01.11. Chapter 3 How the Bible was formed

Chapter 3 How the Bible was formed The Old Testament collection

God’s control in human affairs is clearly seen in the way thebooks of the Bible were collected into one volume which wasaccepted as Scripture. This collection of books is commonly called the canon (a word that originally meant ‘rule’, ‘standard’, ‘measure’ or ‘list’). Books accepted as the inspired Word of God are said to be in the canon. Books not accepted as the inspired Word of God, though they may have been written by good men of the biblical era, are not in the canon. They are not acknow-ledged as the voice of God; they are not Scripture. No person or group decided to form the canon. In Old Testament times a recognized body of sacred writings had been developing. From the time of Moses, people accepted certain writings as the voice of God speaking to them, and as the years passed the collection of authoritative books grew. No one gave the books authority. The books had authority within themselves, and people could do no more than acknowledge this.

There is no record that states exactly when the Old Testament collection reached the full number of thirty-nine books. Clearly, however, the collection was firmly established as the Jewish Bible by the time of Christ. In other words, the Bible that Jesus used was what we call the Old Testament. Other Jewish writings of the pre-Christian era, collectively called the Apocrypha, were well known to orthodox Jews and the early Christians, but neither group accepted them into the canon. The New Testament collection

Since the apostles appointed by Jesus Christ had God-given authority, their teachings and writings carried the same authority as the Old Testament. Jesus had promised them that after his departure, his Spirit within them would enable them to recall, interpret and apply his teachings. Their writings were part of thefulfilment of that promise. From the beginning, Christians accepted as authoritative the letters and books written by the apostles or those who had the apostles’ approval. As the writings of the early Christian leaders circulated, they grew into a collection equal to the Old Testament Scriptures. Peter referred to Paul’s letters as Scripture, and Paul referred to Luke’s Gospel as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16; 1 Timothy 5:18). In an age when travel was slow, these writings took time to circulate. Also, if letters were concerned with isolated problems, or were very short or personal, they took longer to become widely known. Other Christian writings also circulated, but they did not win wide acceptance and never became part of the canon. By the middle of the second century, churches in some places had a collection of books similar to our New Testament. In other places there was less certainty, partly because of the activity of false teachers. Church Councils met at various times to discuss the value of certain books, and by the end of the fourth century there was general agreement that the New Testament consists of the twenty-seven books we recognize today. As with the Old Testament, so with the New, no Council created the canon or gave it authority. The authority was within the books themselves. The benefit of the Councils was their formal recognition that Christians everywhere acknowledged the books as God’s living and authoritative Word.

Writing and copying So far as we know, the books of the Bible were written originally on scrolls of papyrus, a material made from dried and flattened trips of papyrus reed. Papyrus did not last well, and all the original manuscripts perished long ago. From the beginning, however, people made copies of the original writings, and others continued to make copies down through the centuries. These copies are known as manuscripts.

Mechanical printing was unknown in the ancient world, and people made copies of the Scriptures by hand. Those who did this work were known as scribes, or copyists. Hebrew copyists were so passionate about preserving every letter of Scripture exactly as it was that they made very few errors. New Testament copyists were less conscientious. They sometimes misread or misplaced words, or even adjusted the wording to ‘improve’ it. But variations in the Greek manuscripts are no great hindrance. Thousands of manuscripts are available, and this enables experts to determine the original wording fairly accurately. The most valuable New Testament manuscripts come from the fourth to sixth centuries AD, though earlier ones exist. The most valuable Old Testament manuscripts come from the ninth to eleventh centuries AD. The reason earlier Hebrew manuscripts did not survive was that the Hebrews, out of reverence for their Scriptures, buried manuscripts honourably once they were too old or worn to use. Other ancient documents, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls (which contain Old Testament manuscripts from the period 130 BC to AD 70) confirm the accuracy of the existing manuscripts. So do early translations.

God, as always, guided affairs to preserve his Word, both in the formation of the canon and in the preservation of the manu- scripts. In spite of damage through age, misuse, copyists’ errors and government attacks, the Scriptures are still intact, essentially as they were when first written. All the areas of uncertainty are little more than one percent of the whole, and are largely concerned with minor issues. God preserved his Word in such a way that no important teaching is affected.

Translating the Scriptures

Using all the material available, experts in ancient languages and documents are able to prepare accurate editions of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. These books are called texts. Translations are made from these texts, not from the ancient manuscripts themselves. Those manuscripts are carefully preserved in safe places such as museums. When the early English translations of the Bible were made, translators had a more difficult task than translators have today. Good manuscripts were fewer, texts were not as reliable, and knowledge of the ancient languages was less developed. Those who translated the King James Version in 1611 admitted they did not know how to translate certain words and phrases, but they expressed the hope that some day others would produce a better translation. Although they did a remarkable job, some later versions are better representations of the original writing. The Revised Version of 1885, for example, was a careful revision of the King James Version. It, in turn, was revised to produce the Revised Standard Version of 1952, a more wide-ranging revision and a more readable translation. No translation of any book can claim to be the only equivalent of the original, no matter which book or language. There are great differences in the structure and grammar of languages, so that a sentence may be translated several ways, all of them correct. The translators’ task is to produce something that is true to the original and understandable to the reader. Modern translations such as the Good News Bible and the New International Version differ from each other in style, but both are good readable translations.

Naturally, some people like one translation, others another. Readers must remember, however, that the test of a translation is not whether they like it, but whether it is accurate.

Even if a translation has deficiencies, people can still hear the voice of God’s through it. The Bible is no ordinary book. It is God’s message, and it has a unity that consists of more than mere similarity between words. The occasional differences of opinion among translators cannot stop the truth of God from expressing itself through the book as a whole. Readers can get some understanding of God’s Word from any version, but those who use several versions will get a better understanding.