_|_ | C O P | N E T The Book we call the Bible -------------------------- To be considered to have come from an all-powerful God, a book must meet certain requirements. First, it must be transmitted to us accurately from the time it was originally written so that we may have an exact representation of what God said and did. Also, it must be correct when it deals with historical personages and events. A book that confuses names, dates and events has no right to claim it comes from an infallible God. Furthermore, any revelation from God should be without any scientific absurdities which would betray that it came by mere human authorship. The bible meets the above requirements and much, much more. Uniqueness of the Bible ----------------------- The Bible is unique, "different from all others", in the following ways (plus a multitude more)... The Bible is unique in its "continuity". It's a book written over a 1,500 year span; written over 40 generations; written by more than 40 authors, from every walk of life -- including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, prophets, ... etc. It's a book written in different places ranging from the wilderness of Mount Sinai to the prison walls of Paul! It's a book written at different times of peace and war, at different moods of joy and sorrow. It's a book written on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe), written in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). Finally, it's a book whose subject matter includes hundreds of topics. Yet, the biblical authors spoke with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation about one unfolding story: "God's redemption of the human race." The Bible is unique in its "circulation". The Bible has been read by more people and published in more languages than any other book in history. More than 40 years ago, the British and Foreign Bible Society had to publish "one copy every three seconds day and night; 22 copies every minute; 1,369 copies every hour of every day; 32,876 copies every day. No other book has known anything approaching this constant circulation [1]. The Bible is unique in its "translation". It is one of the first major books translated. It has been translated and retranslated, and paraphrased, more than any other book in existence. The Encyclopedia Britanica says that "by 1966, the whole Bible has appeared in 240 languages and dialects. One or more of the Bible's books has been translated to 739 additional ones." Between 1950 and 1960, more than 3000 Bible translators were at work [2]! The Bible is unique in its "survival". Being written on material that perishes and having to be copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the printing press did not diminish the style, correctness, or existence of the Bible. Compared with other ancient writings, the Bible has more manuscript evidence than any ten pieces of classical literature combined [3]. The Bible survived not only time, but also persecution, both political and intellectual. Voltaire, the noted French writer, who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence. Only fifty years after Voltaire's death, the Geneva Bible Society used his press and his house to produce stacks of Bibles [4]. What an irony of history! The Bible survives every day through criticism. No other book has been so chopped, knived, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. No other book has been subjected to such mass attacks [5]. Nevertheless, it remains the book most read and most cherished until this very day. If this criticism was ever effective in the past, it would have rendered the Bible unworthy of the critics' attention today. The fact that critics continue to target the Bible proves that their past criticism did nothing less than strengthen the belief in the Bible itself! The Bible is unique in its "influence" on surrounding literature. As we affirmed at the outset, it is the book most quoted; the book most referenced; and the book most studied. From the Apostolic Fathers dating from A.D. 95 to modern times is one great literary river inspired by the Bible --- Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, Bible lexicons, Bible atlases, and Bible geographies. This is in addition to the vast bibliographies around theology, religious education, hymnology, missions, the biblical languages, church history, religious biography, devotional works, commentaries, philosophy of religion, evidences, apologetics, and on and on [6]. The Old Testament Canon ----------------------- As prophesized by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish sacrificial system was ended by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70. The Old Testament canon was settled in the Jewish mind long before that year. However, the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jewish religious authority developed a need for a canon that would be more definitive; the jews were scattered and needed to determine which books were authoritative because of the many extra-scriptural writings and the decentralization. In particular, the need for an Old-testament canon was prompted by the increased circulation of Christian writings amongst the Jews themselves. When the destruction of the Jerusalem and the Temple was imminent, a great rabbi belonging to the school of Hillel in the Pharisaic party--Yochanan ben Zakkai by name--obtained permission from the Romans to reconstitute the Sanhedrin on a purely spiritual basis at Jabneh (Jamnia), between Joppa and Azotus (Ashod). Some of the discussions which went on at Jamnia were handed down by oral transmission and ultimately recorded in the rabbinical writings. Their debates focussed on whether canonical recognition should be accorded to some books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs and Esther). The upshot of the Jamnia debates was the firm acknowledgement of all these books as Holy Scripture [7]. Before the Jamnia debates and conclusions (A.D. 70-90), the canon of the Old Testament was well established in the Jewish mind. The Old Testament was broken down into three major parts: The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. This breakdown is evident in the sayings of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament [Luke 24:44, 11:51] and [Matthew 23:35]. The Law (Torah) consists of the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). The Prophets (Nebhim) consists of books of the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial, and The Twelve). The Writings (Kethubhim) consists of the Poetical Books (Psalms, Proverbs, and Job), the Five Rolls (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, and Ecclesiastes), and the Historical Books (Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles). Although the Christian church has the same Old Testament canon, the number of books differs because Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are divided into two books each. The order of books also differs. In addition to the canonical Jewish Old Testament, the Coptic Orthodox Church as well as most Apostolic churches, including the Roman Catholic church recognize few other Jewish books as part of the inspired Old Testament. These are the Deutro-canonical books, often referred to as the "Apocrypha", from the Greek word "apokruphos", which means "concealed". The New Testament Canon ----------------------- When the Synod of Hippo in A.D. 393 listed the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, it did not confer upon them any authority which they did not already possess, but simply recorded their previously established canonicity. The ruling of the Synod of Hippo was repromulgated four years later by the Third Synod of Carthag. Long before these councils were convened, from the very early years of the church, Christians, especially local church elders, were constantly collecting, evaluating and deciding which of the many writings of their day carried the authority of the Apostles [Colossians 4:16] [2-Peter 3:15-16]. The question asked of any writing to be read in the churches was: To what extent is this book (epistle, narrative, apocalypse, or gospel) an authentic and pure representation of the life and teachings of Jesus and His apostles? The content of the canon was, therefore, determined by general usage, not by authoritarian pronouncement. First century Christians saw in the words of Lord Jesus and the writings of the Apostles an authority of divine inspiration. They venerated these writings and the tradition very much. The deaths of the Apostles by the end of the first century elevated the importance of their writings as Christians saw the need to preserve what the Apostles have reported. This preservation was done mostly through oral teaching from one generation to the next. This "oral tradition" continued for the second and third centuries. But, as time passed, an increasing circulation of books recognized as either not in accordance with the Apostle's teachings (i.e. heretical) or not written by them even though an Apostle's name may have been attached to them (i.e. pseudonymous), motivated the believers to become increasingly concerned about identifying the authentic works of the Apostles. It is this concern that eventually led to the Synod of Hippo in A.D. 393 [8]. New Testament Manuscripts ------------------------- There are now more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add to that over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions and we have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation. In comparison, the "Iliad" by Homer is second with only 643 manuscripts that still survive. Other works such as the writings of Livy, Plato, and Herodotus have no more than 20 surviving manuscripts [7]! Besides the number of manuscripts that survived, the New Testament is unique in that the time span between its composition and the date of the earliest existing manuscript is incredibly short compared to other classical works. The time span between composition and earliest manuscript for most of the New Testament books range at about 100-125 years. This is to be compared with spans of 1,000-1,600 years for the classical works of Caesar, Plato, Tacitus, Herodotus, Suetonius, Horace, Sophocles, Aristotle, Euripides, Aristophanes, Catullus, and many more [9-10]! In the entire range of ancient Greek and Latin literature, the Iliad ranks next to the New Testament in possessing the greatest amount of manuscript testimony. Only 40 lines (about 400 words) of he entire New Testament are in doubt, whereas 764 lines of the Iliad are questioned. This translates to five percent for the Iliad as opposed to one-half of one percent for the New Testament! A careful study of the variants (different readings) of the various earliest manuscripts of the New Testament reveals that none of them affects a single doctrine of Scripture. The reliability of the New Testament manuscripts is also supported by the writings of the early church Fathers. Suppose that the New Testament had been destroyed, and every copy of it lost by the end of the third century (that's 100 years before the Synod of Hippo canonized the New Testament), how much of it could be collected from the writings of the Fathers of the second and third centuries? The answer is stunning! All of it except for eleven verses [9]. Old Testament Manuscripts ------------------------- Until the recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest complete extant Hebrew manuscript was around A.D. 900. This made a time gap of 1,300 years between when the Old Testament was completed (around 400 B.C.) and when the earliest manuscript was written (around 900 A.D.) Despite this seemingly long time span, one needs to examine the extreme care with which the copyists transcribed the Old Testament. Here are some of the rules that the Talmudists (A.D. 100 - 500) used when they transcribed the Old Testament... A synagogue roll must be written on the skins of clean animals, prepared for this particular use by a jew. The skins must be fastened together with strings taken from clean animals. Every skin (page) must contain a certain number of columns, equal through the entire codex. The length of each column must not exceed 48 or 60 lines; and the breadth must consist of 30 letters. The whole copy must be first lined. The ink to be used must be black and prepared according to a specific recipe. An authentic copy must be the exemplar. No word or letter, not even a yod, must be written from memory. There are hundreds of such rules for every aspect of the transcription. The same care and even stricter rules were followed during the Masoretic period (A.D. 500-900) [11]. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in A.D. 1947 provided an incredible proof for the authenticity and reliability of the Old Testament manuscripts. The Dead Sea Scrolls date back to about 125 B.C. (i.e. almost two centuries before the dawn of Christianity around the end of the first century A.D.) One of the complete books found in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea were two copies of Isaiah. These books were a thousand year older than the oldest dated manuscripts previously known. Nevertheless, they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text [7]. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of pen and variations in spelling. Even those Dead Sea fragments of Deuteronomy and Samuel which point to a different manuscript family from that which underlies our received Hebrew text do not indicate any differences in doctrine or teaching. They do not affect the message of revelation in the slightest. References ---------- [1] Greenslade, S. L., ed. "Cambridge History of the Bible". New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963. [2] Encyclopedia Britanica 3 (1970). [3] Montegomery, J.W. "History and Christianity", Downer's Grove, IL. InterVarsity Press, 1971. [4] Geiser, N.L. and Nix, W.E. "A General Introduction to the Bible", Chicago: Moody Press, 1968. [5] Lea, John W. "The Greatest Book in the World", Philadelphia, 1929. [6] McAfee, C.B. "The Greatest English Classic", New York, 1912. [7] Bruce, F.F. "The Books and The Parchments", Rev. ed. Westwood: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1963. [8] Gurthrie, D. "Canon of Scripture", In the New International Dictionary of the Christian Church", Rev. ed. J.D. Douglas, ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974. [9] Leach, C. "Our Bible: How We Got It", Chicago: Moody Press, 1898. [10] Kenyon, F. G. "Handbook to the textual Critisism of the New Testament", London: Macmillan and Co., 1901. [11] Davidson, S. "Hebrew Text of the Old Testament", 2nd ed. London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1859. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _|_ This article is one of many more articles about the Coptic Orthodox | Church, the Christian Apostolic Church of Egypt. These articles can be | obtained electronically from Copt-Net Repository, using anonymous FTP COP|NET from pharos.bu.edu:CN. Please mail inquiries to CN-request@cs.bu.edu. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------