WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE?
Why should I know what the Bible is?
In a nutshell: knowing more about the Bible helps you read it effectively, understand it better, and more accurately and critically appraise what it has to say.
As for why it’s worth reading, understanding and appraising? Well, it is the best selling book of all time with over 5 billion copies sold and counting. It continues to sell over 100 million copies each year. It was the first book ever printed, and it is the most translated book of all time, with the New Testament alone being translated in over 2000 languages. The contents of the Bible have sparked millennia’s worth of art, poetry, philosophy and critical thought and reflection from the world’s greatest minds. It is widely considered to be the inspired word of God for humanity and billions of people have held it and it’s teachings in the highest esteem.
All that to say, I think it’s worth a glance or two…
What the Bible isn’t
There is a swathe of Christians who believe that the Bible simply dropped from the heavens. That, or somehow the authors of the Bible were possessed by God’s spirit and while in a trance-like state they wrote hundreds of pages of what they instantly recognised as the Bible. Both assumptions are false and display ignorance and a lack of respect for the truth.
Some assume that the Bible is a set of propaganda written to manipulate or control the ‘masses’. This too is ignorant and a far cry from the truth. Not only was most of the Bible written by outcasts and minorities who were largely ignored and/or maligned in their day, but it’s message is also one that has largely been at the forefront of most major social reforms and is the basis for our free Western society. And it’s collation into one text was hardly controversial or manipulative.
Lastly, some believe the Bible is a collection of derivative religious creeds, ideologies and myths with no distinguishing factors and no inherent value other than some basic moral observations. This view is also sadly misinformed. Most of the Biblical text was (and continues to be) completely counter-cultural and directly opposed the other beliefs, myths and ideologies of the day. It’s narrative too, is deeply rooted in real historical events that both external historical sources, as well as archeological discoveries, have confirmed.
So the Bible is not God’s thoughts magically zapped down to humanity, nor is it propaganda, or a set of derivative fairytales.
So what is the Bible?
The Bible is a partnership between dust and Divine breath. It is an inspired word and revelation, from the heart and mind of God, to a messy, dirty, and weak humanity. God’s voice and the content of His message to the individual authors of the many books of the Bible were always specific to their time and place. He spoke to them at their (and their society’s) level, using ideas, imagery and metaphors they would inherently understand.
As God chose to engage with humanity, He began to reveal Himself and His nature to entrusted individuals who in turn began to see the world and their circumstances through His eyes. They would then document and record the thoughts, feelings and convictions they were having, as a result of this divine inspiration and revelation. These writings were then proliferated and shared with their larger communities who recognised the divine wisdom, importance and beauty in these literary works.
The God of the Bible delights in engaging with humanity and entrusting people with His words, commands and actions. So it is fitting that the formation and collation of God’s Word is also a manifestation of the agency God entrusts to humanity.
The Facts
‘Bible’ means ‘book’, and it is indeed a whole library of books (66 books) in one. The Christian Bible is separated into two parts; the Old Testament, and the New Testament.
The ‘Old Testament’ (OT) is in fact the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, also known as the TaNaK, which was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and is comprised of a total of 39 books, clustered into three major groupings. The ‘Torah’ (aka the Pentateuch/the Books of Moses/the Books of the Law), the ‘Nevi’im’ (the books of the prophets) and the Ketuvim (the writings).
The ‘New Testament’ (NT) contains the remaining 27 books, originally written in Greek. It is comprised of the 4 biographical ‘Gospels’ that recount the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the ‘Acts’, a first-hand narrative historical account of the early rise and spread of Christianity, as well as a collection of ‘epistles’ (letters) from key early church leaders and disciples of Jesus (most of whom were first-hand followers and friends of Jesus) to other Christian communities.
The literary style of the Bible varies wildly from book to book and even from passage to passage. 43% of the Bible is written as a narrative, 33% is written as poetry, and 24% is written in a discourse style. It is important to recognise and understand the style of the writing being read, as it will inform how we comprehend and interpret the meaning. It is also important to remember that the Bible is an ancient text, and as such, it is important to understand the historical, cultural and textual context of it’s contents to again be able to read it well. All that to say; the Bible can be quite hard to read.
Writing of the Bible
Approximately 40 unique authors wrote both the Old and New Testaments over a period of over 1500 years. These authors varied in age, life experience, and region/time period of existence. A single author seemingly writes some books (e.g. Obadiah, Luke), while other books are contributed to by many authors (e.g. Psalms), and still some other books are attributed to a single author, but have clearly been penned by scribes, and/or edited/added to by other authors (e.g. Proverbs, Isaiah, Romans). Despite this diversity and rich history, the Bible manages to be a unified and intricately crafted text that is masterful in it’s cohesion, literary beauty (see Figure 1), and progression.
This image demonstrates how the bible speaks to itself (i.e. the textual ‘hyperlinks’ within it). The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate between white and light gray and the length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect.
FIGURE 2
This is a seal belonging to Baruch son of Neriah, scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, who is referred to multiple times in the book of Jeremiah.
The Bible is a collection of collections. Intrinsic to the text are seams and pointed descriptions referring to it’s own construction. The Bible is not afraid to reveal it’s human authors, their editorial staff or the impact of time on it’s collation and fusion as a single text. From the book of Jeremiah we see how he and his scribe, Baruch son of Neriah (see Figure 2),were forced to produce a (longer) second draft of his prophecies, after the king of the day tore and burned the original (Jeremiah 36). The book of Proverbs, which is famously attributed to the writings and sayings of King Solomon, notes that there were further wise sayings added to the text 200 or so years after Solomon had died (Proverbs 25:1). It also identifies other figures/contributors to the text, namely Agur (chapter 30) and Lemuel – more specifically, Lemuel’s mother (chapter 31). In the New Testament, Luke, the author of ‘Luke’ and ‘Acts’, notes his references for his writings: investigative interviews with eye witnesses and first hand sources (Luke 1).
With so many authors, collaborators and editors, not to mention the copy editors and translators over the years, it would be easy to assume that the biblical text is flawed or disparate from it’s original sources – almost like a failed game of ‘Chinese Whispers’. Fortunately, history and archeology have proven the opposite. When looking at the Old Testament, there are 3 main surviving ancient manuscripts – the Septuagint (aka LXX text – originally written in Greek) penned approximately around 285-270 BC; the Dead Sea Scrolls written by the Essenes from around 250BC-68AD; and the Masoretic texts, authored around 900-1000AD. When comparing these texts, while differences are certainly noted, these differences typically are not incongruous with the overall meaning of the text.
To illustrate the negligible differences, the Dead Sea Scroll book of the prophet Isaiah was compared with the Masoretic text version (specifically the famous 53rdchapter), and it was noted by Professor Millar Burrows (a biblical scholar and professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School) that, “Of the 166 words in Isaiah chapter 53, there are only seventeen letters in question, Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word “light,” which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly…Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a thousand years of transmission – and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage.”
Further to this, if you read your modern day Bible, and open up to Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 11, you will find an annotation and footnote advising you of the discrepancy between the Masoretic text and the Dead Sea Scrolls text – just as you would find with any other discrepancy throughout the whole of the Bible. No conspiracy exists regarding the discrepancies of the original texts – the truth is, the discrepancies are few and far between, and of these existing discrepancies, they are all acknowledged within your modern day Bible, and they tend to have little to no impact on the meaning.
Canon and Collation
Canon, as applied to the Bible, is a term that refers to the accepted, authoritative, recognised collection of books that make up the ‘Word of God’.
The canonical status of the ‘Old Testament’, as a singular collected work, has never been in doubt. Both Jewish and Christian readers have never debated the inspired nature of the 39 collected books of the OT/TaNaK, and have therefore referred to it as ‘Scripture’. Even Jesus thought of these texts as the divinely inspired Word of God (Luke 24:44) that He claimed all led to Him. There were other writings, now referred to as the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books that are also included in the overall biblical canon according to certain traditions such as the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
The New Testament’s canonical status is also less controversial than most people would think. As with many cultures of the day, there was a rich oral tradition amongst the early Church – where stories were memorized and recounted on a regular basis. These stories centered on the life, death, resurrection and teachings of Jesus as shared by his Disciples who were first hand witnesses. Approximately 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the first versions of the Gospels were being written. These books were immediately revered and shared by the early Church and regarded as Scripture. Around this time, the letters from key Apostles, church leaders and first-hand followers/friends of Jesus (e.g. Peter, James, Paul) began to be authored, proliferated and circulated. The early church also held these texts in high regard, as they would read them and discuss them in their meetings, share them with other churches, and refer to them as scripture (Colossians 4:16; 2 Peter 3:16). By the 2ndcentury, the church by-and-large held the New Testament, as we know it, to be Scripture and read it with the same esteem and authority as the TaNaK held and holds amongst the Church and their Jewish contemporaries. There were a few additional books (e.g. the Gospel according to Judas Iscariot etc) that were read by the Church, however these were less widely circulated and by the beginning of the 4th Century, the Council of Carthage met and established the final canon of the New Testament based on what was already largely held as true and authentic throughout the Church’s history as well as based on the inherent accuracy, validity and authorship of the individual texts/books.
Accuracy and Validity
As already mentioned, the process of drafting, writing, editing, copying and proliferating the books of the Bible over the millennia would make anyone suspicious of inaccuracies, drastic changes, and disparities within the text over time. Surprisingly (or maybe not very surprisingly for ancient cultures who were meticulous in their scribing) the disparities and changes within the books of the Bible are few and far between, as evidenced by comparing texts that sometimes span a thousand or more years apart, and are sometimes written in different languages, by different people groups. Not only are these disparities rare, they tend not to change the overall meaning of the text. They are also thoroughly noted within our modern day Bibles, so that even a casual reader has to go out of their way to ignore footnotes and annotations that allude to this.
The New Testament is widely considered the most reliable ancient document in history. The earliest manuscripts of the New Testament were written approximately between 60-100AD, and our earliest copies (still in existence) date from 114-325AD – only 20-50 years after the originals were written. There are over 5000 manuscripts available of the New Testament. Compare this with other important and reliable ancient texts, such as Plato’s Republic: originally written 380BC with our earliest copies from 900AD (over 1000 years apart), and only 7 copies in existence.
Beyond the intrinsic coherence and reliability of the texts, there are numerous historical consistencies that lend external evidence to Biblical accuracy. What is important to remember is that all history is written with a bias. Furthermore, Biblical history is very much written in narrative style and there are large swathes of analysis and synthesis built into the text. Taking this into account, there are multiple biblical events (in both the Old and New Testaments) that correspond to historical events. From many ancient cultural mythological accounts of a devastating Flood, to the rise and fall of Israel, and the rise, dominance, and fall of other empires such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians. Not to mention the life, miracles, death and the reports of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth which was widely documented by external sources (Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, and the Jewish Talmud to name a few). Furthermore, key locales, political figures and details of geography recorded in the Gospels have been corroborated by historical and archeological evidence.
Conclusion
The Christian claim is that the Bible is the inspired ‘Word of God’: a collaboration between dust (humanity) and the Divine. Whatever your belief is, one thing is certain, it is a book like no other. Despite the multitude of authors and editors, the thousands of kilometers traversed, the millennia and empires spanned; what exists is a beautifully written, intricately crafted collection of collections. It’s authenticity and accuracy are almost as astonishing as it’s endurance. It’s very existence, a miracle.
What is even more profound than the origins and development of the Bible is what it has to say. It reveals a God who created the universe and humanity out of love and who wants to partner with humanity to bring into existence more beauty and life. It describes the brokenness of humanity, how we choose to turn away from this loving God to our detriment and the detriment of this world. It unfolds God’s plan of redemption to reunite us back into relationship with Him, culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who is this God of love manifest as a human. It then documents, demonstrates and encourages followers of this God to persist in their life of love, sacrifice and service as they choose to partner with their Creator and live into the life we were originally made for. It concludes with a future hope that one day, all things would be made new; that our brokenness, failures and the consequences they wrought would be undone as our world is once again permeated by God’s full and loving presence.
When was the last time you read this book?
Resources, References and Further Reading:
· https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-Bible.html - a general overview of the Bible
· https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-reliable.html - general summary of biblical reliability
· https://www.everystudent.com/features/bible.html - history of the bible
· https://kenboa.org/apologetics/how-accurate-is-the-bible/ - a theologian’s breakdown of biblical accuracy
· https://www.str.org/articles/is-the-new-testament-text-reliable#.XQ2NEC97Fo4 - a breakdown of the New Testament’s reliability
· https://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/text-of-the-old-testament.html - the text and writing of the Old Testament
· http://www.evidencesforchristianity.org/old-testament-text.html - summary of the manuscripts of the Old Testament
· https://biblebrisket.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/biblical-time-line.pdf - historical timeline and literary timeline
· https://www.livescience.com/8008-bible-possibly-written-centuries-earlier-text-suggests.html - evidence of more ancient Hebrew writing corresponding to biblical text
· http://www.blogos.org/theologyapologetics/evidence-exodus.php - interesting read on a view on the history behind the exodus narrative
· https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/people-in-the-bible/pharaoh-king-punished-god/ - another view on the Exodus (also an interesting video embedded in the article on the discovery of the dead sea scrolls and tracking ancient biblical manuscripts)
· https://crossexamined.org/ancient-israel-myth-or-history-part-3c/ - an alternate view on the Exodus with sources cited
· https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/gallery/2013/sep/05/holy-infographics-bible-visualised - hyperlinked nature of the Bible