HOW DID WE GET THE BIBLE

Presented by

Tyler Mullins

[NOTE TO THE READER: This is the first of a three-part series that was presented on a single Sunday by Tyler (part one), Blake (part two), and Justin (part three).]

If you were to ask almost anyone you met while walking down the street, “What is the best-selling book in the world?,” most people would immediately respond by saying, “the Bible.” And they would be correct. Year after year, the Bible is indeed the best-selling book in the world. But if you were to ask those same people, “How did we get the Bible?,” chances are that they wouldn’t have a clue about how to answer such an inquiry.

So how did we get the Bible? The answer to that question makes for a fascinating study about God’s Word, as well as a study of human history as a whole. Perhaps the first thing we should investigate in regard to the Bible’s origin is the matter of ancient writing materials. How did people write letters, documents, or books before things like pencils, pens, typewriters, or computers were invented? An examination of ancient history shows that people first started writing by carving words on flat slabs of rock with a sharp object such as a piece of metal. A little later, people learned how to scratch words on moist clay tablets, which then were allowed to harden. However, as time passed people figured out how to harvest a tall reed known as a papyrus plant. They slit the reeds down the middle, rolled them out flat, and glued them together to form a smooth surface. They then wrote on that surface by using a sharpened stick or a feather quill, along with inks made from various colors of dyes. The apostles and other New Testament writers undoubtedly used papyrus to produce their original books or letters. Then, someone discovered that it was possible to take skins from dead animals, dry them, scrape them until they became smooth, and write on them with similar types of inks. These animal skins, known as parchment or vellum, became a popular repository of many ancient writings. In fact, some copies of the Bible that date back as far as A.D. 200 were written on these types of leathers.

The Bible, of course, was not written all at once. Instead, its books were penned by over forty different men whose lives spanned approximately 1,600 years—from 1500 B.C. to A.D. 100. Furthermore, these men came from a wide variety of backgrounds. Nehemiah was a royal cupbearer. Peter was a fisherman. Luke was a physician. Matthew was a tax collector. Solomon was a king. Moses was a shepherd. Paul was a tentmaker. And, these men wrote from almost every conceivable human condition. David wrote from the heights of joy on the grassy hills of Judea, while Paul wrote from the viewpoint of a prisoner of the Roman government. In addition, the Bible was written in three separate languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—from at least two different continents, Europe and Asia. Moreover, the Bible writers covered topics as diverse as theology, psychology, geography, history, medicine, science, prophecy, and many others. A person might expect that if so diverse a group of men wrote over such a lengthy span of time, those men would have produced a book that was a tangled mishmash of subjects containing numerous errors and disagreements. Yet that is not what happened. Truth be told, the Bible exhibits such astounding harmony, such consistent flow, and such incredible unity that it defies a purely naturalistic explanation. All of the Bible books fit together in complete harmony—as if a single mind somehow had guided the men to write what they did.

So, where did the men who wrote the Bible get the information they included in their books or letters? And why do all of the books in the Bible agree with one another so perfectly, even though they were written over a period spanning almost 1,600 years? The Bible itself answers that question. In 2 Timothy 3:16-17 we are told that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The word “inspired” in our English Bibles comes from two Greek words that mean “God breathed.” Thus, the men who wrote down what we possess today in our Bibles did not write those words on their own. Rather, the words they penned came straight from God. In fact, this is exactly what 2 Peter 1:20-21 says: “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” More than 2,700 times throughout the Bible we find phrases such as “the Lord said,” “the word of the Lord,” “the Lord spoke,” and so on. This is truly amazing, considering that many Bibles today contain only around 1,300 pages—which means that, on average, the Bible claims to be God’s Word a little more than two times per page!

But just because the Bible claims to be from God does not necessarily mean that it is from God. Although the number is very small, there are a few other books that claim to be from a divine source. The question that arises, then, is this: How can we tell if the Bible is indeed from God? In order to do that, we will have to examine internal and external evidences which prove that there is no other book in the world like the Bible. Thus, I invite you to listen to Blake as he continues to present evidence to answer the question, “How did we get the Bible?”