The Bible

Last modified Aug 11, 2020

What is the Bible?

Some call it a "Holy Book" but in a mocking way.  Others call it a "Holy Book" in a reverent manner.  Whatever you think of it, the Bible has been the most reproduced, most read, most studied, and the most misused book on the planet.  The following is what the Bible is.

1. The Bible is the Word of God.  We will study God in another article. For now, know that God is self-affirming, as the “I Am” (Exodus 3:14). Luke says for those that hear the Word should act on it (Luke 11:28). The Psalmist states that the word is flawless (Psalm 18:30). In John 8:31-32, Jesus (Gad; we will discuss in another article) claims the word to be His. Ezekiel 12:28 makes another claim of the word being Gods.

2. The Bible is a Communication to Man telling him why we are here, where we come from, instructions on how to live, with a central character, Jesus, that tells how He will bring Salvation to all who want it, so that they can live eternally with Him.  John speaks of this in John 20:31.

You can think of the letter of being broken into these categories.

A. It's a Love Letter telling us how we came to be, how were different than animals, how God cares for us and how He wants us to spend eternity with Him.

B. It's a book of Theology that explains some of God’s attributes to us as well as His deity, laws, holiness, patience and ownership of the universe.

C. As a Poetry book, the Bible uses a lot of simile’s to mainly explain His love for us but on occasion, uses poetry to show His discord with us and to rebuke.

D. As a book of Prophecy, the Bible has made roughly 1,800 of them (1,239 in the Old, 578 in the New). Jesus fulfilled all of the nearly 400 prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. None have been proven false.

I cannot find how many Old Testament prophecies have yet to be fulfilled. Same is true for the New Testament. Plus, how many End Time Prophecies are there and how many have been fulfilled?

E. The Bible contains a lot of History. Along with actual events, truths, miracles, merits and kindness, it also contains lies, events of great horror, and war. This doesn’t mean that God condoned all of the things that are written in the Bible, simply that it was recorded in it. Any alleged disparities between the Bible and archeologist’s interpretation of other nations records, the Bible has always been vindicated. None of the history in the Bible has ever been proved wrong

F. The Israelites didn’t do a lot of moving around. Geographically, they lived between Babylon, the modern day Israel and surrounding area, and on down into Egypt. That really isn’t a lot of area but during the course of antiquity, a lot of places and people have become lost. The Bible, when interpreted properly has always accurately placed peoples and places in their correct locations. It's a Geographic book.

G. The Bible isn’t a Science book but where it touches on science, it is accurate. This is of particular interest to the Creation and Evolution debate and is reviewed later on the web site. However, it should be noted that many of these “sciency” things were mentioned in the Bible long before science community knew of them.

4. The Bible is timeless and applicable for all generations. Peter says the word will endure forever (1 Peter 1:25) and in Luke, the same claim is made (Luke 21:33).

5. The Bible is broken into 2 portions; The Old and The New Testament. The Old Testament consists of 3 parts; the Torah, the Law, the Prophets or Writings (another grouping has 4 sections; the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, Poetry and Wisdom Books and books of Prophesy). Practicing Jews that practice religion recognize only the Old Testament, while some only the Torah. The Christian recognizes the New Testament as also being the Word of God and it divided into 2 sections, the Gospels and the Epistles.

6. It was written over a period of about 2,000 years in Hebrew, Greek, and small portion of the New Testament in Aramaic. Moses wrote or compiled the first 5 books of the Bible (The Torah or Pentateuch) around 1,450 BC. The Apostle John wrote the last book of the Bible, Revelation, around 95 AD.

7. Roughly 40 human authors or a little more, wrote all the books of the Bible. Though they each had their own style, the Holy Spirit told the men what to write (Psalm 12:6, 2 Peter 1:21), which is how the Bible maintains its unity or uniform theme, which is referred to as God-Breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).

 

Reproduction

Think about how laborious it would be to do a lot of writing without todays tools of computers, tablets and phones.  Whether working on a keyboard or using voice recognition, it really isn't that difficult.  Think about how difficult it was 40 years ago when you had to manually save the document you were working on.  Or how about when you had to use white out on paper when you made a mistake on the type writer.  How about the poor Egyptian that was chiseling in stone and made a mistake and the whole obelisk had to be thrown out.  This section explains a little of what it takes, or took, to get the Bible out there.

1. Scribes - The scribes were responsible for the care of and the copying of the Holy Scriptures on to scrolls. They enjoyed a place of power that would be just under the Jewish priests and were well educated.

   Unlike other nations, the Jewish people studied the Word of God. So copies would be needed for the Priests to use not just at the Temple (in the Old Testament and then also in the Synagogues toward of the Old and the beginning of the New Testament). In Jesus’ time, the scribes would also orally pass on human additions to the Old Testament and often acted as the lawyers.

2. Techniques - They were to write, exactly word for word and pen stroke for pen stroke, the canon scriptures. Any mistakes in a copy would require that copies destruction. Also, when a scroll had become wore to where it was difficult to read, it would also be destroyed. Both of these actions help to maintain an accurate preservation of the Old Testament.

   Despite what many think, the Israelites were largely educated with at least basic reading skills. This can be backed up by Jesus’ reading of the scriptures in the synagogue (Luke 4:16-17) at Nazareth. If the average person Israelite wasn’t expected to be able to read, they wouldn’t have presented Jesus with the scroll, knowing that He wasn’t an educated man.

3. Breaking up of Books/Chapters/Verses - Around 1500 AD, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were broken into 2 books. And around 1560, chapters and verses were given to the Bible. Before then, if someone was referring to a particular part of the Bible (or Old Testament) the book may be refereed to but usually the person merely said, “Is it not written”, or, “Have you not heard”. Since the general populace was educated in the Word of God, they pretty much knew where in the scrolls they were talking about.

   Though not in the original manuscripts, chapters and verses do aide in studying, preaching and outreach particularly where people are not familiar with the Word of God. It is not considered adding to or taking away from God’s Word, which is warned about in Revelations (Revelation 22:18).

 

Translations/Versions

Originally there was only one line of manuscripts.  Sometime after the Catholic church came into power, these were translated into Latin and kept from the general public (this was to help keep control of the people).  The first public translation was in1382.  Of course, since the printing press hadn't been invented yet, it's distribution was limited.  The King James version was the first widely translated and distributed version of the Bible.  It was created in 1611.

3 primary types of translations.

• Word-for-word - The words are accurately translated after the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic manuscript languages. The King James Version and the New King James Version follow these criteria closely.

• Meaning-for-meaning – The accuracy of meaning is the primary relativity of the translation from the manuscripts. The New International Version is an example of this type.

• Paraphrased Bibles – Poetic licensing is often used to get the point across. These types of Bibles are designed to make the Bible easier to read. The Living Bible is an example of this type.

Let’s take a little trail for a moment. There are nuisance little things that have to be dealt with now days; like copywriter laws. I certainly am no lawyer, something I’m proud of, but my understanding is that to not get sued for copywriter infringement, your works has to be 10% different than other works out there.

The King James Bible translators didn’t have to worry about that. But Bible translations now days do. Think about this for a moment. How many different ways can you write portions of the Bible and it still remaining accurate, either by direct word or meaning translation? Now, think about how many different translations are out there. I haven’t performed an exhaustive study of the different translation version yet but hope to do so soon; but not putting a number or percentage on this, I calculate that there have to be several inaccurate translations being used.

So which Bible should you use? Well, if you want the most accurate, you have to learn Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. A few errors have crept in over the years but nothing that undermines the Bibles doctrine; mostly misspellings and the like.

Since most people are not going to learn to read and write other languages, you’re left with a translation into your language. Since the King James Version is the most accurate overall, I recommend it. That doesn’t mean the other version don’t have a purpose. Use them to help you understand the portions of the King James that are difficult to understand.

More information is available here.

 

Did Moses write Genesis?

The Bible makes it clear that Moses authored the first 5 books of the Bible. He certainly wrote Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. But what about Genesis?

Bible historians are not certain if Moses wrote Genesis himself (with guidance from the Holy Spirit) or if he had some form of writings that he rewrote or translated (again, with help from the Holy Spirit). Genesis seems to have multiple authors. It is even noticeable to someone casually reading the Bible. The language and writing style changes several times. This doesn’t happen in Moses other 4 books. It has been suggested that up to 10 people may be behind the Genesis book.

Though not Biblically confirmed, people that followed God, may have written things for future generations. So perhaps Adam wrote some stuff, his son wrote some things, Noah wrote some things, Abraham wrote some things, Joseph wrote some things, etc. These writings could have been passed down through the generations and keep somewhere in the Israelites possession and carried out with them during the exodus. Moses then, with the help of the Holy Spirit, translated and combined the writings into Genesis.

Either way whether written from scratch or translated and combined, the book of Genesis was written by Moses with the help of the Holy Spirit and carries with it the authority and inerrancy as the rest of the Bible.

Why did I include this little tidbit of information? Well, though the site is biased toward the Christian faith and a Biblical oriented creation, I want to present things that may stumbling blocks to peoples coming to the Lord. So I’ll present things that at first may appear to falsify the Word, further study and explanation will show that the thought or idea is in error, not the Bible.

This last topic is such an example. I don’t want someone to come in blasting that Moses didn’t write Genesis; up to 10 people did. On the surface, this looks damaging to the inerrancy of the Bible as it says Moses did write Genesis. I believe that Christians have to be up front and open with every aspect of the faith. Hiding or suppressing things so that their point can be proven will usually end up coming to light and the result will look bad on the Christian and the Christian faith. This topic will be discuss further in the future.

This site will be up front. Nothing has to be suppressed as the Bible, and God, will always be proven correct.

 

This was a high level view of what the Bible is and how it has maintained its accuracy through the years.  Although the Christian should take the Bible on it's own merit, since it is the Word of God (and he Jew should take the Old Testament for the same reason)The next 2 articles, Archeology nd References, help to substantiate the Bible from a secular perspective.  Is also sometimes comforting to the Christian to get some tangible information to garnish that faith they possess.

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