Basic motive - to sustain, teach, and guide a community of faith who
would learn from the past, apply in the present, and work toward the future
Subsidiary motives
Torah
Provided and regulated a way of living in community with God and
fellow humans
Stories of patriarchs provided a religious and legal claim to the
land
Gave Israel a sense of history and destiny
Prophets
Words were written down so they might remain in force - only rarely
did a prophet's words come true in his lifetime - yet those who understood the truth of
the words felt a need to write them down for posterity so that when God made them come
true people would see God's message throughout the prophet's life and teaching
Words were timeless and provided additional instruction on how to
live in community with God and with fellow humans
From this belief in the power of the "word," both oral and
written, came the concepts of the holiness and power of scripture
Writings
Provided songs, prayers, and theology to go with the cult (worship)
of God
Provided insights into human nature (as did the Genesis stories) and
into deep theological questions (e.g., "Why do the righteous suffer?" "Does
anyone serve God for nothing?")
Transmission of the Words of God
First stage - something happens
Stories of God relating to specific people, national events, or
insights gleaned from life and faith
The greatest event was the exodus from Egypt
Second stage - oral transmission
After something had happened the stories and laws were passed down
orally
Some stories (e.g., Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Esther) were probably told
around the campfire or after meals
Priests probably passed along the regulations concerning life and
religious ritual
Disciples of prophets probably passed along the words and deeds of
the prophets
Despite this word-of-mouth method, the words were probably handed
down very carefully since excellent memories were highly valued and cultivated and people
were accustomed to remembering - yet, still the traditions were fluid
Third stage - written transmission
Traditions began to be written down in order to preserve them in a
more stable form
Even at this point the traditions were still fluid - errors of seeing
and hearing while copying could occur - apparently some changes were also made due to
theological or ethical problems in the text
The Levites were probably the most instrumental group in passing down
the traditions
Formation of the Canon
Definitions
Canonize - establish a standard
Canon - the authoritative collection of writings which a religious
community recognizes as sacred, holy, and special
Formation of the three groups within the Hebrew canon
Torah
From an early period, short law codes such as the Ten Commandments
possessed binding authority - some may have possessed more local than national authority
The discovery of the "book of the law" in the Temple during
the reform of Josiah (621 B.C.E. - 2 Kings 22-23)
indicates that by this time an effort had been made to preserve in writing a collection of
religious laws - some believe the book was a form of Deuteronomy
Ezra brought a "book of law" back with him to Jerusalem
after the exile - this book was quickly accepted as normative by and for the Jewish
community in and around Jerusalem (Neh. 8) - some scholars believe Ezra's "book of
law" was the completed Torah
Shortly after the time of Ezra, the Samaritans broke away from
Jerusalem and became a separate religious community - the Samaritans accepted the Torah as
their scripture which means that before the split the Jews in Jerusalem also possessed and
accepted the completed Torah
Prophets
The earliest witness to the existence of a group of prophetic books
is provided by Jesus ben Sira in 190-180 B.C.E. - in the apocryphal book Ecclesiasticus,
Jesus ben Sira alludes to the three major prophets and the "twelve prophets"
(Ecclus. 48-49)
The Book of Daniel clearly views Jeremiah as sacred scripture (Dan.
9:2)
The grandson of Jesus ben Sira who translated Ecclesiasticus (c. 132
B.C.E.) mentions "the law and the prophets and the other books of our fathers"
in the Prologue to the book - this indicates that the Torah and the prophets had probably
been recognized as canonical but the writings had still not all been officially recognized
Writings
This series of books was the last to be accepted as canonical and
presented the most difficulties - the difficulties were not related to whether or not the
books were inspired but whether or not they were suitable for public worship
Song of Songs was too earthy - allegorical interpretation solved this
difficulty
Luke 24:44 refers to the Law, Prophets, and Psalms (Writings?) and
indicates that by that time the three groupings of the canon were fairly stable
By 100 C.E., the canon was fixed
Johanan ben Zakkai, a leading rabbi of the 1st century
C.E., established a rabbinic school near Jamnia after the Jewish War against Rome ended in
70 C.E.
Many believe that at this rabbinic school, the canon was formalized
to what we now possess
Alexandrian Canon
The Jews in Alexandria in Egypt had their own ideas about what should
be in the canon
Long before the "Jamnia Canon," the Alexandrian Jews had
selected the Torah, the prophets, the writings, and thirteen additional books or additions
to biblical books
These thirteen additional books or parts of books came to be called
the Apocrypha
Apocalypticism was flourishing and beginning to fuse foreign
religious ideas with those of Israel thus reintroducing the danger of syncretism - these
writings even claimed to be superior to the Torah since they were supposedly written by
people who lived before the Torah was given to Moses
The missionary drive of early Christianity posed a threat - early
Christians used Jewish writings so the Jews were forced to decide what was and what was
not scripture
How were the decisions made?
Time and usage - the writings had been used for a long period and
still spoke to the needs of the community
Inspiration (prophecy) ceased with Ezra - it was assumed that after
Ezra died, God no longer spoke to individuals to inspire the writing of scripture
Important Texts
Dead Sea Scrolls (2nd century B.C.E. - 1st
century C.E.)
Fragments of every Old Testament book except Esther
Other books not in the Hebrew Bible were also found along with
commentaries on canonical books
Masoretic Text (c. 300- 900 C.E.)
Masoretes ("transmitters")
A group of careful scribes who were masterful scholars
Supplied the Hebrew text with vowel markings, verse divisions,
paragraph divisions, and notes - previous to this, the text had been passed along with no
divisions
Individual schools carefully preserved the text - however, since
there were several schools in separate places (e.g., Palestine, Babylon), several
different texts were created
In some cases the Septuagint reflects a different Hebrew text than
what exists today (e.g., the Septuagint version of Jeremiah is shorter and slightly
rearranged from the Masoretic Text)
The Septuagint was the Bible of the early church outside Palestine
Targums (3rd-4th centuries C.E.)
After the exile of the Jews in Babylon (6th century
B.C.E.), Hebrew began to fall into disuse as the spoken language in Judah - oral
translations and explanations of the Hebrew text came into being in the Aramaic language -
these oral traditions were eventually written down
Targums included extensive explanations of passages as well as the
passages themselves - they were somewhat like commentaries
A variety of versions existed
Vulgate (commissioned in 382 C.E.)
Jerome's Latin translation
Became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church
Included the Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and New Testament
Jerome's translation existed side-by-side with the Old Latin
translation - thus Jerome's was not the first Latin translation, just the best
English versions
The Venerable Bede
Benedictine monk and historian of Anglo-Saxon England
Translated the Bible into his native English in the 730's by
translating the Vulgate into Old English
John Wycliffe's translation
First complete Bible in English
Published in 1382 (or by 1384)
Wycliffe created a translation geared toward the average person - he
wanted to make the Bible accessible to the average layperson
It was based on the Vulgate, made no use of older texts, and was an
archaic and stiff translation
The national church did not want laypeople reading and interpreting
the Bible and condemned his translation in 1408 and forbade any future translations
William Tyndale's translation
Tyndale was a master of seven languages, including Hebrew and Greek -
he could consult other translations and yet retain his own creative style
Tyndale translated the New Testament, Torah, and Jonah
The church authorities were against the translation as they had been
against Wycliffe's - as many copies as were purchased by the people were purchased by the
archbishop and burned
Tyndale did his work in Germany and published his translation of the
New Testament there in 1525 (revised in 1534)
In 1536 Tyndale was betrayed, tried for heresy, and burned alive at
the stake for his heresy of attempting to make the Bible accessible to the average person
Shortly after his death, the church authorities recognized the need
for an official English translation - in fact the Coverdale Bible (1535) was allowed to be
distributed as the first printed English Bible
Great Bible
Completed in 1539 at the request of Henry VIII
Basically Tyndale's translation
Very popular among the laypeople
Geneva Bible
A revision of the Great Bible published in 1560
Henry VIII had confined the Great Bible to the upper classes and
would not allow the lower classes to read it - the Geneva Bible became the popular Bible
Douay Bible
The first English translation by the Roman Catholic Church -
published in 1609-1610
A translation of the Vulgate which was quite wooden and literal
King James Version
Commissioned by James I of England who was a religious man interested
in Bible translations - he had translated some psalms and attempted to paraphrase
Revelation
A total of 54 biblical scholars worked on the translation - the basic
source was Tyndale (80% of the final translation of the books Tyndale had himself
translated was Tyndale) but Latin, Hebrew, and Greek manuscripts that were available were
used
Published in 1611 but had to fight for 40 years to be accepted -
eventually it won the love of the people and clergy
At first it included the Apocrypha
- later in 1629 the Apocrypha was removed because that made the book smaller and cheaper
and thus the book would sell better
Revised Standard Version
Although supposedly based on the King James Version and the American
Standard Version, it was in many ways a brand new translation based on newly discovered
texts
Complete Bible was published in 1952 and was well received - many,
however, did not like the translation "young woman" in Isaiah 7:14 when they
believed it should read "virgin" - some book burnings resulted
Living Bible
Paraphrase by Kenneth N. Taylor published in 1971
Basically a paraphrase of the King James Version and the American
Standard Version - it uses the original languages in only a limited way
Quite conservative and reflects Taylor's own theology
Today's English Version
Produced by the American Bible Society
New Testament came out as Good News for Modern Man in 1966
and the complete Bible was published in 1976
Guiding force was Robert G. Bratcher who himself translated the
entire New Testament
A faithful, highly readable version which is geared to a very basic
vocabulary so that anyone can read and understand
New International Version
New Testament was published in 1973 and entire Bible in 1978
Product of more than 100 scholars from more than a dozen
conservative, evangelical denominations in the United States and abroad
Assumes the inerrancy of scripture and frequently translates Hebrew
Bible passages to conform to the way they are understood in the New Testament
New Revised Standard Version
Authorized by National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. in
1974 and published in 1989
Followed the maxim "as literal as possible, as free as
necessary" so remains a fairly literal translation