By Steve A. Hamilton

Introduction: The story of how we got the Bible can only be told accurately through the Holy Spirit. For it is through the Holy Spirit that we have our Bibles (1 Pet. 1:12). Nevertheless, many people are curious to know how the Bible came to exist while others refuse to believe the scriptures because they cannot explain how we got it in the first place. Hopefully, this lesson will help us understand how we got the Bible.

I. The Bible is unquestionably the most important literary work in the world.

    A. Jesus tells us just how important the Bible is in the great scheme of things (Mark 13:31). Jesus makes two claims:

        1. His words are divine.

        2. His words will stand forever. This world will cease to exist, but His words will never cease (2 Pet. 3:10-13).

    B. The Bible is the inspired work of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

        1. God spoke it Himself through men guided by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:19-21).

        2. Men throughout time have accepted the Bible as the work of God (1 Thess. 2:13).

II. “My words will by no means pass away.”

    A. The evidence of these words can be circumstantially proven by the great quantities of textual documents, including manuscripts, that is so vast that it defies calculation. A conservative guess would be at least 20,000 works with over 5000 manuscripts.

    B. By comparison, The History of Thucydides, a literary book written about 400 B. C., is available today on the basis of 8 manuscripts. The writings of the Roman historian Tacitus who lived about 100 A. D. have survived on the basis of two manuscripts.

    C. The Bible is the best attested book of the ancient world and the quality of the material makes it the most reliable ever seen.

III. The Biblical text.

    A. Many people wonder where the original copies of the Bible books are located. Unfortunately, the original autographs no longer exist. The original O. T. books were primarily written on leather and the original N. T. books were written on papyrus. Neither materials could withstand the test of time.

    B. However, the books of the Bible were repeatedly copied down through time. The earliest hand copies are known as manuscripts. These manuscripts were arduously copied using strict standards to insure exact copies of the original. Today there are over 5000 known manuscripts of the Bible.

    C. Manuscripts are copies of the original text in the original language in which it was written. When the manuscript is translated into another language it is called a version. The earliest version known to exist would be the Septuagint (285 B.C.) which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. The Septuagint was prevalent during the Life of Christ and is often quoted in the New Testament.

IV. The Old Testament.

    A. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew (with some Aramaic: a kindred language to Hebrew). If you have a KJ, NKJ, or ASV Bible, you can turn to Psalms 119 where the sections of that chapter are numbered according to the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew contains no vowels so you can imagine the problem it presents when translated into other languages.

    B. The original Hebrew Old Testament Bible was grouped differently than ours today.

        1. Law (also known as the Pentateuch): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

        2. Prophets:

            a. Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, I & II Samuel, and I & II Kings.

            b. Latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the “Book of the Twelve” (i.e. the minor prophets).

        3. Writings: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and I & II Chronicles.

    C. Please note that the Hebrew Bible has 3 major divisions (Luke 24:44).

    D. The last book of the Hebrew Bible was II Chronicles and the last Prophet to die in it was Zachariah (2 Chron. 24:20-21). Notice what Jesus says about all the Old Testament prophets (Luke 11:49-51). From Abel to Zachariah (Matt. 23:35)!

V. The New Testament.

The New Testament has over 5000 known manuscripts all written in Greek. The vast majority are cursives (written after the 9^th century) while 375 of these manuscripts were uncials (a style of writing in all capitals and dated before the 9^th century). Ninety of these manuscripts were written on papyrus and 50 of those were dated between the 2^nd and 4^th century. Three of the best known uncials are the Alexandrian(425 AD), the Vatican (340 AD) and the Sinaitic (330 AD).

VI. The English Versions of the Bible. [Overhead on PowerPoint]

    A. The first English translation of the Bible was completed in 1380 by John Wycliffe. However, it was translation of the Latin Vulgate. Which means it was a English version of a Latin version. Manuscripts were not used in the translation. (Note: The Latin Vulgate was a translation from original manuscripts but the product of one man’s effort.)

    B. William Tyndale was the first to complete an English translation based on original manuscripts as well as the Latin Vulgate in 1525.

    C. Many versions of Tyndale’s version followed: Coverdale (1535), Matthews (1537), and the Great Bible (1539).

    D. In 1560, a revision of the Matthew Bible was published which was called the Geneva Bible. This was the first English Bible to use paragraphs and italics for words not found in the original text. This was the Bible most pilgrims carried to America.

    E. Not totally satisfied with the Geneva Bible, English church officials completed a revision of the Great Bible in 1568 called the Bishops Bible. Please understand that the Bishops Bible was a revision of a revision of a version that was based on original manuscripts.

    F. It wasn’t until 1611 when King James commissioned 43 Greek and Hebrew scholars that a revision was produced by a large committee. The KJV was a revision of the Bishops Bible though other versions, revisions and manuscripts (Codex Receptus) were used to complete this Bible.

    G. Since then, other revisions of the KJV have been produced. The Revised Version (1881) and the American Standard (1901) to name a few.

    H. With the discovery of many more original manuscripts, numerous translations using these discovered writings and existing revisions have been produced. (See top line of overhead for a few of these.)

Conclusion: Isn‘t it amazing that the word of God has withstood the test of time? People come and people go but one thing is constant. God’s word abides forever (1 Pet. 1:24-25). Since our eternal salvation is dependent upon obedience to the Bible, this is a good time to respond to it.

Note: Much of my research for this sermon came from Neil Lightfoot‘s book, “How We Got The Bible“, 2^nd edition.