What Is the Bible? | Foundations | Week 3
The Bible has been:
Translated Into 349 Languages
2,123 Languages have at least one book of the Bible
The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is—what it was intended to do, and how it is meant to be used....The first thing is to understand the object before you: as long as you think the corkscrew was meant for opening tin (cans) or the cathedral for entertaining tourists you can say nothing to the purpose about them.
C.S. Lewis
1. What Is the Bible?
A collection of 66 complete books And those 66 books were written by a total of: 40 different authors, over 1,500 years.
The Old Testament
The Jewish people refer to the books of the Old Testament as the
TaNaK
That stands for three sections:
The Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim
Exodus 17:14
The Lord then said to Moses, “Write this down on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua: I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek under heavenJeremiah 36:1-4
In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Take a scroll, and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations from the time I first spoke to you during Josiah’s reign until today. Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disaster I am planning to bring on them, each one of them will turn from his evil way. Then I will forgive their wrongdoing So Jeremiah summoned Baruch son of Neriah. At Jeremiah’s dictation, Baruch wrote on a scroll all the words the Lord had spoken to Jeremiah.
New Testament
2/3 of the New Testament are Paul’s letters to the Churches
2. How the Bible Formed
2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profi table for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Canonization
We know of no councils or debates about the CONTENTS of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) from the period of the Second temple Judaism...It is very striking that, over a period ranging from the second century B.C. to first century A.D., so many writers, of many divergent groups (Palestinian, Greek, Essene, Christians and Pharisees) show such agreement about the Canon of the (Old Testament).
Luke 4:17-21
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him (Jesus), and unrolling the scroll, He found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me[a] to proclaim freedom[b] to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him. [Jeus] began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”2 Peter 3:15-16
Also, regard the patience of our Lord as an opportunity for salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. He speaks about these things in all his letters in which there are some matters that are hard to understand. The untaught and unstable twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.Luke 24:44-45
Then Jesus told them, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
First Time the 66 Books were listed in order:
A.D. 367 Church Father Athanasius in
A.D. 397 Council of Carthage Confirms the New Testament
A.D. 400 St. Jerome Completes the Vulgate
3. Translations and Trust
There are over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts,
10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages, such as Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian.
We can be confident that the words we read in English today in our Bible are the same words written by the Biblical writers from thousands of years ago.
Older translations do not mean greater accuracy.
It’s Important to Understand Context
General Reading: NIV or HCSB
Studying: ESV or NASB
4. Where Should You Start?
Start with the Gospel of Mark
S - Scripture
O - Observation
A - Application
P - Prayer