You Asked For It

How the Bible Came To Be

1. The Bible is God's Word to Humankind --                                                         and                                              

   All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
   2 Timothy 3:16

   Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation for prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
   2 Peter 1:20-21

2. Process
   • God employed            different writers and guided them by the                                                     over a                           year period to create his Word for us.

     But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man,
     Galatians 1:15-16

   •                                                         of the individual books

     200 rhetorical devices, figures of speech, historical research, theological mediation, linguistic styles, choice of vocabulary

3. Canon -- "                    " or "                                         of                                                        "

   "This book is Scripture. God is speaking to us through these words."

   • The church's role in the development of the canon is passive, not active The writings authenticated themselves by their inherent power to convince God's people that they are his Word. A Biblical book did not become authentic because the church accepted it; the church accepted it because it was authentic and commended itself to the church as an inspired, prophetic, or apostolic writing.

4. The Unity of the Scripture

   "The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed; the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed."

                                                                         

                                                          

                                                

   Key principle: Scripture interprets Scripture.

5. The Hebrew Old Testament Form -- consonant structured text, no vowels, no spaces, 3 letter construction Vowels added later -- words identified by context Divisions: Torah -- The Law, the Books of Moses, History, Writings, Prophets Rediscovery of the Law -- 18 year of Josiah's reign (621 BC) -- the people heard, obeyed, convinced that God was speaking to them. Old Testament Canon established by time of Ezra and Nehemiah (approx. 400 BC) Septuagint -- LXX (285-270 BC), 72 scholars in Alexandria, primary version quoted in the NT
   • Council of Jamnia (90 AD) after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem brought a desire to give concerted attention to the Scriptures, rejection of the LXX and the Hebrew version on which it was based as the Bible of the Christians. Produced a unified text which led to the Masoretic text, addition of vowel pointings. Codex Leningradensis (copied in 1008 AD) forms the base for all Hebrew text and subsequent English translations today.
   • Impact of The Dead Sea Scrolls -- older is better
     11 caves in Qumran, 600 manuscripts of which 200 were Biblical. 60,000 fragments. Every Old Testament book but Esther represented. 2 groupings -- pre 70 AD where all agree with LXX and after 100 AD where all agree with the Masoretic text.
   • The Old Testament existed before Jesus --
     He reads it publicly (Luke 4:16-21)
     Attributes authorship (Matthew 8:4)
6. Non-Canonical Books -- Apocrypha (inter-testamental books) Luther: "books not equal to the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read"

7. The Greek New Testament
   • Form: Common Greek, unique personalities of writers and purpose
   • Division: Gospels, History, Epistles, Revelation
   • Oral tradition, writing it down, collecting
   • Justin Martyr (150 AD) reports that in Christian worship the prophets and the Gospels were read.
   • Earliest evidence of an official list is the Muratorian Canon (180 AD, Rome)
   • Tertullian, bishop of Carthage (200 AD) first used the term, New Testament
   • Athanasius of Alexandria (367 AD) published a list of the writings which the church knew to be divine: the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament.
   • The Latin Vulgate by Jerome (385 AD) -- official version of the Church
   • Two North African Church Councils: Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) officially acknowledged the Canons of both Testaments and forbad any others.

• Wycliff's Bible - The first hand-written English language manuscripts of the Bible were produced in 1380's AD by Oxford theologian John Wycliff (Wycliffe). Curiously, he was also the inventor of bifocal eyeglasses. Wycliff spent many of his years arguing against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church which he believed to be contrary to the Bible. Though he died a nonviolent death, the Pope was so infuriated by his teachings that 44 years after Wycliff had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river!
• Guttenberg invented the printing press in 1450s
• Luther's Bible -- no Latin, common German
• Tyndale -- the first printed English translation of the New Testament (1526)
• The King James Version -- most popular English translation, 1607 more than 50 scholars reviewed 5556 manuscripts

• Older is better
• Codex
• My 2 favorite translations: NIV, NLT and the unique The Message

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:30-31