The Bible: What is it? How did it come to be?
Some thirty-eight hundred times the Bible declares, “God said,” or “Thus says the Lord”. Paul also recognized that the things he was writing were the Lord’s commandments (1 Cor. 14:37), and they were acknowledged as such by the believers (1 Thess. 2:13). Peter proclaimed the certainty of the Scriptures and the necessity of heeding the unalterable and certain Word of God (2 Pet. 1:16-21). John too recognized that his teaching was from God; to reject his teaching was to reject God (1 John 4:6).
One of the amazing facts about the Bible is that though it was written by a wide diversity of authors (as many as 40) over a period of 1600 years, from many different locations and under a wide variety of conditions, the Bible is uniquely one book, not merely a collection of sixty-six books. Its authors came from all walks of life. Some were kings, some peasants, still others were philosophers, fishermen, physicians, statesmen, scholars, poets, and farmers. They lived in a variety of cultures, in different experiences and often were quite different in their make up.
How is the Old Testament, the Hebrew Tanakh structured?
The Pentateuch is the term commonly applied to the first five books of the Bible; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy .
The Historical books include Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
The Poetic and Wisdom writings include Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.
The Major Prophets include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
The Minor Prophets include Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
The Hebrew Bible, Old Testament is organized into three main sections: the Torah, or “Teaching,” also called the Pentateuch or the “Five Books of Moses”; the Neviʾim, or Prophets; and the Ketuvim, or Writings. It is often referred to as the Tanakh, a word combining the first letter from the names of each of the three main divisions.
By approximately 500 BC, the 39 Books that make up the Old Testament were completed, and continued to be preserved in Hebrew on scrolls.
Josephus. Josephus (A. D. 37-100) said that the Jews held as sacred only twenty-two books (which include exactly the same as our present thirty-nine books of the Old Testament).
The early church fathers accepted the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament.
THE TESTS OF CANONICITY
(1) Did the book indicate God was speaking through the writer and that it was considered authoritative?
(2) Was the human author recognized as a spokesman of God, that is, was he a prophet or did he have the prophetic gift?
(3) Was the book historically accurate? Did it reflect a record of actual facts?
- The Old Testament Writers
- Amos: The book of Amos
- Daniel: The book of Daniel
- David: Psalms (Other authors wrote portions of Psalms as well)
- Ezekiel: The book of Ezekiel
- Ezra: The book of Ezra (Additionally Ezra is thought to have written 1st and 2nd Chronicles and possibly portions of Nehemiah)
- Habakkuk: The book of Habakkuk
- Haggai: The book of Haggai
- Hosea: The book of Hosea
- Isaiah: The book of Isaiah
- Jeremiah: 1st and 2nd Kings, Lamentations, the book of Jeremiah
- Joel: The book of Joel
- Jonah: The book of Jonah
- Joshua: The book of Joshua
- Malachi: The book of Malachi
- Micah: The book of Micah
- Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Moses possibly compiled/wrote the book of Job)
- Nahum: The book of Nahum
- Nehemiah: The book of Nehemiah
- Obadiah: The book of Obadiah
- Samuel: (Samuel is believed to have written 1st and 2nd Samuel, Ruth, and Judges)
- Solomon: Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Song of Solomon (also known as Song of Songs)
- Zechariah: The book of Zechariah
- Zephaniah: The book of Zephaniah
Parchment or papyrus were difficult to come by as Materials upon which to write, and thus in many ancient texts of both the Greek New Testament 
and Hebrew Old Testament there is the space-saving device of scriptio continua, that is, continued writing in which there are not even spaces between words or sentences. Even question marks were not used commonly in Greek manuscripts until the ninth century A.D.
and Hebrew Old Testament there is the space-saving device of scriptio continua, that is, continued writing in which there are not even spaces between words or sentences. Even question marks were not used commonly in Greek manuscripts until the ninth century A.D.
The original copies of the Old Testament were written on leather or papyrus from the time of Moses (c. 1450 B.C.) to the time of Malachi (400 B.C.). Until the sensational discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 we did not possess copies of the Old Testament earlier than A.D. 895. The reason for this is simply that the Jews had an almost superstitious veneration for the text which impelled them to bury copies that had become too old for use. Indeed, the Masoretes (traditionalists) who between A.D 600 and 950 added accents and vowel points and in general standardized the Hebrew text, devised complicated safeguards for the making of copies (as described above) … When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, they gave us a Hebrew text from the second to first century B.C. of all but one of the books (Esther) of the Old Testament. This was of the greatest importance, for it provided a much earlier check on the accuracy of the Masoretic text, which has now proved to be extremely accurate.
What are the 7 covenants in the bible?
Covenant to Adam. Found in Genesis 1:26-30 and 2:16-17, this covenant is general in nature. It included the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, pronounced a curse for sin,
Covenant in Eden: Promise of redemption through the seed of the woman and the eventual destruction and eradication of sin. Genesis 3:15
Covenant to Noah: God would never again destroy the earth with a flood. Genesis 9.
Covenant to Abraham: The promised Seed [developed from the Edenic Covenant] through Abraham and his descendants and indeed the whole world would be blessed. The land of Israel promised to Abraham and his seed forever. Paul tells us in Galatians that THE seed of Abraham is the Lord Jesus Christ. By baptism into Christ we too can become heirs of the promises made to Abraham. Galatians 3:16, 27-29.
Covenant to Moses: the Law which would govern the life of Israel replete with lessons foreshadowing the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in sacrifice and offering and holy living. See Exodus thru Deuteronomy. Some try to force another covenant with the Jewish people regarding their blessings and cursings as outlined in Deuteronomy 28 etc. However, this is not a separate covenant but a codicil to the Mosaic covenant.
Covenant to David: The seed of the woman and the seed of Abraham is more narrowly defined to come from the house of David of the tribe of Judah. Here the seed, or now the Messiah, would be a king to sit on David’s throne forever. See 2 Samuel 7 and cp. Luke 1:32,33. The promise to David is one of the key covenant promises in the Bible. It, along with the Abrahamic covenant are the pillars upon which the Gospel rests. It is not for nothing that the opening words of the New Testament refer directly to these covenants: Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
The New Covenant: The new covenant in Christ has absorbed all of these other covenants and now stands alone as the only covenant with God which He will accept. We enter into that covenant by faith and baptism and subsequently live our lives according to its teaching. Jesus the suffering servant, the Lamb of God fulfills the Edenic covenant, being wounded by but yet destroying the power of sin; he fulfills the Noahic in that he will one day lead the earth to a future when it is filled with the glory of God and no longer need be in fear of divine judgement, realizing the promise of the rainbow; the Mosaic covenant is fulfilled in him in his sacrifice and holy life; the Davidic in his Royal responsibilities in the coming Kingdom of God.
How is the New Testament structured?
- The New Testament can be divided into five sections:
- The Gospels(Matthew – John)
- The History of the Church(Acts)
- Paul’s Epistles(Romans – Philemon)
- General Epistles(Hebrews – Jude)
- Apocalyptic Literature(Revelation)
- New Testament Writers
- James: The book of James
- John: Gospel of John, 1st John , 2nd John, 3rd John, Revelation
- Jude: Book of Jude
- Luke: Gospel of Luke, Acts of the Apostles
- Mark: Gospel of Mark
- Matthew: Gospel of Matthew
- Paul: Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, Philemon (possibly the book of Hebrews)
- Peter: 1st and 2nd Peter
Canon
The word canon is used to describe those books recognized as inspired of God. The word comes from the Greek kanwn and most likely from the Hebrew qaneh and Akkadian, qanu. Literally, it means (a) a straight rod or bar; (b) a measuring rule as a ruler used by masons and carpenters; then (c) a rule or standard for testing straightness.
In the fourth century there was also prominent recognition of a New Testament canon. When Athanasius wrote in A.D. 367 he cited the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as being the only true books. In A.D. 363 the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) recognized the twenty-seven books, and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) affirmed that only those canonical books were to be read in the churches.
The Pope commissioned the great scholar Jerome to make a definitive 
translation into Latin, which was completed in 405. For nearly a thousand years this translation, known as the Vulgate, reigned supreme. While many translations were made, a church council in Toulouse, France, in 1229 forbade anyone who was not a priest from owning a Bible. Nevertheless, “underground” translation and circulation of the Bible continued.
translation into Latin, which was completed in 405. For nearly a thousand years this translation, known as the Vulgate, reigned supreme. While many translations were made, a church council in Toulouse, France, in 1229 forbade anyone who was not a priest from owning a Bible. Nevertheless, “underground” translation and circulation of the Bible continued.
By 500 AD the Bible had been translated into over 500 languages. Just one century later, by 600 AD, it has been restricted to only one language: the Latin Vulgate! The only organized and recognized church at that time in history was the Catholic Church of Rome, and they refused to allow the scripture to be available in any language other than Latin. Those in possession of non-Latin scriptures would be executed! This was because only the priests were educated to understand Latin, and this gave the church ultimate power… a power to rule without question… a power to deceive… a power to extort money from the masses. Nobody could question their “Biblical” teachings, because few people other than priests could read Latin. The church capitalized on this forced-ignorance through the 800 year period from 600 AD to 1,400 AD knows as the “Dark and Middle Ages”.
The present chapter divisions in our Bibles were invented in 1205 by 
Stephen Langton, a professor in Paris (he later became Archbishop of Canterbury), who put these into a Vulgate edition of the Bible. These chapter divisions were first used by the Jews in 1330 for the Hebrew Old Testament in a manuscript and for a printed edition in 1516. This system of chapter divisions likewise came into the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the 1400s.
Stephen Langton, a professor in Paris (he later became Archbishop of Canterbury), who put these into a Vulgate edition of the Bible. These chapter divisions were first used by the Jews in 1330 for the Hebrew Old Testament in a manuscript and for a printed edition in 1516. This system of chapter divisions likewise came into the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the 1400s.
It was Robert Stephanus in 1551, a Parisian book printer, whose versification of the Bible has prevailed to the present. He took over the 
verse divisions already indicated in the Hebrew Bible and assigned numbers to them within the chapter divisions already assigned by Stephan Langton. While riding on horseback from Paris to Lyons he affixed his own verse divisions to the New Testament and numbered them within Langton’s chapter divisions. Consequently the quality of his work was not the best.
verse divisions already indicated in the Hebrew Bible and assigned numbers to them within the chapter divisions already assigned by Stephan Langton. While riding on horseback from Paris to Lyons he affixed his own verse divisions to the New Testament and numbered them within Langton’s chapter divisions. Consequently the quality of his work was not the best.
Martin Luther was many things: preacher, teacher, orator, translator, and theologian.
But perhaps Luther’s greatest achievement was the German Bible in 1522. No other work has had as strong an impact on a nation’s development and 
heritage as has this Book. This was the first time in over 800 years that the bible was available to the common people in their own language.
heritage as has this Book. This was the first time in over 800 years that the bible was available to the common people in their own language.
Couple this with the invention of the printing press a few years earlier and the bible went from being a Latin “closed book” hidden away in monasteries to literally thousands of copies exploding all over Europe.
The first hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380’s AD by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian. Wycliffe translated from the Latin Vulgate into English. The 
Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river.
Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river.
William Tyndale was a theologian and scholar who translated the Bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew. He was the first person to take advantage of Gutenberg’s movable-type press for the purpose of printing the scriptures in the English language. Besides translating the 
Bible, Tyndale also held and published views which were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by King Henry VIII. His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting these views. Tyndale’s translation was banned by the authorities, and Tyndale himself Was burned at the stake in 1536, at the instigation of agents of Henry VIII and the Anglican Church.
Bible, Tyndale also held and published views which were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by King Henry VIII. His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting these views. Tyndale’s translation was banned by the authorities, and Tyndale himself Was burned at the stake in 1536, at the instigation of agents of Henry VIII and the Anglican Church.
What is the best bible translation?
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