Christian scriptures - Essay Example

The Christian holy scripture forms the starting point of the great majority of the doctrines and theological concepts adopted as well as disputed by the numerous denominations of the Christian faith.2 Today as much as in the past the Old Testament could be read to give the reader an indication of what Jesus Christ was expected to achieve, whilst the New Testament describes what he is supposed to have actually achieved. The New Testament also mentions how the Early Church started to spread the Christian religion whilst having debates about the best means of leading Christian lives.

3 The studies of the New Testament soon came to the conclusion that there was a great deal that the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke held in common with each other.4 The study of holy scriptures was tightly restricted before the Reformation yet that altered with the spread of Protestantism, especially in its most evangelical guises.5 The consequences of the Protestant Reformation as well as the Roman Catholic counter - Reformation could be arguably discerned in the study of holy scriptures right down to our own times.

6 The numerous Protestant sects and the Roman Catholic Church even now present their own, sometimes very different interpretations of the holy scriptures.7 Yet in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many Biblical scholars were of the opinion that the Synoptic Gospels all shared at least shared one common source of information about Jesus before using different sources to raise the unique parts of their own gospel accounts.8 Those different understandings of holy scriptures are shaped by theological differences and how literally the text of the Holy Bible is, or is not taken to be.

The Christian holy scriptures had a very strong influence over the development of many Western cultures and societies although there are convincing indications of declining religious affiliations in