Every year, approximately 100 million copies of the Bible are sold. With over 5 billion copies sold worldwide, it is the best-selling book of all times.
Time magazine even says the Bible “has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment, and culture than any book ever written. Its influence on world history is unparalleled and shows no signs of abating.” [1]
But what is the Bible, who wrote it? How did it come to be, and why should we trust it? In this post, I will attempt to answer these questions with a brief history of the Bible.
What is the Bible?
The Bible is not a book per se, but a collection of books. The word Bible comes from the Latin word Biblia, which means books. These books were written by 40 authors, in 3 continents, in 3 languages over 1600 years.
These books are divided into two main sections: The Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT). The OT comprises of 39 books covering events from about 4000 BC to 430 BC. While the New Testament consists of 27 books covering events from about 6 BC to 95 AD.
Nevertheless, the Bible is a unified story which points to the Son of God: Jesus. Though men wrote it, God inspired it and is the ultimate author.
Who selected the books of the Bible?
It’s important to note that no single individual or group of individuals determined or chose the books of the Bible. Instead, the early Church merely discovered or recognized which books God-inspired and which ones He did not.
Divinely inspired books are called canonical books; that is, they are recognized as authoritative scriptures. Here is how Jewish Scholars, Rabbi, and early Christians use to canonize the biblical books we have today.
Canonization of the Old Testament
The first five books of the OT, also known as the Torah or Pentateuch, were the first five books to be recognized as canonical. It is unsure when it happened, but a popular position holds it at around 500 BC. The rest of the OT got canonized around 240 BC.
The canonization of the OT books happened smoothly since many Hebrew recognized the writers were messengers of God, and their writings were inspired. Moreover, as Jesus quoted from the OT, taught from it, affirmed it, referred to it, and approved it; the early Christians accepted it as canon.
The Apocrypha books
There were other books written before the NT period that the early Church and Jewish scholars/rabbi didn’t accept as canonical. These books are called Apocrypha, meaning “hidden,” or deuterocanonical, meaning “the second canon.”
These books are 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Manasseh, 1 Maccabees, and 2 Maccabees, as well as additions to the books of Esther and Daniel.
The early Church rejected the Apocrypha for the following reasons:
- It contained many errors and contradictions.
- Jesus and New Testament writers never quoted from any of the Apocrypha books, though they often quoted from the OT.
The early church considered the Apocrypha as historical books and didn’t give them the same authority and infallibility as canonical books. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the Apocrypha as authoritative and officially added them to their Bibles.
Canonization of the New Testament
The canonization of the New Testament happened early on during the first centuries of the church. At that time, different councils met to recognize the canon of the NT. These councils were The Council of Laodicea, The Council of Hippo, and The Council of Carthage. They used the following principles to determine canon books.
- Was the book written by a prophet, an apostle or someone with a close relationship with an apostle
- Did acts of God confirm the writer i.e., did he perform signs, wonders, and miracles?
- Did the message of the book tell the truth about God and was it consistent with the writings of other writings already accepted as canon
- Did the Church accept the book?
- Did the book contain evidence of the power of God?
The councils used these guidelines to discover which books were divinely inspired. And in AD 397, the Council of Carthage officially listed all the 27 books of the New Testament we have today. But Christians had already accepted most of these books long before then.
The Apocrypha Gospels
Early Christians canonized the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but these were not the only accounts of the life of Jesus in existence. These other accounts include the Gospel of Andrew, the Gospel of Bartholomew, the Gospel of Barnabas, and The Memoirs of the Apostles.
These Gospels are called the Apocrypha Gospels, and the early Church didn’t accept them as canonical. They were written much later than the other gospels (130-170 AD), they contradicted many teachings of Christ, and they had historical errors.
Neither Protestants nor Catholic recognizes the Apocrypha gospels as scripture.
Why can we trust the Bible?
The trustworthiness of the Bible is a highly debated topic, particularly the New Testament. However, by modern standards, the Bible is more reliable than any other book of its genre. Below are a few reasons why you can trust the Bible; this list is by no means exhaustive nor comprehensive.
1. The Bible is historically accurate
Archeologists have made discoveries that confirm the existence of many historical details in the Bible; such as places, kings, officials, laws, etc. While they have yet to find proof for every historical detail in the Bible, they haven’t found anything that contradicts it.
One such example is the story of the fall of Jericho. Skeptics claimed the falling of the wall of Jericho was a myth and the city never existed. But archeologist discovered and excavated the city of Jericho and found out the walls crumbled as reported in the Bible.
Archeologists also found many artifacts and tablets proving the accuracy of biblical stories. For example, they discovered the Lachish Letters, which described the attack of Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Judah.
Compare it to the book of Mormon; archeologists have never located any of the cities, people, or places mentioned in it.
2. The Bible has more manuscripts than other ancient writings
Many scribes copied the books of the Bible and distributed them in different churches during the first centuries. As a result, there are a plethora of biblical manuscripts, and the Bible has more surviving copies than any other ancient text.
There are over 5800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament today! It beats other writings by far.
The Iliad by Homer holds second place with less than 200 manuscripts. And other accepted works such as Plato, Tacitus, and Caesar have less than 100 manuscripts combined.
It is significant because the abundance of the manuscripts shows that the Bible, we have today is the same as the one written some 2000 years ago. Different scribes around the world made copies of the original text, and the fact that they don’t contradict each other adds credibility to the Bible.
Moreover, the earliest NT manuscript is from around 125 AD, and most of the NT manuscripts date from the late second to the early third century. That’s a 100-200-year gap between the manuscripts we have today and the original writing. Whereas, other ancient books have a difference of 500-800 years!
And as for the OT, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed its accuracy. The Dead Sea scrolls had OT manuscripts about 800 years older than the earliest manuscripts at the time. A study revealed the Dead Sea Scrolls to be 99.5 % similar to the manuscripts at hand.
3. Eyewitnesses wrote the New Testament
All the authors of the NT had firsthand experience with Jesus; they knew Him, saw Him, and touched Him (1 John 1:1).
Moreover, these authors wrote their accounts within a decade of Jesus death. The Gospel of Mark is the earliest gospel, and it’s believed to have been written 50-60 AD. They were still plenty other eyewitnesses alive that could corroborate or denounce Mark’s Gospel as well as the other Gospels.
Compare it to the biography of Alexander the Great, which was written more than 400 years after Alexander’s death. Nevertheless, historians consider it trustworthy. How much more the Bible?
4. There are other evidence of the life and works of Jesus outside the Bible.
Various extra-biblical sources corroborate the Bible. For example, Flavius Josephus, a first-century historian, wrote about Jesus in his book The Antiquities.
He wrote, “About this time, there lived Jesus, a wise man if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ”[2]
Josephus goes on to describe the crucifixion of Jesus and His resurrection. And historians consider Him to be reliable.
Also, Cornelius Tacitus considered the most important Roman historian of the first century wrote about Jesus.
He said, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”[3]
Many other ancient writings and scholars corroborate the significant events of the New testament. Most of these writers were not religious.
How did we get the English Bible (and other translations)?
The Bible was first translated into another language as early as the third century BC. Jews had stopped using Hebrew as their primary language and spoke primarily in Aramaic. Meanwhile, Greek increasingly became common, and by the first and second centuries, most Jews adopted Greek as their primary language.
It brought in the need to translate the OT (almost entirely in Hebrew) into Greek. This translation is called the Septuagint, which means seventy. The name comes from the seventy-two scholars (six from each tribe of Israel) who translated the Torah (first five books of the Bible) from Hebrew to Greek.
The Septuagint was widely used in Israel, and by the time Jesus arrived, it had replaced the Hebrew Bible. Jesus and the New Testament writers quoted and taught from the Septuagint.
The second major translation of the Bible is the Latin Vulgate commissioned by Pope Damascus I in 382 AD. The Catholic Church established it as the official translation of the church. And during that time and afterward, reading the Bible was an exclusive right reserved to members of the clergy.
But it changed in 1382 AD when an Oxford professor named John Wycliffe decided to translate the Bible in English. Wycliffe believed everyone should have access to the word of God, not just the priests and the Pope.
So, with the help of his followers, Wycliffe did several English translations from the Latin Vulgate. But after his death, The Council of Constance declared Wycliffe a heretic and banned his writings. Even more, they ordered his bones to be dug up from holy grounds, burned and scattered into the river.
However, Wycliffe’s idea that common people should have access to the Bible didn’t die with him. And some 100 years later, Martin Luther started the protestant reformation. Luther also went on to be the first person to translate the Bible into the commonly spoken dialect of Germans.
During this reformation, an English scholar named William Tyndale, who believed Wycliffe’s ideas, decided to create a complete English translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. However, Tyndale was executed for heresy before concluding his translation into English. He translated about half of the Old Testament before his death.
Afterward, Miles Coverdale completed Tyndale’s work, and the Coverdale Bible became the first complete modern English translation of the Bible in 1535. Sometime after that, the English crown authorized the translation of Bibles in English, and other versions of the Bible were made such as the Matthew Bible, Bishop Bible, and the Geneva Bible.
The Geneva Bible was the first English Bible done by a team of translators rather than an individual. It was also the first English translation to use verses and to have notes in the margins.
The King James Version
King James became King of England in 1603 and inherited a kingdom fractured over religion. His predecessor Queen Elizabeth had affirmed the legitimacy of the Anglican Church, her father King Henry VIII established when seeking to divorce his wife. But Puritans wanted to further the reform and sought to purify the Church of England of Roman catholic practices entirely.
Hence they presented a petition to King James with a list of reforms they desired to see. The petition had over 1000 clergy signatures and was called the Millenary Petition. The petition had grievances on four primary areas, church services, church minister, church livings and maintenance, and church discipline. However, there was no mention of a new Bible translation.
King Kames convened the Hampton Court Conference to address the petition in 1604. And it was during that conference that He commissioned a new English translation. He gave instructions for the new Bible to be made without any marginal notes.
Furthermore, the new translation was to “conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the church of England, and its beliefs about an ordained clergy” [4]
Forty-seven scholars worked on the translation, and it was completed and published in 1611. It was the most faithful and accessible translation, and soon became the authorized translation in Anglican and English protestant churches.
Today, the KJV is still the most popular English translation. People praise it for its majesty of style, its flowing language, and prose rhythms. Some Christians even believe the KJV is the only “true” translation.
Other English Translations
There are currently about 50 different English translations of the Bible. There are two primary reasons why. First, it’s because the English language changes over time and thus making updates or newer versions necessary. Secondly, scholars use different methodologies when translating the Bible. The different methods are as follows.
1. Word-for-word methodology
This approach seeks to translate the original Greek and Hebrew word for word and preserve as much as possible, the original word order, grammar, and syntax. Some popular word-for-word translations are the King James Version (KJV), New King James Version (NKJV), English Standard Version (ESV) and the New American Standard Bible (NASB)
2. Thought-for-though methodology
This approach seeks to translate the original Greek and Hebrew less literally and prefer to preserve the meaning or thought of each sentence or paragraph without having to translate every word. Some popular thought-for thought versions are the New International Version (NIV), New Living Translation (NLT), Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), and the New American Bible (NAB).
3. Paraphrase-methodology
This approach seeks to translate the Bible in a simple, easy to understand language. Authors often take liberties and add to scriptures to convey the meaning of the original text. Some popular translations The Philips New Testament in Modern English, The Living Bible, and The Message.
The Bible is an extraordinary book, and everyone should have the opportunity to read it and be blessed by it. This post was a brief overview of the history of the Bible, and I hope you learned something new.
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Grace and peace to you!
References
[1] Biema, David (22 March 2007). “The Case for Teaching the Bible.” Time Magazine. Retrieved 9 August 2019
[2] Regarding The Quotes From The Historian Josephus About Jesus. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://carm.org/regarding-quotes-historian-josephus-about-jesus
[3] Tacitus On Christ – Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ
[4] King James Version – Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
Sources
Every Student “Why You Can Believe the Bible” Retrieved from https://www.everystudent.com/features/bible.html
Bible Study Tools “Who decided What Went Into The Bible” Retrieved from https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/who-decided-what-went-into-the-bible.html
Got Questions “How and when was the canon of the Bible put together?” Retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html
Got Questions “What are the Apocrypha / Deuterocanonical books?” Retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org/apocrypha-deuterocanonical.html
Got Questions “What are the apocryphal gospels?” Retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org/apocryphal-gospels.html
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ (Zondervan Publishing House, 1998)
Facts & Trends (September 07, 2018) “3 Reasons Why The Bible Can Be Trusted” Retrieved from https://factsandtrends.net/2018/09/07/3-reasons-why-the-bible-can-be-trusted/
Gilbert Greg (February 09, 2018) “Why Trust the Bible?” Crossway Retrieved from https://www.crossway.org/articles/why-trust-the-bible/
Got Questions “Is the Bible Reliable” Retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-reliable.html
Holcomb, Justin (August 15, 2018) “Why You Can Trust Your Bible” Gospel Coalition Retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-you-can-trust-your-bible/
Wayne Luke (April 04, 2018) “A Brief History of Bible Translations” CARM Retrieved from https://carm.org/a-brief-history-of-bible-translations
Great Site “English Bible History” Retrieved from https://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/
Reeves, Ryan (August 12, 2018) “What Is the Septuagint?” Gospel Coalition Retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-is-the-septuagint/
History World “History of Bible Translations” Retrieved from http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac66
Pruitt, Sarah( March 22, 2019) “Why the King James Bible of 1611 Remains the Most Popular Translation in History” History.com Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/king-james-bible-most-popular
Christianity.com “Story Behind King James Bible” Retrieved from https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1601-1700/story-behind-king-james-bible-11630052.html
Got Questions “What are the different English Bible versions?” Retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-versions.html
Good brief history lesson of the Bible! The Bible teaches that it will always be available so I also wonder if any of the Apocrypha books were hidden for periods? I know that there were different manuscripts of the Bible that were hidden (basically had been thrown away) for long periods during the translation process to English. Our church uses the KJV and has had a history lesson on why we prefer it for our congregation. I do not think it’s the only one to use, but I am happy with our pastor’s explanation and plan on always using it… Read more »
I wanted to get a KJV when I was looking for my first Bible, but I couldn’t make it through that old-style English 😆. I got the NKJV instead, and I love it! I applaud anyone who reads exclusively from the KJV; I only use it when comparing verses in other translations.
Haha! It’s what I grew up using (and my kids as well) so I’m used to it. There have been studies that show it is actually fifth grade level but I think some of the words aren’t used anymore just as we have words that fade out of the English language annually. I really enjoy looking up the Greek and Hebrew words using Strong’s Concordance. If you have never used blueletterbible.org then you should check out that website for studying!
I love doing word studies too! I usually use Bible Hub for word studies, but I recently heard of blue letter Bible, and it looks excellent. But I have a hard time using it cause I am so used to Bible Hub lol.