“Know What You Believe” Answering the Tough Questions of the Christian Faith

Question #7: “HOW DID WE GET THE ?”

The Bible is the source and foundation of all we believe as Christians. Can we trust what it says? How do we know that the 66 books in the Bible are inspired by God? Who decided what books would be in the Bible? Tonight we will discover the fascinating story about how we got the Bible.

STEP 1: REVELATION – God made known to us what otherwise would remain unknown.

➢ General Revelation – Creation (Romans 1:19-20).

➢ Special Revelation – The Living Word (Jesus Christ) and the Written Word (the Bible).

STEP 2: INSPIRATION – God superintended human authors, so that by using their own individuality, they composed and recorded without error the original manuscripts.

➢ 2 Peter 1:21 “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

➢ 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is God-breathed...”

The Bible is unique in its formation: The Bible was written over a period of 1,500 years by 40 different authors with various backgrounds and cultures, from three continents and three languages, with a variety of literary forms. Yet there is complete unity and harmony which cannot be explained by coincidence.

The Bible is unique in its fulfillment of prophecy: The Bible contains over 2,000 statements of prophecy, many of which have occurred just as the Bible predicted. The resettlement of Israel in the Holy Land (Amos 9:14-15), and over 60 details about Jesus’ life (messianic prophecies) – are just a few examples that validate the Bible’s inspiration.

STEP 3: CANONIZATION – The 66 books of the Bible were acknowledged or “canonized” by the early church as the inspired Word of God (canon means “rule” or “standard”).

➢ The canon (39 books) has little dispute. In Luke 24:44 Jesus recognized all three divisions of the - The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings – which is the equivalent of saying “from Genesis to .” The in 90 AD recognized the 39 books of the Old Testament.

➢ The canon (27 books) was canonized by early church leaders using three criteria: 1) Was it authored by an apostle? 2) Was it in agreement with other scriptures? 3) Was it accepted in worship?

The 27 books of the New Testament meet all three criteria, while so-called “other ” did not. By the end of the 2nd century the four gospels had established themselves as “the” source of life of Jesus in the church, and the 27 books of the New Testament were canonized at both the of Hippo in 393 AD and the Council of Carthage in 397 AD.

STEP FOUR: – Since there are no original manuscripts of the Bible in existence today, it is the job of a “textual critic” to study copies of the original in order to determine the correct wording. The two most important factors are 1) How many supporting manuscripts are there? 2) What is the duration of time between the actual historical event and the oldest extant document?

➢ The Old Testament is verified by the discovery of the in 1947. 800 manuscripts were found which included portions of every book in the Old Testament except . Until the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest surviving manuscript of the was dated to 900 AD, but one of the Dead Sea Scrolls of the book of Isaiah was dated to 900 BC. In this one discovery, the textual evidence for the Old Testament jumped back over 1,000 years!

➢ The New Testament has over 5,500 supporting manuscripts, and the oldest extant manuscript is dated to only 70 years after the crucifixion. In comparison, Homer’s Iliad has 640 supporting manuscripts, but the oldest one was written 2,200 years after Homer wrote the original. No other work in antiquity is so well attested by manuscript evidence as the New Testament!

The Bible is then translated into various languages for all to read, the Holy Spirit illuminates the meaning of God’s Word to believers (1 Corinthians 2:9-3:2), and then applies it to our lives so that we are transformed!