God's earliest revelations of His will and Himself were directly to men. He spoke verbally to such people as Adam and Noah. He sent special messengers to others--Lot and Abraham. There was not a written message.
That changed at Mount Sinai when God delivered to Moses the Ten Commandments engraved on stone. Moses subsequently put divinely inspired history, law, and prophecy into writing that was kept on scrolls. And that was the beginning of what we know as the Bible.
In learning how our Bible of today has emerged, it is interesting to explore the history of ancient books and writing. A discussion of the Bible's preservation down through the centuries necessarily involves the various materials and methods used for recording the divine documents.
Writing (conveying ideas by written symbols) existed quite a while before the Bible. The earliest writing examples are found in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures. The oldest examples are of writing done on clay tablets. Marks or letters were engraved on the clay before it hardened. Some of these marks were in the form of hieroglyphs, a sort of picture drawing.
The first alphabet is believed to have developed about 1750 B.C. By the time of Moses, at least five different writing systems are known to have existed. This is important because some Bible critics once alleged writing didn't even exist in the days of Moses. They've been proven wrong.
Writing Materials
Stone: We are aware of the fact that the Ten Commandments were originally written on stone, but a number of other non-biblical writings of the most ancient types are also on stones. A number of these are preserved in museums around the world. The Gezer calendar, the Siloam inscription, and the Moabite Stone are examples of such writings preserved today.
Ink on plaster: A couple examples of this type of writing have been discovered relatively recently. In Deuteronomy 27:2-3, we can read about God commanding a record in plaster and, in Joshua 8:32, about Joshua doing what God commanded.
Clay: This was most common in the region of Mesopotamia where they wrote on moist clay and then allowed it to dry in the sun. This appears to be what God commanded Ezekiel to use when he sketched Jerusalem on a brick (Ezekiel 4:1). More than a half million pieces of such clay writings have survived.
Wood and wax: The Old Testament speaks of writing on wood rods and sticks (Numbers 17:2-3; Ezekiel 37: 16-17). The Greeks and Romans used bleached or whitened boards for public notices. These were called albums. The sign above Jesus on the cross was composed of such board. Some wooden tablets had an inlay of wax that could be written on and then erased and reused.
Metal: In Exodus 28:36 we read of gold being used as a writing surface. Roman soldiers, at the time of their discharge, were given bronze tablets called diplomas granting them special privileges and citizenship.
Ostraca: Pieces of broken pottery were used as a cheap source of writing material and, at the same time, a form of recycling. Many pieces of old pottery that have been discovered have writing on them, including some with short passages of Scripture.
Papyrus: Most of the materials discussed thus far could contain only a limited amount of written information. But when people discovered how to make a paper-like material out of a plant that grew along rivers, writing as a means of communication expanded. This material also was much lighter, more compact, and portable. It is believed that some of the first New-Testament letters and books were written on papyrus paper.
Leather and parchment: Both of these materials are made from animal skins, the difference being in how the skins are processed. The Old Testament contains no references about Scripture being written on these materials, but by the time of the Apostle Paul, it seems that either the Old Law or some of the New-Testament writings were on skins. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:13 requesting that Timothy bring "the parchments" to him. Another term for a parchment made from calf skin is vellum.
Summary:
The Bible is now the most published of all books. We can also read it electronically on computers. It can be reduced to fit on minute microchips. But at one time, the recording of God's word was a very tedious process, and the entire product would have consumed a great deal of time, material, and space.
Bible Not One Book-a Compilation of 66
Most of us realize, though we may often forget, that the Bible isn't a single book but a compendium of 66 books, inspired of God and written over a period of 1,500 to 1,600 years. Thus, the issue of how we got our Bible is rooted in history that unfolds over centuries. The term Bible comes from biblia, which means the books.
The convenience of having the Bible in a single book, or of having a dozen or more translations of it on a single compact disk, is a historically recent convenience.
When the Bible books were written on scrolls, it took a scroll between 32 and 35 feet in length to record one of the longer books, such as Matthew's gospel. Since scrolls seldom exceeded this length, it may account for the fact that Luke and Acts are written as separate volumes. Acts, obviously, is a continuation of Luke's original gospel account.
The development of a codex greatly improved the tedious nature of scroll reading, which took two hands to roll and unroll while being read. The codex was similar to a modern book in that papyrus and parchment were used to make leaves or pages that could be turned and read and have writing on both sides. They were also easier to carry. We don't know exactly when the change from scrolls to codices occurred, but it appears that codices were almost universally used by 90 AD. Thus, most of the Old Testament was written on scrolls, and most of the extant ancient New-Testament copies are in codices.
Arrangements of Books
Old Testament: Our modem Old Testament is arranged as follows: Five books of law--Genesis to Deuteronomy; 12 books of history--Joshua to Esther; five books of poetry--Job to Song of Solomon; and 17 books of prophecy--Isaiah to Malachi. In all, there are 39 books.
A Jewish or Hebrew Bible contains the same books but in a different arrangement. They have the five books of law--Genesis to Deuteronomy; the prophets, subdivided as the former prophets (Joshua, Judges, and the books of Samuel and Kings) and the latter prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Book of the 12 Minor Prophets); and then a group called Writings which includes the books of poetry, as well as Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the two books of Chronicles.
New Testament: The New Testament, of course, is grouped in three major sections: five books of history--Matthew through Acts; 21 books of doctrine--Romans through Jude; and one book of prophecy--Revelation. Four of the five history books are called gospels because they reveal the good news about Christ and salvation.
The Languages of the Bible
The Bible originally was written in three languages--Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The people of Israel still speak Hebrew. Today, Aramaic is spoken in Syria and a few other places. Greek, of course, is still the language of Greece. Hebrew and Aramaic are related Semitic languages. Sections of the Old Testament are written in this language, and the New Testament includes a few Aramaic phrases. Mark recorded that Jesus said, "talitha cumi," which means "little girl, get up" (Mark 5:41) and "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani;" which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (Mark 15:34). But in the providence of God, the New Testament was recorded in Greek, the common language of the world in that day, rather like English is today.
Ancient Manuscripts Were Tediously Hand-Copied by Professional Scribes
Today, with computers, spelling and grammar checkers, and high-speed printing, we can create a book relatively quickly. But when the Bible was in its formative stages, this was not the case. Every copy of the Bible, or individual books, had to be hand-copied from an existing copy. The highly trained professionals who did this tedious work were called scribes.
As you can imagine, copies of the Bible text were not in abundant supply. A congregation might have a copy, but individual members having copies appears to have been fairly rare.
In some larger scribal writing rooms (scriptoriums), several scribes would be working at the same time, listening and writing as a reader orally dictated the text. As we begin to explore some of the old manuscripts, from which our present English Bibles have been translated, we see some very minor discrepancies between various manuscripts of the same text. We can understand how this could happen, with men listening to dictation, or through the eye moving from one text to another and then misunderstanding the sound of a word, or failing to transcribe a word or to transcribe it correctly. Fortunately, we have such a large quantity of old manuscripts that it is relatively easy to identify mistakes that are just scribal errors.
New-Testament Manuscripts
New students of the Bible sometimes are surprised to learn that the original New-Testament text no longer exists. But any confusion is eliminated when we understand that early manuscripts, written on papyrus, didn't last that long. Even today, books wear out.
Thus, what we have today are hundreds of copies of the original manuscripts. In fact, there are more than 5,300 such manuscripts, a few of the whole New Testament, several of entire books, and many more that are pieces and remnants of the Bible text.
Two Major Types of Manuscripts
There are two major types of Bible manuscripts. The first group is called uncials because they were written in all capital letters. This is considered the earliest (oldest) and thus the most important group of manuscripts. (The idea is that the oldest and thus closest to the original is the most valuable for establishing an accurate translation.)
But the larger group of manuscripts is written in a smaller and more cursive-like writing and thus is known as cursives or miniscules. Most of the manuscripts in this group didn't appear until about the ninth century and so aren't considered to be as valuable as the uncials.
The Most Important Manuscripts
We have today about 50 uncial manuscripts dating back to between the second and fourth centuries. Three of these are nearly complete copies of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. These ancient manuscripts are known as the Vatican, the Sinaitic, and the Alexandrian manuscripts.
The Vatican Manuscript
This fourth-century manuscript is widely acknowledged as the oldest and most important. It derives its name from the fact that it is housed in the Vatican Library in Rome, where it has been since about 1481. Because the Catholic Church held this manuscript for centuries, it was not made available for general use until the late 1800s.
The Sinaitic Manuscript
This manuscript is considered to be almost as valuable as the Vatican text, as far as an accurate translation of the Bible is concerned. It derives its name from the fact that Constantin Tischendorf discovered it at St. Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai. It is today housed in the British Museum in London.
The Alexandrian Manuscript
This manuscript is next in order of value. It derives its name from the fact that it was kept in Alexandria, Egypt for several centuries. Later, it was brought to Constantinople and then delivered as a gift to the king of England, James I, who authorized the famous New Testament English translation. He died before it could be presented to him, but his successor, King Charles I, received it. This manuscript also resides in the British Museum.
Brother Blackaby has done a wonderful job of presenting some basic fundamentals about how we got our bible. Such writing is important for many reasons, but I want to share two of them with you.
First, the Bible is under constant, ruthless attack to discredit it as a Divine book. The truth is it's the only inspired book ever written. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16,17) Paul assured us that God gave to mankind EVERY word contained in this sacred volume.
Second, the Bible is the final authority for what we do in service to God. Sadly, many people believe it is merely a book of suggestions and good moral principles that mankind is to use only as a guideline, and not as a law book. Such reasoning is nothing more than wishful thinking! We must have a "thus saith the Lord" for everything we do in service to God. Please read Colossians 3:17 and 2 John 9-11. Only if a thing is authorized in the Bible can it rightly be considered a good work-and part of His work.
In the September issue, Randy, will continue this theme. There will be additional articles concerning the confidence we should have that God truly revealed His mind to us in the pages of the Bible. God gave us His will, a record and instruction book that provides what we need to know to secure our faith, and how we must live in order to please our Creator.
Though thousands of years have passed, and none of the original manuscripts remain, the evidence, both internal and external, is with us; and it is overwhelming. The Bible stands alone, a book unmatched by anything ever written, or to be written, by men. Only a book written by God could stand up to the relentless attacks it has sustained, while remaining a shining testimony of His last will and testament to His beloved creation. (KMG)