Faith Foundations: The Bible

Introduction

The Bible is our guide for truth. We believe that it is the inspired word of God that reveals him to us, and ultimately points us to the ultimate revelation of Himself: Jesus Christ, the Word of God.

We believe that the Bible is inspired by God

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out (inspired) by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

This means that the Holy Spirit was with the human authors of Scripture as they wrote the Scriptures and ‘breathed’ into them exactly what He wanted them to say.

This doesn’t necessarily mean God whispered in their ear the exact words that were written though. Every author brings his own ‘personality’ to the text - but God was guiding every word through them.

2 Peter 1:21 “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

This also means that we believe that Scripture is inerrant (without error) and infallible (will not fail).

I do not believe that there are any contradictions in Scripture. But some may point out minor discrepancies in our current manuscripts and call these ‘contradictions’.

First, Scripture will be shown to be totally true when all the facts are known from the original autographs. We may just not have all of those facts this side of heaven, especially since we do not have the original documents (autographs), only copies (albeit trustworthy copies).

The so called ‘discrepancies’ (if there are any), are minor, and our faith and core doctrines do not stand or fall on any of them.

An example of numbers: In some places in the OT, different counts are given for different events i.e. in one passage an army might have 2000 soldiers, and in another passage the same army might have 200,000 soldiers. Whatever the truth may be, my faith does not live or die on the number of soldiers in an army.

Beyond just the surface level text, inerrency also means that the Bible does not tell us anything false - everything it says is true.

Similarly, it is infallible. This is an important to specify, because many people and documents happen to say things that are true and without error. But infallibility states that Scripture was written this way on purpose and not on accident. God cannot fail, therefore his Scriptures cannot fail.

The Gospel is true independent of the Bible. If every Bible in the world happened to be destroyed, these facts would still be true: Jesus Christ was born, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead three days later, ascended into heaven and now rules the universe He created as King.

Introduction: Old Testament

The vast majority of the OT was viewed as inspired by the Jewish people, who compared each book to a standard called a ‘canon’, which means ‘measuring reed’. This standard is what led to the OT books being included, while others were explicitly excluded.

Of the 39 Old Testament books, all but 5 were universally agreed upon as being canon.

The 5 ‘questionable’ books were: Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Solomon), and Ezekiel. Ultimately, even those made it into the canon!

Were there others? Yes! There is a whole host of OT books, mostly from the ‘intertestamental’ period that are collectively called The Apocrypha. Apocrypha means ‘hidden works’. These books were not considered inspired, and therefore canon, but they were believed to be useful for teaching, and so they were saved.

The Apocrypha has an interesting history in the Christian Church: unlike the Jewish people, many early Christians did find the Apocrypha to be inspired and considered it on the same level as Scripture. This is why you’ll still find the Apocrypha included in Catholic Bibles - St. Jerome included it when he translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate). After the Reformation, most Protestant denominations removed the Apocrypha from their Bibles, choosing to go with the Jewish view that they aren’t inspired.

Introduction: New Testament

Similar to the OT, the vast majority of the New Testament was universally agreed as inspired and canon very early on. The Church took Scripture very seriously, and treated the 27 books differently from other books at the time.

In the beginning there were apparently several ‘Gospels’ written (Luke alludes to this in his introduction). However, the four Gospels were the only ones that were ever seriously considered canon. Interestingly, the four Gospels were associated with the four creatures found in Revelation very early on. Other ‘Gospels’ were either obviously fake, and ultimately discarded, or even the ‘good’ ones just didn’t hold as much weight as the four, and ultimately faded into history.

The rest of the NT books were pretty much universally accepted with just a few exceptions: 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, James, Jude, and sometimes Hebrews. These letters were disputed less on their content, and more on their authorship. Ultimately they were still included in the canon.

‘Wasn’t the canon established in like the 300s?’ It is true that the official list was ‘formalized’ by a council in the 300s. But this is a bit misleading. The truth is that even without a formal ‘list’, the Church universally agreed on what was and wasn’t Scripture very early on - to the exclusion of many other books and letters that were obviously fake.

Ironically, the only reason an official ‘canon’ was drawn up, was because of a heretic named Marcion.

Marcion believed many heretical things, but he was primarily anti-Jewish, and tried to argue that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God of the New Testament. In doing this he tossed out the entire Old Testament (on the grounds that it was completely Jewish). He also tossed out all of the New Testament except a few letters written by Paul, and a heavily edited version of Luke.

To combat Marcion, the Church realized that it needed a standardized list. Several lists were proposed, most of which were very similar, but it was the list of 27 books written up by St. Athanasius that was ultimately accepted. Note: this list even included some disputed works! The Church was picky, but also reasonable in their inclusion.

Other thoughts and fun facts about the New Testament:

Matthew’s Gospel was obviously written for a Jewish audience. Very early on there was apparently a ‘Gospel to the Hebrews’, which has since been lost. It’s possible that that the two were the same.

Mark’s Gospel was probably the earliest written. Church History tells us that Peter followed Simon the Sorcerer (who we learn about in Acts) to Rome. Here Peter ‘defeated’ Simon again, and preached the Gospel. He also had Mark with him (1 Peter 5). The new Christians asked Mark to give them a written account of Jesus’ earthly ministry. He wrote down the stories Peter had told him, Peter approved, and this was ultimately the first Gospel written.

John’s Gospel was the last to be written. Church History tells us that John had recieved and approved of the other three Gospels. However, his disciples noticed that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all primarily focus on the last year of Jesus’ ministry after John the Baptist was arrested. So they asked John to write his own account that included stories from the ‘early’ days of Jesus’ ministry. Hence why John specifically tells us that the ‘water to wine’ miracle was Jesus’ first.

All of Paul’s letters were pretty much universally agreed upon has having been written by him.

Hebrews was somewhat disputed, but mostly because the author was unknown. The earliest Church believed Paul probably wrote it, but even St. Jerome (a church historian) acknowledges that nobody really knew.

1 Peter was pretty universally accepted as having been written by Peter. 2 Peter was not. At least one ancient church father called 2 Peter ‘an obvious fake’. Yet, the contents aren’t heretical and the letter was accepted by some churches, so it was ultimately included in the Canon. There was also a ‘Gospel of Peter’ in early circulation, it apparently wasn’t heretical, but not seen as canonical, and ultimately lost (until a copy was found over 1500 years later!).

1-3 John are similar to 1-2 Peter. 1 John was universally accepted as having been written by John. 2-3 John, not so much. If you ever find yourself reading 2-3 John (they are very short!), and ask, ‘How did these make it into the Bible?’ just know you aren’t alone! Yet, they were seen as ‘useful for teaching’ and ultimately included in Canon as inspired.

James and Jude were also disputed, mostly on the grounds of authorship, not content. Again, many churches used and read them and considered them Scriptural, which is why they were ultimately saved and included.

Believe it or not, Revelation was one of the earliest accepted books of the New Testament. There was hardly any dispute that it was inspired. The only small dispute about Revelation is it’s authorship. Most agreed that it was written by the Apostle John. However, Church History tells us that there was also another ‘Presbyter’ John who lived in the same region, and he might have been the author.

Conclusion: You’ll often hear people talk about the ‘books’ the Church didn’t want in the Bible. This just isn’t true. The canon was commonly accepted very early on. All other books were either ‘apocryphal’ in nature (useful for teaching, but not inspired), or ‘pseudopygryphal’ which means ‘fake works’ - obviously fake documents, based on content, authorship, or time, like the Gospel of Thomas, and other books that you can actually still find and read to this day.

Transmission of Scripture

All books of Scripture were originally written down (autographs) and then copied, over and over and over.

The OT as written in Hebrew (with a few small sections written in Aramaic), and the NT was written in Greek.

In about 200-300 BC, the OT was translated into Greek - this is called the Septuagint, or LXX, both of which mean ‘70’ and are a reference to the 70 translators who did the work.

The OT transmission process, primarily by the Jewish people, was very rigorous. So much so that the scribes were so confident that Scripture had been properly copied from one manuscript to the next they would destroy the old ones! This is why our ‘oldest’ manuscripts of the OT come from about 1000 AD....only about 1000 years ago (Masoretic Text, ‘MT’).

This changed when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the early 1900s. These documents were written during the time of Jesus by a certain group called the Essenes. Many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are manuscripts of the OT Scriptures. Here’s what’s remarkable: even though they were written 1000 years apart, comparing the DSS with the MT shows extremely little variation - which tells us that our copies of the Scriptures are trustworthy.

The NT transmission process was similar. But unlike the OT, we have countless manuscripts and fragments. In fact, there exists more manuscripts and fragments of the NT than any other ancient documents. By a long shot.

For reference, the next most ‘accurate’ manuscripts are Homer’s Illiad. There are 5600 copies of the NT, compared to just 643 of the Illiad. And the ‘oldest’ copy of the Illiad was written almost 500 years after Homer died. The oldest copies of Scripture are from less than 100 years after the originals were written.

Biblical Translations

All of this might lead to a natural question: what Bible translation is best?

The truth is, most English translations of the Bible are pretty good.

However, no translation is perfect.

Some translations are better than others.

The best thing to do: use multiple translations and compare them!

Don’t be afraid to use tools and guides to help you learn/understand the original Greek/Hebrew either!

Bible translations typically fall on a spectrum.

On one end you have “literal” translations. These attempt to do word for word translations. Probably the most literal translation right now is the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Literal translations can be helpful for Biblical study....but they can also be difficult to read. By nature they are a little clunky or “wooden”.

On the other end you have “paraphrase” translations. The most recognizable is The Message. These translations are typically translated by individuals who are trying to make Scripture as easy to read as possible. However, this also means that the translation will heavily rely on the interpretation of the translator. Paraphrase isn’t great for study, but it can be helpful for simple devotionals.

In the middle you have moderate and functional translations. These are your ESV, NIV, NET, CSB, NLT, ect. These translations attempt to balance original meaning with readability.

Scale from Literal to Paraphrase: NASB, KJV, ESV, NIV, NET, CSB, NLT, The Message

Again, some translations are better than others, but they all have their pros and cons. Even if you have one you like, don’t be afraid to compare and use others.

Finally, don’t be afraid to look up the origin if a translation if you aren’t sure about it. This is especially true of any translations put forth by certain groups (looking at you JWs). Don’t waste your time or theology on bad translations!