father please or our here at for your help we need to make progress in going deep with your word and so I ask for your assistance again in Jesus name Amen which books make up the Bible that is which books are in the Canon there are other books in the time of the Bible that are in the Catholic canon for example namely the Apocrypha which include books like these estrous for some second Tobit judith and so on these are the books that you would find in the Apocrypha now the question would be one question why don't we have those in our Bible most of those come from the period between the Testaments intertestamental period now called Second Temple Judaism the belief concerning those books among the Jews was this the rabbinical literature this is from the Talmud after the latter prophets Haggai Zechariah and Malachi had died the Holy Spirit departed from Israel but they still availed themselves of the buck Cole daughter of the voice so the the typical Jewish view in Jesus day was that after the minor prophets there there wasn't any inspiration of Scripture now the question is is that what Jesus thought is that what we should think or not here's the Jewish Canon that I'm gonna argue for because that's what's in our Bible and I think we can know why the Hebrew Canon was traditionally 24 books which include all of our 39 and no more and these are divided into three sections the reason the reason it goes from 29 39 to twenty fours because they combine some that we separate I'll show you what they are in a minute there are three sections in the Old Testament Jewish Hebrew Canon Torah naveen and Coutu veem that's the Hebrew word for law prophets writings if you take the T the in and the CH and put aids between them you get Tanakh so if you're talking to a Jewish friend today and you want to talk about his Bible if you use the word Tanakh he'll know exactly what you're talking about that means that Hebrew Canon and he'll appreciate that in fact if you called the Old Testament he'll it won't like you because it's not the Old Testament it's the only Testament you Christian could call it an Old Testament we do believe it's old and has been superseded by the new but they don't and so this would be their word and it would be fine to use it the Tanakh so the Torah in the Jewish Bible and I'm gonna argue that this is Jesus Bible contains Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy the prophets the naveen the prophets are Joshua judges Samuel 1st and 2nd combined Kings combined Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel the Minor Prophets all in one book 12 books in one book Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi and the writings Coutu Veeam Psalms Joe proverbs Ruth Song of Solomon Ecclesiastes limitations Esther Daniel Ezra Nehemiah one book and chronicles one book and that adds up to 24 and they're exactly the same as the that we have in our Old Testament thus the Canon of the Jews began with Genesis and ended with Chronicles this is the aura just gave you the order that they occur in the Hebrew Old Testament different from our English Bible because our English Bible is based on the order of the Greek translation the Septuagint of the Old Testament called the Septuagint but the earliest Christian witnesses show that the apocryphal books included in the Septuagint were not counted as canonical it's very interesting that our English Bible is given in the order in the Old Testament of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament but it omits all the apocryphal books which were in the Greek Testament so you know it's a pretty conscious choice not to include those books now do we have any New Testament pointers to the existence and the extent of the Old Testament canon to hear a few Paul assume the legitimacy of the scriptures that were being taught to Jewish children so he says in 2nd Timothy 3 but as for you continue in what you have learned and firmly believe knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus so Eunice and Lois these Jewish women were teaching Timothy and Paul affirmed that he should believe those books there's no record of any dispute between Jesus and the Jewish leaders of his day over what the extent of the Scriptures was he seemed to assume that their Bible was his Bible and he made remarkable claims about its authority which we'll see later the Scriptures cannot be broken he said to them the scriptures that they agreed on the three part Jewish division of the Old Testament is assumed by Jesus Luke 24:44 now he said to them these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms and almost everybody agrees that the word Psalms here is simply a replacement of the word writings because it's the biggest and most dominant book in the writings so stands for all the writings not that Christ rejected all the other writings so those three groups he said spoke of him the Jewish order of the closed Jewish canon is assumed now here we get I think the most significant argument for saying that Jesus Bible his Bible was the Jewish Canon not the Canon that included the Apocrypha why why do we say that so here's the argument see if I can reconstruct it for you we've got Luke 11 49 to 51 and Jesus says this therefore also the wisdom of God said I will send them prophets and apostles some of whom they will kill and persecute that the blood of all the prophets shared from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation from the blood of abel to the blood of zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary now what he's trying to do with that statement is to say all the prophets in the Old Testament and he mentions one in Genesis 3:4 very first prophet to die Abel and the last one he mentions is a prophet named Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary well who is that well it isn't the last chronological martyr in the Old Testament chronologically the last martyr in the Old Testament was Uriah the son of Shimei aya whose death is described in Jeremiah 26 22 23 and he died during the reign of Jehoiakim who reigned from 609 to 598 BC however in 2nd chronicles the last book of the Jewish Old Testament Canon it says there was a Zechariah killed in the temple court goes like this so this is second chronicles 24 now picture this so we can get get you with me our Old Testament is with Malachi the Hebrew Old Testament ends with 2nd chronicles and Jesus has said they will be responsible for the blood of all the prophets from the one in the beginning of Genesis to the end of 2nd chronicles Zechariah so let's read about that one the spirit of the God took possession of Zechariah the son of jehoiada the priest and he stood above the people and said to them thus says God why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord so that you cannot prosper because you have forsaken the Lord he has forsaken you but they conspired against him and by command of the king they stoned him with stones so Zechariah son of jehoiada second chronicles 24 is stoned to death with stones in the court of the house of the Lord and Jesus refers to him able to Zechariah when there's a Uriah later who stoned why why didn't he say from able to Uriah and the answer is he's working with the Hebrew Canon that's why which means his Bible was the Hebrew Canon not the Apocrypha photographers not in the Hebrew Canon it's those 24 books that are in the Hebrew Canon and therefore I'm arguing that when Jesus held his Bible or studied his Bible he was studying the Hebrew Canon which is going to be very important because I'm gonna argue that he said spectacular things about this book absolutely breathtaking things about it which would not apply at least we have no reason to believe it would apply to the Apocrypha according to one count by Roger Nicole the New Testament quotes various parts of the Old Testament as divinely authoritative over 295 times but not once do they cite any statement of the books of the Apocrypha or any other writings as having divine authority Jude 1415 does quote first Enoch and Paul quotes pagan authors in Ex 1728 and Titus 1:12 but these citations are not said to be from Scripture or to be authoritative because of their sources now New Testament so my conclusion at that point is the Bible we're working with that Jesus claims to be authoritative which I'll show shortly these this first two-thirds of the Bible are made up of the 39 books that we have which were the same as the 24 books in the Hebrew Bible that's the argument so far now let's shift over to the new testament the new testament assumed the existence of a canonical scriptures the concept was not foreign to them or added later the 24 beginning with moses and with all the prophets he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures there's Jesus and the writer of Luke saying all the scriptures testify to me so there is a body of truth called the scriptures John 5:39 you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life acts 17 to false custom he went in to them and for three Sabbath's reason with them from the scriptures and so on so we're working with a New Testament conception of Canon here that they didn't make it up let's jump down to the main point the point here is that for the church to begin to govern its life and doctrine by more than this authoritative Canon of scriptures something similar in de thority and limitation would be necessary teams namely a supplementary canon now there's get yourself into the mind and head of those who had lived all their lives with this canon of Old Testament and suddenly the Messiah comes into the world and begins to teach forms a church commissions Apostles founds a movement how will it function how will it govern itself how will it know what's true as falsehoods come at it and I'm saying they've got already a model of a cannon will they not move towards a larger one Jesus was recognized by the early church as having Authority equal to and beyond the Old Testament Scriptures were arguing now that there's coming into being the concept of a New Testament canon how is it coming to being Jesus he was teaching them he was teaching them as one having Authority and not as their scribes so Jesus is emerging now as having an authority different from those who expose it to the Old Testament he seems to be aligning himself alongside the Old Testament even over the Old Testament which is shaking them up Matthew 5 38 you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth that's a quote from the Bible Old Testament and he says but I say to you it's a breathtaking statement from a human being do not resist him who is evil or mark 1331 heaven and earth will pass away he said but my words will not pass away Jesus said I'm the way the truth the truth the truth and the life these are spectacular claims about his function in relationship to the truth of the Old Testament Matthew 28:18 all Authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth Hebrews 1 God after he spoke long ago to the fathers and prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days has spoken to us in his son aligning his son alongside those great prophets and there for pressing for some kind of new or expanded Canon with Jesus himself as the center authority of it so the point here is that the teaching of Jesus would inevitably lead to an expansion of the Canon of the early church the Old Testament would be supplemented by what Jesus taught and did the challenge is opened then for the early church how to limit what is inevitably opened by the coming and teaching of Jesus theologically a closed Canon of the New Testament is what we would expect in accord with what God has inspired and preserved for us in the Old Testament this is what Norman Anderson said if we accept Jesus testimony to the god-given Authority of the Old Testament it would seem intrinsically unlikely that the most stupendous event in human history the life and death and resurrection of its incarnate Lord would have been left by the God who had revealed it in advance without any authoritative record or explanation for future generations no there's that's just simply saying we would expect that if God had seen fit to govern his people through a Canon in the Old Testament then the arrival of his son and the perpetuation of the people of God the church would seem to be governed by a group of books as well now is that case are there pointers to it Jesus pointed in this direction and prepared the early church to expect that he not only planned the Canon of teaching concerning himself in his word but he would provide for it as well through authorized apostles and through inspiration so he chose apostles he named them apostles the word apostle means a sent one who goes with authoritative representation of another so in choosing the twelve he's choosing those who will now lay the foundation of truth in being his official representatives and were not perpetuating that's why in acts 1 26 they drew lots for them and the lot fell to Matthias and he was numbered with the eleven apostles that didn't happen over and over and over again because these apostles were going to fulfill the role of authoritative inspired spokesmen for the church so what about inspiration Jesus says he who does not love me does not keep my words and the word which you hear is not mine but the fathers who sent me these things I have spoken to you while abiding with you but the helper the Holy Spirit whom the father will send in my name will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you know I think the primary meaning of that sentence that last sentence there is to inform us and to insure them that when it came time for them to provide authoritative teaching for the church they would be able to do it he would help them do it he would enable them to do it I think that's Jesus way of preparing us and them for the doctrine of the inspiration of New Testament another one John 16 I have many more things to say to you Jesus said but you cannot bear them now but when he the spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth for he will not speak on his own initiative but whatever he hears he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come he shall glorify me for he shall take of mine and shall disclose it to you so there's Jesus in two places preparing his apostles to know why he has chosen them in relationship to his church namely that they are going to be the repository of his future inspiration and enabling authority to teach with authority so the early church saw the teaching that emerged from Jesus and the Apostles as comprising a completed body of truth about the faith and you get to see that in Jude 1:3 beloved while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the Saints a little Greek word is once for all and that's an important word in the New Testament because it means that what's happening in the New Testament is unique and historically decisive and once for all Jesus comes once for all he appoints 12 once for all he inspires them to teach the church and provide the foundation for the church once for all and there is now a faith delivered to us once for all doesn't get added to century after century rather what is taught every century subsequent to this takes its key from what was once for all delivered that's the importance of that little word there once for all what about Paul Paul saw the apostolic teaching as the unrepeatable foundation of the church or the Canon and saw his own teaching as the expression of the Lord's very words and command amazing some of the things that he says foundation seasons 2:19 so then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are fellow citizens with the Saints and are of God's household having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone so he pictures the Apostles and that and might mean who are also there's a little debate about how the prophets relate to the Apostles here but this is foundational this is foundational not repeated you are built upon the the church is like a temple and has a foundation with a cornerstone and in this text the foundation of the church is the Apostles / prophets cornerstone being Christ himself so the way to think about who are the Apostles that govern the church today answer right there there Dan and they have written their word to us here and we govern ourselves by submitting to this and any elder or pastors role in the church is to make this plain structure everything according to this build his life around this teach this rather than add to this that's what foundation implies here in Ephesians 2:20 what about inspiration among the Apostles in Paul's own understanding 2nd Corinthians 13 3 he says to the church you are seeking for proof that the Christ who speaks in me you are speaking seeking for truth of the Christ who speaks in me and who is not weak toward you but mighty in you so he believes that Christ is speaking in and it was controversial in his own day you know how often he was being criticized saying you're not a real apostle the real apostle is from Jerusalem and he had to defend himself again and again as an apostle there's one that Christ had appeared to that was the qualification of an apostle he appeared to them in commissioning and so he had to make a special appearance to Paul on the Damascus Road and Paulus said I'm like one who was born out of time I wasn't one of the twelve but he was the decisive spokesman for the Gentiles and there wasn't any after him or first Corinthians 14 37 if anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's command so he's making his writings the test of all spiritual claims in the church amazing that's either you know like two CS Lewis argued liar lunatic Lord heard that argument before Jesus is either a liar or he's a lunatic or he's true same thing is to appalled I mean this statement is off the charts either he's a liar or he's a lunatic megalomaniac or he's an inspired apostle because the talk like that is amazing he says in first Corinthians 2:12 now we have received not the spirit of the law of the world but the spirit of who is from God that we might understand the things freely given to us by God and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual that's important because we're here I don't think we're here we this is not us this is Paul and the other band of apostles authoritative spokesmen with him and we're here and he's interpreting spiritual things to those who have the spirit and God is gay giving to him words taught by the by the spirit not by human wisdom to do that so Paul I'm arguing is making very strong claims about his own authority which is where the New Testament Canon is going to come from Peter saw Paul's writings as part of an enlarging canon of Scripture alongside the Old Testament Scriptures this is very important 2nd Peter 3:16 Paul wrote to you in all his letters speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand which the untaught and unstable distort as they do also the rest of or the other scriptures to their own destruction do you see what that implies Peter the Apostle is saying of this Apostle Paul that his writings are Scripture that's really big people are distorting Paul's letters because they're hard to understand like they do the rest of the scriptures to their own destruction so with this built-in trajectory toward a new Canon that would give authorized record of the life and teachings of Jesus and the foundational teachings of his authoritative spokesmen what remained for the early church to do was to discern which writings were the fulfillment of Jesus promised to the Apostles the rise of heretical teachings and the use of distorted books Marcion for example 140 spurred the process of canonization how did the church do that before I say any more I mean something just came to my mind which when I heard it years and years ago from dr. gull told my professor in Germany it was very very significant I'll just throw it out to you see you can store it away and use it when it comes in handy what you're going to see in a moment is that the closing and the final recognition of the New Testament Canon the 27 books that we have as a rule and authority and inspired and authoritative and and inspired was recognized in the first council in the 4th century 3 something I'll see in a minute so what happen in the first three centuries with the authoritative books and the answer is that there they are exercising their authority as they proved themselves to be apostolic and the church is being governed by them and the church is gradually recognizing which are and which aren't and they are competing books and dr. Gould observed that the theology in many respects of the early church becomes pure after the formal recognition of the Canon than it was before for this very reason namely that the books and the authoritative Canon was fully recognized and finished so that everybody was keying off the same group of documents instead of random choices the reason that's significant is because there are a lot of people today that are urging us to go back to the pristine first two or three centuries with the assumption the closer you are to Jesus in the books you read the more accurate will be the theology and professor God will stay in no way that does not follow it may be true in any given case it just doesn't follow because the books were working their way into the life of the church gradually and the church then finally said these are they these are the ones have proved themselves over the last three centuries but in that process you're not people all over the world saying off-the-wall things because they don't have the fullness of the Canon with which to test their ideas that's significant for you to think about so when you hear somebody say well I think we should go back to the first and second and third centuries and read all that and make and follow that as our key for what's orthodoxy well maybe maybe not there may be insights there that you don't get anywhere else but be careful you don't assume that that's the case it makes a lot of sense to me that once that Canon is clearly unified and the one book that the whole church is now saying yes to would be a better foundation for a coherent big Church theology than the first three centuries here's our here the books the reason for these books I skipped it the main criterion for the books that were recognized as authoritative and canonical was apostille licit II not just was it a book written by an apostle but also was it written in the company of an apostle or presumably with his endorsement and approval for example here they are Matthew these are just the authors now Matthew apostle mark Peters interpreter and assistant and witness to that in pay pious writings Luke close associate and partner Paul who wrote more of the New Testament than anybody that's why I named my first son Carsten Luke Carsten because he was born in Germany and Luke because Luke wrote more of the New Testament than anybody else and I thought maybe he'll be a writer someday which he is you thought Paul wrote most of the New Testament but Luke acts together are more of the New Testament than all of Paul so Luke is the dominant quantitative writer in the New Testament and he as you can see from the book of Acts is traveling with Paul just give you a little tidbit of what the speculation but I think warranted Luke says Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart how does he know that an inspiration in my understanding folds in all the means by which an author finds out true things God doesn't have to dictate that mary mary i think mary told him that i think he interviewed mary because he's roaming around in palestine for two years while Paul's in jail in the book of Acts at the end of his life we know that because of the Wiis sections in the book of Acts we went here and we went there and so the we sections you got Luke arriving there with Paul only Paul gets slammed in jail for two years what's Luke doing all that time Luke's not from from Judea he doesn't he's a Gentile he's he's going everywhere talking to people who knew Jesus I mean what else would you do like if you had two years to spare right in his home territory and you hadn't grown up there but the reason we say it's it's apostolic even though he wasn't an apostle is that he was right there with the Apostle Paul John was an apostle 13-episode Paul he was an apostle Hebrews we don't know who wrote Hebrews but at the end it says I urge you brethren bear with this word of exhortation for I have written to you briefly take notice that our brother Timothy has been released with whom if he comes soon I shall see you greet all the leaders I only point that out to say I don't know who the writer to the Hebrews was but he he was in the band around Paul and Timothy looks like James brother of Jesus called an apostle probably in Galatians 1:19 but I did not see any other of the Apostles except James maybe didn't mean maybe it's not interpreted that way could be except James doesn't have to mean he was impossible but it may mean that he was viewed as a kind of apostle at any rate very closely connected to the Apostles and then Peter and then John Jude brother of James and revelation John those are the books that we have in the New Testament or the authors that we have and the argument is that they are apostolic even though they are not all apostles the most controversial books that took the longest to confirm themselves for the whole church were Hebrews James 2nd Peter 2nd 3rd John and Jude there was no controversy about the others but these controversy swarmed around them but in the end the church discerned their harmony with the others and their antiquity and essential apostille lissa t the core list apart from the controverted books was known at the latest in this in the latter part of the second century our Aeneas mentions them the list of 27 in 8 180 though not in any official way that came 367 the first list known to us with all 27 books is in the festival letter of Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria in AD 367 so I misspoke when I said that all of them were listed in here in irony us I forget just how many most of them were there then here the list was affirmed by the Synod of Hippo then again in 393 another question when you look how late that date is is did the church finally create this Canon or what dr.
folks Jackson expresses my view when you says the church assuredly did not make the New Testament the two grew up together I'm going to distance myself therefore from the Roman Catholic understanding of authority here runners the authority of the church and go with F F Bruce and other Protestants F F Bruce puts it like this what is particularly important to notice is that the New Testament Canon was not demarcated by the arbitrary decree of any church council when at last a church council the Synod of Hippo in 83 93 listed the 27 books of the New Testament it did not confer upon them any authority which they did not already possess but simply recorded their previously established canonicity let me just try to say this gently one of the things that separates protestants and roman catholics is the way you think about authority of the Bible and relationship to the church Protestants like to say that the Bible created the church and Catholics tend to say the church created or confirmed the Bible in other words the Bible has its authority because the church councils gave it their authority and thus align Church Authority Pope especially the office that he holds and Bible are together in the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants order it like this Bible and church and that's where I am and I think that's what happened that the Bible pressed itself upon the church and the church didn't create a Canon it recognized a Canon so what is the Canon five books of narrative Matthew Mark Luke John acts letters 21 of them and then a book of visions the revelation and that's what makes up our Bible so that's how the Bible came to be and why I believe what we have as the Bible is what we should have as the Bible no books are missing that should be in it and no books are in it that shouldn't be there I have a list here of books on the Canon which I don't expect you to write down now but if you want to look at them later you can Metzker bruce Harris Warfield Geisler there are many books and you can it's amazing what you can do on the internet these days you just need to be discerning what you find and do with it but amazing information is there step 3 do we have the very words written by the biblical authors because if you say these are the right books but in fact they've been so distorted by transmission that you can't trust them then doesn't really matter that you have the right books because you've lost what was in them anyway which is what some people are saying today do we have any of the original manuscripts and try to move through this quickly this is pretty technical stuff and it would be easy and in in a sense it would be fun to sink down into it but I don't think if the payoff is this big here as some other things that we could talk about so let me try to move quickly do we have any of the original manuscripts no we don't we do not have any of the actual piece of paper or papyrus or parchment that a biblical writer actually wrote on how were the manuscripts of the New Testament preserved the first printed Greek New Testament was in 1516 by Rasmus before that everything was transmitted by copying by hand and we owe our Bible to the meticulous love and care given by countless monks and scholars for the first 1500 years of the church era how many manuscripts are there we're not prepared this several years ago well actually I quoted from 1967 statistics says that's the book I've studied textual criticism in but I just saw online today at Justin Taylor's blog reading an article by then Dan Wallace that he said today 5700 manuscript fragments of the New Testament in the original Greek 1967 the statistics were these new-school texts lectionary portions prepare a but you don't need to know that how does this amount of evidence compared with other ancient writings of the same era we have no original manuscripts of any other writers from this period of history it's phenomenal that the the New Testament so outshines all others just in terms of of quantity I could you know I could give you examples here Caesar's Gallic Wars 10 manuscripts available parts of Roman history Livy 20 manuscripts the histories and annals of Tacitus 2 manuscripts history of acidities 8 manuscripts compared to 5000 fragments of manuscripts for the New Testament it's simply astonishing it creates problems but it creates amazing potential as well does this small number of manuscript calls secular scholars to despair that we can know what these writers wrote the ones I just listed if if Bruce says no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest manuscripts of their works which are of any use to us are over 1300 years later than the originals whereas New Testaments go back to the 2nd century some of them so are you saying that the New Testament is unique in having so many manuscripts yes no other ancient book comes close to this kind of wealth of diverse preservation what are some of these oldest manuscripts the oldest is a papyrus comes from about 80 130 just confirm that again today some date it is into the first century and some later like this and contains John 1831 233 and 37 following just a little old fragment and see it on both sides the only fully the only full early manuscript of the New Testament comes from 8350 called the codex Sinaiticus because it was discovered in monastery on Mount Sinai so are the manuscripts the only source of our knowledge of the original wording of the New Testament writings no in addition to manuscripts there are quotations from the New Testament in very early writers outside the New Testament for example in the decay and the Epistle of Barnabas and clemont's letter to the Corinthians were produced around eighty one hundred and quote extensively from the New Testament so you can compare what they quoted and what's actually there in the Greek manuscripts the letters of Polycarp and Ignatius Bishop of Antioch around 80 120 contain many quotes from the Gospels and the letters of Paul do all these manuscripts create problems or solutions for getting back to the original writings the huge number of manuscripts of the New Testament results in two things one there are many variations in wording among them because they were all copied by hand and subject to human error there are so many manuscripts that these errors tend to be self-correcting by the many manuscript witnesses we have to compare here's whatever if bruce says fortunately if the great number of manuscripts increases the number of scribal errors it increases proportionally the means of correcting such errors so that the margin of death left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared it is in truth remarkably small is there a branch of biblical studies that focuses on this problem of getting back to the wording of the original writings yes the branch of biblical studies that works with all these sources to determine the best manuscript is textual criticism and I'm I thank God that there are text critics who do that work for us when I was in Germany just to give you a flavor for this when I was in Germany 1971 to 1974 doing my dissertation on love your enemies Jesus love command in the early Christian ethical teaching and in the Synoptics I was so nervous so just could I do this I felt like I'd gotten into this program under false pretenses because they they didn't look at any of my papers or any of my grades they just said come because dr. Ladd recommended me this is crazy they should test me and see if I can do this and so here I am I don't speak German well enough I've been there about nine months been studying like crazy and dr.
