Where did the Bible come from? How did we get the Bible?
Over centuries of inspired composition, the people of God received certain texts as Holy Scripture, without manufacturing or mandating them. The modern Protestant Bible, comprised of 66 books, is typically divided into two sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament. Because these two sections are distinct (they were written several centuries apart!), it is…
What is the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament?
There are various Greek New Testaments that translators use to produce Bibles in other languages: the Received Text (or Textus Receptus), the Majority Text, and eclectic or critical texts such as the Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament. The original New Testament manuscripts written by Luke or Matthew or Peter no longer…
What is the Muratorian Canon?
The Muratorian Canon (also called the Muratorian Fragment) is an ancient list of New Testament books—the oldest such list we have found. The original document, which was probably written in Greek, is dated to about AD 180 and lists 22 of the 27 books that were later included in the New Testament of the Christian…
Who wrote most of the New Testament?
The questions “Who wrote most of the New Testament?” and “Who wrote most of the books of the New Testament?” are different questions with different answers. By number of books, Paul is at the top; by volume, Luke is the winner. The apostle Paul wrote the most books of the New Testament—13 total out of…
What is the Critical Text?
The Critical Text is a Greek text of the New Testament that draws from a group of ancient Greek manuscripts and their variants in an attempt to preserve the most accurate wording possible. Other Greek texts besides the Critical Text used for producing English Bibles are the Majority Text and the Textus Receptus. Until the…
Is it possible that more books could be added to the Bible?
There is no reason to believe that God would present further revelation to add to His Word. The Bible begins with the very beginning of humanity—Genesis—and ends with the end of humanity as we know it—Revelation. Everything in between is for our benefit as believers, to be empowered with God’s truth in our daily living.…
In what languages was the Bible written?
The Old Testament is written primarily in Hebrew. It is commonly known as Biblical Hebrew because it is different from Modern Hebrew, just as Old English is different from Modern English. Because the time span from Genesis to Malachi is so great, there is even evidence of development within the language during that time span.…
How and when was the canon of the Bible put together?
The term “canon” is used to describe the books that are divinely inspired and therefore belong in the Bible. The difficulty in determining the biblical canon is that the Bible does not give us a list of the books that belong in the Bible. Determining the canon was a process conducted first by Jewish rabbis…
What is the Codex Gigas?
The Codex Gigas is an interesting piece of medieval literary history. The codex, or book, is a handwritten manuscript written on 624 pages of vellum. It was created in the thirteenth century in the Benedictine monastery of Podlazice in Bohemia, which is today in the Czech Republic. The Codex Gigas contains a copy of the…
How do we decide which books belong in the Bible since the Bible does not say which books belong in the Bible?
If Scripture is to be our sole authority, on what authority do we know which books belong in the Bible – since the Bible does not state which books should be in the Bible? This is a very important question, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In the chain of…