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Where Did the Bible Come From?
Open the
Bible Question Form to send your own question.
Q:
How did the Bible come to us?
A : A question like yours, though a
good question, would take a book to fully answer. However, I
know that many people have similar questions and they need
as simple of an answer as possible. Therefore, I am going to
give it a try. In order to keep the discussion narrowed down
a bit, I will specifically deal only with the New Testament.
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First, the original copy (sometimes
called an autograph) of each book was written by its
human author and sent to the person, people, church, or
churches addressed. For instance, Paul wrote
1Corinthians as an individual letter to the church at
Corinth and sent it to them.
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Second, these letters or books were
recognized for their value to Christians as a whole and
people began making copies of them for their own church
or for themselves. These copies would be passed around
and read over and over again. As older copies wore out,
newer copies were continually being made.
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Some key churches began to make
collections of different letters for the use of their
preachers and members. These collections might not have
all of the New Testament books as we know them today and
might have others books that are not included in the
Bible today (like books in a church library), but they
formed a basis for later decisions.
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The winnowing process took place over
many decades as arguments for and against certain books
as being scripture were made by the Bible teachers of
the day. Although most of the New Testament books were
not disputed, a few were. Also, some people supported
books that we would reject today. Since about 90% of the
text of the Bible was accepted by practically everyone
and is still in our New Testament today, the questions
were not as serious as some would make us believe. With
time, the 27 books that we have today in our New
Testament were accepted by almost everyone.
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During the time that a few of the
books were being contested, the New Testament went out
in many ways. Copies were made in the original Greek
language. Translations were made into numerous
languages. Portions of scripture were put into lessons
(kind of like Sunday School lessons). Christians authors
were quoting the Bible in writing after writing. These
are important because they are the sources that will be
used later for the establishment of our modern Bible.
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Now, we need to jump in time to the
early 16th century. Because of the renewed interest in
the ancient writings at that time, there was a new
interest in the text of the Bible. The Old Testament had
retained a stable text known as the Massoretic Hebrew
Text. However, the New Testament did not have any sort
of authoritative text that brought the entire New
Testament together in the original Greek language.
Erasmus and men who followed him sought to establish the
text of the Greek New Testament. The problem was that
the Greek New Testament was found in hundreds of
different portions of the New Testament. Some of these
copies included almost all of the New Testament, but
most of them had only a small portion; some containing
only a number of verses. And, because of errors of
copying and other problems, these manuscripts contained
many different readings in different places in the
Bible. Erasmus was the first scholar to study many of
the different manuscripts and come up with an
authoritative text for the entire Greek New Testament.
During his lifetime, he improved on this text and others
after him developed it even more. The Hebrew Old
Testament and the Greek New Testament now needed to be
translated into English.
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William Tyndale made the first modern
attempt to translate the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek
into English. He finished the New Testament (1526), the
Pentateuch, and some other portions of the Old
Testament, but never got the chance to complete the
entire Bible before he died a martyr's death. Others
followed him and the entire Bible soon found its way
into the English language. Then, in 1611, in culmination
of the work before it and as a testimony to the
wonderful preserving hand of God, the Lord gave to
mankind the King James Bible. Many other English
versions have followed, but none have lived up to the
standard set by the King James Bible.
I hope this summary is a help to you.
Till He comes,
David F. Reagan
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