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 The
history of the Bible starts with a phenomenal
account of history! It's not one book like I
always thought -- It's an ancient collection of
writings, comprised of 66 separate books,
written over approximately 1,600 years, by at
least 40 distinct authors. The Old Testament
contains 39 books written from approximately
1500 to 400 BC, and the New Testament contains
27 books written from approximately 40 to 90 AD.
The Jewish Bible (Tanakh) is the same as the
Christian Old Testament, except for its book
arrangement. The original Old Testament was
written mainly in Hebrew, with some Aramaic,
while the original New Testament was written in
common Greek.
The history of the "Bible" begins with the
Jewish Scriptures. The historical record of the
Jews was written down on leather scrolls and
tablets over centuries, and the authors included
kings, shepherds, prophets and other leaders.
The first five books are called the Law, which
were written and/or edited primarily by Moses in
the early 1400's BC. Thereafter, other
scriptural texts were written and collected by
the Jewish people during the next 1,000 years.
About 450 BC, the Law and the other Jewish
Scriptures were arranged by councils of rabbis
(Jewish teachers), who then recognized the
complete set as the inspired and sacred
authority of God (Elohim). At some time during
this period, the books of the Hebrew Bible were
arranged by topic, including The Law (Torah),
the Prophets (Nebiim), and the Writings (Ketubim).
The first letters of these Hebrew words - T, N
and K -- form the name of the Hebrew Bible - the
Tanakh. 1
Beginning as early as 250 BC, the Hebrew Bible
was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars in
Alexandria, Egypt. This translation became known
as the "Septuagint", meaning 70, and referring
to the tradition that 70 (probably 72) men
comprised the translation team. It was during
this process that the order of the books was
changed to the order we have in today's Bible:
Historical (Genesis - Esther), poetic (Job -
Song of Songs), and prophetic (Isaiah -
Malachi). 2
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Although the
Jewish Scriptures were copied by hand, they were
extremely accurate copy to copy.
The Jews had a phenomenal system of scribes, who
developed intricate and ritualistic methods for
counting letters, words and paragraphs to insure
that no copying errors were made. These scribes
dedicated their entire lives to preserving the
accuracy of the holy books. A single copy error
would require the immediate destruction of the
entire scroll. In fact, Jewish scribal tradition
was maintained until the invention of the
printing press in the mid-1400's AD. As far as
manuscript accuracy, the recent discovery of the
Dead Sea Scrolls has confirmed the remarkable
reliability of this scribal system over
thousands of years 3 (I'll get back to the Dead
Sea Scrolls later).
After approximately 400 years of scriptural
silence, Jesus arrived on the scene in about 4
BC. Throughout his teaching, Jesus often quotes
the Old Testament, declaring that he did not
come to destroy the Jewish Scriptures, but to
fulfill them. In the Book of Luke, Jesus
proclaims to his disciples, "all things must be
fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses
and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."
4
Starting in about 40 AD, and continuing to about
90 AD, the eye-witnesses to the life of Jesus,
including Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul,
James, Peter and Jude, wrote the Gospels,
letters and books that became the Bible's New
Testament. These authors quote from 31 books of
the Old Testament, and widely circulate their
material so that by about 150 AD, early
Christians were referring to the entire set of
writings as the "New Covenant." During the 200s
AD, the original writings were translated from
Greek into Latin, Coptic (Egypt) and Syriac
(Syria), and widely disseminated as "inspired
scripture" throughout the Roman Empire (and
beyond). 5 In 397 AD, in an effort to protect
the scriptures from various heresies and
offshoot religious movements, the current 27
books of the New Testament were formally and
finally confirmed and "canonized" in the Synod
of Carthage. 6
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