Bible History Overview

 

Simple

  • Bible - comes from Latin and Greek words for “book” - biblia and biblos

  • What we define as the Bible is a compilation of various books collected and bound together as one compilation

  • The Bible was transcribed over 1500 years, by around 40 writers on 3 different continents, spanning over 1,500 miles for writers, most of whom did not know or meet each other, written in 3 languages, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, all providing the same message about God

    • Old Testament - 39 books written over roughly a 1000 year period from Genesis to Malachi (400 year silence after that)

    • New Testament - 27 books written over roughly a 50 year period from Matthew to Revelation (roughly early 40s to 90s)

  • The word Canon means measuring rod. Thus it is used in a given subject for a collection of information which becomes the standard by which everything in that field is measured.

    • “The Canon is more of a list of authoritative books, rather than an authoritative list of books” – Bruce Metzger

  • Book was written by prophet, apostle, witness, scribe or companion, who was confirmed by miracles or eyewitness companion

  • 1 Author being God, Holy Spirit moved on men to record what He was saying - 2 Pet 1:20-21, 2 Tim 3:16-17

  • Tradition goes that there are 35 transcribers we know by name

    • The writers came from a variety of backgrounds

      • Moses was a shepherd, Ezra was a priest, Nehemiah was a cupbearer, David was a shepherd and musician who became a military commander eventually becoming a king, Solomon was the wealthiest king, Isaiah was a prophet, Daniel was a government official, Matthew was a tax-collector, Luke was a physician, John was a fisherman, Paul was a tentmaker, James and Jude were brothers of Jesus

  • Archaeology has found many manuscripts within the last 200-300 years

    • The manuscripts agree to roughly a 99% degree of what we have in our Bible today

    • None were doctrine changing differences, mostly small misspellings, slightly different numbers or word placement that didn't affect the text contextually

  • Old Testament was affirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls and the authenticity of what we have in our English Translation

    • The manuscripts we have are close to the time of Malachai and have copies after that

  • We have an embarrassment of riches for Biblical manuscripts, especially the New Testament

    • Over 5,300 Greek

    • Over 10,000 Latin

    • Over 9,300 other languages

    • Over 24,000 portions (Large sections or small snippets) of NT

  • New Testament scholars believe that the books of the New Testament were written before 100 AD

    • Conservative dating from roughly months (with the early creeds), years or decades after the events written but all books of the new testament were written before 100 AD

  • What we have now on our shelves and our phones is not the result of hearsay or like the game of telephone

    • It is not translating a translation of translation of translation of translations where we cannot know or trust what we have

    • Scholars go back to the earliest available manuscripts within Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, practice the science of textual criticism to make sure what we have is the same as what was written 2000 years ago

  • Why does this matter?

    • What we have is accurate in our Bibles

In Depth

There is no other book that has so impacted and influenced billions of people over 2000 years like that of the Bible. It is repeatedly on numerous bestseller lists year after year after year. Yet for a work that has changed the course of history time and time again, many people are still ignorant, confused or simply unaware of what is detailed within its pages. Though much of Western culture has been greatly influenced by the teachings expounded in the Bible, there is a drastic need now for the Bible to be explained and detailed to future generations.

I personally never grew up knowing much about the Bible. We had maybe one or two of them which were tucked away on some bookshelf within our house, but I never saw my parents crack it open, much less explain it to me. I had preconceived notions about what the Bible was, mostly because of trite phrases I heard which had been thrown around. I took them and created a view that it was full of contradictions, it was a book about myths and fairy tales, but that one Jesus guy who was a character in it was a pretty moral person, though he probably didn’t exist, yet we could learn just a few things from Him. Beyond that, I never had a desire to open it up for myself and read it. I was never raised in church, so the few times I had to go for a Christmas or Easter service, I never paid attention. It wasn't until I was around 16 years old that I actually opened and read it for myself and everything changed. I heard Bible verses here and there before that time, but my life was forever altered in a moment of time as I heard the Bible read and explained and then started reading and studying it.

The word Bible comes from Latin and Greek words for Book. In Latin it is Biblia and Biblos in Greek. Our word in English comes from old Frech, which came from Medieval Latin. According to Merrium Webster, the first known use of the word Bible was in the 13th century (“Bible.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bible. Accessed 10 December 2019. )

Within English, we define the Bible as: The collection of sacred writing of the Christian religion, comprising the Old and New Testament, the sacred writings of any religion, any book, reference work, periodical, etc, accepted as authoritative, informative or reliable. (dictonary.com)

In essence what we define as the Bible is a compilation of various books collected and bound together as one compilation.

Sometimes, there is a mistaken view that the Bible is just one book, but it is actually many books brought together into one volume. Each of those individual books comes from various places, written down by different people, from vastly different cultures, lifestyles, socio economic classes, and from different continents. All of which happened over many years

The Bible was transcribed over 1500 years, by around 40 writers on 3 different continents, spanning over 1,500 miles for writers, most of whom did not know or meet each other, written in 3 languages, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic

The Bible is broken down into what we call the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is 39 books written over roughly a 1000 year period from Genesis to Malachi (400 year silence after that). They are arranged normally into what is called the Pentatuch, History, Poetry, Prophets and Minor prophets.

  • Pentateuch (5 Books of the Law) - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers Deuteronomy

  • History Books (12 Books) - Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther

  • Poetry (5 Books) - Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon

  • Prophets (5 Books) - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel

  • Minor Prophets (12 Books) - Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

The Old Testament was completed and compiled by around 400 BC with Malachi being the last entry as a revealed revelation from God written down before the coming of Jesus.

Whereas the New Testament is 27 books written over roughly a 50 year period after the death and resurrection of Jesus, organized from Matthew to Revelation. These are arranged in Gospel, Church History, Pauline Epistles, Pastoral Writings, Epistles and Prophecy.

  • Gospel (4 Books) - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

  • Church History (1 Book) - Acts

  • Pauline Epistles (9 Books) - Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians

  • Pastoral Writings (4 Books) - 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon

  • Epistles (8 Books) - Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude

  • Prophecy (1 Book) - Revelation

The books are organized like this to help with grouping for genre. Yet in organizing them like this, there are certain things that can be missed out on within the arching narrative. Some of the writings overlap timeframes, especially when the events of the different kings and prophets are occuring. This can make it slightly confusing to group it like the standard Bible doest. But even though it is good in some senses, for our 21st century way of thinking, we usually like things in Chronological order. There are now Bibles that are offered in Chronological order. They take various passages, chapters and books that overlap and try to arrange them in a way that you can read the Bible from the beginning to the end to see the story unfold, event after event after event. Neither way to group them is “wrong” per say, but the different ways we can group them does provide certain benefits that the other ways do not (more on that in a different article)

In taking the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament, bringing them together creates what we call the Bible. Another term for this is the Canon. This word is different from what you would see on the side of a pirate ship, that word is cannon. The word canon essentially means measuring rod. Against that measuring rod, all other things were measured.It can be used in any given subject for a collection of data or information which becomes the standard through which everything else in that area is measured. This correlates to the Bible by saying that the list of books being used is the standard, and anything else that deviates from that is no longer authoritative. Bruce Metzger puts it the best, saying, “You see, the canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books. These documents didn't derive their authority from being selected; each one was authoritative before anyone gathered them together. The early church merely listened and sensed that these were authoritative accounts.” https://ho-logos.blogspot.com/2009/02/canon-textual-criticism-and-more-with.html

According to Metzger, to be allowed within that canon, especially the New Testament, for the books to be a part of that “list” they had to meet 3 main criteria of the early church. The would have to have “Apostolic Authority”, written by an apostle themselves who was an eyewitness of the events, or by a follower of them. The next was the “rule of faith.” Basically if it met the criterion which conformed with basic Christian tradition that was normative, not far out there or completely strange and unsubstantiated. And lastly if the document had continuous acceptance and usage in the church. William Barclay said, “It is the simple truth to say that the New Testament books became canonical because no one could stop them doing so.” There were lists given over the early years of the church referencing the books we currently have as well. After much of the persecution had died down against Christians, they were able to meet from the far reaches of the world to discuss central issues and make sure everyone was on the same page. It wasn’t at these councils that Christianity or the Bible was “created,” but simply affirming what was already being preached and believed and to deal with any issues facing the church.

So generally any of the books we have in our Bible now come from either a prophet, an apostle, an eyewitness, a scribe or a companion, or those affirmed by miracles. The Old and New Testament came together to give us the canon, affirmed early on within the Church.

Some might wonder, well who wrote the different books in the Bible then and how can we know? Christians believe that God is the author and that the Holy Spirit moved on men to record what He was saying, describing events, situations, examples and predictions, all pointing to Jesus. Some of the main scriptures we see this in are 2 Peter 1:20-21 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17. God used men to write down, using the themes, terminology, language, and basic aspects of who they were to record what He wanted them to. The purpose of the writings then was for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness to be equipped for every good work.

Tradition generally goes that there are 35 men who we know by name that penned or transcribed the various books. It is important to keep in mind though, these men came from a vast variety of backgrounds. For example: Moses was a shepherd, Ezra was a priest, Nehemiah was a cupbearer, David was a shepherd and musician who became a military commander eventually becoming a king, Solomon was the wealthiest king, Isaiah was a prophet, Daniel was a government official, Matthew was a tax-collector, Luke was a physician, John was a fisherman, Paul was a tentmaker, James and Jude were brothers of Jesus

The general list is:

  • Old Testament

    • Moses (Genesis | Exodus | Leviticus | Numbers | Deuteronomy | Psalms), Ezra (1 & 2 Chronicles | Ezra), Nehemiah (Nehemiah), David (Psalms), Solomon (Psalms | Proverbs | Ecclesiastes | Song of Solomon), Asaph (Psalms), Sons of Korah (Psalms), Heman (Psalms), Ethan (Psalms), Agur (Proverbs), Lemuel (Proverbs), Isaiah (Isaiah), Jeremiah (Jeremiah | Lamentations), Ezekiel (Ezekiel), Daniel (Daniel), Hosea (Hosea), Joel (Joel), Amos (Amos), Obadiah (Obadiah), Jonah (Jonah), Micah (Micah), Nahum (Nahum), Habakkuk (Habakkuk), Zephaniah (Zephaniah), Haggai (Haggai), Zechariah (Zechariah), Malachi (Malachi),

  • New Testament

    • Matthew/Levi (Matthew), John Mark (Mark), Luke (Luke | Acts), John (John | 1 John | 2 John | 3 John | Revelation), Paul (Romans–Philemon), James (James), Peter (1 Peter | 2 Peter), Jude (Jude)

This is the traditional list that we have of various Bible authors that we know, and there are a few that are unknown. There are reasons for us to affirm this list, but that is for another article.

So someone might be wondering, well if all of this is the case, how can we trust these things? The books that are in it and why they are (the canon), and who wrote the various books, that might just be conjecture or something that was just fabricated and allowed to go on over time because no one questioned it or asked why things are this way.

There are internal and external reasons that we can affirm not only the canon, but also the people who are traditionally believed to have written these books. Some quick reasons would be

  • Internal

    • Archaeological discoveries agree with what the text describes

    • Confirmation of authorship and authority within the text

    • Early and Apostolic use within the early church regardless of geographical location

    • Historical accuracy displayed in the text

    • Historical, cited in lifetime of Apostles, quoted, read publically, commentaries written, oppositional attestation, language usage, collected in 1 volume (late 1st or 2nd century)

    • Jesus quoted from around 24 of the 39 Old Testament books, the New Testament writers quoted from 34

      • Jesus quoted Gen, Ex, Lev, Num, Deut, 1 Sam, 2 Sam, 1 Ki, 2 Ki, 1 Chr, 2 Chr, Job, Ps, Prov, Isa, Jer, Eze, Dan, Hos, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Mic, Hab, Zech, Mal

    • Manuscript evidence

The manuscript evidence is one of the most extremely powerful pieces of evidence that Christians have. To quote the Manuscript Scholar Dan Wallace, we have an “embarrassment of riches” in not only the quantity, but the quality of manuscripts we have, especially the New Testament. By this, he means that we have so many manuscripts comparative to any other ancient document, that it shrouds over anything else from antiquity.

And we have very ancient translations directly from the Greek that give us a good sense of the Greek text that would have been available in those regions where that early version was used. These include Latin, Syriac, and Coptic especially. Altogether, we have at least 20,000 handwritten manuscripts in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic and other ancient languages that help us to determine the wording of the original. Almost 6000 of these manuscripts are in Greek alone. And we have more than one million quotations of the New Testament by church fathers. There is absolutely nothing in the Greco-Roman world that comes even remotely close to this wealth of data. The New Testament has more manuscripts that are within a century or two of the original than anything else from the Greco-Roman world too. If we have to be skeptical about what the original New Testament said, that skepticism, on average, should be multiplied one thousand times for other Greco-Roman literature.

https://danielbwallace.com/2014/12/28/predictable-christmas-fare-newsweeks-tirade-against-the-bible/

Within the last 200 years, there has been an incredible surge of Biblical manuscripts that have been uncovered, especially for the New Testament. Of the New Testament we have over 5,300 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin, 9,300 in other languages and over 24,000 portions (large sections or small snippets) of the New Testament. The amazing thing about this, is that it shows that what we have in our Bibles right now compared to these ancient manuscripts are around 98-99% the same

This means that our New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. In the entire text of 20,000 lines, only 40 lines are in doubt (about 400 words), and none affects any significant doctrine.

https://www.str.org/articles/is-the-new-testament-text-reliable#.XfKcKGRKiM8 - ] Wallace, Daniel, "The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?," Bibliotheca Sacra, April-June, 1991, 157-8.

And through the science of textual criticism we can verify and investigate these differences. None of the differences within the manuscripts themselves or what we have affect any sort of doctrine though. Some of the slight differences that don't affect the whole of the text would be things like misspelled words, incorrect number, word order, etc. Yet among those, none of the ones found are extremely meaningful to drastically alter the text or doctrines.

New Testament specialist Daniel Wallace notes that although there are about 300,000 individual variations of the text of the New Testament, this number is very misleading. Most of the differences are completely inconsequential—spelling errors, inverted phrases and the like. A side by side comparison between the two main text families (the Majority Text and the modern critical text) shows agreement a full 98% of the time. https://www.str.org/articles/is-the-new-testament-text-reliable#.XfKcKGRKiM8

Dan Wallace breaks down the variations into 4 categories: neither meaningful or viable, not meaningful but are viable, not viable but are meaningful and both meaningful and viable (this is the most important one). Roughly 75% of all variants are neither meaningful nor viable and viable but not meaningful. These would include those spelling changes, but the majority of them are with things like the movable nu. 24% of the differences are meaningful but not viable. This would be things like a word which makes no sense in the context, likely it was written incorrectly or transcribed wrong, something like horse instead of house or changing the word order, as Greek is very flexible. And the last group would be ones that are both meaningful and viable and this group is less than 1%. An example of this would be something like if the number of the beast was 616 vs 666 as found in Revelation 13:18. No major Christian doctrine hinges upon it being 666. See the below article for an interview of Dan Wallace explaining these things a bit more.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/

To call into question the text of the Bible or say we cannot trust it, as Wallace stated, we would have to forego nearly all Greco-Roman literature. So overall, as we can see, the Bible as a textual document, especially the New Testament, is reliable. This is even before looking at the actual internal text and verifications of external sources such as the writings of the early church fathers or secular sources. Another article will be written to provide more depth to the reliability of scripture from a few different angles soon.

We therefore have the basis for what the Bible is, a short overview of the canon of scripture, who are traditionally accepted as the main writers, basic reasons to be able to trust it and a brief view in textual criticism and manuscript evidence.

So even before we open the pages of the Bible we have all of this information to fall back on. Yet what happens when you actually open the book? Assuming you weren’t raised as a Christian or no one has informed you of some of the other basic aspects surrounding the Bible, what would you find when looking at its pages. I know that I personally was confused the first time I really started to even just understand what was on the page, not even the text itself.

A standard page of the Bible has a lot going on. Besides just having the main text, there are all of these little “extras” on each page. The Bible is generally broken down into the various books mentioned about, 39 within the Old Testament and 27 within the New Testament. Then once you get to a certain book you are looking to read, you will see all of these numbers. Each book is broken into chapters, verses and have section titles to describe an overview of what is coming up. The chapters and verse divisions were originally created by Stephen Langton around 1227 A.D. One of the first Bibles to use this sort of classification was the Wycliffe English Bible and most Bibles since have followed suit in slightly different ways. Since the Geneva Bible adopted the verse divisions from a Jewish Rabbi named Nathan in 1448 for the Old Testament and the New Testament version from Stephanus in 1555, nearly all Bible versions from then have used the same divisions they had created. https://www.gotquestions.org/divided-Bible-chapters-verses.html

Even though when the text was originally written those designations were not there, it can be both helpful and take away from the text. One benefit is that it is easier to find a specific passage that people are referring to, but adversely, when we break things up so much we lose the sense that it is one whole body of work that was supposed to be read together. The chapter and verse designations do aid in memorization of certain key parts of the Bible.

So now I have some questions for you to really stop and think about. Based upon that basic overview of the Bible, are there other issues, difficulties or problems that you have with the Bible? If so, what would they be? Is it easier to trust or does it give you a desire to see what is written within its pages? What is preventing you from stopping right now, picking up your phone or paper copy and reading the text for yourself? What preconceived notions do you have of the text that are stopping you from reading it? When was the last time you really read the Bible?

Whether you are a Christian, Atheist, Agnostic or from some other faith or worldview, I strongly encourage and challenge you read the New Testament through once. Read 1 chapter of Proverbs per day for a month and then repeat that for 6 months. After you have read the New Testament front to back, read the whole Bible through. Go back and read the New Testament two more times and let me know what you think! Take notes through the whole process, write down questions, thoughts, comments, connection, things that stand out, issues you have, answers you get, doubts that arise and anything that captivates you.

There are some amazing Bible reading plans out there, look one up and start reading!!! Here are a few basic ones.

Hopefully this overview has sparked in you a renewed vigor to open your Bible and read it again! I can’t wait to hear from you and your thoughts on reading the Bible again and in a fresh way!

Biblical

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