History of the Bible
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.
Beginning as early as 250 BC, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek by
Jewish scholars in
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.
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."
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 (