How We Got The Bible Part I

1,2,Sword Drill (of sorts) - 3

1.      How many books in the Bible? 3-1 66

2.      How many verses are in the Bible (KJV)? 3-2 31,102

3.      How many words (KJV)? 3-3 775,693 4

4.      What's the longest book in the Bible (KJV)? 4-1 Psalms (150 chapters) 5

5.      What's the shortest book in the OT (KJV)? 5-1 Obadiah (21 verses)

6.      What's the shortest book in the NT (KJV)? 5-2 2 John (13 verses, 3 John has 14)

7.      What's the shortest verse in the Bible (KJV)? 5-3 John 11:35 Jesus wept.

6,7 How did we get the Bible? 8

9 When was the OT written?

9-1 @1500 bc – 400 bc on scrolls of leather and papyrus. @ 450 bc Ezra arranges these early scrolls into a collection of Hebrew Scriptures (prior to 400 bc).

10 400 bc – ad45: The "silent period" – 10-1 no biblical prophet spoke or wrote.

·         Jews began returning to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity.

·         Hebrew OT was translated into Greek (Septuagint: seventy, LXX, referring to the 70-72 Jewish scholars who worked on the translation in Alexandria, Egypt.

·         Toward end of the period, Rome took possession of Judea. 

11 When was the NT written?

@ ad45 – 100, 11-1 on papyrus, copied into a codex (an actual, bound book, as we might recognize it).

12 How did we get the Versions of the Bible we use today?

·         12-1 435: Hebrew and Greek texts translated into Latin (the Vulgate).

·         13 1382: John Wycliffe translated the Vulgate into English for the first time.

·         13-1 1455: Gutenberg invents moveable type and the first Bible is printed (Latin Vulgate).

·         14 1522: Martin Luther translates the NT into German and in 14-1 1525 William Tyndale translated the NT into English.

·         14-2 First complete Bible printed in English is translated by Miles Coverdale in 1535.

·         14-3 1560: English exiles in Switzerland publish the first "study Bible" of sorts, the Geneva Bible, with notations from Calvin, Beza, and Knox.

·         15 Next landmark version was commissioned under the authority of King James I in 1611, when 54 scholars worked for six years from two previous versions (the Geneva Bible and the 1568 Bishops Bible) as well as the available Greek & Hebrew text of the time to create the Authorized or KJV. Revised several times, the version in use today was last revised in 1769.

·         15-1 1629–1947, several early copies (codices) found, culminating in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, leading to further authenticity and accuracy of many of the modern Biblical translations.

·         16 1901: Revision of the KJV resulted in the American Standard Version (ASV).

·         16-1 1952: a revision of the ASV led to the Revised Standard Version (RSV).

·         16-2 1958: J.B. Phillips paraphrased the NT in Modern English for youth.

·         16-3 1971: another paraphrase, the Living Bible (LB), as well as a revision to the ASV; the literal New American Standard Bible (NASB), was published.

·         17 1978: New International Version (NIV) was published, offering a readable, yet dignified version of the English Protestant Bible.

·         17-1 1982: using the same texted, a modernized version for the KJV, the New King James Version (NKJV) was published.

·         17-2 1989: a "gender-neutral" version of the RSV, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), was published.

·         17-3 1996: a gender-neutral version of the NIV was published (NIV Inclusive Language), that was further updated in 2002.

·         Also published in 17-4 2002 was The Message, a paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, based on original Hebrew and Greek texts and designed to present the "tone, rhythm, events and ideas" of the original texts in everyday language.

18 What are the 3 types of Translation Philosophies used to produce modern Bibles?
18-1 Form-Driven: (e.g. 18-2 KJV, NKJV, NASB, etc.) More literal and more reliable accuracy of translation, but harder to read.

18-3 Meaning-Driven: (e.g. 18-4 NIV, NRSV, etc.) Less accurate in translation, but convey the meaning of the text rather than an accurate rendering of the original language.

18-5 Paraphrases: (e.g. J.B. Phillips, LB, The Message) Not translations, but restatements of original texts. Paraphrases give contemporary meaning to the texts. They are less literal or reliable for accuracy, but are much more accessible to a wider audience and much more readable, by modern standards.

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