History of the Bible

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By manuscripts

•All manuscripts were copied by hand until 1452

•Printing was invented in 1452 by Johannes Gutenberg

•Still many manuscripts were copied by hand until printing became the standard

I. Writing Materials

Stone

Tel Daninscription:

‘House of David’

Stone

• Deut 27.2-3 -- When you cross the Jordan to the land the LORD your God is giving you, you must erect great stones and cover them with plaster. Then you must inscribe on them all the words of this law when you cross over, so that you may enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, said to you.

Stone

• Josh 8.30-32 -- Then Joshua built an altar for the LORD God of Israel on Mount Ebal, just as Moses the LORD’s servant had commanded the Israelites. As described in the law scroll of Moses, it was made with uncut stones untouched by an iron tool. They offered burnt sacrifices on it and sacrificed tokens of peace. There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua inscribed on the stones a duplicate of the law written by Moses.

Stone

Clay

Clay

•Ezek 4.1 -- Now, son of man, take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it.

Clay

Wood

Wood

Isaiah 30.8 --

Now go, write it on a tablet before themAnd inscribe it on a scroll, That it may serve in the time to come As a witness forever.

Wood

Habakkuk 2.2 --

Then the LORD answered me and said,“Record the vision And inscribe it on tablets, That the one who reads it may run.

•Scribe’s knife used for erasing.

•Jer 36.23 -- Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.

Leather

Papyrus

Papyrus

Vellum / Parchment

Vellum / Parchment

Vellum / Parchment

Bible Languages

Hebrew

Aramaic

Greek

Hebrew

•Written right to left

•Language of the OT

•:) left to right from written is It

Hebrew

handwritten:

Hebrew

Hebrew

print:

Aramaic

•Closely related to Hebrew

•Aramaic sections in the OT:

•Genesis 31.47

•Jeremiah 10.11

•Daniel 2.4–7.28

•Ezra 4.8–6.18; 7.12-26

Aramaic

•Aramaic sayings of Jesus in the NT:

•Mark 5.41

•Mark 7.34

•Matthew 27.46

•In Paul — 1 Corinthians 16.22

Greek

•Koine Greek means “Common Greek”

•Easier than Classical Greek

•Koine Greek is the language of the NT

Greek

handwritten:

Greek

print:

John 1.1-10

II. Formation of the Bible

•Canon — measuring instrument

•“Reed”

•Became way to determine which books were authoritative and inspired.

Principles

• Was the book written by a prophet of God?

• Was the writer confirmed by acts of God?

• Did the message tell the truth about God?

• Does it come with the power of God?

• Was it accepted by the people of God?

OT Canon

•Law

•Prophets

•Writings

•24 books total, same as our 39 books

Apocrypha

•Generally, these books were not accepted by the Jews as Scripture.

•1 Maccabees 4.41-61 & John 10.22-24 — Feast of Dedication

NT Canon

•Canon implied in NT:

•1 Thessalonians 5.27

•1 Timothy 4.13

•Revelation 1.3

NT Canon

•Colossians 4.16 -- When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.

NT Canon

• 2 Peter 3.15-16 -- and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.