The Bible: The Amazing Development of Christian Scripture and the Challenges of the Modern Reader
The Bible is generally recognized as the most influential and best-selling book of all-time. Unquestionably, the Bible has had an immeasurable impact throughout history to the present day. Yet, the Bible is perplexing to many readers.
Countless books, essays and articles have been written by academics, clerics, and others meant to educate and enlighten readers on the story, text, and background of the Bible. Indeed, the sheer magnitude of available information and perspectives on the Bible can be overwhelming and confusing. An understanding of the Bible can also be impacted by a reader’s secular or religious beliefs, religious affiliation or lack thereof, personal circumstances, and reading objectives.
The Bible is essentially a collection of books composed by many authors over hundreds of years. Aptly, the term Bible comes from the Greek word biblia meaning books. Each biblical author had specific objectives relevant to them, their audience, and the particular time period in which they were composed. As a result of the multi-authored nature of the Bible, reading a consistent narrative can be challenging. Complicating matters, readers can have different reading experiences and perspectives depending on the edition of the Bible they are reading. The editions of the Bible employed by the various Christian denominations are somewhat distinct. The Protestant Bible includes 66 books, the Catholic Bible has 73 books, and the Eastern Orthodox Bible totals 78 books.
Readers often don’t realize that the Bible includes two distinct scriptures: 1) The Hebrew scriptures or the Tanakh and, 2) the New Testament. The Tanakh is the sacred scripture of Judaism; the Tanakh is typically referred to as the Old Testament by the Christian community. The word Tanakh is actually an acronym signifying the three divisions of the Hebrew scriptures: Torah (Law), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). In Christian Bibles, the books of the Hebrew scriptures are arranged differently than in the Tanakh. The books in the Tanakh were originally written in Hebrew with a few chapters written in Aramaic. Nevertheless, Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Jewish community hundreds of years prior to New Testament times and was the everyday language spoken by Jesus and the Jewish population throughout the Palestine area. The books in the New Testament were originally written in Greek. Greek was the common language throughout the Roman Empire when/where the New Testament was composed.
Today, there are hundreds of versions of the Bible in English and hundreds more in languages throughout the world. The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible published in 1611 is recognized as having the most influence on English literature and is often regarded as the most historically popular English version. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) published in 1989 is the preferred English Bible by scholars and academics.
In the third and second centuries BCE, a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures was produced called the Septuagint. Since Greek became the lingua franca throughout the Mediterranean world ruled by the Roman Empire, the Septuagint brought the history and religion of Israel and the Jewish community to the world. Thus, Moses, the exodus and the Israelite narrative began to be known throughout the world as a result of the Septuagint translation. The Septuagint was also used by the early Christian community and the authors of the books in the New Testament. Consequently, when the New Testament authors quote from the Hebrew scriptures using the Septuagint translation, the text differs from the Hebrew scriptures which is based on early Hebrew versions.
Developing the corpus of the New Testament was a torturous and lengthy process. The books which were ultimately included in the New Testament were not finalized until late 4th century AD; literally hundreds of years after the time of Jesus. Many of the books which were not included in the New Testament were venerated by many early Christians; fortunately, many of these books are available to the public today. The arrangement of the books in the New Testament was also a sensitive undertaking. As many might suppose, the books in the New Testament are not arranged by date of composition. For instance, all of the epistles (letters) of Paul (the most prolific author of the New Testament) were written before any of the other books in the New Testament yet none of them appear first in the New Testament canon. Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians, was the first book composed in the New Testament even though it is the thirteen book to appear in the canon; it was written in approximately 50-51 A.D. Further, Paul’s writings are generally arranged into two groups: 1) Epistles written to churches and 2) those addressed to individuals. Within each of these two groups, Paul’s letters are generally arranged by length from longest to shortest.
The early Christian community rather quickly adopted the “new” codex format (the early form of the modern book) for their scriptures in lieu of using scrolls. Historians hypothesize that the early Christians adopted the codex format to either distinguish themselves from the scroll format employed by the Jewish community or for pragmatic considerations or both.
As a result of the amazing development of the Bible over thousands of years and the multitude of editions and translations, the modern reader has significant challenges to navigate as they attempt to understand the message found therein.
