HOW DID WE GET THIS BOOK?
This book that we call the Bible is the product of many centuries of God revealing Himself and His plan to mankind. It contains a lot of history but it's more than a history book. It contains poetry and songs but it's more than a compilation of hymns. It contains information concerning events that have been and are even now taking place on the earth but it's more than a book of prophecies and predictions. It contains codes and standards for human conduct but it's more than a rule book. The Bible is a book that contains the heart and mind of God written in such a way that anyone who takes the time and initiative to read it can understand that we are not alone, we did not originate on our own, that we have a Creator, and our Creator has taken great efforts in revealing to us His best wishes for us.
God, over the course of time, has chosen individuals of various levels of status to record historical events and to communicate His intents to the rest of humanity. This is what is being said in 2 Peter 1:19-21 where the Scriptures tell us "We also have the prophetic word made more sure, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."
Several attempts have been made to establish a proper chronology for the events and books that comprise the Biblical record. Bishop Ussher's account seems to have the support of modern archaeology and other ancient literature. This places the origin of man around 4000 b.c. and it's also generally accepted that Moses (1571 b.c.) placed into writing the first five books of the Bible. His knowledge of the events recorded in Genesis comes from the unusually accurate tradition of ancient peoples to orally pass down information regarding family lineage and historical events. Again, modern archaeology and other ancient literature supports the information contained in the Genesis account.
Men have worked hard in their attempts to disprove the claims made in the Bible as to it's origin and contents but their efforts only serve to verify what we hold to be Sacred Scripture.
BIBLE DIVISIONS
Protestant versions of the Bible are divided into the Old and New Testaments representing the time before and after Jesus - the Old representing God's grace both before and under the Mosaic law and the New representing the fulfillment of prophecies concerning the Messiah and grace through Him.
The Old Testament has five divisions.
1. Pentatuech.
These are the first five books ascribed to Moses that include:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
2. History.
These include:
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther
3. Poetry And Wisdom
These include:
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs
4. Major Prophets
These include:
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel
5. Minor Prophets
These include:
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
The New Testament Has Three Divisions
1. Gospel and History
These include:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts
2. Pauline Letters
These include:
Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus and Philemon
3. General Letters and Apocalyptic
These include:
Hebrews, James, Peter, John's shorter letters, Jude and Revelation
Inter-Testamental Period
This is often referred to by evangelicals as the "silent period" insisting that God was not inspiring men to write for Him but the history of the Jews shows that God was very active during this period.
There is a body of literature from this period that is referred to as the Apocrapha that was included in ancient manuscripts and also retained in the original translation of the King James Version of the Bible in 1611.
The Apocrapha has five divisions.
1. Historical.
These include:
Maccabees and First Esdras
2. Traditional.
These include:
Additions to Esther, Susanna, Song of the Three Holy Children, Bel and the Dragon, Judith and Tobit
3. Prophetic.
These include:
Baruch and the Prayer of Manassas
4. Apocalyptic.
These include:
2 and 4 Esdras (in the Latin Vulgate)
5. Instructive.
These include:
Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon
Why have these writings been removed from versions of the Bible most commonly used by the Protestant church?
The following reasons are cited:
1. They were never quoted by Jesus and it is doubtful that they were alluded to by the apostles.
2. It is doubtful that the early church Fathers regarded them as inspired.
3. They did not appear in the ancient Hebrew Scriptures.
4. Because of the inferior quality of most of the writings, in comparision with writings that are considered inspired, they have been rejected as unworthy of a place in the Sacred Scriptures.
Extra-Canonical Writings
There is a large body of literature written by men on both sides of the time of Christ that support and attest to the validity of what we treasure as Holy Scripture that make for very good reading. One compilation entitled "The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden" offers readers some interesting content.
Survival Of The Bible Over The Ages
The Original Manuscripts of the Scriptures were made from 1500 b.c. to 100 a.d. and these original manuscripts have perished.
So what is the literary foundation for what we now call the Bible?
Three Early Copies of the orginal manuscripts were made are still in existance today. These are:
1. The Codex Sinaiticus, a Greek version belonging to the fourth century that was purchased from the Soviet Republic of Russia in 1933 by Great Britain that is now kept in the British Museum.
2. The Codex Alexandrinus, dating from the fifth century and containing the whole Greek translation of the Bible, with the exception of forty missing pages, and also kept in the British Museum.
3. The Codex Vaticanus, dating from the mid fourth century, originally containing the whole Bible, and kept in the Vatican Library in Rome.
There are also more than 5,000 ancient manuscripts of all or part of the New Testament - more than any other document from antiquity.
The Ancient Versions And Texts
There are five of these.
1. The Septuagint. This is a translation of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek language that was made at Alexandria around 250 b.c..
2. The Samaritan Pentateuch containing the Hebrew text in Samaritan characters.
3. The Syriac. The whole Bible, dating from the first or second century, translated into the common language of Syria.
4. The Vulgate. This is the entire Bible translated into Latin by Jerome at Bethlehem and completed around 400 a.d.. For a thousand years this was the Bible that was used by the Roman Catholic Church.
5. The Masoretic Text. The Hebrew Scriptures developed by Jewish scholars from 500 - 950 a.d. in which vowel points were introduced into the consonant only Hebrew Scriptures.
Very little was done in the way of Bible translation during the dark ages. Generally, the Word of God was locked up in the Latin language which was unknown to the common people.
Following the dark ages, numerous translations of the Bible were made to put the Bible into languages that were understood by common men. Early translators met with great opposition. These include:
John Wycliffe (1320-1384) who was martyred for his work of translating the Bible into English.
William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English in 1525 and the Penteteuch in 1530. He was martyred before completing the Old Testament.
Miles Coverdale published a Bible that was dedicated to Henry VIII in 1535.
John Rogers is believed to be responsible for the work done on the Matthew's Bible in 1537.
Miles Coverdale is again found at work on the Great Bible. This Bible was used in every church in England.
During the religious persecution under Queen Mary, a group of scholars did the translation work for the Geneva Bible that was published in 1560.
The Archbishop of Canterbury directed the work of the Bishop's Bible that was published in 1568 and used largely by the clergy.
The Douay Bible, a Roman Catholic translation of the Latin Vulgate was published in 1582.
The King James Bible or Authorized Version was first published in 1611.
The Revised Version (1881-1885) was made by a group of English and American scholars.
The American Standard Version was published in 1900.
Since then we've seen numerous other versions of the Bible published. Some of these have shown much integrity in keeping the Bible in the language of the people without losing or changing the content.
These include:
Revised Standard Version (1952), Berkeley Version (1959), Amplified (1965), Jerusalem Bible (Roman Catholic 1966), New English Bible (1970), New American Standard, 1971, Today's English Version (1976), New International Version (1978), New King James Version (1982), Complete Jewish Bible (1998)
Numerous "Study Bibles" have been published that include annotations and comments on the interpretation of Scripture. These are primarily doctrinally biased and come in as many flavors as there are denominations and it seems that every month or so a new paraphrase of the Scriptures hits the stores and of late the New Revised Standard Version has come out.
What version of the Bible do I use?
I read from several. Before I went to Bible College I didn't know there was any other version than the King James. In college we used the R.S.V. as our Bible text book. While there I bought a N.I.V. and a N.K.J.V. and use them all. Recently I bought Dr. David Stern's Complete Jewish Bible and enjoy reading it.
The "King James Version Only" argument is a strong one and I've done some homework on it but can't quite sell out to it. It seems to me that to do so would be closely akin to the argument for never translating the Bible out of the original languages to begin with or to keep it in the forgotten Latin that it was lost in for a thousand years. The King James Version contains archaic language that is not readily understood by most people today and even after years of familiarity with it I still find myself going to the dictionary.
The greatest problem that I see in all the versions that are available is that on any given Sunday there may be a half dozen different versions on the laps of the people sitting in the pews and this makes for an interesting challenge when reading Scripture publicly - everybody's Bible may have the same message but they don't read the same.
If I were to recommend a translation what would it be?
There is only one "Study Bible" that I would recommend without reservation and that is a Thompson Chain Reference. And for ease of reading I would recommend it in the New International Version. An alternate translation would be the New King James Version. It retains a lot of the style of the King James Version and is laid out in the same verse by verse fashion which makes finding things and remembering where something is located easier than the paragraph fashion of most other versions.
What version(s) would I not recommend?
I would not recommend any version that's merely a paraphrase or a paraphrase of a paraphrase. These are becoming increasingly popular but lack in a lot of biblical scholarship and integrity.
Also, and this may get me into trouble with the ladies and I plead your understanding and patience, but I do not recommend any version that attempts toward a "gender neutral" translation. This is a serious compromise of the content of the original manuscripts and goes against sound practices in interpreting and translating.
This is a little history of how we got the book that we call the Bible. There's a lot more that could be included in this such as individual authorship of the different books within the Book and also the dating of these writings. There's such a world of information that's important in helping us to understand the authenticity and integrity of the Bible but to try to include it here would be almost overwelming.
Copyright - David Kralik Ministries, Inc.
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