Christianity for Beginners: The Bible

added 1 year ago

Michael Mazzalongo

This is the third lesson in our series Christianity for Beginners and it is entitled, “The Bible.”
Most religions have records, holy books, writings or sayings from their leaders. For Christianity the source of its history and teachings is the Bible. In our lesson today we’ll examine three main things about the Bible including:

It’s content
It’s history
It’s claims

Bible Content and History

It’s very difficult to study the content of the Bible without describing some of its history as well – so we will review both of these ideas together in order to understand not only what is in the Bible but how it came to be written as well. The story of the recording of the Bible as a written record is the story of God’s communication to man.

The origin of the Bible

The word Bible comes from the Greek word, Biblia which means “books.”
The complete Bible/books numbers 66 (39/27).

To study Bible origin we must begin with the Old Testament or a better word is Old Covenant. This term is very useful because it helps us understand what the Bible is: The details of two covenants or agreements between God and man. The old one and the new one which replaces the old (like a lease where certain changes are made when renewing).

The Old Testament origin

Our study of the Bible requires us to understand several features of the Old Testament. Written in the Hebrew language which is still used today in Israel. First man charged with actually recording events and communication from God was Moses (1500 BC).

Exodus 24:1-4 – words of covenant at Sinai.
Exodus 34:27-28 – 10 commandments.

Moses credited with writing and organizing the first 5 books of the Bible (Pentateuque) Joshua 8:31. Jesus confirms this in Matthew 4:4.

Once God began to use human being to record His words, this system continued after Moses. Joshua was the next writer after Moses (Joshua 24:26). Prophets recorded their history and prophecies after Joshua (Neh. 8:18). In this way over a period of 1500 years, approximately 28 writers completed the 39 books of the Old Testament. Malachi was the last to record in 516 BC. No other prophets until John the Baptist. All these books were collected and assembled together into one volume by 400 BC and the Jews had a complete “Bible” 300 years before Christ.

Old Testament organization

The Jews had the same Old Testament as we do but they organized it a little differently. They divided the Old Testament into 3 main sections:

The Law: Genesis – Deuteronomy. This was the highest importance.
The Prophets: former prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel – each had their own volume) latter prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekial – minor prophets (book of 12) in one volume).
The (Holy) Writings: Poetry, History (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, etc; Ester Nehemiah; Daniel).

They organized these into 24 books instead of our usual 39 books.

			24 books
I.	Pentateuch	Genesis – Deuteronomy	5 books
II.	Prophets:	former	4 books
II.	Prophets:	latter	4 books
III.	Writings	poetry/history	11 books

Today we have the same books but they are divided differently:

			39 books
I.	Pentateuch	Genesis – Deuteronomy	5 books
II.	History	Joshua – Esther	12 books
III.	Poetry	Job – S/S	5 books
IV.	Major Prophets	Isaiah – Daniel (long books)	5 books
V.	Minor Prophets	Hos – Mal (short books)	12 books

The Old Testament story

Of course how many books and how they are divided does not tell us what the Old Testament is about. Even though the material was collected and written over a 1500 year period and recorded by more than 25 different authors, the Old Testament of the Bible tells only one unbroken story – God’s relationship with mankind, and in particular one certain group. In Genesis we have an account of the relation of the world and how the environment, society, and human beings came to be in their present state:

A ruined natural world.
A dysfunctional society.
A human doomed to die.

In Genesis we also read about a man called Abraham, chosen by God to be the head of a nation through whom God will offer salvation to all. The rest of the Old Testament books describe the growth and development of this man’s family from a wondering tribe to a powerful and wealthy nation called Israel. Most of the Old Testament books will contain information on their wars, conquests, politics, religion, moral codes, poetry and general history. It will also contain prophecies (predictions) of future events that will happen to their nation as well as the appearance and work of the savior originally promised to Abraham.

Although complicated to read at times because we may not be familiar with the history and social customs spoken of – the Old Testament is really one story describing God’s relationship with the Jewish people and their role in preparing a cultural and historical stage for the appearance of Jesus Christ.

New Testament origin

The New Testament, like the Old is also a story given in various books. The story it tells is of the life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the subsequent spread of His teachings by His followers (Apostles) who established the Christian church in the 1^st century. There were many accounts written of Jesus’ life but the “official” or “inspired” books referred to as the New Testament canon has only 27 books. I’ll explain how these came to be in a moment, but the division is as follows:

			27 books
I.	Gospels	Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (eyewitness)	4 books
II.	History	Book of Acts of the Apostles	1 book
III.	Pauline Epistles	Letters written by Paul (Rom, 1-2 Cor, Gal, Eph, Phil, Col, 1-2 Thess, 1-2 Tim, Tit, Philemon)	13 books
IV.	General Epistles	various apostles, disciples (Heb, James, 1-2 Pet, 1-3 John, Jude)	8 books
V.	Prophecy	Revelation	1 books

Aside from the gospels (accounts of Jesus’ life) and Acts (history of the establishment of the church) most of the other letters were written to churches in order to teach and encourage them in the practice of their Christian faith. They applied and completed the original teachings of Christ.

What is of great interest to many however is how this ancient material came to us today in this number and in our own language?

New Testament canon

Many books were written about the life of Jesus and several books were written by the Apostles and their disciples. How did they decide which books actually belonged in the New Testament? The books that make up the New Testament are called the canon – from a Greek word which means “measuring rod.” The word referred to these things which measured up when examined. In other words, when the early church examined all the material that was written about Jesus, how did they decide which books belonged in the New Testament canon? Out of the hundreds of books, letters, etc, how did they narrow down to 27?

There were 3 main factors that led the early church to form the New Testament canon and preserve it in one book. In the beginning the church did not have a high regard for keeping the letters of the Apostles and the disciples.

Apostles were alive and producing many letters so there was no urgency in preserving them.
There was a lot of written material being produced so no one thought that they needed to keep some of it.
They thought Jesus was coming back in their lifetime so the need for preserving the material for the future was not there.

But then certain events took place that required them to begin collecting and preserving the teachings of the Lord and Apostles:

Canon of Marcion – 140 AD

He was a false teacher who rejected the entire Old Testament, accepted only ten of the epistles of Paul and a part of Luke’s gospel but rejected the others. He began circulating this group as the official canon and so the early church was forced to decide which of the writings were authoritative and collect and circulate these. Done in 170 AD.

Persecution

Under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, it was a capital offense to possess a copy, any copy, of the Christian Scriptures. This brought up the question – which scriptures were worth dying for? Many uninspired, historical books were burned and only the most precious, most accepted works were kept.

Codex Form

Codex is the “book” form where several pages were placed together instead of using a scroll. When the codex form became popular, it brought up the question, which books should be grouped together into one volume. This motivated them to keep only the books that were acceptable in a single volume.

But the main question for the early church was “Which are the inspired books?” There was no meeting where they reviewed all the material and then made a decision as to which made it in and which didn’t. On the contrary, the early church simply accepted those works that had already been recognized as inspired over the centuries but had not yet been collected and organized into one set. This was finally done in 367 AD and the 27 books confirmed by the Council of Carthage later in that century has remained the same since, without a single change. But in collecting the books for inclusion in the New Testament canon, the early church was guided by certain principles:

Authorship

If a man was inspired when he spoke, then his writings were also considered inspired. For this reason the writings of the Apostles were quickly accepted into the canon. Also the men associated with the Apostles were accepted.

Luke because of his association with Paul.
Mark because of his association with Peter.
James was called the brother of the Lord and an Apostle – Gal. 1:19.

This, of course, allowed the gospels, the letters of Paul, Peter, James, John a natural selection for the Canon.

Value of Book

In some cases a book had a name attached to it but did not read like a New Testament book.

IE. Many uninspired authors tried to gain an audience by putting the name of an Apostle on their book – Acts of Peter (not written by Peter).

Scholars tell us that it was fairly easy to distinguish between inspired and fake when you actually read the material.

IE. Gospel of Thomas – Jesus made sparrows out of mud, was rebuked for doing this on the Sabbath and said “rise up and fly away” and the birds came to life and flew away. Another story where he miraculously lengthened a board to hit in Joseph’s shop.

In other words, when comparing the writings, it was fairly easy to tell the real from the fakes. The inspired books had harmony of thought, purpose and style. No contradictions and were accurate historically as well as theologically.

Circulation

The church did not decide which ones were suitable and which ones were not – they merely confirmed and collected those books which had traditionally been accepted by all the churches but had never been collected into one volume before. No new book was introduced, only those letters and volumes that had wide circulation and acceptance after long ages of study and review. Canon confirmed 300 years after first writings began to be circulated. We also believe that God was guiding and protecting the process in which His word was recorded and preserved.

New Testament translations

The Old Testament was written in the Hebrew language (most of it – some small parts in Aramaic). There came a time when the Jews could not speak Hebrew because of the Greek influence and so a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was made in the Greek language. Septuagint (to scholars). During New Testament time the people spoke Aramaic which was an ancient language of Palestine. The books and letters of the New Testament were not written in this language however – it was written in the common form of Greek (koine) which was the universal language of the period. The Greek form remained the standard as copies were made from the original and distributed for the first several centuries:

There are in existence today 5357 Greek manuscripts of portions of the New Testament that scholars work with (more than original Greek tragedies or Shakespeare).

With time, the Greek was translated into Latin and other languages but these translations were always made from the original Greek manuscripts. Not from Greek to Latin to German to English; always from Greek.

Latin was the language of the Western portion of the Roman Empire and as Christianity spread westward from its original home (where Greek was the dominant language) a new version of the Bible was developed. In 404 AD a new Latin version of the Bible was produced by Jerome, an early church leader. His translation from the Greek to Latin was called the Latin Vulgate. This became the standard version for study and church life in the middle ages. Various translations were made into “common” languages of the time from the 5^th-14^th centuries that included Gothic, Syrian, Slavic, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

By the 14^th century there was a renewed interest in the Greco-Roman world and its languages and literature brought on by the Renaissance. This produced a greater effort to examine the Greek language. This new trend led to a revival of the study of Greek and Hebrew languages as well as a study of the ancient Biblical manuscripts. This zeal to produce new Bible versions in common languages translated directly from the original Greek and Hebrew, was helped along by the new religious movement called the Reformation.

With the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1436 the technology to actually produce mass quantities of Bibles in different languages was realized.

It’s interesting to note that the very first book to be printed on Gutenberg’s new invention was the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible sometime between 1452 and 1456. This Bible was called the 42 line Bible because there were exactly 42 lines on each page. It still exists today and can be seen at the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz (near Frankfort), Germany.

The invention of the printing press helped spread the Bible in various languages throughout the world.

The earliest known English translation was in 700 AD. A Latin version with English notes between the lines.
The first complete English translation was done by John Wycliffe in 1382 – he was imprisoned for his efforts.
The first printed English Bible was William Tyndale in 1526 (large religious publishing house today).

There were many translations as the science of translation and archaeology developed. Major translation was King James Bible 1611 and it became the authorized version for English speaking people for many years. Still the most popular Bible.

Many other translations have appears over the years (RSV; AS; NAS; NIV; NLT) and each have a different style.

RSV – good Old Testament but New is a little awkward.
AS – best word per word translation but English is complicated.
NASV – most accurate to the original but easy to read.
NIV – English flows well but some find it too general.
NLT – newest one using easy to read modern English. Its goal is to give the most exact meaning using today’s English.

Many other translations but these are major ones.

Bible Claims

So we’ve looked at the content of the Bible, how it came to be written and organized as well as how the various translations were produced. One final point to consider, and it’s what does the Bible claim? In other words, what does it say about itself? Very simply, the Bible claims that it is inspired, meaning that God is the author of the Bible, humans simply wrote what He wanted and guided them to write. IE:

“All scripture is inspired by God…” II Tim. 3:16^A
“…no prophecy in scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.” II Pet. 1:20-21

Now it’s easy to make claims but why do Christians believe this claim that the Bible is not just a book written by good and holy men – but is in fact fully inspired by God?

There are many reasons but we’ll briefly look at three:

It’s ability to survive

Despite every effort to discredit its teachings and claims by governments, religious organizations, philosophers and skeptics of every kind for almost 2000 years – the Bible has survived intact. And despite constant attacks it continues to be the most translated, most printed, most read book in the world and in all of history. Of course you would expect no less from a book that says that it comes from God.

Another reason Christians believe the Bible is from God…

It’s uniqueness

One reason why many religions come and go is that their teachings are demonstrated to be false or become irrelevant in the modern world. But the Christian religion and the Bible as its source is unique among religious books.

Unique in its depth and insight compared to any other secular or religious book – scholars agree.
Unique in its unity – 66 books, 1500 years to write, 40 different authors and yet it is perfectly fitted together without contradiction telling a single story seamlessly.
Unique in its universality in that it is read and followed by every culture and language and perfectly adaptable in every time period – ancient or modern.

Only a book with a Divine source could lay claim to such unique features.

There are other reasons to believe the Bible’s claim that it is inspired of God but one last one I’d like to touch on for this lesson.

Fulfilled prophecy

Humans cannot accurately predict future events. To be able to do so is a sign of Divine power, to do so 100% of the time is a sure proof that God is at work. The Bible contains 100s of such prophecies. Events, people, situations described by prophets, kings, teachers that were fulfilled years or even centuries later.

IE – Isa. 44:28 – "who says of Cyrus, He is My shepherd, and shall do all My pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, You shall be built; and to the temple, Your foundation shall be laid."

Isaiah lived in 700BC. Cyrus, the king he names, lived 100 years later and history records this fact. The prophet names him, gives his position and what he will do. And all that he said happened!

IE – Mk. 10:32-34 – "And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem. And Jesus went before them. And they were amazed, and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took the Twelve again and began to tell them what would happen to Him, saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes. And they will condemn Him to death and will deliver Him to the nations. And they will mock Him, and will scourge Him, and will spit on Him, and will kill Him. And the third day He shall rise again."

Jesus predicts who will condemn Him, how He will be killed, and in how many days He will rise.

Accurate prediction and fulfillment of future events is a definite sign that a supernatural force is at work. Only God can do this and He has done it in the Bible. In addition to this, the Bible is the only book Holy or otherwise that contains accurately fulfilled prophecies – no other book or writings in other religions have, or claim this. If the Bible is inspired, as it claims to be, you would expect that it would contain features only possible through divine power.

Summary

Well, that’s our lesson reviewing the content, history, and claims of the Bible, the book that Christians use as their guide. In our next session we’ll examine the focus of the Bible records – Jesus Christ, Himself.

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