bible 101 - amazon s3 · 2019-09-04 · when the parts of the bible were written •c. 1000–400...
TRANSCRIPT
Bible 101Session 1: September 20, 2018
How the Bible Was Written
• What questions would like to have answered during this course?
• What are you hoping to get out of this course?
A Journey Back in Time
“If the King James Bible was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
--Anonymous
Why is it called the Bible or the Scriptures?
• The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book.”
• By the 2nd century BCE, Jewish groups began calling the books of the Bible the "scriptures" and they referred to them as "holy", or in Hebrew יֵבְתִּכ
Kitvei) ׁשֶדֹּקַה hakkodesh),
Earliest Manuscripts
• Earliest Bible manuscripts not written in English
• Paleo-Hebrew, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Syriac, Latin
• Earliest manuscripts were not even in book form, but papyrus and later parchment scrolls
• Paper (a Chinese technology) was not widely used until the 12th century CE
• First Printed Bible in 1455 by Gutenberg
Sources of the Bible
• There is no perfect original version of the Bible!
• We know the history of the written texts of the Bible
• The original sources are harder to pin down
• Oral tradition and storytelling – took more than 1000 years before it was written down
• Earliest written texts of the Old Testament were probably written in the court of King David around 1000 BCE
• Earliest written texts of the New Testament are the letters of St. Paul dating from around 50 CE
When the Parts of the Bible were written• c. 1000–400 BCE Books of the Hebrew Old Testament written• c. 250–200 BCE The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament, produced• c. 300 BCE—100 CE The Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books are written• c. 45–120 CE Books of the Greek New Testament written• 90 and 118 Councils of Jamnia give final affirmation to the Old Testament canon (39 books)• 140-150 Marcion’s heretical “New Testament” incites orthodox Christians to establish a NT canon• 303-306 Diocletian’s persecution includes confiscating and destroying New Testament Scriptures• c. 305-310 Lucian of Antioch’s Greek New Testament text; becomes a foundation for later Bibles• 367 Athanasius’s Festal Letter lists complete New Testament canon (27 books) for the first time• 397 Council of Carthage establishes orthodox New Testament canon (27 books)• c. 400 Jerome translates the Bible into Latin
The Canon of Scripture
• The biblical canon or canon of scripture is a set of texts (or "books") which a particular religious community regards as authoritative scripture. The English word "canon" comes from the Greek κανών, meaning "rule" or "measuring stick".
• Over the centuries there were many variations on the canon of scripture and to this day different Christian communities disagree about the books that should be included or excluded.
What about the books that didn’t make it into the Bible?
• The Apocrypha or Deutero-canonical (“Second Canon”) books were those like Tobit that appeared in the Septuagint and Jerome, but not in the Masoretic Hebrew texts. Many Protestant churches do not accept them as part of the Biblical canon.
• Gnostics and other heretical sects flourished in the early centuries of the church and produced alternative Gospels (like the Gospel of Thomas) and other writings.
• The early Church banned these books, but we know about them because of the Nag Hammadi library (also known as the "Gnostic Gospels"), a collection of them discovered in Egypt in 1945.
Dead Sea Scrolls—Another Amazing Find
Versions of the TanakhVersion Examples Language Date of Composition Oldest CopySilver Scrolls Paleo-Hebrew 587-586 BCE[2] (Amulets)
Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek
c. 150 BCE – 70 CE c. 150 BCE – 70 CE (fragments)
Septuagint Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus & earlier papyri
Greek 300–100 BCE 2nd c. BCE (fragments); 4th c. CE (complete)
Peshitta Syriac early 5th century CEVulgate Codex Amiatinus Latin early 5th century CE
early 8th c. CE (complete)
Masoretic Aleppo Codex, Leningrad Codex and other, incomplete MSS
Hebrew c. 100 CE 10th century CE (complete)
Samaritan Pentateuch Samaritan Hebrew 200–100 BCE Oldest extant MSS, c. 11th century CE; oldest MSS available to scholars, 16th century CE
Targum Aramaic 500–1000 CE 5th century CECoptic Crosby-Schøyen
Codex, British Library MS. Oriental 7594
Coptic 3rd or 4th century CE
Masoretes
St. Jerome and the Vulgate
• Late 4th Century Latin translation of the Bible
• “Vulgate” = Common• By 13th Century it was the commonly used
version• The Catholic Church affirmed the Vulgate
as its official Latin Bible at the Council of Trent (1545–63)
Earliest English Bibles
The beginning of the Gospel of John from a copy of the 1526 edition of William Tyndale's New Testament at the British Library
The Great Bible of 1539
The English Bible andPolitical and Religious Upheaval
• Wycliffe – first partial translation 14th century – suppressed for Lollardy
• Tyndale 1525 – first completed English Bible – suppressed by Henry VIII for its “pestilent glosses”
• Coverdale “Great Bible” 1539 – suppressed by Queen Mary in 1553• (Basis for the Psalter in the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549)
• Geneva Bible 1560 – a Protestant version for the Puritans
• Bishop’s Bible 1568 – a more Anglican version under Queen Elizabeth
• Douay-Rheims Bible 1582 – a clandestine Roman Catholic version
The Authorized Version
King James Version (KJV) 1611
New King James Version (NKJV) 1982
Revised Standard Version (RSV) 1952
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 1989
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
1960
New International Version (NIV) 1978
New American Bible (NAB)1970 Catholic Bible
New English Bible (NEB)1970
Jerusalem Bible (JB)(derived from French
translation of the Vulgate) 1966 Catholic Bible
New Jerusalem Bible (NJB)1985 Catholic Bible
Revised English Bible (REB) 1989
American Standard Version (ASV) 1901
New Century Version (NCV)1991
Revised Version (RV)1881
English Standard Version (ESV) 2001
Phillips NT 1972
Living Bible (LB)1971
The Message1993New Living Translation
(NLT) 1996
Today's English Version (TEV) (aka Good News Bible) 1966
Contemporary English Version (CEV) 1995
Bishop's Bible1568
Today's New International Version (TNIV) 2002
Wycliffe Bible (from Vulgate)1384
Tyndale Bible(translated from Erasmus'
Greek text) 1526
Coverdale Bible(translated from Latin & German Bibles) 1535
Matthew's Bible1538
Taverner Bible1539
Geneva Bible(translated from Latin) 1557
Great Bible(translated from
Latin) 1539
Rheims-Douai Bible(translated from Latin) 1582
Catholic Bible
Challoner's Bible1749 Catholic Bible
Knox Bible1944 Catholic Bible
Confraternity NT1941 Catholic Bible
Moffat Bible1924
Smith/Goodspeed Bible1927
Berkley Bible1959
Barclay NT1969
Bede's John735
Alfred the Great's Bible(not complete) 901
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
2000
International Children's Bible (ICV)
1986
Reader's Digest Condensed Bible (RDB)
1982
Scofield Bible1909
Amplified Bible (AB)1965
The English Bible Family Tree
(Independant Translations)
Essentially Literal Translation
Dynamic Equivalence Translation
Paraphrase
Modern King James Version1962
Literal Translation (LITV)(Green) 1976