The Bible

THE BIBLE AS THE CORE OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF
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Dr. Paul Manuel—Seventh Day Baptist Youth Retreat—2000

As followers of Jesus, we hold The Bible as the Core of Christian Belief. In this session, we will be discussing how it has come down to us from long ago and how we have managed to keep it largely unchanged. Unlike other books we might read, the Bible was not written by a single human author over the course of a few years. The Bible is a far more extensive work, composed over a much longer period and written by a host of authors.

I. How did we get the Bible?

A. Its Creation: Is the Bible a book? (Yes and no)

1. The Bible is 66 books by at least 45 authors written over a period of about 1500 years.¹
2. The Bible grew from several collections of books.
3. The Bible is now a single book that Jews and (with the New Testament) Christians recognize as inspired by God.²

2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

• The Bible is a collection of many books.

What makes this collection different from a regular library is that these books claim to speak for God and to have authority from God, which makes them our main source for information about God and about what He expects from us. Nevertheless, the Bible is only useful for those who understand it, and to grasp the significance of a passage, we must ask two simple but important questions:

• What does it mean?
• Why does it matter?

Later, we will see how answering these questions can help us understand a sample passage.

The Bible is not merely one book but a collection of many books. Moreover, they are not all the same kind of book. They may have stories or poetry, laws or prophecy, whatever type of literature the biblical authors choose to write.

B. Its Composition: What is in the Bible?

1. There are different genres, even in the same book or group of books (e.g., Pentateuch).

a. Murder and romance,³
b. Songs and prayers,⁴
c. Death and life,⁵
d. Intrigue and heroism,⁶
e. Blessings and curses.⁷

2. There are different collections, according to when they were compiled.

a. The Law (or Torah) was the first collection of biblical books and contains primarily God's instructions to His people Israel.
b. The Prophets (which includes most of the historical works) was the second collection of biblical books and contains the record of the nation's response to the Law.
c. The Writings (which includes poetry and wisdom literature) was the third collection of biblical books and contains personal reflections of those who applied the Law.
d. The New Testament was (for Christians) the fourth collection of biblical books and contains the gospels and epistles, which record the life of Jesus and growth of the early Church.

Luke 24:44b Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.

• The Bible contains many different kinds of literature.

The most important thing about the Bible is that it tells us about God and about us, namely who God is and who we are, as well as where God is going and how we can join Him. Still, thousands of years have passed since even the most recent books were written. Given that the early documents were hand copied, how do we know these records of what God said have not changed (like the game of telephone)?

II. How did we keep the Bible?

A. Its Transmission: Has the Bible changed? (Very little)

1. The scribes were very careful in their copying.

a. They checked their work.
b. They counted words and letters.

1) They knew the middle word of Torah is Lev 10:16.
2) They knew the middle letter of Torah is Lev 11:42.

2. The scrolls show few differences in their content.

a. Isaiah from the Leningrad Codex goes back to 1000 A.D.
b. 1QIs^a from the Qumran collection goes back to c. 150 B.C.
c. The prophet wrote in c. 750 B.C.

• The Bible has been transmitted carefully for hundreds of years.

However carefully the Bible has been transmitted, for people to know what God has said, it is best if they can read it in their own language.

B. Its Translation: Does God speak English? (Yes, but...)

1. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
2. The Bible (at least one book, thereof) has now been translated into more than 2000 languages (which covers well over 90% of the world's population).

• Factoid: Almost 24,000,000 (complete) Bibles were distributed worldwide in 1999.

3. There are many versions available in English.

a. Translations (KJV, NAS) stay close to the original languages but may not be easy to read.
b. Paraphrases (TEV, LB, NLT) try to convey the main ideas, but may not be accurate.

• The Bible has been translated into many languages (besides English).

Sometimes different versions of the Bible can convey contrary ideas, as in Paul's instructions to the church at Corinth about collecting funds for needy believers in Jerusalem. What is the main difference in this passage between the New American Standard (a translation) and the New Living Translation (a paraphrase)?

NAS (1995) 1 Cor 16:1 Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. 2 On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.

NLT (1996) 1 Cor 16:1 Now about the money being collected for the Christians in Jerusalem: You should follow the same procedures I gave to the churches in Galatia. 2 On every Lord's Day, each of you should put aside some amount of money in relation to what you have earned and save it for this offering. Don't wait until I get there and try to collect it all at once.

This difference offers a good test to illustrate how we can use two simple questions to help us understand a biblical passage.

• First, what does it mean?

The phrase "Lord's Day" is how those who worship on the "first day" of the week often refer to Sunday, but this phrase appears only once in the New Testament, and the referent is unclear (= day of the LORD?).

Rev 1:10 On the Lord's Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.

Moreover, the only mention of such a church gathering is when Paul spoke to the Christians in Troas, and that was probably a special meeting to accommodate his visit, not a regular meeting.

Acts 20:7 On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.

• Second, why does it matter?

The phrase "Lord's Day" in the NLT gives the false impression that a meeting took place regularly when the church came together on Sunday, but there is no evidence the New Testament church assembled normally on the first day of the week.

This example of the difference between a good translation and a loose paraphrase illustrates why choosing the proper version is important, whether for careful Bible study or for casual Bible reading.

Conclusion: What we have in the scriptures contains different books with different kinds of material, but they all tell us about God. They are also reliable, and their message has not changed. That is why we view The Bible as the Core of Christian Belief.

For the Bibliography and Endnotes see the pdf here.