us in our lives so that you could come into your presence to study from my word and meditate from thy word not in this testing times in this pandemic when money does not have this privilege to learn from that word who may be just learning from the word once a week who may not be attending at all but here we have this privilege to be in your presence each night each and every day and we thank thee for this wonderful privilege that was given us in our lives and we thank you for you are enabling and you are strengthening the servants to study from the word and meditate and divide the word rightfully rightfully unto us lord father we thank thee and we consider this as a privilege not father we thank thee for this privilege and for this time that has given us in our lives lord as we sit some more time in your presence lord father help us and strengthen us your father fill us with thy spirit lord father that we might understand this the deeper meaning of thy word or father and we submit thy servant johnson uncle in your mighty hands that you might strengthen him and guide him and that he will divide thy word worse and you might understand it and not be mere listeners but understand this word and make it applicable and it would be useful for our local assemblies help us lord that we might gain this knowledge in our father and use it for the glory alone we thank the lord father foreign the most matchless and sweetest name the lord [Music] jesus christ amen thank you god's name be glorified we now come to a portion of bibliology where we all have a lot of questions in our mind and as these go by these questions keep increasing we are going to touch upon the subject of canon of the bible the expression canon of the bible is very common within christendom actually can and originally means a measuring rod and since for christians everything in related to their faith and practice is measured with the help of or against the bible the word canon is used for the bible and from today i would like to spend a few hours with you discussing canon of the bible lot of questions related to canon car being are floating around for example what is the guarantee that all the verbally inspired books were definitely added to the bible what is the guarantee that there were only 66 books in the bible what is the guarantee that the historical record is accurate lot of questions are there and we will i will try to handle as many of them as time permits but before we handle those questions a bit of background information is essential some of this background information known is known to all of us hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 remains that in former times god gave his revelation through prophets and in the end times he has spoken through his son lord jesus christ a verse very well known to us also sam 147 the last two verses they very clearly say that god gave revelation holy spirit inspired revelation only to the jews all of this is known to us we also generally christians know that the old testament books were written between 1450 bc 1450 bc to 400 bc the last book malachi was written around 400 bc and the first book genesis genesis of to deuteronomy and also yoga were written approximately around 1450 bc about new testament we know that all books books were written between 1835 and ad70 revelation was not written in 1895 please remember that is a theological that is an idea which theological radicals have planted in our minds and they have made it something they have etched it in stone and therefore the moment the idea of revelation or the moment the name revelation or the book of revelation comes oh we think it was written in 95. actually the last book of the bible was written before 1870 and 80 70 when the jewish temple was destroyed please remember no book of the new testament canon was written after that so the approximate gap between the first book of the bible and the last book only an approximate number very easy to remember would be 1500 years now if the bible was written in 1500 years the question is are we sure that all books are there well we will come to that later but there is a far more important and common question and the question is if the first book was written in 1450 bc that is 3450 bc do you think that the art of writing was known at that time 300 years ago a couple of theologically radical german scholars were the first to propose that moses could not have written the book of genesis because the art of writing was not known 3500 500 years from today unfortunately many protestant seminaries even brethren seminaries continue to teach that because their faculty members have gone to study in theological radical colleges and they come back and inject those radical ideas this background you have to keep in mind if i have to answer some of the questions which many of you have sent me okay this radical professor not only claimed that the art of writing was not known in 1450 bc he also said that after the art of writing was invented somebody 500 or 600 years after moses compiled stories from memories and there were four or five some claims six writers who together who put together all these five books which we attribute to moses looks very attractive not only attractive looks very persuasive and meri seminar is continued to teach this surprisingly the oldest discovered writing comes from sumeria and sumerian books were produced one thousand five hundred years before the time of moses or not one thousand five two thousand years before moses so here theological radicals are claiming on one side that the art of writing was not known at the time of moses and our people are parroting those absolutely scientifically erroneous ideas whereas archaeologists have discovered sumerian writings which were produced 2 000 years before the time of moses so the question of was the art of writing known at the time of moses we already have plenty of answers and the answer is from from the scripture from the ah from archaeology um i'm sorry i was distracted a little bit uh because uh some kind of a noise is coming okay i solved it writing was known two thousand years before the time of moses and therefore moses could easily have written um all these six books five of pentateuch and also the book of job not only was writing known two thousand years minimum two thousand years before genesis it is also known that many of these writings were copied from many more much more ancient writings so one thing is clear the more archaeology goes into depth the more it becomes clear that writing was known almost from the first generation of mankind then another question okay writing was known perhaps they were writing on stones they were writing on pot shreds and all that but what about books where people writing and compiling books and the answer is yes much before moses much much before moses there were vast libraries in this world for example one of the oldest libraries discovered not one of the oldest that was there one of the oldest which was physically discovered is the ebla library the ebla library was produced or those books were produced a thousand years before moses wrote genesis so there were books there were libraries they were not printed books the way we are used to but there were books there were languages there were inscriptions and there were vast libraries the ebla library has about 20 000 tablets and evidence evidence shows that this is only a part of the library almost maybe as much as 3 4 of it was destroyed and did not survive and all what has survived in the form of 20 000 tablets is approximately one-fourth of the library so ebla library was 1000 years older than the time of moses and many of the ebla tablets they say that they are copies of books from a library 1000 years older than those tablets that means that there were libraries there is a there is evidence physical evidence of library a thousand years older than moses and the literary evidence of library two thousand years before the time of moses so tomorrow is someone comes and asks you how could moses have written the first five books of the bible and job because the art of writing was not known at the time of moses don't stand silent in front of them ask them internet is available to you go and search google for the oldest inscription in the world and go and search google for the oldest library in the world let them do the searching why should christians always be at the receiving end we are at the receiving end because we are not bold and we are not bold because often we do not do our homework well okay so libraries were known two thousand years minimum before the time of moses inscription was known um much more earlier earlier than that so the question arises uh okay agreed thus bible does the old testament show any kind of familiarity with writings and books the answer is yes most of the time we read the bible we read the bible and study it mostly for the sake of doctrine and also for guidance in our practical lives but if we study the old testament carefully for background material related to writings inscriptions and books we would be stunned give me some let me give you some of the examples genesis chapter 5 verse 1 that's the oldest book in the bible along with job genesis chapter 5 verse 1 says this is the book of the generations of adam so one thing is clear they knew about books they produce books and right from the time of adam humans were in the habit of writing and producing books only thing they used clay biscuits or clay tablets stone and eventually leather paper came much late it came approximately around 380 but whatever writing material was available to them they used it and they used it liberally and they wrote down everything and therefore the first reference to books is in genesis chapter 5. in the same way exodus chapter 17 verse 4 it says thou shalt write all these things in a book of memorial or book for memorial and read it to them exodus chapter 32 moses says please remove my name from your book that means the idea book was very well known to moses and the lord says i will remove only those whom i want when we come to numbers in numbers 21 we read numbers 21 14 numbers 40 21 14 says mentions the book of the battles of the lord deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 24 says moses wrote all these all these into the book of the law then when we go to sam thank you thank you very much for thanks to dr noel for giving these references in the background yeah exodus 32 and then we come to numbers 214 that is the book of the battles of the lord then deuteronomy 31 24 thank you very much where it's where it says about the book of the law then when we come to the 40th sam sam 40 it is written about me in the scroll or the following is written about me in the scroll by the time sams were produced israelites had abandoned clay tablets they had abandoned stone tablets actually right from the time of moses they had started writing on leather scrolls so scroll is mentioned in sam 40 and then then i am skipping some references because there are too many references in the bible about book books daniel chapter 12 verse 1 says your people will obtain salvation as is written in your book revelation chapter 5 and 3 talks about a closed book and then a lot of books in god's presence are mentioned books in god's presence are your book book of the living book of life and book of remembrance book of remembrance is mentioned in malachi 3 16 malachi 3 16. revelation chapter 10 2 talks about a little book revelation 13 8 speaks about the book of the book of life of the lamb and so on many many other books are mentioned in the old testament and also in the new testament in relation to israelites and also in relation to christians the statement of paul please bring the scroll is known to all of us you might ask okay does it mean that only the jews had books maybe those people who claim that the art of writing was not invented at the time of moses maybe they are speaking about non-christians maybe or non-jews maybe the jews had writing they had writing material but probably non-jews did not have that's wrong the non-jews had plenty of books and they are also many of them are mentioned in the bible uh look at joshua chapter 10 verse 13 joshua 10 13 and 2nd samuel 118 they talk about the book of jasher translated in some languages as book of the brave this was the secular book and joshua was written approximately around approximately around 1400 so in 1400 a.d even non-christians had their own books book of jasher is one of them and then and that is a non-canonical book let me remind you and the scripture mentions a lot of other non-canonical books a good example is first kings chapter 14 verses 19 and 29 first kings 14 verses 19 and 29 they these verses talk about the chronicles of the kings of israel this is different from um first chronicles and second chronicles in in that is part of our our canon uh these verses mentioned about the chronicles of the kings of israel and also the chronicles of the kings of judah after the lord's people split into two both of them were keeping their own chronicles when we go and look into ancient civilizations it becomes very clear that all rulers almost all rulers they had their own scribes and the scribes used to write everyday activities into the chronicles of the ruling thing another good example is the book of esther we read in the book of esther that i'm quoting from memory it's not part of my notes but i thought that's relevant here i hope all of you remember the story of how the king could not sleep so the books of or the chronicles were brought to him and the chronicles were read and the king was listening to past history in his kingdom and suddenly he said oh mordecai wow was anything done for him and the eunuchs there said no master no lord nothing was done to them and therefore the king does something for mordechai that story is known to us so there also we read that a very systematic record was kept the same story was or the same idea was picked up by the american writer lee hawk who has produced this phantom series handheld is a white man who settles in africa and he works for the welfare and protection of africans and his library has hundreds of volumes known as phantom chronicles um lee fat was a christian he picked up the this idea from the scripture so not only was uh writing or not only were writings known to jews and israelites and not only does the scripture mention canonical writings the scripture also mentions non-canonical writings non-canonical writings by the jews and also by non-jews second chronicle chapter 9 29 second chronicle 9 29 12 15 and also 13 22 they talk about the book of shamaya and also book of nathan the prophet these are not canonical works these are works done by them to write their own memories more like diary writing first samuel 10 25 talks about a book the prophet was responsible to write the responsibilities of a king in a book or in a diary there is a modern term diary write in a book read it to the king and then give it to the king so that the king always abided by these principles it's mentioned in first samuel 10 25. we all know solomon who was it was the mightiest emperor first kings 10 41 talks about the chronicles of solomon so a detailed record of all what solomon did and all what he built and everything is there in this book not many more i'm not going to mention all of them not needed but this sample from the scripture is sufficient to remind each one each one of us that people who claim that the art of writing was not known at the time of bible they are greatly in error the art of writing was known at least 2000 years before moses wrote his first book and libraries were known a minimum of 2000 years before the time of moses the jews were in the habit of writing jews had plenty of leather with them they wrote a lot of material related to their history their chronology their families and properties and everything that could ever be written i mentioned esther which is from earlier i mentioned esther it's esther chapter 2 and verse 23 6 and verse 1 10 and verse 1 10 and verse 2 okay now the question is if they were so prolific in their writing what are the materials on which they wrote because uh if you write on stone tablets there is an there is a limit to it how much stone would you how many stone tablets would you make though it's true that they used stone tablets and though they also used leaves and many other materials the most common and easily available material before the time of moses was mud tablets they used to have very strong and sticky clay in those lamps so they would bring this sticky clay and they would so knead it into a dough remove all the stones and sand from it and then they would fold and they would spread that dough into the form of tablets when i say tablet uh don't think of the small tablets that we swallow you can think more of a more or you should think more like a slice from the largest bread that you can imagine that would be an approximate size of these clay tablets so they would bring clay they would knead it into a very sticky dough and they then they would spread it on stones and these tablets once they dried a little bit they had a pen like instrument using which they would put inscriptions on these tablets and then these tablets were placed into sun middle sun is extremely hot and therefore within a day these tablets would become very hard and resistant to erosion that is how able tablets were made and that is how tens of thousands of other tablets were made in middle east and since the clay was easily available and making clay tablets was very easy millions upon millions of clay tablets were made in middle east and hundreds of thousands have already been discovered then eventually they found out that leather is ideal for writing because [Music] very soon they were all non-vegetarians and very soon they discovered methods for tanning leather processing leather egyptians were very good egyptians were good at handling dead material so they develop many methods for processing leather the israelites learnt it from them that means the best methods of processing leather but much before much much before they migrated to egypt they had their own methods of leather tanning canned leather was used for tents and leather was also used to make bags and tanned leather sheets were used to make scrolls so though the original writings are almost majority of them are on clay tablets eventually people discovered tanned leather processed leather and they started writing on processed leather and since non-vegetarianism was very common leather was easily available and that's how the israelites wrote a lot of material they were in the wilderness for 40 years along with their animals and naturally in 40 years there were many generations of animals many of them were used for food and leather and plenty became available to them so after clay came leather and after leather came another material and that is peperas peperos was a was a plant with long leaves sticky leaves and they were able to take these leaves and slice them into thin sheets lay them across dry them and then polish them and write on them pepperos was much cheaper than leather and particularly in the egypt and nearby areas peperos was abundant because of that the new testament writers they had a great thing peperas was maybe a hundred times cheaper than leather and therefore they were able to produce books and copies of books a hundred times cheaper than leather books so uh when we come to the canon some of the questions which come to our mind i have already answered them was it it was writing known at the time of moses yes writing was known at least two thousand years before the time of moses where books known yes books were known and there were wasp libraries at least two thousand years before the time of moses what kind of materials did they have for writing they had clay tablets because clay was abundantly available the only thing clay was fragile and that's why they eventually shifted to leather but leather had its own problem of a problem with fragility and then came peperas which was much more abundant than leather and which was also cheaper than leather in scripture we also notice that from the time of moses god himself directly encouraged moses to write moses had a great advantage he was trained for 40 years as a prince of egypt egypt ruled a large number of countries around it and each country had its own language its own alphabet its own inscription and therefore if a if the ruler of egypt had to be powerful and also if he had to be successful he needed to learn many languages god purposely took moses to the palace of the pharaoh so that he was trained in all these languages all their alphabets and also in all the possible technologies of writing today when we think of the technologies of writing we think of balkan we think of gelpin we think of typewriters which have already gone into extinction and we also think of computer and maybe some of you right on your tablets or even on your mobiles each century had its own techniques and tools of writing since moses was brought up in the palace of pharaoh god used that as an opportunity or rather god sent moses to the palace of the pharaoh so that he could learn languages he could become a master in writing and also so that he would be aware of all the technologies which were available during his time for writing in exodus chapter 17 verse 14 we read a very interesting statement exodus 17 14 and the lord said unto moses write this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the eyes of joshua four i will utterly put out the remembrance of amalek from under heaven there are numerous verses like this or statements like this in the first five books of moses and they show us clearly that moses not only wrote the five books of pentateuch and the book of job but he also wrote a lot of non-canonical writings he had plenty of time for it they had 40 years in wilderness there was no cultivation there was no farming they had to look after animals that's all manna was provided to them and when they were fed up with beef or whatever they were used to god gave them quails a leader like moses had plenty of time to write and the five books of moses make it very clear that he wrote a lot of material one of which the lord mentions here and he says that write the book of memorial and um read it to joshua when it says rehearse in the years of joshua read it so thoroughly that he remembers it this way the scripture itself gives us a lot of evidence that at the time of moses writing became accelerated and writing became voluminous and voluminous amount of writing material was already available at that time then the question is how did they manage or why did they manage these books for hundreds or thousands of years joshua chapter 1 verse 1 2 and 8 give us insights into these things joshua chapter 1 verse 1 says now after the death of moses the servant of the lord servant of the lord came to pass that the lord spake unto joshua the son of noon moses minister saying moses my servant is dead now therefore arise go over jordan and as we go to the eighth verse this book this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth as we proceed in that verse thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written daring so god himself ordained that these books should be copied these should be used and they should be circulated gradually the people of god realize that they have to train people to copy the scripture today when we go to church almost everyone carries a bible some of us carry bibles some of us carry bible on their mobiles some of us by us i mean i am referring to the christian community some people carry printed bible and also electronic bibles this desire to possess a copy of the scripture is not modern man has always decided to possess at least portions of the scripture and when the when demand for scripture became high particularly after god's people settled in canaan which was not a single camp but it was a vast country there was much demand and gradually people who would who would copy the bible they arose in 2nd samuel 8 17 we read 2nd samuel 8 17 and zadok the son of ahitu and the son of where the priests it's talking about spiritual leadership and sarah was was the scribe gradually the people of god realized that some people have to be devoted completely to writing and copying and that is how scribes who are devoted to copying the bible and bible alone arose we know about ezra israel the scribe these are these are just two of the names actually the scripture mentions many more scribes and by the time people of god settled many of these prophets also had their own scribes when we read the book of the prophets it becomes obvious that many of the prophets were highly literate and not only were they highly literate they also employed scribes and the best example is that samuel samuel wrote a substantial portion of the historical books and when we come to kings and chronicles we there we read about many many scribes so one thing is clear the lord or god wanted his children to have the scripture in written form and since he wanted his children to have scripture in written form he himself motivated them to write he himself trained his people in writing and eventually once they settled in canaan they themselves realize that they need to have the equivalent of modern printing press scribes came up school subscribes came up schools of profits came up many times these overlapped the best techniques of writing were invented best techniques of copying were invented the best methods of copying were invented leather processing was continually refined the original leather used in wilderness was probably very thick gradually they found out methods to make leather thinner smoother and flatter archaeology gives a lot of evidence about these things and within the bible we read about all these developments we read about syria on the scribe we read about ezra the scribe there are indications in archaeology that ezra in fact ezra created a school of scribes who tried to copy the scripture much more carefully and accurately and on a regular basis than what was done before his time meanwhile there are plenty of indications in the bible itself that the original was kept in the temple and copies were made and given to people deuteronomy 31 24 gives a background information about copying deuteronomy 31 24 15 26 and it came to pass when moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in the book until they were finished that moses commanded the levites which bear the ark of the covenant of the lord saying take this book of the law put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the lord your god that it may be there for a witness against thee starting from here the habit of preserving god's word in temple eventually solomon built the temple and when we come to ezra and nehemiah it becomes obvious to us that the temple eventually became a temple complex large number of rooms go downs so these books the originals were preserved in the temple and copies were circulated they were sent to houses of prayer and eventually when synagogues came up they needed their own copies so this way a number of developments were there the canon was written canon was preserved in the temple of god originally in the tabernacle then in the temple of god copies were made scribes came up they devoted their entire life to copy the bible and copies were sent everywhere copies even came to there are there is oral history which indicates that copies came even to india this way the old testament was not only written but it was also preserved and it was spread a question related to it has come to me and the question is how did moses get to write the book of job seeing that job was not his contemporary that's a good question related to that there is another question uh what is the evidence that moses wrote the book of job both these are linked with each other actually the scripture itself genesis chapter 5 shows that right from the first generation adam they were in the habit of writing down noting down history and therefore the history of job would have been written in great detail by himself and by his children you might ask was writing known as at his time yes bible itself makes very the scripture itself makes it very clear that writing was known at the time of abraham and job and abraham were contemporaries from his previous gathering job came from the town of woods and from all evidences in archaeology his hometown and also abraham's hometown these were centers of culture in fact abraham's city was so developed that the fort around their city provided provided the brics bricks for building to thousands of people in 1600s and 1700s who were just going to the mountain digging finding bricks hundreds thousands of thousands of bricks and bringing and building their houses it took uh maybe millions of bricks for people to realize that these bricks are not accidental it's probably part of a fortress and that is how they discovered the town in which a town which abraham had left so uh how did moses get all this writings were in plenty written material was in plenty and since job was a person who followed the true god written material about him would surely have been perpetuated or carried from generation to generation by god's children the second question is how do you know that moses wrote the book of job that comes from what is known as oral history history has multiple components there is visual history there is oral history and there is inscriptional history unfortunately till a few decades ago the entire emphasis of historians was on inscriptional history we also have to realize that the major world historians were all westerners and the western historians focused mostly on written history a good example would would be to envy turnbee and his world history eventually it was after 1950s and 60s that they discovered that written history is not the only history there is oral history there is visual history and since then much work has been done or is being done on visual and also oral history and it it has become clear that oral history provides information probably a hundred times more than or a thousand times more than what written history gives us so uh this claim that i made that it was moses who wrote the book of job comes from oral history and a lot of oral history related to bible is now being compiled and much of it has been a great help to uh by the students lord willing we will continue from here uh canon is a topic on which there are many questions in everyone's minds particularly because the biblical idea of canon is highly repulsive to theological radicals and for last 300 years they have tried to wipe out the idea of canon from our minds ideas have consequences and that's why we have so many questions but if there are 10 questions i want to remind you history and our theology give us a hundred answers god bless you