How We Got The Bible Workbook

How We Got the Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Recommended Reading

Roger Beckwith The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church F.F. Bruce The Canon of Scripture The New Testament Documents Are they Reliable? John W. Haley Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible Walter Kaiser The Old Testament Documents Are They Reliable Relevant? George Eldon Ladd The New Testament and Criticism Bruce Metzger The Canon of the New Testament: Its origin, development, and significance. Frank Morison Who Moved the Stone

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Notes

How We Got The Bible

1.What’s A Canon This section addresses the sudden cultural interest in how the biblical canon was formed. What do we do with extra-biblical texts? Who decided which books became a part of the Bible? Can we trust their motives?

2.Lost in Translation This section addresses many common questions about Bible translations. Why are there so many? Which one is the best? Have we lost the original meaning of the text? Aren’t Bible translations full of errors?

3.Can I Trust the Bible? The final section deals with questions about the reliability of the Bible. Does the Bible present the beliefs of the original followers of Jesus? Were the disciples trustworthy?

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Philosophical Arguments

Part 1 What’s A Canon?

Test for Consistency

Test for Credibility

Self Defeating Testimony

Adverse Witnesses The word Canon comes from the world qaneh – which is a stick used for measuring. The word was passed on to Greek as kanon and ultimately to Latin as canon. Over time, the word came to represent a standard, something authoritative against which other things are measured. The Bible is The Canon of Scripture; those documents of the Church which were determined to be the most authoritative documents of the Christian faith.

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Tests of Divine Revelation

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Archeological Evidence

Criteria for Canonicity The criteria used for determining which books were canonical was gathered from the writings of the Church Fathers who were confronted with the task of defending the integrity of the apostles teaching from the Gnostic heresies and pseudonymous writings which appeared in the 2nd and 3rd century A.D.

The Hittite Empire The Dead Sea Scrolls

™ Apostolic Authority ™ Antiquity ™ Orthodoxy ™ Catholicity ™ Traditional Use ™ Inspiration

Erastus Inscription

Notes

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Evolution of the New Testament Canon A.D. 100

Different parts of our New Testament were written but not yet collected and defined as scripture. Early Christian writers (for example Polycarp and Ignatius) quote from the Gospels and the letters of Paul as well as other Christian writings and oral sources. The Letters of Paul were collected late in the first century, Matthew, Mark and Luke were collected together by A.D. 150

A.D. 200

A.D. 250

A.D. 300

A.D. 400

The New Testament used in Rome (The Muratorian Canon)

The New Testament used by Origen

The New Testament used by Eusebius

The New Testament as we know it established at the council of Carthage

The four Gospels Acts

The four Gospels Acts

The four Gospels Acts

The four Gospels Acts

Paul’s Letters: Romans 1&2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1&2 Thessalonians 1&2 Timothy Titus Philemon

Paul’s Letters: Romans 1&2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1&2 Thessalonians 1&2 Timothy Titus Philemon

Paul’s Letters: Romans 1&2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1&2 Thessalonians 1&2 Timothy Titus Philemon

Paul’s Letters:

Weight of Evidence from Manuscripts There is a lot of evidence for the authenticity of the New Testament from manuscripts, far more than for many similar historical documents. In considering the weight of manuscript evidence you should consider the number of copies and the proximity to the event or composition. Caesars Gallic Wars: 58-50 BC 10 good copies

Romans 1&2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1&2 Thessalonians 1&2 Timothy Titus Philemon

Earliest is 900 years after Caesars day. 142 Volume Roman History of Livy: 59 BC-AD 1 Only 35 books exist today 22 Good Copies Oldest one dates to the 4th century

James 1&2 John Jude Revelation of John Revelation of Peter Wisdom of Solomon The Shepherd of Hermas (For private use not public worship)

1 Peter 1 John Revelation of John

Disputed Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2&3 John, Jude, the Shepherd of Hermas, The letter of Barnabas, the didache and the Gospel of the Hebrews

1 Peter 1 John Revelation of John (authorship in doubt)

Disputed but well known James, 2 Peter, Jude, 2&3 John, Hebrews

Hebrews James 1&2 Peter 1,2&3 John Jude Revelation of John To be excluded the Shepherd of Hermas, The letter of Barnabas, the Didache and the Gospel of the Hebrews The Revelation of Peter The Acts of Peter Table 1: Canonical Lists

14 Volume History of Tacitus: AD 100 4 ½ books survive 16 Volume Annals of Tacitus 10 survive in full 2 in part The History of Thucydides 460-400 BC 8 full manuscripts – earliest AD 900 Papyrus Scraps 1st century

Over 5000 Greek Manuscripts Codex Vaticanus c.AD 350 Codex Sinaiticus c.AD 350 Papyrus Fragments

The weight of evidence reveals that that the books that make up our New Testament were known and accepted by the Church as early as A.D. 100. The four Gospels, the book of Acts, and the letters of Paul were never in dispute. 1 Peter, 1 John and The Revelation of John were a part of the earliest lists. Some books like The Shepherd of Hermas, and The Revelation of Peter were well loved by the early Church, but upon closer scrutiny, were deemed unworthy to be included as scripture. Those books which entered the canon late, such as 2&3 John, James and Jude did so for various reasons (i.e. they lacked wide distribution, they were not believed to deal with significant issues, or in some cases their authorship was in dispute. The final decision at the council of Carthage, was by a representative body of believers from Churches around the world.

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Fragments of an unknown Gospel AD 150 Fragments of codex w. John 28:31-33 Quotes of Church Fathers AD 90-160 Allusions and quotations in their writings The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, 1905 Oxford Historical Society.

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Notes

Part 3 Reliability

Around the middle of the 19th Century scholars argued that the most important books of the New Testament did not exist before the middle of the 2nd Century. This theory originated with F.C. Bauer of the Tübingen School in Germany and was introduced to the United States through Walters Cassel’s book Supernatural Religion (published anonymously).

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Evolution of the Old Testament Canon

Notes

Composition •

Written between 1275-380 B.C.

•

Babylonian Exile from 585-538 B.C.

•

Ezra and Nehemiah Late 300’s

•

Judas Maccabeus 164 B.C.

Canonization •

Book of Jubilees mentions “22 books” - c. 130 B.C.

•

NT Quotes - c. A.D.30-90

•

Council at Jamnia - c. A.D.90

•

Josephus, Contra Apion 1.8 - c. A.D.94 From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes . . . the prophets who followed after Moses recorded their deeds in thirteen books. The remaining four comprise hymns to God and rules of ethical conduct for men.(again 22 books).

The numbering of the books in the Hebrew canon differs from that in the Christian Bible because certain writings were taken as single books. e.g. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Ruth & Judges = 1 Book, 1&2 Samuel = 1 Book, 1&2 Kings = 1 Book, 1&2 Chronicles = 1 Book, Lamentations & Jeremiah = 1 Book, Isaiah, 12 Minor Prophets = 1 Book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra & Nehemiah = 1 Book, Esther, Job, Proverbs, Psalms, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes.

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Translation Theories

Notes

There are two major philosophies of translation. Formal Equivalence

Dynamic Equivalence

Attempts to render a word for word translation

Attempts to render a thought for thought translation

KJV

NLT

NASB

NIV *

RSV

NRSV *

*These translations attempt to strike a balance between the two theories.

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Do Words Have Meaning? Modern linguists have come to the conclusion that words do not have inherent meaning outside of their context. This can cause problems for communication in our own language, let alone for interpreters.

Part 2 Lost in Translation

For instance, •

The meaning of words can change over time.

•

Words can have more than one meaning.

•

Words can even mean the opposite things.

Notes

Why are there so many Bible translations? How serious are the differences between them? Did we lose the meaning of the original text?

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Communication Theory

Establishing the Text

Communication Theory states that successful communication requires a certain amount of overlap in the experience of the sender and receiver.

Sender/Receiver

We have no remaining copies of the original writings found in the Bible. But we have plenty of copies. Two strategies have been devised to arrive at the content of the original text.

Sender/Receiver Majority Text

Eclectic Text

Asserts that the most accurate reading is the reading which is found in the largest number of manuscripts.

Asserts that the most accurate reading is the reading found in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts.

The Majority Text strategy was devised by Jerome when he created the Latin Vulgate in 1500. It is the text behind the King James Translation. Due to the discovery of older manuscripts and the theories of textual criticism, all Modern Translations use the Eclectic Text.

Where there is little or no overlap in experience, communication is difficult or impossible. Translators are separated from the experience of the authors by culture, language and time. In order to correctly translate we must bridge these gaps.

Sender

Receiver

A simple chart can show why the Majority Text reading may not be the most accurate. Scribes A, B and C each produce a copy from a source document. In the first generation of transmission, copy A is Copied 1 time (A1). Copy B is copied 4 Times (B1) and Copy C is not copied. Now let us assume that in the next generation all copies of A and B are copied 4 times. That means there will be four copies of A2 and 16 copies of B2. From this it is clear that one cannot simply count the number of manuscripts and go with the majority reading. If an error exists in copy B, it will exist in all the manuscripts descending from that line. If Texts from family A and C are in agreement, then we can assume that they more likely represent the source document.

Source

Copy A

Copy A1

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Copy B

Copy B1

Copy B1

Copy C

Copy B1

Copy B1

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

Mistakes in the Bible?

Notes

Sometimes you will hear people say “the Bible is full of mistakes.” The kinds of mistakes found in Biblical Texts however are called scribal errors, and they are found in copies of the Bible made before the modern era of print. They are easily recognizable and scholars correct them using a wide variety of manuscripts to determine the correct reading.

Scribal errors fall into two categories Unintentional Mistakes 1. Faulty eyesight – careless inspection of the original 2. From similar pronunciation or incorrect spelling. 3. From errors of memory or anticipation. 4. From incorporating marginal notes wrongly taken as corrections.

Intentional “Mistakes” 1. To try and make the meaning clearer. 2. To Harmonize Related Passages. 3. To remove difficulties that would be difficult to explain. 4. To emphasize or safeguard important teachings. 5. To reflect or promote monastic customs.

5. From wrongly taking marginal notes as corrective additions.

© 2008 How We Got The Bible

© 2008 How We Got The Bible