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. 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
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

The Bible was written over a span of more than 1,000 years.
The Old Testament
Scholars are not entirely clear about how exactly the Old Testament came together. However, there is general agreement
that it happened in a series of stages.

The first works to be collected together were the five books known as the Law (as they contain a lot of legal

material). These are now called Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Next the Prophets collection was developed and added. This includes material about the lives and public

pronouncements of both the prophets and kings of the Hebrew people.

Alongside these two, another set of books was being written, which became known as the Writings. This section
contains a wide range of literature, from history books and temple songs to advice material and religious stories.

The New Testament

The New Testament contains a collection of writings produced after Jesus Christ had died.
Most Christians agree that the New Testament is made up of 27 books four Gospels, the book of Acts, 21 epistles and
the book of Revelation. This list was settled on during the 4th century AD. However, 20 of the 27 had already been agreed
upon by the end of the 2nd century AD.
There is some debate about how exactly the collection was compiled. In broad terms, it happened in a series of stages.

During the 1st century AD, a collection of Christian Scriptures made up of accounts of the life of Jesus and letters
of the apostle Paul;
The 2nd century AD saw a collection develop called Gospel and Apostle. The Gospel was four accounts of the

life of Jesus known as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Apostle was the collection of the letters written by Paul and,

later, for writings by other apostles;

In the middle of the 2nd century AD, groups on the fringe of the Christian movement started to come up with their

own gospels and letters. This forced the mainstream Church to define which works were part of the New Testament;
The first official list was insisted on at the Church Council of Carthage towards the end of the 3rd century AD
rather than at the Council of Nicaea, as is commonly thought.

Old Testament
The Bible comes from two main sources - Old and New Testaments - written in different languages. The
Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, with some books written in Aramaic. The following are
brief snap shots of the beginning and ending of the Old Testament and the reasons for the first two
translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Aramaic and Greek

1875 B.C. Abraham was called by God to the land of Canaan.

1450 B.C. The exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

1450-1400 B.C. The traditional date for Moses' writing of Genesis-Deuteronomy written in Hebrew.

586 B.C. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews were taken into
captivity to Babylon. They remained in Babylon under the Medo-Persian Empire and there began to
speak Aramaic.

555-545 B.C. The Book of Daniel Chapters. 2:4 to 7:28 were written in Aramaic.

425 B.C. Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew.

400 B.C. Ezra Chapters. 4:8 to 6:18; and 7:12-26 were written in Aramaic.