WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY “THE BIBLE”?
The Bible is the collection of 66 books written over a period of more than 1000 years. The Bible is the proclaimed word of God. It was written by a variety of authors who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, who is the primary author, whereas humans are considered as the secondary authors of the Bible.
TIMEFRAME OF BIBLE WRITING
The Bible was written over a period of 1000 years under a variety of conditions. During this long period of history, people of Israel underwent a several changes in their lifestyle, which included deep transformation in their natural and culture life. This spreads from
1. The Patriarchal period
2. The captivity in Egypt
3. The conquest of the Promised Land
4. The Monarchy
4.1. United monarchy
4.2. Divided monarchy
5. The Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom
6. The Exile
7. The Babylonian captivity of the Southern Kingdom
8. The return from Exile.
During different eras their patterns of government, worship and legal organizations changed. Their relationships to the neighbouring peoples and to the great empires have also changed according to the political situations. These changes help to explain the variety we can see in the content, language and style of different biblical books. The Bible is the “Sacred Scriptures” of the Christians.
MEANING OF THE BIBLE
The name Bible is derived from the Greek word “ta biblia” which means “little scrolls”. This refers to the rolls of “papyri” on which the sacred writings were written. The Bible is also based on the word “biblos,” the particular name of papyrus or Byblos reed which was used in ancient times for making scrolls or writing paper.
In the first century BC, the ban on papyrus scrolls by the Egyptian king led to the city of Pergamum discovering a method of writing materials from the skins of animals which was called “parchments” Read 2 Tim. 4: 13. The problem of using papyrus or parchment was that they were limited by the physical limits of the roll length which meant that a long book had to be divided in to two scrolls like the books of Samuel and etc which led Christians terming them 1 and 2 Samuel, unlike Jews terming them as one book.
Early in church history the Christians called the scriptures “the Books” or “ta biblia”. The dominance of the Roman church fostered the use of the word “biblia”. The word “ta biblia” in Greek was a neuter plural noun, whereas in Latin it was in singular. So by 13 th century “The Books” (plural) came to be known as “The Book” (singular).
The plural term emphasizes the fact that the Bible is a collection of books. While in singular it emphasizes that behind these many books there lies a wonderful unity.
DIVERSITY AND UNITY
The diversity of the Bible is based on the differing cultures and eras during which each particular book was written. The authors also come from different backgrounds. There is a vast difference between Moses with his Egyptian and Hebrew background and Paul with his Roman citizenship and Greek scholarship. Similarly Hebrew scribe Ezra and the Gentile doctor Luke.
Another great difference was the language in which the Bible was written.Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the language of the Israelites before Exile. Some parts of the OT were written in Aramaic such as Ezra 4:8-7:18; 7:12-26; Jer. 10:11; Dan. 2:4-7:28.
In the 3rd century BC, the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek for the Jews outside Israel. This translation was called “Septuagint” (LXX) based on 70 scholars who translated it. This became the Bible of the NT church. Therefore there is a great diversity in the Bible because of the different eras it was written, different cultures represented in it, the different authors who wrote it and the different languages employed in composing it.
However, the unity that we found in the Bible is because the scripture was brought into existence by the spirit of God. Read 2 Peter 1: 21 &22; 2 Thess. 2:13.
INSPIRATION AND COMMON AUTHORSHIP
The primary author is God the Holy Spirit. Read 2 Tim. 3: 16-17.
It is clear that the writings were never mechanical and the writers were not robots. God used these men, who he had already chosen and trained by various experiences, to write these words using their own through processes, previous graining and temperamental characteristics under the power of Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit controlled the writers that they could not introduce any human defects such as false history, inaccurate descriptions or misguided doctrine into the body of the writings. Thus the complete writing was inspired by God through the Holy Spirit.
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