How the Word of God Came to Be Written
Old Testament
The authors
of Hebrew scriptures are not as identifiable as those of the New Testament. The
books arose in the midst of the law given to Moses and the prophets sent by God
to the children of Israel.
The first five books (the Law / Torah / Pentateuch) were written by Moses
almost entirely. The remainder of the Old Testament is composed of the prophets
and writings in the Hebrew canon, whereas the English Bible includes the
following categories: historical books, poetic books, and prophetic books.
These books include such authors as Samuel, David, Joshua, Solomon, and major
prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and a number of lesser known figures who
wrote smaller books called the Minor Prophets. Each of these authors presents
his words as being the Word of God.
A total of 39 books.
New Testament
The New
Testament was written by apostles of Jesus Christ and companions of the
apostles. Letters were written to individuals, churches, or larger groups of
persons either to confirm the truth of Christianity, engender belief in Christ,
correct problems in the local churches, or argue against error. The Book of
Revelation also seeks to present God's plans for the end of the age.
At total of 27 books.
How the Inspired Writings Were Passed Down
Old Testament
The Old
Testament was written between 1440 B.C. and approximately 400 B.C. The Law of
Moses was maintained in the Hebrew community by the priests of the temple.
Later books continued to be deposited with these leaders until the destruction
of the temple and then found their way into the teaching community begun by
Ezra and continued in the synagogues. Trained scribes copied biblical texts by
hand until the modern printing press came into use. The copies of the Masoretes
and ninth century A.D. are very close to the recently discovered Dead Sea
Scrolls, which originated a thousand years earlier.
New Testament
The New
Testament books were copied by local Christian communities and passed from one
to the other for decades before an entire collection was made. Since the early
letters were written on papyrus, they wore out rapidly and required regular
copying. In the early fourth century A.D., fifty copies of the entire Old
Testament Greek Scriptures were made at the order of the first Christian
emperor, Constantine. It is likely that the Vaticanus and Sinaticus codexes,
two of the longest early manuscripts to survive, originated from this order.
What Is the Canon of Scripture?
The word canon is used to identify the writings
of the prophets, the apostles, and their companions, which are inspired by God
and authorities for truth pertaining to doctrine and life. It means
"rule" or "standard." A book is not inspired because it is
declared to be canonical but is canonical because it is considered inspired.
Therefore, the church the canonicity of the Old and New Testament books; it did
not determine or cause the canonicity.
How the Canon Was Decided
The books
accepted by the Jewish community originated over a period of approximately one
thousand years. The first question regarding a writing's acceptance was whether
the book was written by a prophet of God. Generally, the book would have
statements of "thus says the Lord," or "the word of the Lord
came." Second, miraculous signs of accuracy of fulfillment served as a confirmation
of the prophet's message. Third, the book had to be internally consistent with
the revelation of God found in the teachings of other canonical books,
especially what God gave through Moses.
The first
question for the church to answer about a book's inclusion in the canon
accepted by Christians was whether it came through the apostles of the Lord or
through persons under the guidance of an apostle, such as Luke. Second, the
book had to come with the power of God and be effective for changing lives.
Third, it must have been generally accepted by the people of God. This latter
test refers first to the ones who received the book and next to the
transmission in the church. Determination of the New Testament canon took place
over a period of years, reaching its final form at the Synod of Car
The Manuscripts of the Bible
Old Testament
Fragments
of the Hebrew Scriptures number in the tens of thousands, the majority dating
between the third century B.C. and the fourteenth century A.D. The greatest
attestation to the Hebrew Old Testament is in the manuscripts found in the Dead
Sea Scrolls, which mostly date from the third century B.C. to the first century
A.D.,
New Testament
Manuscript
evidence for the New Testament is abundant. There are more than five thousand
existing copies, many with New Testament books entirely or largely intact. Also
there are several older translations of the New Testament into languages like
Syriac, Coptic, and Latin that survive in thousands of manuscripts. No work of
antiquity even approaches the New Testament for authenticity.
How Did the Bible Become Translated Into English?
The first
hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380's by John Wycliffe, an Oxford
professor, scholar, and theologian. Wycliffe was well-known throughout Europe
for his opposition to the teaching of the organized Church, which he believed
to be contrary to the Bible. With the help of his followers, called the
Lollards, and his assistant Purvey, and many other faithful scribes, Wycliffe
produced dozens of English language manuscript copies of the scriptures. They
were translated out of the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text
available to Wycliffe. The Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his
translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died,
he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river!
One of
Wycliffe’s followers, John Hus, actively promoted Wycliffe’s ideas: that people
should be permitted to read the Bible in their own language, and they should
oppose the tyranny of the Roman church that threatened anyone possessing a
non-Latin Bible with execution. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, with Wycliffe’s manuscript
Bibles used as kindling for the fire. The last words of John Hus were that, “in 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for
reform cannot be suppressed.” Almost exactly 100 years later, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous
95 Theses of Contention (a list of 95 issues of heretical theology and crimes
of the Roman Catholic Church) into the church door at Wittenberg.
The prophecy of Hus had come true! Martin Luther went on to be the first
person to translate and publish the Bible in the commonly-spoken dialect of the
German people; a translation more appealing than previous German Biblical
translations. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs records that in that same year, 1517, seven people were burned at the
stake by the Roman Catholic Church for the crime of teaching their children to
say the Lord’s Prayer in English rather than Latin.
Johann
Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1450's, and the first book to ever be printed was a
Latin language Bible, printed in Mainz, Germany.
Gutenberg’s Bibles were surprisingly beautiful, as each leaf Gutenberg printed
was later colorfully hand-illuminated. Born as “Johann Gensfleisch” (John
Gooseflesh), he preferred to be known as “Johann Gutenberg” (John
Beautiful Mountain).
Ironically, though he had created what many believe to be the most important
invention in history, Gutenberg was a victim of unscrupulous business
associates who took control of his business and left him in poverty.
Nevertheless, the invention of the movable-type printing press meant that
Bibles and books could finally be effectively produced in large quantities in a
short period of time. This was essential to the success of the Reformation.
In the
1490’s another Oxford professor,
and the personal physician to King Henry the 7th and 8th, Thomas Linacre,
decided to learn Greek. After reading the Gospels in Greek, and comparing it to
the Latin Vulgate, he wrote in his diary, “Either this (the original Greek) is
not the Gospel… or we are not Christians.” The Latin had become so corrupt that
it no longer even preserved the message of the Gospel… yet the Church still
threatened to kill anyone who read the scripture in any language other than
Latin… though Latin was not an original language of the scriptures.
In
considering the experiences of Linacre and Colet, the great scholar Erasmus was
so moved to correct the corrupt Latin Vulgate, that in 1516, with the help of printer John
Froben, he published a Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament. The Latin part was
not the corrupt Vulgate, but his own fresh rendering of the text from the more
accurate and reliable Greek, which he had managed to collate from a half-dozen
partial old Greek New Testament manuscripts he had acquired. This milestone was
the first non-Latin Vulgate text of the scripture to be produced in a
millennium… and the first ever to come off a printing press. The 1516
Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus further focused attention on just how
corrupt and inaccurate the Latin Vulgate had become, and how important it was
to go back and use the original Greek (New Testament) and original Hebrew (Old
Testament) languages to maintain accuracy… and to translate them faithfully
into the languages of the common people, whether that be English, German, or
any other tongue. No sympathy for this “illegal activity” was to be found from Rome…
even as the words of Pope Leo X's declaration that "the fable of
Christ was quite profitable to him" continued through the years to
infuriate the people of God.
William
Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual
leader. Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the
New Testament in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius,
so fluent in eight languages that it was said one would think any one of them
to be his native tongue. He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the
English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the
phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today.
Martin
Luther had a small head-start on Tyndale, as Luther declared his intolerance
for the Roman Church’s corruption on Halloween in 1517, by nailing his 95 Theses of
Contention to the Wittenberg Church
door. Luther, who would be exiled in the months following the Diet of Worms
Council in 1521 that
was designed to martyr him, would translate the New Testament into German for
the first time from the 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus, and publish
it in September of 1522.
Luther also published a German Pentateuch in 1523, and another edition of the German
New Testament in 1529. In the 1530’s he would go on to publish the entire Bible
in German.
William
Tyndale wanted to use the same 1516 Erasmus text as a source to translate and
print the New Testament in English for the first time in history. Tyndale
showed up on Luther's doorstep in Germany
in 1525, and by year's end had translated the New Testament into English.
Tyndale had been forced to flee England,
because of the wide-spread rumor that his English New Testament project was
underway, causing inquisitors and bounty hunters to be constantly on Tyndale's
trail to arrest him and prevent his project. God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament
became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language.
Subsequent printings of the Tyndale New Testament in the 1530's were often
elaborately illustrated.
They were
burned as soon as the Bishop could confiscate them, but copies trickled through
and actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and
Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large
became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched
hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they
burned them because they could find no errors at all. One risked death by
burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale's forbidden books.
Having
God's Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English,
would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to
the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the
church's income and power would crumble. They could not possibly continue to
get away with selling indulgences (the forgiveness of sins) or selling the
release of loved ones from a church-manufactured "Purgatory". People
would begin to challenge the church's authority if the church were exposed as
frauds and thieves. The contradictions between what God's Word said, and what
the priests taught, would open the public's eyes and the truth would set them
free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held. Salvation
through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for
priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of
church-canonized Saints and Mary would be called into question. The
availability of the scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to
the wicked church. Neither side would give up without a fight.
Myles
Coverdale and John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers had remained loyal disciples the
last six years of Tyndale's life, and they carried the English Bible project
forward and even accelerated it. Coverdale finished translating the Old
Testament, and in 1535
he printed the first complete Bible in the English language, making use of
Luther's German text and the Latin as sources. Thus, the first complete English
Bible was printed on October
4, 1535, and is known as the Coverdale Bible.
John Rogers went on to print the
second complete English Bible in 1537.
It was, however, the first English Bible translated from the original Biblical
languages of Hebrew & Greek. He printed it under the pseudonym "Thomas
Matthew", (an
assumed name that had actually been used by Tyndale at one time) as a
considerable part of this Bible was the translation of Tyndale, whose writings
had been condemned by the English authorities.
In 1539, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, hired Myles Coverdale at the bequest of King Henry VIII to
publish the "Great Bible". It became the first English Bible
authorized for public use, as it was distributed to every church, chained to
the pulpit, and a reader was even provided so that the illiterate could hear
the Word of God in plain English. It would seem that William Tyndale's last
wish had been granted...just three years after his martyrdom. Cranmer's Bible,
published by Coverdale, was known as the Great Bible due to its great size: a
large pulpit folio measuring over 14 inches tall. Seven editions of this
version were printed between April of 1539
and December of 1541.
It was not
that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible
in English. His motives were more sinister… but the Lord sometimes uses the
evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact,
requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress.
The Pope refused. King Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later
having two of his many wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by
renouncing Roman Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious
control, and declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new
head of the Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman
Catholic nor truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the
Church of England. King Henry acted essentially as its “Pope”. His first act
was to further defy the wishes of Rome
by funding the printing of the scriptures in English… the first legal English
Bible… just for spite.
The ebb and
flow of freedom continued through the 1540's...and into the 1550's. After King
Henry VIII, King Edward VI took the throne, and after his death, the reign of Queen
“Bloody” Mary was the next obstacle to the printing of the Bible in English.
She was possessed in her quest to return England
to the Roman Church. In 1555,
John "Thomas Matthew" Rogers and Thomas Cranmer were both burned at
the stake. Mary went on to burn reformers at the stake by the hundreds for the
"crime" of being a Protestant. This era was known as the Marian
Exile, and the refugees fled from England
with little hope of ever seeing their home or friends again.
The New
Testament was completed in 1557,
and the complete Bible was first published in 1560. It became known as the Geneva Bible. Due to a
passage in Genesis describing the clothing that God fashioned for Adam and Eve
upon expulsion from the Garden of Eden as "Breeches" (an antiquated
form of "Britches"), some people referred to the Geneva Bible as the
Breeches Bible.
The Geneva
Bible was the first Bible to add numbered verses to the chapters, so that
referencing specific passages would be easier. Every chapter was also
accompanied by extensive marginal notes and references so thorough and complete
that the Geneva Bible is also considered the first English "Study
Bible". William Shakespeare quotes hundreds of times in his plays from the
Geneva translation of the Bible.
The Geneva Bible became the Bible of choice for over 100 years of English
speaking Christians. Between 1560 and 1644 at least 144 editions of this
Bible were published. Examination of the 1611 King James Bible shows clearly that
its translators were influenced much more by the Geneva Bible, than by any
other source. The Geneva Bible itself retains over 90%
of William Tyndale's original English translation. The Geneva
in fact, remained more popular than the King James Version until decades after its original release in 1611!
The Geneva holds the honor of being
the first Bible taken to America,
and the Bible of the Puritans and Pilgrims. It is truly the “Bible of the
Protestant Reformation.”
By the 1580's, the Roman Catholic Church saw
that it had lost the battle to suppress the will of God: that His Holy Word be
available in the English language. In 1582,
the Church of Rome surrendered their fight for "Latin only" and
decided that if the Bible was to be available in English, they would at least
have an official Roman Catholic English translation. And so, using the corrupt
and inaccurate Latin Vulgate as the only source text, they went on to publish
an English Bible with all the distortions and corruptions that Erasmus had
revealed and warned of 75 years earlier. Because it was translated at the Roman
Catholic College
in the city of Rheims, it was known
as the Rheims New Testament.
With the
death of Queen Elizabeth I, Prince James VI of Scotland
became King James I of England.
The Protestant clergy approached the new King in 1604 and announced their desire for a
new translation to replace the Bishop's Bible first printed in 1568. They knew that the Geneva
Version had won the hearts of the people because of its excellent scholarship,
accuracy, and exhaustive commentary. However, they did not want the
controversial marginal notes (proclaiming the Pope an Anti-Christ, etc.)
Essentially, the leaders of the church desired a Bible for the people, with
scriptural references only for word clarification or cross-references.
This
"translation to end all translations" (for a while at least) was the
result of the combined effort of about fifty scholars. They took into
consideration: The Tyndale New Testament, The Coverdale Bible, The Matthews
Bible, The Great Bible, The Geneva Bible, and even the Rheims New Testament.
The great revision of the Bishop's Bible had begun. From 1605 to 1606 the scholars engaged in private
research. From 1607 to 1609 the work was assembled. In 1610 the work went to press, and in 1611 the first of the huge (16 inch
tall) pulpit folios known today as "The 1611 King James Bible" came
off the printing press. Starting just one year after the huge 1611 pulpit-size
King James Bibles were printed and chained to every church pulpit in England;
printing then began on the earliest normal-size printings of the King James
Bible. These were produced so individuals could have their own personal copy of
the Bible.
How Did the Bible Become Translated Into Korean?
In 1872.
Rev. Dr. John Ross (1842-1915) who had studied at the United Presbyterian
Hall in Edinburgh from 1865-69,
began serving his church in Manchuria.
Becoming a distinguished missionary, cultural historian and linguist in Manchuria,
Ross also persuaded Korean visitors to teach him their language. Yi Ung-chan,
an educated merchant of herbal medicines, instructed him in his native tongue.
Under the direction of John Ross, he and others produced the first Korean
translation of the New Testament. Separate books appeared in 1882 with the
complete New Testament being published five years later in 1887. Using the
Korean alphabet, Ross and his team enabled the New Testament to be read and
used by a wide indigenous audience. By the time that missionaries arrived in
the Korean peninsula in 1885, there were already established Christian
communities in Seoul and elsewhere.
Their presence confirmed two of Ross's leading missiological principles -
first, local people made the most effective church leaders because of their
understanding of cultural context, and, second, the Bible was sufficient in
itself to enable people to resolve upon the most decisive issues in their
lives.
In Japan Yi
Su Jung published the Gospel of Mark from Ross's version revised with the help
of the Chinese Bible in 1883. Two years later when first missionaries Horace G.
Underwood and Henry G. Appenzeller came to Korea
they took Yi's Version with them. Arriving in Korea,
Underwood and Appenzeller published their own version of Mark in Seoul
in 1887 and established a permanent translation committee.
In 1893 the
British and Foreign Bible Society established its Seoul Bible House and the
existing translation committee was reorganized as their Board of Official
Translators, with the addition of Gale, Scranton and (the future Anglican
bishop) Trollope. By 1900 all the gospels and Acts had been published by them
in Korean. This version was revised in a modernized spelling system that was
published in 1902, revised again in 1905. After ten years of work, the complete
(Protestant) bible was first published in 1910, later revised in 1937. All
these versions were printed entirely in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul.
1925 saw
the publication of a new Korean translation of the Bible prepared by James
Scarth Gale and two Koreans, also using Hangeul but this was never officially
recognized or widely used. In 1926, Cheong Tae-yong published a version,
probably inspired by Japanese models, where all words of Chinese origin (about
50% of the Korean vocabulary) were printed using the Chinese characters that
only people who had received an education could read.
· 1938 - Old Korean Revised Version (성경개역) KBS.
· 1961 - KRV Korean Revised Version (개역성경)
· 1977 - CTB Common Translation Bible (공동번역)
· 1984 - CTBP Common Translation Bible
Pyeongyang version
· 1985 - KLB Korean Living Bible (현대인의성경)
· 1993 - NKSB New Korean Standard Bible, (표준새번역)
· 1991 - TKV Today's Korean Version (현대어성경) (성서원).
· 1994 - KKJV Korean King James Version, (한글판 킹제임스).
· 1998 - NRKV New Revised Korean Version (개역개정)
· 2000 - KKJV Korean Authorized King James
Version (킹제임스 흠정역 성경)
