Top

THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE

The Bible contains 66 different individual books that were written by human beings over a period of some 4000 years. Those human beings were inspired by the Holy Spirit as they wrote the scriptures. 2 Peter 1:21 says “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” So the Holy Spirit of God is the author of all scripture. But He used ordinary men and women to record these beloved scriptures that we read.

The Old Testament was recorded in Hebrew since that was the language of the time. Over thousands of years the scribes eventually wrote and translated the New Testament into Greek. From the time of the New Testament until present-day, by the power of God the scriptures were preserved and translated into Coptic, Latin, French, and eventually the English language.

The Garden of Eden, where all of human life is said to have originated from, is located somewhere around modern day Africa. As time continued on and the population of mankind begin to increase across the face of the earth, the events of the Bible begin to take to place in Ur, Haran, Egypt, Babylon, Macedonia, Israel, Greece, France and the majority of the Middle East.

The books that would comprise the modern day scriptures were decided upon at the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E.

The first fives books of the Bible are called the Torah, which was written by Moses. They were accepted with no problem because of its historicity and accuracy. Different Old Testament books like Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah and Jeremiah would always be preserved and kept throughout history as God’s inspired word because of historical factors and preservation methods like copying word for word by hand. Much like documentaries of today, many Old Testament books contained cities, countries, dates, names, miracles, people groups, and major events that actually occurred in history. For example, books like Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Isaiah and Jeremiah contain records and references to the parting and crossing of the Red Sea by Moses along with other very important details such as the names of Miriam and Aaron the Priest, the ten plagues that decimated Egypt, the mention of the powerful, formidable Pharaoh himself, which confirm that those books were truthful and consistent with history. In other words, those books of the Bible didn’t contradict history. Rather, it confirmed what actually happened historically.

When it comes to the New Testament, as stated earlier the Holy Spirit determined which books would survive and last for all eternity. But, as with anything in existence, counterfeits and fictional accounts existed, such as the gospels of Mary and Judas. So the councils followed a certain set of principles to determine whether a New Testament book was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit or whether it was something fictional: 1) Was the author an apostle or have a close connection with an apostle? 2) Is the book being accepted by the body of Christ at large? 3) Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching? 4) Did the book bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values that would reflect a work of the Holy Spirit?

If each book that was read and observed was historically consistent, accepted by the church and the author was someone closely connected to a first century apostle, then the book was accepted.

So after everything was concluded 39 books were selected to be included in the Old Testament and 27 books were selected for New Testament around 393 and 397 AD (about 400 years after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ)