We all know that the Bible didn't fall out of the sky. In fact, there was no Bible, Old and New Testaments combined, until 300 years after Jesus' Ascension. So, how did the Bible originate?
Where did the Bible Come to Us?
- Thread starter arthurfleminger
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This is THE Best Synopsis of Bible history that I've ever seen. It takes less time to listen to than reading a book on the subject. It includes an extremely good interview with the director of a Bible museum in Arizona.
Your statement is not completely accurate. From the time that God handed down to Moses the Law and the Ten Commandments, there has been Scriptures for man to read and study/share and believe in. As each of the Books fo the Old Testament were written, they were passed around among the Jewish Nation. Each of them became a "part of Scripture" in due time. In fact, when Jesus was preaching His Gospel, He refered to the existing Books of the Old Testament when He said:
John, Chapter 5:
39Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
40And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
The Nation of Israel had copies of the various Books of the Old Testament for quite a long time. These writings were usually kept in the Temples where the Priests read them and taught the masses.
The Books of the New Testament were passed from Congregation to Congregation all over the Middle East. Pauls Epistles were widly spread for the peoples to read and believe.........
As for when the Holy Bible we now have today:
WHEN WAS THE BIBLE COMPLETED? - BibleVerseStudy.com
When Was the Bible Written? History of Old and New …
When was the Bible first translated into English from the original ...
This book is a classic and worth every penny. It should be a part of every church Sunday School class material.
The Canon of Scripture by F F Bruce.
And I think it was about 170 AD or there about when the Muratorian Canon lists 22 of the 27 NT books as scripture.
The first list of all 27 books was by Athanasius about 367 AD but it would be misleading to say that was when these books were accepted as scriptures since Athanasius list was making a point that the church had already long since accepted these as scripture and Athanasius was not establishing canon when he mentioned that list.
It was not an edict or anything. This was simply the oldest mention in surviving literature where someone mentions that these books were ALREADY accepted as canon by the church, without any official "Church Leadership declaration" necessary. Those things came later and never established canon but simply agreed that canon had long since been established by believers receiving these texts as inspired.
https://www.amazon.com/Canon-Script.../ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Hello @arthurfleminger, I've posted links to this video in a couple of other threads, but I will do so again here because it seems to address your thread title and OP pretty well. It's called The God Who Speaks, and you can watch it for free right now from the very folks who directed and produced it.
The cast (of this recent and very well-done movie/documentary) is made of up well-known theologians, pastors, linguists, historians and apologists from many different churches/denominations within the pale of orthodox Christianity. My only wish is that it had been 6 hours long (instead of 90 minutes). The good news is, AFA has produced additional videos (that are intended to be watched and discussed in a Bible Study setting) that go into greater detail about the various topics that are discussed (and that by the same cast members who helped make the movie).
Here is the official trailer if you'd care to watch it.
You can watch The God Who Speaks for free on YouTube as well (but it cannot be seen in full HD there). So, I would recommend streaming it in full HD at the AFA site here: The God Who Speaks (afa.net), even though you will need to sign up with them to access it (the sign-up with them, American Family Association, that is, is quick, easy and free, just FYI
).
God bless you!!
~Deut
The cast (of this recent and very well-done movie/documentary) is made of up well-known theologians, pastors, linguists, historians and apologists from many different churches/denominations within the pale of orthodox Christianity. My only wish is that it had been 6 hours long (instead of 90 minutes). The good news is, AFA has produced additional videos (that are intended to be watched and discussed in a Bible Study setting) that go into greater detail about the various topics that are discussed (and that by the same cast members who helped make the movie).
Here is the official trailer if you'd care to watch it.
You can watch The God Who Speaks for free on YouTube as well (but it cannot be seen in full HD there). So, I would recommend streaming it in full HD at the AFA site here: The God Who Speaks (afa.net), even though you will need to sign up with them to access it (the sign-up with them, American Family Association, that is, is quick, easy and free, just FYI
).God bless you!!
~Deut
There was a Hebrew Bible in existence for about 400 years BEFORE CHRIST. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself constantly referred to the Hebrew Tanakh (the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms) when teaching or refuting His enemies. The scribes and Pharisees agreed on one thing with Christ -- that there was indeed a Hebrew Bible which was THE FINAL AUTHORITY in all spiritual matters. But they radically differed from Christ in their interpretations, because they had elevated the traditions of men above the Word of God.
Between AD 30 and AD 70 the greater part of the New Testament had already been written and was in circulation in the churches of the Roman empire. By about 96 AD the whole Bible was complete, and by the 2nd century AD there was already a Syriac translation of the Bible called the Peshitta. Until the invention of printing in the 15th century, the Bible existed as manuscripts, but soon after the invention of printing both the Hebrew and the Greek portions of the Bible had been printed.
Copies of the books and letters were circulated to the churches as quickly as the Christian scribes could accurately copy them.
Peter refered to Paul's writings, already when he wrote his epistles/letters. Many churches had much of the New Testament books BEFORE the first century.
Your reference to 300 years after Christ's ascension, Arthur, is likely from the Roman Catholic tradition. That council that would have included larger churches only stated which they decided were part of their canon.
The independent assemblies decided for themselves and verified those precious Letters/Books. I hope you watch the documentary this weekend. I think you will enjoy it since you like Bible history.
Peter refered to Paul's writings, already when he wrote his epistles/letters. Many churches had much of the New Testament books BEFORE the first century.
Your reference to 300 years after Christ's ascension, Arthur, is likely from the Roman Catholic tradition. That council that would have included larger churches only stated which they decided were part of their canon.
The independent assemblies decided for themselves and verified those precious Letters/Books. I hope you watch the documentary this weekend. I think you will enjoy it since you like Bible history.
The Bible originated when the LORD gave man the written spoken word. The written spoken word did not evolve from cuneiform or hieroglyphics as most Christians believe.
I am not to sure that the cuneiform tablets found in the late 1800's are even legitimate. The way they were discovered is sketchy not to mention that some guy could read them after seeing them for the first time is more than just sketchy. It would be the same as saying a person who didn't know how to read just picking up a book and reading it. Hieroglyphics, the use of pictures or images to tell a story requires the person who draws the images to tell someone what is meant by the drawings, and that person in turn tells someone else. You can give a child a crayon and a piece of paper and they can draw you a story. People don't need to be taught how to draw, per say, yet that doesn't mean that drawings are the same as the written spoken word,
There is a scientific method that would prove or disprove their claims regarding the cuneiforms that is written in the OT, give the same tablet to two people that claim they can read them and let them read it but nah, they would rather accept what people claim they say rather to even believe that they are just making it up. [See Isaiah 29:11-12]
The Bible tells us that up to a certain point in time,
Though unwritten at that time, I wonder if the original language of the people of Earth (prior to the incident at the Tower of Babel, that is) might have been Hebrew
Do we know what that (original/pre-Babel) language was by any chance
Thanks!!
~Deut
Genesis 11
1 The whole earth used the same language and the same words.
Though unwritten at that time, I wonder if the original language of the people of Earth (prior to the incident at the Tower of Babel, that is) might have been Hebrew
Do we know what that (original/pre-Babel) language was by any chance Thanks!!
~Deut
The word,, Hebrew, in Hebreew may be translated "from across the river." This is a reference to Abraham who left his land and his people obeying God for he crossed d the river in order to go into the land according to God's Word.
All of Abraham's offspring are Hebrew, though divided into twelve tribes.
All of Abraham's offspring are Hebrew, though divided into twelve tribes.
Maybe he's talking about the history of writing? The history of alphabets? Phonetic alphabets?I never even heard that before
Where do they teach you the written word originated from; do they teach you that the LORD first taught man how to read and write the written spoken word?I never even heard that before
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Romans 1:17
Who is they?
I had not heard anyone say Christians largely believe the written spoken word evolved from cuneiform or hieroglyphics.
Until you said it
Do you mean that God taught Moses ancient Hebrew? They (linguists and archaeologists) think that the first phonetic alphabet was behind the Hebrew language and in a sense one can see the Hand of God behind this development providently happening about the time Moses wrote.
Moses being raised in Egypt and with all the learning of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. ) The archaeological finds of the oldest phonemic script were from slaves in the Sinai Peninsula which is very interesting when you consider that Moses may have wrote a most ancient form of Hebrew in something that the "ex slaves" could read.
The first fully phonemic script, the Proto-Canaanite script, later known as the Phoenician alphabet, is considered to be the first alphabet and is the ancestor of most modern alphabets, including Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and possibly Brahmic.[5][6] It was created by Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in the Sinai Peninsula (as the Proto-Sinaitic script), by selecting a small number of hieroglyphs commonly seen in their Egyptian surroundings to describe the sounds, as opposed to the semantic values, of their own Canaanite language.[7][8] However, Peter T. Daniels distinguishes an abugida, or alphasyllabary, a set of graphemes that represent consonantal base letters which diacritics modify to represent vowels (as in Devanagari and other South Asian scripts), an abjad, in which letters predominantly or exclusively represent consonants (as in the original Phoenician, Hebrew or Arabic), and an "alphabet", a set of graphemes that represent both consonants and vowels. In this narrow sense of the word the first true alphabet was the Greek alphabet,[9][10] which was developed on the basis of the earlier Phoenician alphabet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha...phonemic script,, Latin, and possibly Brahmic.
I believe the authors of the Old Testament were literally told what to write by God or one of His angels.
Moses wrote 5 books that we know of; however Moses said that he is not eloquent, is slow of speech, and of tongue. That could mean a lot of things.
Exodus 4:10
10Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
Even though the five Books of Moses are actually well-written, it could mean that Moses was better at writing than speaking or Moses was informed what grammar to use directly from God or an angel. It isn’t uncommon for someone to be a poor public speaker, but an excellent writer.