THE BIBLE

The History of the Bible

The Bible was written over a period of 1500 years, ending nearly 2000 years ago. For 1700 years, the Bible has been written, compiled, discussed, and debated, which has made it as accurate as possible.

Day One: The Canon
The term "canon" is used to describe the books that are divinely inspired and therefore belong in the Bible. The difficulty in determining the biblical canon is that the Bible does not give us a list of the books that belong in the Bible...
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Day Two: Determining the Canon
If Scripture is to be our sole authority, on what authority do we know which books belong in the Bible — since the Bible does not state which books should be in the Bible?...
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Day Three: The Original Bible
In the strictest sense, no, the original documents that comprise the 66 books of the Bible — sometimes called the "autographs" — are not in the possession of any organization. However, in a very real way, yes, humankind does have the actual words and books that make up the Word of God...
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Day Four: Oral Transmission
First, we have to distinguish between oral "tradition" and oral "transmission." The term tradition implies a long-held belief or practice that is not necessarily connected to any explicit facts or evidence. Transmission is a method of conveying information...
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Day Five: The Age of the Bible
Since the Bible was written by around 40 different authors over a period of around 1,500 years, the question "How old is the Bible?" cannot be answered with a single number...
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Day Six: Years of Writing
The books of the Bible were written at different times by different authors over a period of approximately 1,500 years. But that is not to say that it took 1,500 years to write the Bible...
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Day Seven: When the Books were Written
We have a few basic ways of knowing when the individual books of the Bible were written: a combination of internal and external evidence and, particularly in the Old Testament, traditional accounts...
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Day Eight: God Before the Bible
Even though people did not have the Word of God, they were not without the ability to receive, understand and obey God before there was a Bible as we know it...
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Day Nine: The Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus
Our knowledge of the original text of the Bible comes from ancient hand-written manuscripts. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek. No one has the original articles, but thousands of ancient copies have been discovered...
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Day Ten: King James I
The King James Version of the Bible is also called the Authorized Version, because the translation was authorized by King James I of England. The preface of the KJV dedicates the work "To the most High and Mighty Prince James, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c."...
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Day Eleven: Westcott & Hort
Brooke Westcott and Fenton Hort were 19th-century theologians and Bible scholars. Together, they produced The New Testament in the Original Greek, one of the earliest examples of modern textual criticism...
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Day Twelve: The Dead Sea Scrolls
The first of the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries occurred in 1947 in Qumran, a village situated about twenty miles east of Jerusalem on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea...
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Day Thirteen: The Closed Canon
There is no reason to believe that God would present further revelation to add to His Word. The Bible begins with the very beginning of humanity — Genesis — and ends with the end of humanity as we know it — Revelation...
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Image Credit: KWSW; "The Dead Sea Scrolls & The Acient [sic] World"; Creative Commons