How We Got The Bible

  1. The Bible’s own claim:
  2. II Peter 1: 20, 21—the Bible did not come from man, but from God. 
  3. II Timothy 3: 16, 17—scripture is inspired by God.  See Revelation 22: 18, 19—“scripture-tampering” is the most serious business.
  4. II Timothy 2: 15—study scripture.   I Timothy 4: 6-10—learning the Bible and applying oneself to Godliness is worth more than any number of workouts.
  5. Jesus’ word is immutable.  John 12:  48 “ . . . the word that I have spoken will be his judge in the last day.”
  1. Documented historical time line.

 

                       2700 to 23002                                         Moses4         Malachi6   0    50-967     150       200s           138010       161112         RSV14      NIV16
|----------------|-----------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

4004 B. C.1       Noah                 Call                                       David5                 Christ                Justin8        Origen9                140011            ASV13        Phillips15                      
                                                  of Abraham3                                                                        Martyr

  1. Legend

 

1.  Time of creation estimated by using literal dates and times of the Bible.  Ussher.

6.  Malachi was the last book written of the Old Testament in about 425 B. C.  The OT was canonized between the time of the testaments.

11.  Gutenberg Bible was first book set to movable type.  It was the Latin Vulgate Bible.  (Encyclopedia)

16.  N.I.V  1978.  No C of C members on translating committee.

2.  Noah and the flood.  Estimated variously from 3000 B. C. to possibly as late as 2300 B. C.

7.  Time of the writing of the N.T.  Earliest were Mark and I Thessalonians, 50 and 45 A. D.

12.  King James Bible of 1611 was the first English translation of the Bible intended for reading by the common man.. 

17.  New English Bible was not an attempt at a word-for word translation (1961) but rather for main ideas.

3.  1921 B. C. rather exactly by many scholars.  Dates following are more nearly exact, also.

8.  Justin Martyr of the second century said that “memoirs of the apostles” were read together with the writings of the prophets.”  Canon already recognized

13.  American Standard Version was first real update to modern English since the King James Version.

Inspiration is considered to be limited to the autographia, the first generation of written documents.  If mankind owns any of those manuscripts, they may not be identified as such.

4.  Moses is named or hinted at as the author of the Pentateuch in NT passages such as Luke 24: 44, John 7: 19, John 1: 17,  and particularly Mark 12: 26

9. Origen in the 200s names all NT books, saying that Hebrews, Hames, 2 & 3 John, and Jude were question by some. Eusebius of fourth century names same books.

14.  Revised Standard Version Bible in complete form was September 30, 1952.

Division does not come particularly from the process of translation due to the curses of Galatians 1: 8, 9 and Revelation 22: 18, 19.

5.  David is believed to be the author of many of the Psalms, about 1000 B. C.

10.  John Wycliffe did the first English Bible in 1300s (World Book Encyclopedia).  William Tyndale was another translator of the time.

15.  J. B. Phillips was the first modern “one-translator” Bible.  Read any one-man Bible with caution and while checking other translations.

Religious division comes from implementation of the scriptures. What do they tell us to do?

A number of papyrus manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments have been found. These have been analyzed by archeologists using carbon-14 dating and other techniques. The older an object is, the more subject it is to errors of such dating methods. It may not be known whether an ancient manuscript is part of the autographia (the original manuscript, inspired by the Holy Spirit) or an early copy. What reduces our uncertainty about such documents is the conformity of early manuscripts that can safely be placed in the second, third, or fourth centuries after Christ. There is very little difference between them.

Where there are differences, they tend to be differences of total omission. The most notable differences in the New Testament are in Mark 16: 9-20 and John 7: 53 - 8:11. The Mark 16 passage contains one of the instances of the Great Commission (Mark 16: 15), but even if it were missing from our Bibles, Matthew 28: 18 - 20 would contain the same information, and that passage is identical across the earliest manuscripts. The commands and examples of the necessity of water immersion are repeated in nine different instances of conversion in the book of Acts alone, along with numerous other passages that make the commands for belief and baptism (Mark 16: 16) inescapable for anyone who is sincerely trying to follow the teachings of the New Testament. The John 7-8 passage about the woman caught in adultery illustrates the desire of our Lord for people to repent of their sins and not return to them, a principle illustrated again and again in the Gospels.

We, then, have a Bible that is unique among all books. No other book tells us where we came from, where we are, and where we are going.

 

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