Digging Deeper Links from the Discussion Guide for HOW WE GOT THE BIBLE LESSON 1 HOW WERE THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE FIRST WRITTEN? The earliest books of the Bible (including Genesis-Deuteronomy, the five books of Moses) were written on papyrus made from plants growing along the Nile River. Papyrus could be formed into long sheets and rolled up onto scrolls. Writing could only be done on one side of the papyrus. Video demonstration: How Papyrus is Made Later books (including many in the New Testament) were written on animal skins called parchment or vellum. (2 Timothy 4:13). Writers could use both sides of parchment and vellum. These sheets were folded into a small booklet called a ―codex.‖ In the days when the New Testament was being written the largest codex could hold the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Video demonstration – Dirty Jobs- Making Vellum & Parchment Other Information: The Difference between Paper, Parchment & Vellum How the Sumerians started writing Writing before the alphabet Was the alphabet invented on Mt. Sinai? How the Christian church kept literacy alive in the Middle Ages Where were the copies made? Scriptoria. BIBLE IMAGES This site includes scanned images of old Bibles for you to peruse. LESSON 2 THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE The Report on the Inspiration of Scripture from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR). THE EFFECT OF FALSE PRESUPPOSITIONS Bruno Bauer’s impact on Socialism’s Rejection of Christianity The impact the 18th-century German attack on the Bible had on Islamic Apologetics Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Authenticity of Scripture ERRORS IN THE DA VINCI CODE ―When someone presupposes that the miraculous is impossible, all evidence is dismissed and denied in the first place‖ (Dr. Paul Maier). Visit Deciphering the Errors in the Da Vinci Code Other Sites: A discussion of the truth or falsehood of 11 statements from Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code. Four videos in which Dr. Paul Maier and others discuss The Da Vinci Code. o How reliable is the account of Emperor Constantine in The Da Vinci Code? o Who decided what books became part of the New Testament? o What does history reveal about the claims of The Da Vinci Code? o What are the major errors in The Da Vinci Code? HOW DO THEY VIEW THE BIBLE? Mormons believe the Bible is the Word of God ―as far as it is translated correctly.‖ Read article 8 of the Articles of Faith. Changes in the book of Mormon Also look at jefflindsay.com. Jehovah’s Witnesses This group appears to accept the Bible. Consider Jehovah’s Witness beliefs and The Bible- a Book from God The translators of The New World Translation, the Jehovah’s Witnesses own Bible, were under-qualified: click here. LESSON 3 WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN? Download Lutheran Hour Ministries booklet: click here. THE SOPHERIM How were the scribes able to safeguard their copying from typical transmission errors? The sopherim (―counters of letters‖) were scribes who numbered the words and letters in each Old Testament book. They left lists with these statistics at the end of each book to insure the accuracy of future copies. The sopherim began with Ezra the priest and completed their counting of letters in the first century B.C. Click here. THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS An examination of the Essenes who are believed to have written the Dead Sea Scrolls: click here. A fragment of John’s Gospel found in the John Ryland’s collection: click here. Evidence for Daniel being written before 155 BC: click here. A convincing argument that Daniel is prophetic and not historic: click here. Using DNA to ensure the proper placement of scroll fragments: click here. The Synchrotron – a new tool to read damaged, fragile manuscripts: click here. LESSON 4 OLDEST NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS The oldest New Testament manuscripts we have are from the 4th century A.D. Codex Sinaiticus Codex Vaticanus- Catholic Encyclopedia Article Codex Alexandrinus Catholic Encyclopedia Article Partial New Testament Papyri which predate the three codices above. The History of Modern Greek Editions A History of Human Writing A thorough discussion of The Evolution of Uncial Text in Greek DATING THE GOSPELS: Consider this appeal to an earlier date for the Gospels from William R. Braqstad. TEXTUAL CRITICISM: Since we do not have the original autographs written by the prophets and apostles, textual criticism provides a way for us to evaluate differences among the manuscript copies to determine the actual text of the original autographs. This Website describes how there came to be differences and variations between the Hand-Copied Manuscripts A simple description of Textual Criticism Dr. Raymond F. Surburg describes the good textual criticism Dr. Maier spoke of in the video: ―The Historical-Grammatical Method‖ Textual Criticism considers the end of the Gospel of Mark. Textual Criticism considers the account of the Adulterous Woman in John 8 LESSON 5 THE ENGLISH BIBLE The Story of John Wycliffe o More in-depth link The Story of John Huss o More in-depth link The story of Desiderius Erasmus The story of William Tyndale The Origin of the English Bible The History of the King James Bible FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: The History of the Bible Museum Dr. Paul Maier’s Homepage HOW WE GOT THE BIBLE - - Discussion Guide How Papyrus Is Made http://youtu.be/_FNtqAkzpuU (If you cannot find the video, go to www.youtube.com and in the search box enter ―How to make papyrus paper‖. This is a 2 minute 33 second video.) return to menu HOW WE GOT THE BIBLE - - Discussion Guide Dirty Jobs- Making Vellum & Parchment http://youtu.be/O2BWc1N9Cqo (If you cannot find this video, go to www.youtube.com/ and in the search box put ―Dirty Jobs-Making Vellum‖) return to menu HOW WE GOT THE BIBLE - - Discussion Guide The Difference between Paper, Parchment & Vellum http://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats/paper-vellum.html What's the difference between parchment, vellum, and paper? The term parchment is a general term for an animal skin which has been prepared for writing or printing. Parchment has been made for centuries, and is usually calf, goat, or sheep skin. The term vellum from the French veau refers to a parchment made from calf skin. The manufacture of parchment is quite involved. After the skin is removed from the animal and any hair or flesh is cleaned away, it is stretched on a wooden frame. While it is stretched, the parchment maker or parchminer scrapes the surface of the skin with a special curved knife. In order to create tension in the skin, scraping is alternated by wetting and drying the skin. The parchment is scraped, wetted, and dried several times to bring it to the right thickness and tautness. Sometimes a final finish is achieved using pumice as an abrasive followed by chalk in order to prepare the surface of the skin to accept ink. Parchment has traditionally been used instead of paper for important documents such as religious texts, public laws, indentures, and land records as it has always been considered a strong and stable material. The five pages of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Articles of Confederation are written on parchment. The terms parchment and vellum are also used in the paper making industry. Parchment paper is made from cellulose fibers prepared from fir trees or plants such as cotton or flax. Paper can be made which mimics the thickness and smooth surface of parchment. The terms refer to the finish of the paper and should not be relied upon as an indicator of its long term stability. return to menu HOW WE GOT THE BIBLE - - Discussion Guide How the Sumerians started Writing http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/#ngc-the-first-writings (We can no longer find the video ―Start Writing: The Ancient Sumerians. This new video discusses the earliest found Egyptian writing and also mentions the Sumerian cuneiform. In the Video Search box enter: ―The First Writings‖ and click on the video when it comes up.) Transcript: Narrator: Scattered inside King Scorpion’s tomb, Gunther Dryer found about a hundred and eighty small ivory tags. Each one was inscribed with mysterious images- some obviously animals, others less clear. The implications were staggering: Gunther Dryer: When we found the first of these little tags in the sand filling of the chambers, we couldn’t believe it because at the first glance they resemble later hieroglyphs. But we knew writing only from a much later period, two hundred years later. Could it be possible, was our question, that they knew writing already? Narrator: Herioglyphs use both meaning and sound signs which combine to form words. The pharaohs used hieroglyphs as the language of their kingdom for thousands of years. But no one had ever found any sign of hieroglyphs predating the pharaohs. It had always been thought that the idea of writing first arose- not in northern Africa, but in the Middle East, in ancient Mesopotamia. Here by the time of the first pharaohs a system of accounting, now called cuneiform, had already developed into writing. In tomb UJ, which predates the pharaohs, each of the tags had a hole in it suggesting it had once been attached- either to the wooden boxes whose remains were found nearby, or to other containers. Gunther Dryer: What could be the use of such labels? Just decoration? Not very likely. They had been fixed with these holes to something.