Outline

Key Verse

Goals

• To reintroduce the youth to the Scripture in an interactive and memorable way
• To answer questions related to the Scripture: origin, inspiration, inerrancy, canonicity, etc.
• Day 1 (6/19) is Middle School Boys and Girls
• Day 2 (6/20) is High School Boys and Girls

Resources

• Timeless Truth in Truthless Times - George Bassilious
  • Chapter2 27-35 specifically deal with "Questions about the Bible"
• ACTS Biblical Apologetics Course
  • https://notes.morcous.com/books/acts-3023-biblical-apologetics/page/contents
• Floods, Plagues, Wars... and a Loving God? - Fr Gabriel Wissa
  • https://www.dropbox.com/s/b1clu7stqpi5e7x/Flood%2C%20Plagues%2C%20Wars%20and%20a%20Loving%20God%20-%20Fr%20Gabriel%20Wissa.pdf?dl=0 
• Article on Canonization of Scripture
  • https://www.lacopts.org/orthodoxy/our-faith/the-holy-bible/the-canonization-of-scripture/

Stations

Station 1: Introduction to Your Bible

• What are the books of the Scripture?
• How are the books categorized? Which books fall into each genre?
• When/how are the books used by the Church (e.g. in the Lectionary)
• Who wrote these books?
• What is inspiration? What does it mean that the Holy Spirit "wrote" the Bible?

Station 2: Where did the Bible come from?

• What is canonization? Who decided which books go into the OT? And the NT?
  
• What about translation? Do some things get lost in translation? Are some translations better than others?
• What about chapters and verses?
• How do we know that we have the right words that were actually spoken by Christ?
• Idea
  • This station can be presented as a "museum" or a "showroom" that includes several archaeological findings that support details written in the Scripture, as well as some examples of manuscripts

Station 3: Do the Gospels contradict themselves?

• Why is there differences between the Gospels? Does that affect the authenticity of the Gospels?
• Did the Lord Jesus cleanse the temple on Sunday or Monday?
• Did the Maries go to the tomb while it is dark or at dawn?
• etc.

Station 4: Does the Old Testament contradict the New Testament?

• Is God, "a man of war" (Exodus 15:3) or "the Lord of peace" (2 Thessalonians 3:16)
• How are we to understand the stories that take place in Joshua and Judges? Did God really command them to kill whole cities?
• This stems from a common attack nowadays which takes difficult passages like those in the Book of Judges and asks for an explanation, or takes some verses out of context to present a distorted image