Various religions have their holy books. Often these are reported as revelations coming through various means such as visions, dreams, or messages spoken directly by God or an angel. But the origin of the Bible is accounted for in quite a different way. The Bible is rooted and grounded in history. The Bible came from the experience of specific people, in identifiable places, at particular times. The Bible deals with the meaning of human life on this planet from within the stories of people who lived on this planet. It is holy in the sense that it tells us about the interaction of God and people in our world in the midst of everyday life.
It is the most circulated book in the history of the world. It’s been this way since the innovation of the Gutenberg press in the 1450s, when the Bible in Latin was the first large book to be printed by moveable type. The Bible has been translated into more languages than any other work ever written. More books have been written about the Bible than any other subject, and the single person about whom more books have been written than anyone else comes from the Bible – Jesus.
The word, “Bible”, probably comes from the port of Byblos in Lebanon. Byblos was known to be an important place for the shipment of papyrus. “Byblos” in the old Greek language originally meant the inner bark of the papyrus plant. Papyrus was used for paper in the ancient world. We get the word paper from papyrus. “Bible” simply refers to “book”, and what we think as the Bible wasn’t even called the Bible until about the 4th century A.D.
Although written across three continents – Asia, Africa, and Europe, the action of the Bible centers in Israel – a country the size of New Jersey. Jerusalem is the focal point – Jews, Christians, and Muslims all hold this city as sacred. Jerusalem is mentioned 656 times in the Bible. Over the centuries it has been destroyed 17 times – and 18 times it has been rebuilt.
The survival of the Bible is remarkable. Acting on a decree by the mad tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 B.C. his henchmen tried to destroy all copies of Jewish Scripture. The books of the law that they found they tore to pieces and burned. Anyone found possessing the book of the covenant was sentenced to death. The Roman emperor Diocletian instituted the “Great Persecution” against Christians in the year A.D. 303. He attempted to exterminate the church and decreed that every manuscript of the Bible was to be seized and destroyed.
Another challenge of the Bible was literacy – in 14th and 15th century Europe, only ten percent of the population could read at all, and only ten percent could read effectively. To compensate with this issue, the Bible was taught via sculptures, pilgrimages, artwork, stained glass, and dramas.
Sadly, over the centuries, the church fell prey to lust for power and wealth. Corruption increased. Superstition infected and distorted the Gospel. Several reform movements emerged from within the church with the most far-reaching movement – the Protestant Reformation – centered on the recovery of the Bible for the daily lives of the people. Key figures included: John Wycliffe who led the translation of the Bible into English; Martin Luther who led the discovery of the grace and love of God in the Scriptures that was hidden by the church at this time; William Tyndale who took up where Wycliffe left off and defied the forces against further English translations and distribution of the Bible to the masses; and, Mary Jones who was merely a teenager but walked barefoot 25 miles to buy a Bible for her own – she is credited with inspiring the formation of Bible societies which now provide millions of copies worldwide. You’ll hear more about each of these people and many throughout this year’s study.
Who wrote the Bible? God. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. However, God Himself did not physically write the Bible, which is interesting because we know He can write – He wrote the 10 commandments on the tablets for Moses, right? He chose to inspire 40 different authors from various walks of life including, but not limited to, shepherds, fishermen, kings, and a doctor. Moses was the biggest contributor to the Old Testament in writing the first five books – known as the Pentateuch. The apostle Paul wrote 14 books of the New Testament – over half of it.
Most Bible scholars agree that the Bible was written over approximately 1,500 years beginning in about 1,500-1,450 B.C. beginning with what many scholars to believe is the book of Job. Others hold that the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Old Testament) came first. The last book written appropriately turns out to be the last book of the Bible – Revelation – believed to be written in 95 A.D.
According to New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, the Old Testament was written “mostly in” Hebrew with some parts written in Aramaic: Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Jeremiah 10:11; and Daniel. 2:4-7:28. The Believers Bible Commentary states the New Testament was written in everyday language, or “common Greek”.
The Bible was written to tell a lost world that the God of the Bible is the Creator of the heavens and the earth and of humanity. The message of the Bible is God loves His creation, His original plan was to have an intimate relationship with them, but sin has separated people from this relationship. It goes on to document the countless proofs of His acts of love, mercy, and grace to prove His character first to a single nation and then, ultimately, to the whole world. It is written to reveal Jesus Christ, as the promised One, the Messiah, the Savior of the world and how He changed human history by lowering Himself to become a human, live an exemplary life of truly submitting to the Father, and to give His life as a sacrifice to all those who would come to believe in Him. Most importantly, it was written with for a promise – a promise of eternal peace with God via the forgiveness of sins by having faith in the substitutionary sacrifice and resurrection of His Son and Jesus’ return to rule and reign forevermore. The message is the same from beginning to end and in each book.
The modern Protestant Bible contains sixty-six books: thirty-nine books of the “Old Testament” and twenty-seven books of the “New Testament.” Most Protestant believers recognize these books as our “canon.” Canon comes from a Greek word, meaning reed, or measuring rod, and is used today to denote books that have been catalogued together because of their authority and divine inspiration. Determining the canon was a process conducted first by Jewish rabbis and scholars and later by early Christians. The formation of the canon was born out of a belief in absolute truth. Without that belief, there would be no need to recognize a standard by which truth can be applied. If truth were relative, then there can be no such thing as error, or wrongness.
Ultimately, it was God who decided what books belonged in the biblical canon. A book of Scripture belonged in the canon from the moment God inspired its writing. It was simply a matter of God’s convincing His human followers which books should be included in the Bible. The human process of collecting the books of the Bible was flawed, but God, in His sovereignty, and despite our ignorance and stubbornness, brought the early church to the recognition of the books He had inspired.
A series of “councils” of godly men would be the instruments that God would use to produce the Bible. The councils followed something similar to the following principles to determine whether a New Testament book was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit: 1) Was the author an apostle or have a close connection with an apostle? 2) Is the book being accepted by the body of Christ at large? 3) Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching? 4) Did the book bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values that would reflect a work of the Holy Spirit?
The Old Testament books find their beginnings in the oral traditions of humankind. The oral traditions are the “stories, history, laws, prayers, and poems that were passed from one generation to the next before they were written down and collected.” From oral tradition, these collections of thoughts and understandings were recorded by various authors and formed into separate writings, or books. Jewry classified the collection of books into three divisions: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.
The twenty-four books contained in the Law, the Prophets and the Writings, are represented in our modern Bible by thirty-nine books. This number was derived by separating the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah, into two books each. Also, the Jewish collection contained a single book called “The 12.” This book is today represented in our Bible by the twelve “minor” prophets – from Hosea through Malachi.
Compared to the New Testament, there was much less controversy over the canon of the Old Testament. Hebrew believers recognized God’s messengers and accepted their writings as inspired of God. While there was undeniably some debate in regards to the Old Testament canon, by A.D. 250 there was nearly universal agreement on the canon of Hebrew Scripture. The only issue that remained was the Apocrypha – books written in the time between the Old and New Testament that ultimately were not deemed to be divinely inspired, with some debate and discussion continuing today. The vast majority of Hebrew scholars considered the Apocrypha to be good historical and religious documents, but not on the same level as the Hebrew Scriptures.
The books of the New Testament had a root similar to those of the OT: they began through oral works. The apostles spread the gospel of Jesus through the verbal medium of preaching and teaching. Eventually, the church, early in its history, and because of its growth, “felt a need for a written account of the teaching of Jesus.” Nelson’s adds that from around 50 A.D., it is likely that more than one collection of written sayings of Jesus was being circulated in the newly formed churches. Josh McDowell in Evidence That Demands a Verdict cites reasons for a need to determine a New Testament canon. First, McDowell observes, “A heretic, Marcion (ca 140 A.D.), developed his own canon and began to propagate it. The church needed to offset his influence by determining what was the real canon of New Testament Scripture.” In addition to these outside influences that created a need, Albert C. Sundberg, in his work, “Interpreter’s” notes that the church “felt themselves possessed by the same Spirit” that had been the inspiration for the authors of the Old Testament. This inward testimony, Sundberg records, “carried over to Christian writings.” It would follow that, if the same Spirit that guided Moses and the Prophets, now resided in them, then this need for a canon could be met because the early Christians possessed, “an authority similar”.
For the New Testament, the process of the recognition and collection began in the first centuries of the Christian church. Very early on, some of the New Testament books were being recognized. Paul considered Luke’s writings to be as authoritative as the Old Testament. Peter recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). Some of the books of the New Testament were being circulated among the churches such as (Colossians 4:16).
The first New Testament “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and Jude. Hebrews was questioned because its authorship was uncertain. James seemed to contradict the Pauline letters and Jude seemed to make reference to an Apocryphal book, which was being rejected as canonical.
In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative. The earliest list of New Testament books, recognized by the church, was provided by Athanasius of Alexandria (A. D. 367). This list, containing 27 books, is “exactly like our present New Testament” according to Josh McDowell’s, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
This is obviously a summary of how the Bible came to be – there is much, much more I could add, but for most of you, that would put you to sleep even faster than I normally do. As I mentioned, it is good to know how the Bible came to be since we are entrusting our eternal destiny with it. Hopefully, for each believer, the greatest proof of the Bible’s authorship, authenticity, and power is how it has changed each of us. Living a life devoted to the truths of Scripture should produce stories of restoration, deliverance, forgiveness, freedom, joy, and most importantly, love. There’s an old saying that for every 100 people, 1 will read the Bible and 99 will read the Christian. We’re not perfect, and that should be a selling point to the grace of God – He accepts us as we are, but He will not leave us where we are.
The Acts of the Apostles begins with a group of followers who Jesus took as they were, but He did not leave them where they were. I hope you see what God did with ordinary people like us and turned the world upside down – or, better said, right side up. He did that with them, and since Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, He can do that with us. Amen?