How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)
By J. Daniel Hays and J. Scott Duvall
3.5/5
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About this ebook
J. Daniel Hays
J. Daniel Hays (PhD, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is dean of the Pruet School of Christian Studies and professor of Old Testament at Ouachita Baptist University. He is the author of From Every People and Nation, The Message of the Prophets, The Temple and the Tabernacle, and A Christian’s Guide to Evidence for the Bible: 101 Proofs from History and Archaeology. He has coauthored or coedited Grasping God’s Word; Journey into God’s Word; Preaching God’s Word; The Baker Illustrated Bible Background Commentary; Jeremiah and Lamentations; The Story of Israel: A Biblical Theology; and God’s Relational Presence: The Cohesive Center of Biblical Theology. He teaches adult Sunday School at his local church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and also speaks both regionally and internationally.
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Reviews for How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)
7 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A very detailed, scholarly look at how the books of the Bible came to be written and how what to include in the Bible (as we know it) came about.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This short ebook was a freebie I downloaded on Kindle. As the title of the book says, it explores the origins of Scripture. I found it to be a helpful quick reference or refresher that would serve to whet the appetite for more information and deeper study. It would also be great for anyone who wanted a quick introduction to how we ended up with the Bible we have today.
The chapter titles are:
The Inspiration of the Bible
The Production and Shaping of the Old Testament Canon
Writing, Copying, and Transmitting the New Testament Text
The Canon of the NT, The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Septuagint, Bible Translations and the English Bible
Translations for the World.
(cross posted on Amazon)
Book preview
How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts) - J. Daniel Hays
Publisher’s Note
Welcome to the ebook short How the Bible Came to Be. The selection included in this short ebook is an excerpt from the larger work The Baker Illustrated Bible Handbook by J. Daniel Hays and J. Scott Duvall, eds.
© 2011 by J. Daniel Hays and J. Scott Duvall
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-4026-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Contents
Cover
Publisher’s Note
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contributors
The Inspiration of the Bible
The Production and Shaping of the Old Testament Canon
Writing, Copying, and Transmitting the New Testament Text
The Canon of the New Testament
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Septuagint
Bible Translations and the English Bible
Translations for the World
Back Ads
Back Cover
Contributors
Dr. Stephen Dempster (Atlantic Baptist University): The Production and Shaping of the Old Testament Canon
Dr. J. Scott Duvall (Ouachita Baptist University): Bible Translations and the English Bible
Dr. Bryan Harmelink (SIL International): Translations for the World
Dr. Karen H. Jobes (Wheaton College): The Septuagint
Dr. C. Marvin Pate (Ouachita Baptist University): The Dead Sea Scrolls
Dr. M. James Sawyer (Western Seminary): The Canon of the New Testament
Dr. Mark L. Strauss (Bethel Seminary): The Inspiration of the Bible
Dr. Daniel B. Wallace (Dallas Theological Seminary): Writing, Copying, and Transmitting the New Testament Text
The Inspiration of the Bible
Mark L. Strauss
Introduction
At its most fundamental level, the doctrine of inspiration means that the Bible is not merely human reflections about God or meditations on religious themes. It is rather divine communication—God’s message to human beings. Inspired
does not mean merely inspiring or inspirational in the way that a great work of literature or a piece of art is inspiring. It means that God himself has spoken and has disclosed himself to his people.
The Scriptural Basis for Inspiration
Scripture attests to its own inspiration both directly and indirectly. The Old Testament law is to be obeyed because its imperatives come from God himself. On Mount Sinai Moses receives the word of the Lord and delivers it to the people. The Ten Commandments begin with the affirmation, And God spoke all these words
(Exod. 20:1). Consider these statements from the great acrostic Psalm 119, a celebration of the precepts, commands, and statutes that God gave to his people:
119:4—You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.
119:13—With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
119:86—All your commands are trustworthy.
119:88—I will obey the statutes of your mouth.
119:89—Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.
119:138—The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy.
119:152—Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever.
God’s word is faithful and true because it comes from the mouth of the one who is Faithful and True
(Rev. 19:11).
Scripture as God’s own self-revelation is equally affirmed in the prophets, where God speaks through his human servants. The formula, the word of the Lord came to . . .
appears throughout the prophetic corpus (Jer. 1:2; Hosea 1:1; Jon. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Zeph. 1:1; Hag. 1:1; Zech. 1:1; cf. Luke 3:2). The first chapter of Isaiah illustrates well the multiplicity of expressions: the Lord has spoken
(Isa. 1:2); hear the word of the Lord
(1:10); says the Lord
(1:11); for the mouth of the Lord has spoken
(1:20); the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the Mighty One of Israel, declares
(1:24). The prophets confirm that inspiration is the convergence of the human and the divine. Jeremiah’s prophecies are simultaneously the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah
and the word of the Lord
(Jer. 1:1–2). This convergence is especially clear in quotations of the Old Testament in the New. New Testament writers easily move back and forth referring to Scripture as the words of the human prophet (this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel
; Acts 2:16, citing Joel 2:28–32) or a message given directly by the Holy Spirit (So, as the Holy Spirit says
; Heb. 3:7, citing Ps. 95:7; see also Heb. 10:15–17, citing Jer. 31:33, 34). The prayer of the church in Acts 4 provides the fullest description: You [God] spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David
(Acts 4:25; citing Ps. 2:1, 2). God spoke by means of the Spirit through his human agent.
Scripture’s inspiration, affirmed implicitly in these passages, finds explicit expression in 2 Timothy 3:16–17:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The Greek word translated God-breathed
is theopneustos, a term possibly coined by Paul himself to express the nature of inspiration. The King James Version rendering, inspired by God,
finds it roots in the Latin Vulgate (divinitus inspirata). Unfortunately "in-spired might suggest that God
breathed into" Scripture its authority, while theopneustos more likely means that God breathed out
Scripture. Inspiration does not mean divine validation of a human work, but God’s self-revelation of his own purpose and will. Second Timothy 3:16 further affirms that the purpose of inspiration is to enable God’s people to live in right relationship with God (training in righteousness
) and with others (equipped for every good work
). The Bible is not an icon to be worshiped or an oracle to be consulted. It is rather a living account of God’s actions in human history and a practical guidebook for living as the people of God.
Second Peter 1:21 provides further insight into the process of inspiration: For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit
(TNIV). While this passage again confirms the divine-human origin of Scripture, it expressly concerns the