(Acknowledgement: Since the subject of this lesson is historical, almost nothing I will say is original with me. The information here presented is the product of my research, not of the product of Divine revelation! I don’t give specific credit for reasons of efficiency. Remember, when you copy from one source, it’s called plagiarism; when you copy from many sources, it’s called research! If you want to know where I got a specific historical "fact", I’ll be happy to reveal the source.)

The Bible means different things to different people. To some, Christians especially, it is a source of inspiration and a guide to daily living. To others, the Bible is a historical document and a source of controversy. To others still, the Bible is a self-contradictory mish-mash of arcane rules and proscriptions, mostly relevant to long-dead cultures in far away places.

What is the truth in all of this? That will depend upon who you ask.

As with everything, our assumptions heavily influence what we see when we look at the "evidence"…those who believe in the Bible will see support for their belief…those who don’t believe the Bible will see support for their disbelief. Few Christians know much, if anything, about the origin of our Bible and therefore, they are quite susceptible to misinformation. And what is "misinformation"? It’s whatever disagrees with what I believe!

Seriously, it’s difficult to know exactly what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago and believe me, there’s tons of conflicting information available, especially since the advent of the internet. For the first time in history, those with limited resources (both financial and intellectual) can now present their views to a large portion of the world’s population with little or no accountability. But remember, as with printed material of all descriptions, just because it’s in print, either on the internet, in a book, journal, magazine or newspaper doesn’t make it true!

We’ve spent two weeks looking at scientific evidence to support the theory that our universe came into existence by intelligent design; that all life, but especially human life, came about, not by chance, but by the work of a designer. What we observe around us on planet Earth is often called nature and I believe that the Creator described in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, is that designer and has chosen to speak to humans in two ways: His Book of Nature and His Book of Scripture. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:19-20: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

After two weeks of looking at how His Book of Nature came into existence, let’s now look at how His Book of Scripture came into existence.

(Caveat: This will not be an exhaustive presentation on how the Bible came into existence…I have chosen the events that seemed to be of major significance. The dates are approximate in most instances and are the subject of ongoing debate among scholars and historians.)

The name Bible comes from the Greek biblia meaning "books" and is the name given to what has been called the "library of Divine revelation" since around the fifth century of the Christian Era (CE). The 66 books of the Bible were written over a period of about 1600 years by about 40 different human authors. The 39 books of the Old Testament (Covenant) were written from around 1450 BC to 400 BC in Biblical Hebrew although some texts, thought to have been written while the Jews were in exile, were in Aramaic. The 27 books of the New Testament (Covenant) were written from around 45 CE to around 95 CE in koine (common) Greek; also known as "street Greek" or "slang Greek", but up until 1914, many scholars thought it was "heavenly Greek".

In contrast to what we might think, most of the authors were not part of a religious caste. The authors included kings, shepherds, fishermen, statesmen and men from many different walks of life. In the process of contributing to the Bible, they went from being ordinary men to God's prophet. Only at a few special times did God call them to use their prophetic gift to write down God's revelation for others to read.

I believe the 66 books that comprise the Bible were divinely orchestrated over a long time and a large geographical area. And although they were written by 40 different authors, they hold in common two main points:

Books as we know them are a relatively recent development. The multiplication of books is even more recent. Because of this we need to carefully trace the steps of history to find the forms the original scriptures took.

Many of the ancient writings were written on scrolls that were ‘scrolled' up. In order to save space on the expensive and bulky materials like stone, animal skins, papyrus, etc., there was no punctuation. Because of limited development in written languages, only capitals (uncials) were used in the original autographs (original writings by either the author or a scribe under the author’s supervision) and many of the oldest manuscripts (copies of the autographs on papyrus and parchment). There could be confusion over where a new line starts. For example, is NOWHERE "no where" or "now here"?

And in the autographs and manuscripts, there were nor chapters or verses! The division of the Bible into chapters and verses is altogether a human invention, designed to facilitate easy reference. The ancient Jews divided the Old Testament into certain sections for use in the synagogue service, and then at a later period, in the ninth century CE, into verses. Our modern system of chapters for all the books of the Bible was introduced by Cardinal Hugo about the middle of the thirteenth century (he died 1263). The system of verses for the New Testament was introduced by Stephens in 1551, and was generally adopted. The division is not always wisely made, yet it is very useful.

There are no Old Testament or New Testament autographs available today, but there are some Old Testament manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947. We’re more fortunate with the New Testament. While there are no autographs, there are over 5,600 Greek manuscripts and fragments still in existence. In fact, the New Testament is the best documented of any of the writings from antiquity.

Translations are versions of the Bible that have been taken from the available manuscripts and reproduced into other languages. For us, the most significant Old Testament translation was done around 250 BC from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek and was labeled the Septuagint (LXX) because it was thought that 70 or 72 scholars were used to accomplish the task for the Egyptian Pharaoh. In most instances, when a New Testament writer quotes from the Old Testament, he is using the Septuagint as his source.

The first of the New Testament translations were thought to have been done around 180 CE from Greek into Latin, Syriac and Coptic. The next major translation that has impacted us was done around 380 CE when The Latin Vulgate was translated by St. Jerome. He translated into Latin the Old Testament from the Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. The Latin Vulgate became the Bible of the Western Church until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's. It continues to be the authoritative translation of the Roman Catholic Church to this day.

The first English translation of the Bible was by John Wycliffe in 1380. He translated the Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate. This was a translation from a translation and not a translation from the original Hebrew and Greek. Wycliffe was forced to translate from the Latin Vulgate because he did not know Hebrew or Greek.

In 1456, after inventing the printing press, Gutenberg produced the first printed Bible in Latin. Printing revolutionized the way books were made. From that point on, books could be published in great numbers, at a lower cost, and with a greater chance of being reproduced with substantially less mistakes.

In 1514, The Greek New Testament was printed for the first time by Erasmus. He based his Greek New Testament from only five Greek manuscripts, the oldest of which dated only as far back as the twelfth century. With minor revisions, Erasmus' Greek New Testament came to be known as the Textus Receptus or the "received texts."

In 1611, The King James Version came into existence. The translators of the New Testament used the Textus Receptus as the basis for their translation.

In 1968, The United Bible Societies 4^th Edition of the Greek New Testament was published. This Greek New Testament made use of the oldest Greek manuscripts which date from 125 CE. This was the Greek New Testament text from which the NASV and the NIV were translated.

In 1971, The New American Standard Version (NASV) was published. It made use of the wealth of much older Hebrew and Greek manuscripts then available that weren't available at the time of the translation of the KJV. Its wording and sentence structure closely followed the Greek in more of a word for word style.

In 1983, The New International Version (NIV) was published. It also made use of the oldest manuscript evidence. It is more of a "thought-for-thought" translation and reads more easily than the NASV.

In 1995, The New American Standard Bible, long considered a favorite study Bible by serious students of the Scriptures, was completely revised and updated. Preserving the Lockman Foundation's standard of creating a literal translation of the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic manuscripts, the NASB95 provided a literal translation that is very readable. Formalized language and outdated words and phrases were replaced with their contemporary counterparts.

In 2001, The English Standard Version was published and is an essentially literal Bible translation that combines word-for-word precision and accuracy with literary excellence, beauty, and readability. More than sixty of the world’s leading Bible scholars pored over every word and phrase of the most reliable original manuscripts to produce this unique Bible.

Let’s look at the Old Testament first. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the oldest OT manuscript was the Masoretic text dated around 800 CE. The Dead Sea Scrolls are thought to have been written about the time of Jesus and the Septuagint was written around 250 BC. When these three sources, that have a time gap of about 1000 years between the earliest and latest, are compared, scholars say that 95% of the text is almost identical with only minor variations and discrepancies in the other 5%. That seems pretty reliable.

With the New Testament, we have many more manuscripts to compare and amazingly, the agreement rate is even higher…99.5% by the estimate of most conservative scholars!

Is the Bible "inerrant and infallible"? That will depend upon how you define those terms.