The Bible…Where does it come from?
Ahh, the Bible. It’s by far the most sold book of all time and is illegal in 52 countries. Some people call it our Instruction manual. After all, the word Bible is the acronym for basic instructions before leaving earth. If it’s our Instruction manual for life, we need to know where it came from and who decided on what should go in it?
As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the infallible and all authoritative Word of God. If this is true, then we should at least know a little bit about where God’s Word comes from. We need to look into how it was decided which books went into the Bible we read today, and why other books were left out. This is what we are going to try and cover in today’s episode.
Before we get started I want to make a little disclaimer. While I did a fair amount of research on this topic, this is one that has been debated for centuries, has been the cause of fights within the church, and part of a major church split a few hundred years ago. There are people today who have devoted their entire lives to studying the History of the Bible, and have earned many doctoral degrees from various religious and educational institutions. My goal today is to give an informative overview of the way I understand things to have happened.
Let’s jump into Episode 2 of the Grafted Podcast. Where did the Bible come from?
Both Divine and Human
It is said that the Bible is both Divine and Human.
It is divine because it is God’s message to humans that gives eternal relevance to every culture and throughout every age. God chose to speak His eternal truths through particular circumstances within the events of human history. It is human because God chose to speak through human words that needed to be recorded throughout history. This makes the Bible a historical book. It is because of these two facts, that today we must both listen to and obey the words of the Bible.
I know, it’s way easier said than done. Right?
I believe that because God chose to speak throughout real human history, these same words will speak again and again not only to us today but also in the future. Just like they have throughout the history of God’s people.
It took over 1,500 years and approximately 40 different authors whom God inspired to expressed and recorded the 66 books of the Protestant Bible we have today.
Through each of the 40 writers, God used just about every form of communication there is. He used everything from narrative history to laws of all kinds, and from poetry and proverbs to apocalypse. There is literally something for everyone to enjoy reading.
Something I find interesting is God didn’t use people that would normally be thought of to write these books. He used everyone from Kings to peasants, and from politicians to religious leaders to record His word. Each writer came from a different place, with various styles of writing, interests, and backgrounds. The thing that unites each writer is that each one wrote about the relationship between God and humanity as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
We use the term “Inspired,” to define the process in which God directed people to produce his message/word. This comes from 2 Timothy 3:16 that says, “All scripture is God-breathed (or inspired)…” and from 2 Peter 1:21 “For prophecy never has its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
These 66 books are divided into two testaments. The word testament means treaty, pact or covenant. And these two testaments are based on the covenants God has made with mankind. We know these as the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Old Testament
Let's look at the Old Testament first. It consists of 39 individual books that were written between 1445 B.C. and 400 B.C. Jews refer to the Old Testament as the Tanak. Tanak is actually an acronym for the three-part division of the Jewish Bible: Ta for Torah which is the first five books, Na for Nebi’im or the prophets, and Kh is for the Ketubim known as the Writings. This collection covers the history of God’s relationship with humanity from the Creation to the coming of Jesus. These three parts, together, reveals God’s plan for humanity and was a temporary covenant until Jesus would come to establish the permanent covenant. It even contains over 300 of prophecies that are fulfilled through Jesus in the New Testament
God chose the Jews (also known as Hebrews or Israelites) to receive his truths, write them, and teach them to others. These stories and writing cover the history of God’s relationship with humanity from creation and prophecies of the coming messiah, to the coming of Jesus who would establish the new and permanent covenant.
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew because it was the language of the Jews. That is with the exception of the Book of Daniel, and two passages in Ezra that were written in Aramaic. I believe this was because these were written during the time of the Babylonian rule.
The first 11 chapters of Genesis were passed down orally for thousands of years. Everything from God creating the earth to the flood of Noah, even through to the exile of the Israelites from Egypt, these stories were passed down orally from generation to generation. Until Moses came along. God inspired Moses to start recording his teachings, laws, and instructions known as the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). This happened between 1445 to 1405 B.C..
The second major division of the Bible is the Nevi’im or Prophets. Prophets in the bible are literally spokesmen for God. These books are divided into Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings), and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the 12 minor prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos Obadiah, Jonah, Micha, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi). I’ll spare you the reading of these lists.
The third major division is the Ketuvim or writings. This part includes homilies, poems, prayers, proverbs and psalms. The Jewish bible consists of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Ester, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and 1 & 2 Chronicles.
The Old Testament of the Christian Bible includes the full text of the Jewish Bible. The difference is in the arrangement of the books. Instead of three major parts, the Christian Old Testament has five: the Pentateuch which is the first five books, the historical books from Joshua to Esther, poetry that includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes; The Major Prophets (Isaiah through Daniel); and finally the Minor Prophets (Hosea to Malachi).
The Jewish Bible was completed by the year 400 B.C. (Before Christ), and was fairly well established as authoritative scripture. From 200 to 100 B.C. the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible was made. This translation is known as the Septuagint. It was made at the request of King Ptolemy so that it could be included in the Library of Alexandria.
At the same time the Septuagint was being translated, there were other Jewish theological works written in Greek as well. Many of these writings/books were read, circulated, and highly respected among Jewish synagogues, but they were never accepted by the Jews as equal to the authoritative books within the Tanak. They were similar to modern-day commentaries. These books were known as the Apocryphal books. Some of these books were written in Green and even made their way into the Septuagint. We will talk more about this debacle in a few minutes.
New Testament
This brings us to the New Testament. The new testament is made from a collection of 27 books. These writings were originally written in Greek. Which was the most commonly known language of that day. Nine different authors wrote these books between about 45 and 96 after Christ. This testament shares the conditions of the New Covenant between God and anyone who accepts his son, Jesus Christ, as Lord, God, and Savior. The New Testament is broken into 4 parts: the Gospels, Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation.
The Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. they tell the story of Jesus’ life and also include many of his teachings. “These books stand side by side because at one and the same time they record the facts about Jesus, recall the teachings of Jesus, and bear witness to Jesus.
After the Gospels is the book of Acts. Also known as the “Acts of the Apostles.” The author is Luke, who also wrote the Gospel of Luke. He wrote Acts as a continuation to his first book. It was written to record the history of the early church and to describe what Jesus continued to do and teach — through his followers — after he returned to heaven. Acts shows how God's power and purpose work through human endeavors.
The third part of the New Testament is the Epistles. Epistles are letters that were written by Paul, James, Peter, John and Jude. These letters account for 21 books of the New Testament. All of which were written in the first century to address specific situations. These situations were from behavioral or doctrinal issues that needed correcting, or to clarify a misunderstanding.
Finally, the last part of the New Testament is Revelation. Revelation is written by John and is a combination of apocalypse, prophecy and letters. This book looks forward to the time when God will finally judge the evil in the world. John was inspired to write this book based on dreams and visions that he expressed through cryptic and symbolic meanings. As Christians, we believe that Revelation is a prophecy about what God is going to do in the future.
During the first and second centuries after Christ, there were quite a few different writings and letters that popped up. Some were circulated around Christian Churches. Over time, it was found that some of these writings were fake and written by third-party separatist movements. These Heretical groups threatened good relationships within the church. Paul speaks about heretics who stir up quarreling and dissension within the church in 1 Corinthians 11:18-19, Galatians 5:19-21, and in Titus 3:9-11. Peter talks about the false prophets who have denied the true teachings about Christ in 2 Peter chapter 2. Ignatius, an early church leader in the second century, wrote about these false writings referring to them as Gnosticism. Another early church leader, Irenaeus, sought to correct these false writings through writing a multivolume book called Against Heresies.
Eventually, it became apparent that there was a need to have a defined list of inspired scriptures. Many people think that the bible was assembled in 325 A.D. during the Council of Nicea. This idea comes from Dan Brown's book, “The Da Vinci Code.” In reality, it was a much longer process. Scholars have evidence that different church leaders and theologians made arguments for which books belong in the canon of scripture. This evidence is found through letters, church history, and theological disclosure.
Early church leaders and theologians ended up creating three lists: Recognized books, disputed books, and false or heretical books. The books that make it into the Recognized list are what made it into the Bible. But how was it decided which books made the list? There had to be a set of criteria that was made and based on specific questions. This criterion was found through a list of questions: (1) Who was the author? Was it written by an apostle, by Paul, or by someone close to them? (2) How old was the text? The older writings took priority over newer ones. (3) Was it orthodox? Meaning did the text agree with older writings from the Apostles and did it align with known Christian teachings. (4) Did the text contradict other recognized writings? If it was truly from God, it wouldn’t contradict other texts, because God does not lie or contradict himself. (5) Did the writing come with the power to change lives? If it couldn’t change lives then it was apparent that God was not behind its message. (6) Was the writing followed or confirmed by miracles of God? True and false prophets were separated by performing miracles.
Because of the criteria, the Bishop of Alexandria (Athanasius), provided a list of the 27 New Testament books by 367 A.D.
The List is complete.
It wasn’t until the 4th century that the church recognized the full canon of scripture. It was then that Bishop Augustine wrote that only 66 books, 39 Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament, were considered canonical and were able to be used in Church. It was then that the books and writings that didn’t make it in the list of Recognized writings were thrown out. Today these books that were thrown out are known as the Gnostic Gospels.
Latin eventually became the major language of theology in the 4th century. There was a need for the bible to be translated again. This task fell on Jerome of Stridon when Pope Damasus commissioned this new translation to be made. Jerome took the 66 books Augustine approved, along with the fifteen books of the Apocrypha, and translated them into Latin. The 15 extra books of the Apocrypha were left in because Jewish Rabbis through they were helpful. They were considered to be similar to modern-day study notes or commentary. Especially about historical information from the 400-year gap between the Old and New Testaments. Jerome clearly noted that the Apocryphal books were not to be viewed as authoritative scripture. Over time, these notes dropped out causing some new Christians to assume that these books were part of the accepted bible. This Latin bible became known as the Vulgate.
The Canon of Scripture was set… Kind of.
While the main editing of the bible ended in Augustine's day, the debate about which books legitimately belonged in scripture remained. This debate lasted into the 16th century. Along with Luther's Ninety-five Theses, this was part of what caused the largest church split in the history of the church. This split was known as the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant movement sought to return to more biblical beliefs, which caused scripture to once again be translated. This time the translations were into the modern languages of Europe (English, German, French, and some others). These translations were directed by serious regard for Hebrew and Greek, because they were the original languages scripture was written in. Because of this, the Vulgate was ignored, and only the original manuscripts were used.
During the translation process, it was noticed that the Apocryphal books were not in the original Hebrew manuscripts. The translators found that the Jews never accepted them as scripture, it never claimed to be inspired. In fact, the book of Maccabees chapter 9 verse 27 actually denies being inspired. Jesus even implies in Matthew 23:35 that the historical scripture of the old testament was concluded when Zechariah died which was around 400 B.C. Due to these findings, the translators and theologians decided to reject the Apocrypha, and the decision was made that it would be included in the appendix or be left out altogether. This made the new bible which includes the 66 books of the Protestant Bible we have today.
In response to the Protestant Reformation and this new Protestant Bible, the Catholic Church had to get its ducks in a row. So Pope Paul III called a meeting in 1545 known as the Council of Trent. Not only was the Catholic thought and practice clarified, they took a stand against their new protestant opponents. It was here that Pope Paul III and the Catholic leadership declared that the Latin Vulgate was the official Bible of the “True Church.” This Bible included the apocryphal books as part of the authoritative scripture. This gives the Catholic Bible 73 books, 7 of which are from the Apocrypha.
Today, there are actually three versions of the Bible. The 81 books, Ethiopian Orthodox Bible; the Catholic Bible with its 73 books; and finally the Protestant Bible containing only Augustines 66 approved books. You may be asking, why is there an Ethiopian Orthodox Bible and why is it different from the Catholic Bible? That is a really good question for someone else to do a podcast about. For me, I agree with the theories of the scholars and theologians of the Reformation, who went back to the original manuscripts to have more biblical foundations in their belief system. I also agree with the Jewish Rabbis that said the Apocryphal books are not authoritative or inspired, but they are helpful in providing information about what was believed and undertook between the 400-year gap of Zechariah and Jesus.
There we have it… the Bible. Not a single person or the church created it. It didn’t come to us in a bolt of lightning, and there was no single date that we can say that it was written. Instead, God inspired men, through the Holy Spirit, to record his eternal truths and His plan for humanity throughout historical events. It is through the church and many councils, who gradually accepted the lists of recognized books based on experience, evidence through scholarly research, and mutual agreement that we have the Bible today. The fact that each author and their books build off of the previous books keeping the same message for over 1500 years and the fact that the writings that the bible is made of have been preserved for over a millennium is a miracle in itself. These same words, known as God’s Word, that spoke to Jews and the early Christian Church are still speaking to us today and will continue to change lives in the future. Based on the way the Bible was created and preserved, we all have good reason to consider reading and obeying what God speaks to us through his word… the Holy Bible.
