HOW THE BIBLE CAME TO BE

Jeremiah 1:1-9

Tough Questions of Faith: What is the Bible?

I love the Bible—its’ message and its languages. So, I am excited about this first series of sermons: “Tough Questions of Faith: What is the Bible?” Today we look at how the Bible came about, how it originated and developed into its present forms. In our text for today, the prophet Jeremiah recounts his call to ministry: “the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.”(1:9) The Bible began in just that way: God’s word in the mouths of believers.

Once upon a time, the twelve tribes of Israel, over 600,000 strong, made their way back to their homeland under the leadership of Moses after 430 years of slavery in Egypt—a journey that would take forty years. What a sight that journey must have been! Since they didn’t have TV, I imagine that every evening after supper individual and extended families would gather around campfires in front of their tents and tell stories. Many of the stories, passed on to them from parents and grandparents, recall how they had ended up in Egypt as a result of famine at the invitation of Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, who had become a high government official under the Egyptian pharaoh.

They shared other stories from even earlier times about their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, who journeyed from present-day Iraq to Palestine where they had a child in old age, Isaac, to whom every tribe could trace its lineage. They believed that their ancient history, the exodus from Egypt, and even the wilderness journey toward home was the work of their God, with a holy, unspeakable name that they masked with the Hebrew title Adonai (“Lord”).

Unlike other polytheistic cultures of the time, Hebrews were monotheistic, believing in one God. Their theology—their conception of God, life and faith—was expressed in story form. As primitive, pre-literate and pre-scientific people, the Hebrews were nevertheless intelligent, making use of their language and story as primary means by which to express, reflect upon and experience the God whose Spirit/wind created heavens and earth and whose Spirit/breath gave life to an beings and all living things, but who was also very personal, who cared for and guided them.

Even during the wilderness journey following the Exodus from Egypt the Lord provided the Torah, meaning “teaching” or law, including ten commandments that became the basis for their life together as a people of faith. As their language and alphabet developed, these remembered stories and reflections, some many hundreds of years old, were sewn together and written into the first five books of the Bible we now know as the Pentateuch or Torah—comprising Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—probably completed in written form in the 6^th century before Christ. This material became the core of their sacred scripture, read and studied, as Word of God.

Simultaneously, to this growing body of scripture, the Hebrews added writings and stories of the Nevi’im, or prophets, spokespersons for God. The “former prophets” included Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, which are largely historical and describe the development of political and religious life in the promised land after 40 years in the wilderness, including the successes, struggles and failures in faith. The “latter prophets” include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and twelve others, sometimes mysteriously called “minor prophets” but who have major messages for any who read them about the consequences of actions contrary to the will of God and harmful to others.

All the while, a third category of scripture developed, the Ketubim or writings, that featured not only the poetry of the Psalms—the Hebrew hymnbook—but Proverbs, Job, Songs of Solomon, Ruth, as well as Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 & 2 Chronicles. The Hebrew Bible is an incredible collection of primeval and actual history, rules and ethics, teachings, prophecy, and a wide variety of literature that includes poems, allegories, apocalyptic writings, sayings, essays and sermons—all inspired in covenant relationship with God.

Thus, the Hebrew or Jewish Bible was completed with a total of thirty-nine books in three divisions—Torah, Prophets, Writings. Except for the first five books of the Pentateuch, Hebrew Scriptures are arranged in a different order in Christian Bibles. How that happened is a very interesting story.

A Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures developed in Alexandria for Jews living outside of Palestine. This version, known as the Septuagint, contained not only the original 39 books but 21 additional writings, called Apocryphal or deutero-canonical works, that were considered sacred writings as well. Furthermore, the Septuagint had four divisions—Torah, Histories, Poetical and Wisdom Books, and Prophets in that order. This was the version of the Bible that most early Christians used for reading and quotation in the second century after Christ. Most Protestant Bibles today do not include the Apocryphal/deutero-canonical works, but Roman Catholic and Orthodox Bibles contain some or all of them. One can still see the linguistic influence of the Septuagint in the Greek names of books like Genesis (Heb. Berashith, “In beginning”) and others in English versions. Christian versions of the Old Testament also follow the same arrangement as the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Bible.

Jerome, who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Latin, separated the Apocryphal works from the original 39 books of the Hebrew Bible. Those books, or a selection of them, continued to be regarded as scripture in Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches until the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther’s translation included the apocryphal books but did not regard them as having scriptural authority. John Calvin tossed them out of the Bible completely. Anglicans included them for study and devotion but held that they could not be used to establish doctrine. My personal study Bible contains all of the apocryphal books.

This brings us to the New Testament which, like the Old Testament, also began with oral tradition, that is, stories of Jesus’ life, teachings, death and resurrection were told and re-told in gatherings of disciples, in worship, person to person, town to town, before being recorded in written form. Telling the story of Jesus, then as now, was the primary means for sharing the good news.

By the second century A.D. there was a significant body of materials—various gospels, narratives, letters and apocalyptic writings—circulating and being used by Christian communities. The practice of reading from these works along with selections from the Greek version of the Jewish scriptures soon developed in Christian worship and began the process of canonization, that is, selecting those works that were deemed “inspired” or authoritative. Of course, there were disputes about which were more inspired or authoritative than others. Leaders began to develop competitive lists based upon use as well as theological perspective. Furthermore, rather than cumbersome scrolls, collections of writings were bound together in pages, similar to modern books. The collection of sacred writings differed from congregation to congregation and region to region, but it also facilitated copying and exchanges among congregations.

By the end of the end of the 4^th century there was widespread agreement about which books had scriptural status. Among the large number of early Christian writings, a smaller number had come to be widely accepted. The selection criteria for inclusion into the canon were: (1) apostolic authority—that a work was written by or attributed to one of the first generation of Christian leaders, especially Paul and the twelve apostles—and (2) consistency with their teaching.

Although first in order of the New Testament, the gospels were not the earliest written documents in the New Testaments. The letters (epistles) of Paul the Apostle, written largely to specific churches he had established in Asia Minor and Europe during his missionary journeys, were earlier. For example, 1 Thessalonians is usually dated before 50 A.D., some twenty years before the earliest gospel. There are 21 separate letters in the New Testament, 13 from Paul or his associates and one (Hebrews) attributed to Paul. Another 7 letters are attributed to other apostles. These epistles were carried by missionary associates to the early churches and, doubtless, encouraged and energized their faith as well as clarified Christian theology and practice for all Christians since.

Mark, considered the earliest gospel, is the first to use the word “gospel” for the message of salvation through Jesus.(1:1) The word “gospel” or “good news” became the designation for written accounts of the ministry, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus as well as for Jesus’ own preaching and teaching in all four gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke are often referred to as the “Synoptic” gospels because they contain much of the same material expressed in similar language and outline. Each, however, has an individual purpose, resources and content. The Gospel of John is later and quite different from the other three in narrative detail, and is very philosophical and symbolic, featuring extensive discourses by Jesus.

The Book of Acts of the Apostles is essentially the second half of the Gospel According to Luke dramatically describing the birth of the Christian Church from the time of the Ascension of Jesus, in Asia Minor and Europe, until the arrival of Paul in Rome. Luke’s purpose was to instill Christians with an unshakeable confidence in their future through a survey of their past.

The New Testament ends, appropriately, with the Apocalypse of John, or Revelation to John, the 27^th book of the New Testament, that envisions God’s plan of judgment and salvation. Written to the “seven churches that are in Asia,” Revelation is intended to provide hope and encouragement to Christians being persecuted by the Roman Empire—or in any context. The highly symbolic language, often confusing to moderns, would have been readily understood by Christians in the first and second centuries and challenges us to look beyond literal meaning to find hope in the challenges of faith in present.

In Revelation, John receives a scroll from an angel and is told to eat it, implying that Christians are not only nourished by reading and studying Holy Scripture but by so doing, like Jesus, become the living Word of God.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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“The Canons of the Bible,” The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 3^rd ed., Michael D. Coogan, Ed., New Revised Standard Version, (Oxford University Press: New York, 2001), pp. 453-460