 All right, good morning and welcome everyone to the class today. This is the class on Christian apologetics. So good morning, welcome. Let's take a moment just to pray together and then we will get started. I'll request somebody to pray with us as a class and then we will get started. Could somebody lead us in prayer please? Well, Father, we thank you a lot for this morning. Thank you a lot for teaching us on Christian apologetics. Help us Lord for the learning of this. Lord, you will be equipped and able to give a valid difference to everyone who has reason for our hope. Lord, as we are ready to hear more from you. Teach us Lord by your spirit. Bless the first one. Bless everyone of us Father. We thank you for teaching us and you can bring us more and more for your glory. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, good morning once again. This class is being recorded for the benefit of others who will be listening to it later. So we are right now in our second topic or team in this course on apologetics, which is we've been discussing the authenticity and the accuracy of the scriptures, the Bible. The 66 books of the Bible. So we've been talking about that last week. We spent some time just trying to understand how the Bible came to us. The manuscripts, the reliability of the scripts of these manuscripts and how these have been then put together for us. So we said, okay, the text of the scriptures is highly reliable based on the criteria that is generally used, which is the number of manuscripts that are available and also the time gap that is considered. So we said based on that, the scriptures are very reliable. Today we're continuing on the same theme in this first hour. What we will look at very quickly in the next two questions, which is one is how will the scriptures canonized and I'll explain how did we receive, get the canon of scripture. And then the next question, the third question or the last question we want to answer is, you know, why, what is the difference between why there is so many English versions of the Bible and what is the difference between those versions and so on. Right, so my plan, my hope today is we'll finish that in the first hour. And then after the break in the second hour, we can move to the next topic, which is we focus on the person of Christ and so on, and the uniqueness of Christ and, you know, the next week we pick up on the resurrection of Christ and things related to the person of Jesus Christ himself. So my hope is to be able to finish the learning about the scriptures in this first hour and then move into our next topic after the break. Right, so we're going to, I will share with you the PDF and the students are just coming in. So let's see and think if I shift to the PDF, the some students might get locked out. Anyway, let me just go ahead and do it. Alright, so what we want to do is to understand how we got the Canon of Scripture. So the word Canon literally means a rod, a straight rod. And then by extension it came to, you know, mean a rule or a measure. And then by extension it came to mean a standard. You know, so when we talk about the Canon of Scripture, we're talking about the scriptures, the list of books that are acknowledged to be the rule of belief and practice. So it's, this is the standard. This is the rule for our faith, the rule for our belief and practice. So Canon scriptures. So what we're trying to understand is, you know, how did these scriptures come to us? So we talked first about the Old Testament. Now, these notes are out there in your coursework. I just put it out there this morning so you can pick it up and read through it in detail. I will explain it for us. So how did the Old Testament come to us? Now, us means as Christians, but of course they were first the Hebrew, they first belonged to the Jews or the Hebrew scriptures. So then we talk about the New Testament. So let's understand about the Old Testament scriptures. Now, just a little background here is the Hebrew Bible. That is the scriptures that the Jews had, which we would have referred to as the Hebrew Bible, which is part of Judaism. They had the first five books that belonged to the law of Moses. Moses wrote those five books. Then the prophets and which consists of these eight books, Joshua, Judges and all the way, Ezekiel and Isaiah, and also the minor prophets or the lesser smaller prophets, the 12 books there. And then also the sacred writings. So the writings consisted of these 11 books, the Psalms, Proverbs and so on. So this was the original set of books. And we will talk about why these books and so on. I'm just giving you a little background here. So this was the original set of books which the Jews are considered as their sacred scriptures and their reasons for it. We will mention it. And this was the Hebrew Bible, which we today refer to as the Old Testament. Now, of course, when we compiled as the Old Testament, there were some, you know, first and second Samuel, first and second King. There were some adjustments rearranging, Ezra and Nehemiah separated, first and second Chronicles and Ruth was placed in there. So when we compiled it, or when we say we compiled it, meaning when it was put into the scriptures as we know, the Bible, it was the same Old Hebrew Bible, but just, I would say, packed together slightly differently. Now, the Hebrew text, the traditional Bible, the original Hebrew text was known as the Masoretic text and that Hebrew text was also discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which we spoke about last week, the mid 1900s. Now, the Greek version of that often is referred to as the Septuagint. So this is the Greek translation of the Hebrew text. So just some background. Now, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, the last book or the last book, Malachi, was somewhere around 435 BC, approximately around that time. So about 400 years or so before Christ. And that's the last prophet, Malachi. The history books, Ezra and Nehemiah Esther, they were the last history books. This was after the people returned back to, around the time, the people returned back from Babylon and resettled back in Jerusalem. This was again, somewhere around the mid 400 BC, somewhere 445 to 433 BC. So the last of the prophetic prophets, the last of the history books, the writings, all of them came together somewhere around 430, 420 BC. So basically by that time, let's say, even if you round it up to about 400 BC, by that time, the Hebrew scripture, of which we refer to as the Old Testament, was complete. So they had the Lord Moses, they had the prophets, so coming close to about mid 400 BC, that was complete. The history books, the writings, the history comes down to about, again, mid 400 BC, done. And so that was their complete set of scriptures. And we will talk about why they looked at the scriptures and so on. I'm just giving the background here. So around this time, they, you know, it was like God stopped speaking to his people, meaning there weren't anybody else coming as a prophet, as a recognized mouthpiece or a prophet of God. And saying, thus says the Lord. Until later, John the Baptist came. But from about mid 400 BC with Malachi, ending with Malachi, that was it. There was no more inspired people coming with inspiration and saying, this is the Lord, thus said the Lord. So with that came the complete collection of Hebrew scriptures. Now, there was no single person, there was no single council or a group of people that decided that this was going to be the collection of Old Testament Hebrew scriptures. And let me use what Hebrew scripture, because we refer to as Old Testament, but originally it is the Hebrew scriptures. So there was no individual or collection of, you know, leaders who said, okay, these are the scriptures, but it actually happened over time. Right. So these collection of sacred writings took place over time. The one person that we could point to at the, around this period here, Nehemiah Ezra, we said, was the last of the history books. Nehemiah Ezra is the last of these history books to be put together. So Ezra was a scribe and a priest who returned back from the Babylonian captivity. And he came back to Jerusalem around that time. And so he had the entire collection of the Hebrew scriptures of what we refer to as the Old Testament. Ezra the priest. And you find that in the book of Ezra itself. So he is, what we say, he is, we're not saying he's the one who decided on the collection, but he had the collection and he preserved the collection, bringing it back into Jerusalem. Because remember prior to that time Nehemiah Ezra had come in, he had destroyed the temple, destroyed Jerusalem and gone. But Ezra the priest and of course the people with him in the synagogue at that time did his part in preserving much of these sacred writings. And so therefore he had in his possession the collection of the sacred scriptures, bringing it back into Jerusalem. But then, like we said earlier, there is no one person who decided on the collection of the Old Testament scriptures. But what do we know, what can we say with confidence is that over time, right from the beginning, over time, starting with Moses and on, over time, this community, meaning the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, they, based on certain criteria, which we have listed here, recognized these writings as sacred, as divinely inspired. And now we understand and we know that, you know, initially, things were passed on orally, and then the, or the prophets spoke and people wrote down what the prophets spoke, or the prophets themselves wrote, themselves wrote it. And then of course there were people who recorded things. So some of these writings were spoken and written at one go, that means the prophet spoke, it was documented and written. So these things were collected over time. So for example, the Psalms and the Proverbs were collected over time. But the criteria that this community, that means you don't know what the Hebrews, the Jewish people, that this community had to recognize any of these writings as sacred, as given by God were these. First and foremost was, was the man, was a person speaking under divine inspiration. So, you know, did the prophet say thus says the Lord, was he speaking on behalf of God. So when Moses spoke on behalf of God, that was recognized as scripture, meaning this is something that is given to us by God, right. Similarly, Isaiah and other prophets, was, was he a German prophet of God. So was a person bringing the message, recognized as a prophet of God. Did the writings agree with previous writings which were considered sacred. So when Moses gave forth the first five books. So there was a certain established truths already that was accepted as given by somebody who spoke under inspiration and by somebody was German prophet of God. So, did other prophets of God, others who spoke on behalf of God, what they spoke which was written over what they wrote, was it in agreement with previous doctrine. Did other prophets recognize earlier prophets, right, did they recognize the writings, and most importantly, or I'm not saying most importantly but very important criteria was, did these writings survive through time. So, looking back, right, and I'm not saying these people sat down at that time and said look, these are the five criteria that they're going to select scriptures know they didn't do it like that. It happened over time. It was really the hand of God guiding these people. But us today, looking back, can list these as unspoken, unstated criteria by which something was recognized by this community and talking about the Jews, the Hebrew people, by the Jews as part of the Hebrew scriptures. Right. So, like we said earlier, it wasn't like one person sat down and said okay, this is in and this is out. It wasn't some group of people who sat down and said this is in and this is out. But it is something that took place over time over, you know, like we're saying what over 1,500 years or so. Among this community by which they recognize that these set of writings, the Hebrew Bible, are divinely inspired and their God were to us because the person speaking spoke in the name of the Lord on being. The half of God under the inspiration of God. And so we are keeping these as these are the scriptures given to us. Right. So, once again, just going over the symptom alakai was the last recognized prophet finished around 400 BC and these collection of sacred writings by that time. So, basically by 400 BC, they had these, you know, what we now refer to as the 39 books of the Old Testament. They had these books. This community, the Jews had these books as God's divinely inspired scriptures given to them and they held it in that manner. Right. So this collection that of sacred writings, which took place over time was referred to as the holy scriptures. Now, around this time, of course, there were other historical writings. Whether it was the, you know, the record of other things that happened in the life of this community as they progress through time. Or we also have in the inter-testamental period, that means from 400 BC till about, you know, the coming of John the Baptist, which is about 400, approximately 400 years. There were other books that were written among the same people. But whether it was other historical writings or whether it is what is known as the Apocrypha, which is, we just mentioned that a little bit, but other books. These were not accepted by the Jews as inspired by God. I mean, they were, you know, literary works or human works by people in the community and among the community. Of course, the people write. So there are a lot of other writings as well. Interestingly, many of these other historical writings have all perished. They're not there. So even if you want, they're not there. They've been destroyed, gone. Now, what we do have is certain books written during that 400 year period during the inter-testamental period, which the Roman Catholic Church and a few other churches like the Greek, Russian, Orthodox and the Ethiopic churches have included as part of their text. But the Hebrews did not. For them with the end of Malachi, that was more or less the end of their scriptures. The reason being Malachi was the last recognized prophet and they had this criteria that only what a prophet spoke would they consider as inspired. It's not that they were closed thereafter for any inspiration. It's just that they did not recognize any other prophet amongst them so that there was no more scriptures or no more sacred writings after Malachi. Right. So talking about the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish community, they did not recognize any of these writings as sacred. They were there, but the main criteria was they didn't recognize them as divinely inspired. They had no divine inspiration and so they did not include them as part of their Hebrew scriptures post the last book, post the prophet Malachi. So this is how these scriptures were given to us. Basically the Old Testament was was canonized. And again canonize is a word that we keep brought in later on, but they're saying it was the complete set of scriptures. The Hebrew Bible, which was recognized by the Jewish community as inspired by God. It was put together and it was, you know, I'm using the word compile, but again, you must understand it. It's not that they were thinking, okay, we're writing a book kind of thing, but no, these are the scriptures. This is a collection of scriptures that we recognize as divinely inspired. And that took place by about 400 BC. And after that, they did not accept anything else as they did not recognize. They did not recognize any other prophet. Therefore, there was no more additions to those set of the collection of scriptures. Now, right, so that gives us an understanding of how the old, what we refer to as the Old Testament books came into existence. Okay, they refer to it as their holy scriptures. They refer to it as the Hebrew Bible. Okay, but we now later on we've taken that and we'll give you a reason, we'll give us reasons why the church embraced it. But we've taken that and recognize that as the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible is now the Old Testament for us. Okay, now, so we have this 400 years of silence. That means there's no prophet speaking in the name of the Lord speaking under divine inspiration. Sorry, excuse me. And then comes John the Baptist. So the Old Testament was completed, like we said, somewhere around mid 430 or differently by 400 BC. And there's no further revelation till John the Baptist comes speaking. So John the Baptist is the next recognized prophet of God. So they have these 400 to 450 years of silence in between the intertest in the testimony period. Now comes John the Baptist. And he, of course, is announcing the coming of Christ. And then Jesus comes. Jesus does his preaching. And then we have the birth of the church. Now, during this time, we must understand, like we already said, Jesus. He recognized the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus himself in his teaching and preaching recognized the Old Testament scriptures. So when Jesus talked about the Old Testament scriptures, refer to the scriptures. He's referring to this entire collection that was already in existence, right? Which we said by about 400 BC. It was all put together. It was there, the collection. He recognized the authority. And he quoted from it, whether for his own personal use and defending against Satan or when in his preaching or is responding to questions. He pointed back to the scriptures they had. So when Jesus said, you search the scriptures, he was referring to this complete collection of, you know, we have broken it into his 39 books, right? That he was referring to those 39 books. So you know the scriptures. So that's Jesus. And then when the New Testament, the Apostles started preaching for them, the same Old Testament scriptures was authoritative. So why does the church look at the Old Testament? Well, because it was just a continuation that, okay, God has spoken to the prophets Malachi. But now he's there was a period of silence, about 400 years, 450 years of silence. But now God is continuing the same God of the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible. The same God is now continuing to speak. But now he has started speaking through his son. And so when the Apostles came, they recognized both the words of Jesus and the Old Testament scriptures. So Peter in his very first sermon stands up and he quotes from the Old Testament scriptures and all, you know, all the pop in his writings. He's quoting from the Old Testament scriptures. So in the mind, in the teachings of Jesus and in the mind of the early Christians, starting from the Apostles, this, the Hebrew Bible, which we are referring to as the Old Testament scriptures was part of God's word, because Jesus quoted from it and the Apostles quoted from it taught from it. Now, in addition to the Old Testament, the words of Jesus. The words of Jesus held a thought this is what Jesus taught. So you can imagine, of course, the 12 Apostles, they were with Jesus for three and a half years. They heard the things Jesus spoke to them and this was kept in their heart. And like Jesus said, the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance everything I've taught you. So there was the divine enabling of the Holy Spirit. And in those days, the 12 Apostles were not, you know, no takers. They were not going around taking notes. You know, I mean, they may have written something we don't know, but really it was the divine agents of the Holy Spirit that enabled these Apostles to remember the teachings of Jesus, because whatever I've taught you, he will bring to your remembrance Jesus said. So the Apostles continued with the preaching and teaching of Jesus. So they continued. So this was passed on orally. It was passed on verbally through the teaching of the Apostles after Jesus. Then subsequently came, of course, the writings. We will look at the transition that was made, but the writings of the Apostles came and that's when the New Testament was put together and we'll talk about that. Now, so having understood how the Old Testament came and having understood the whole transition that it, there was a break, a period of silence. But with the arrival of John the Baptist and the coming of Christ, God continued to speak. And so the Old Testament Scriptures are very much connected to the New. It's not like we are borrowing something from a different faith. No, it is a continuation of the same God speaking. And so the New Testament just fits in. It's basically a continuation of God speaking after that period of silence. When we talk about the New Testament, the first time we see somebody referring to the New Testament Scriptures is actually only about 350 years or let's say about 300 years later by the bishop of Alexandria, Egypt in 8367. So how did this come about? How did these 27 books of the New Testament come about? How did that happen? Again, we just trace this. Now, once again, the same thing. No one person, no individual sat down and decided that these 27 books will make up the New Testament. It didn't happen like that. But even the coming together with New Testament happened very similar to how the Old Testament came together. How did it happen? So we can look at it in these four periods of time. So like we already mentioned, if you look at the early period, the 80, 30 to 100, there was Jesus three and a half years of ministry. The apostles were with Jesus. They heard his teachings. They received his revelation. Some of the apostles, the later apostles, mainly Paul and the others wrote them down. So initially they heard his teachings, heard the teachings of Jesus. Subsequently, in the first century, they wrote them down. These were the letters and the gospels and the epistles and so on. They were written down. But now they had to transmit it. The initial transmission in the early church, all of it was oral, meaning that's how the early church was taught. And they didn't have mass production of bibles and all. The writings were there, but the writings were read to the churches. They've read out aloud to the people. So it wasn't like everybody had their own copy of Paul's epistle or James letter or no, it wasn't that it was oral. It was read out to people. They heard it. They received that and that's how they went about the Christian life. So they had these documents. So these letters written by the early apostles were authoritative documents. Let me say this was written by Paul. This was written by one of the apostles. So these were authoritative documents. But remember, they were written, they were kept, but people, not everybody had copies. They were transmitted orally. But what happened? Believers began to feel the need for these written scriptures, these sacred writings because oral transmissions were being used less. So now slowly, the second generation, they had to slowly make a transition from depending on a few copies to making many more copies. Of what was written by the recognized apostles. They knew, okay, this was Peter. This was written by Paul. This was written by, you know, James was the brother of Jesus. This was written by Matthew, Mark, Luke. So this collection of scriptures was already in some way kept sacred. There are a lot of other writings. But why were these writings held sacred? Because they were written by the apostles. So if there were letters written by unknown people, they were not included. If there were letters or things written by other people who were not the apostles, not one of them, they were not included. So although there was no formal process of saying, of somebody sitting and saying, these are the canon of scriptures, just like what happened to the Old Testament. The New Testament scriptures was implicitly collected based on who wrote them. Is it authentic? Is it written by somebody who was an apostle of Christ? So that was the collection. And then later on, they had to transition from orally communicating to look, we have to share the writings. So copies were being made. Another thing that drove people to reproduce this collection of 27 written documents was there were a lot of other things spreading around. So there are a lot of people writing other kinds of things. There are a lot of people preaching teaching other kinds of things, heresies. And so it became more important now to pass on as widely as possible. This collection of 27 written documents passed it on. So they did not call it New Testament as yet. They didn't call it as, okay, this is the canon of scripture. No. So it was happening more as, look, we know these are authentic. Who wrote these? These are the teachings we're going to live by. This generation of believers were not there. They didn't hear Jesus, but we've got what Jesus spoke here in the Gospels. We haven't directly heard some of these early apostles, but we have the writings. So we are going to pass them on. Okay. So it happened in some sort of an informal way, but yet the hand of God was on that whole process of spreading those selected writings, which were known to be written by reliable people. That means the apostles themselves. So then there was this definite transition, the moving away from oral tradition to written scripture, because now, you know, you don't have the apostles around. They're not there. The last apostle died around 8090. And the dependence now is on the writings and the writings then became the authoritative source. So obviously you have to transition from, you know, what so-and-so hurts Peter preach to look, we have this episode. No, you know, the last meeting with people who did hear about here Paul preach are all gone now. So you only can read what Paul wrote. So by about 170 80 the, the concept of the New Testament scriptures. Now we're saying concept because they, they were not thinking of, okay, you know, let's put this, let's call it the New Testament or no, but they had embraced these 27 texts as the writings by which we are going to live by. Right. And they wouldn't follow that. So by about one, you know, shortly after the first century by definitely by 8170. This was all well established. They had not yet quote unquote canonized it as we formally refer to it, but the concept was there. And you find some of the early church fathers independently beginning to refer to these 27 scriptures as the New Testament. Right. But this happened a little later, right around the end of the second century. Okay. So now formally they're calling this as the New Testament. Right. Now, remember in their minds, the test, Testament means covenant covenant. Right. So they said, okay, this is the new covenant understanding basically it's an extension of what, what has been taught in the scriptures and new covenant. Jesus said he's establishing a new covenant. So these are the books that represent the new covenant for us. Right. And that comes in a little later around 8200. More by the church fathers who then begin to refer to these collection of 27 books as the new government. So the last step then is the formal recognition. Right. So this comes even later. So these 27 books of the New Testament was then later, almost 150 years later after the church fathers to formally recognized as the canon of scripture. But remember, they had already been established. So around 380, 350, 80, they were not selecting the books. They were only recognizing the books. Okay. So the selection happened way back right after, you know, towards the end of the first century. That means when John had finished writing it, the selection was implicit because you'd only select the books written by the apostles, the people who had been with Jesus, the people who had documented his sayings, the people who are inspired by the Holy Spirit. So the selection was implicit. Of course, they didn't call it New Testament. At that time they didn't call it canon of scripture at that time, but it was an implicit collection of the writings of these apostles. Okay. The second generation continued with that set of documents. They didn't call it New Testament. They didn't call it canon of scripture. But they begin to transition to those documents. Subsequently, that was the only thing they had because nobody else around and they that was the only if this collection 27 books became the basis of teaching, but they still had not yet, you know, called it New Testament or canon of scripture. Okay. But it was already fixed these 27 books. Then comes the use of the term New Covenant or New Testament somewhere towards 17280. And then comes the formal recognition. So various councils. That means these were just church leaders. Okay. And the emphasis is not one single council or not one single person did this, but various councils around the same time. That means these are church leaders in various parts of the Christian world began to recognize these 27 books. The church leaders in Laodicea were among the earliest. They recognized the 27, 26 New Testament books and then later on they recognize the book of Revelation by John's that made the 27. Then like we mentioned, the Bishop of Alexandria in 8367. So he was the first person to formally recognize that these were the canon of scripture that these were the books of the New Testament. And then there were others. So Jerome, he translated these 27 books into Latin. So again, he restricted himself just to these 27 books because look, these are the 27 books that we know are the writings and the works of the Apostles that bring to us the Christian faith. And then there were others. So Saint Augustine, the Council of Hippo, the Council of God. So various church councils, meaning groups of leaders in different parts of that area, began to recognize. Formally recognized that this 27 books will form the canon of New Testament scripture. So obviously, remember the New Testament church, the early church had the Hebrew Bible as the basis of all their teaching. And now they also had the writings of the Apostle, the 27 books. So these 39 books of the Old Testament, 27 books of the New Testament were then compiled together and formally recognized as the scriptures, the whole scriptures of the church. And from there on, we have the Bible for us. Okay, so that's a quick story on how the Old and the New Testament came to us. Okay. So let's take up some questions and then we will take a break and come on. I still haven't finished what I wanted to finish. We still have another section, a couple of sections to go. We'll do it after the break. All right. So let's look at some questions here. Does Paul quote from writings that are outside the Old Testament books? Let's also look up Enoch. And okay, how do we know that the book Hebrews was written by an apostle? All right. Good question. So as far as we know, so Paul, he, okay, did Paul quote from the writings that are outside the books? So Paul used his knowledge, not just of the Old Testament books, but general knowledge in his conversation. So we know, right? For instance, in the book of Acts, you see it and also in 1 Corinthians, you see it where Paul is referencing certain material information outside of the Old Testament scriptures. So in Acts 17, Paul, you know, he quotes from poetry that the people of Athens had. So he says, even as some of your own prophets have said, you know, in him we live and move and have our being. So that quote is not from any of the Old Testament scriptures. That quote is a quote from the writings of the Greek philosophers. Or in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, you know, look, those who, he's referring to, you know, what these people do, who baptize for the dead. So he's referring to custom of the people and he's, you know, referencing that. So to answer your question, Samuel, did he quote from outside? Yeah, you find minor references here and there. But that doesn't make those texts as, you know, he's just quoting it as part of his conversation or as part of his preaching, not because they're inspired, but because they are understood by his audience. The audience know what he's talking about. So in that sense, yes, he did quote from outside the Old Testament books, but not because those were inspired, but because they were known by his audience. And he used that to communicate a thought or a point to the people. Okay. So the second part of your question, the book of Enoch. Yes, there are a lot of books like we mentioned a lot of books that have not perished or that have existed. You know, like we said, there are other books outside of the 39 books of the Old Testament. But the Jewish community did not consider them as inspired and so did not include them into the Hebrew Scriptures. So it was a process of elimination that the community itself did based on, like we said, the criteria that they have now we put down these five points retrospectively, meaning we look back and say, okay, maybe these are the crates that they used, but they were working in it forward. So they chose not to include the book of Enoch or other historic, you know, works that were done during those their lifetime based on, you know, like this is not inspired by God, it doesn't contain matter inspired by God. Right. So they just chose not to include it. So last, the next question here is the book of Hebrews. How do we know that the book of Hebrews was written by an apostle. Now, there is, yeah, like we understand that there's a lot of question on who wrote the book of Hebrews. Now, just because, you know, the authorship, the reason the authorship is disputed is because it is not explicitly stated. So in Hebrews, like, unlike Paul's other epistles, here I he always Paul always starts with the authorship. I Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ writing to you, right. Unlike that, Hebrews are, you know, many of the other apostles have a statement of authorship. Unlike that, Hebrews does not have a statement of authorship. That's the only question. But in terms of content, in terms of what it's presenting to us, that all of it is aligned both with the Old Testament scripture and with New Testament teaching. Right. So, although the authorship is disputed, or let's not know, let me say that the authorship is not clearly stated, the content is consistent with the writings of both the Old and the New Testament, the other New Testament scriptures. In my mind, it seems like, you know, it's the work of the apostle Paul. And although we can't state it, it's not stated, so therefore we can't state it, but it seems like the work of the apostle Paul. But if the question is, was this a work of an apostle? So we can say as the early church recognized it to be the work of an apostle, even though it was not stated, it is, it is not stated in the letter, but they recognize it and so they included it as part of these 27 collected texts. So, we today are basing our conference in the early church's recognition of the source of the book of Hebrews, that for them it was, they recognized it, even though it was not stated, and so we're going by that. So that would be my response to you, Samuel. Okay. Alright, maybe we'll take one question from Sayi and then we will take a break please. Sayi. Yeah, I just wanted to ask Pastor, if certain books like the book of Enoch, let me ask this question first of all, number one question, was the book of Enoch written by Enoch himself? First question, then the second question is, if these books were being referenced, I'm just wondering, why did the Jewish community at that time, why the Jewish leaders, why did they just add it as part of the books, since it was being referenced in the writings of the prophet. So, I think one of the prophets, or some prophets, some of the Old Testament writings, referred to the book of Enoch, the book of Jassa, you know, all those books, why wasn't it just included? Say, I kind of heard your question in part. I couldn't hear your question fully. Your voice is a little soft, so I'm trying to. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me clearly? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I think your question was, why weren't, I'm just repeating the question just to make sure I heard you clearly. The question was, why weren't some of the Old Testament, I mean, some of the books written around the Old Testament like the book of Enoch and other books included in the Hebrew Scriptures? Is that your question? Yeah, why were they included, if they were being referenced, right? So, the book of Enoch is not, so okay, so when I said Paul referenced some text, you know, okay, let me say, so in the Old Testament, there are mentions of other books and so on. Yeah, in the Old Testament, yeah, there is mention of other books. Now, they are not included simply because a lot of it, I'm speaking from what I understand, a lot of it references historical information, right? So, you would find things like, especially in Chronicles and Kings, okay, and the work of this king, you will find it in the book of this, right? And the work of this king, you will find it in the book of this. So, those have been left out because they are historical in nature. First, second, what is needed to be known about that king and what he did is already documented in the Chronicles of Kings or in 1 and 2 Samuel, right? So, these are two reasons. So, I mean, for us looking at it, right, that the reason why the Jewish people would not have added all these other historical records into the collection of scripture. One, because their focus was on what is God saying, what is God speaking and when a prophet is writing, you know, our scribe is writing, recording what a prophet is saying. And he says, okay, if you want to know something more about this king, you can read it up there in that historical book. That's it. You know, if you want history, you go there. But if you want, but the focus in these Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures is what is God speaking, what is God saying? And we want to stay with what is coming forth from the mouth of the prophet or through the prophet. So, and whatever is needed to be known about that particular king is sufficiently recorded in, you know, in these, whether it's in Samuel Kings or Chronicles. So, and I'm speaking just in looking back retrospectively on why would they have not included it. Because it was a historical work, not an inspired work. It was a work of a man. Secondly, what was needed to be known about the king was sufficiently recorded here. That's all you need to know about the king and his works and his administration and his rulership, etc. This is enough. So, I'm looking back and saying, these are probably the two reasons why all these other books were not, you know, included historical books were not included in the Holy Scriptures of the Hebrew people. Thank you, Master. So, was the book of Enoch written by Enoch himself? Was it written by somebody else? I've kind of read it. It talks more about falling angels, how they went into the women of that time, pre-noat, before the flood, right? It's talking about falling angels, a lot of things about how the sons of God, basically angels, you know, had our fears, had sexual interaction with women of that time. And then later on, the Lord cast, just different things and all that, basically. We can see that there was a reference in Genesis that talked about, and the sons of God went into women and they started giving birth to giants and all that. And everything's been explained in that book of Enoch. So, I'm just wondering, was it Enoch who wrote it or somebody else who wrote that book? Okay, so we'll answer this and then we'll go for a break. So, from my understanding, I'll just check this again. These were things recorded, probably attributed to Enoch, but not necessarily everything from Enoch himself. So meaning, you know, example, if I'm recording what you're saying, I can record some of the things you say, but I can also, you know, add a lot of other matter and information, so on. So that forms, you know, the book Enoch. Secondly, what was needed to be known is sufficiently recorded for us in the book of a reliable source, in this case, Moses himself. So Moses is a prophet of God, and he has sufficiently recorded, you know, in Genesis chapter six, what is needed to be known about what happened. So the Hebrews or the Jewish people say, look, we know Moses is a prophet of God. We know he's the mouthpiece of God. He's given to us these five books, which covers this whole period when Enoch lived and subsequently, it fully covers it. He has already documented for us what we need to know right from creation all the way till the end of his life. He's already documented for us everything we need to know. That's one reason. Second, the book of Enoch, it sources questionable, right? It may have a few things that Enoch said, but it has a lot of other things that has nothing to do with Enoch. And so we are not going to include that as our inspired scriptures. We will go with the prophet of God, the man of God, Moses, we know him. He's the mouthpiece of God and what has come through him is the inspired scriptures. Is that okay? Yes, that's okay. Thank you, Pastor. Okay, let's take a break and we will come back and look at the questions. It's good. A lot of questions are coming. Let's take a quick break and come back and we will proceed with the questions, please. Back in 10 minutes, right? Thanks.