Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)
    How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)
    How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)

    By J. Daniel Hays and J. Scott Duvall

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This short ebook explores how the Bible came to be, with fascinating chapters on divine inspiration, the Septuagint, the shaping of the canon, translation, and much more.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBaker Publishing Group
    Release dateApr 1, 2012
    ISBN9781441240262
    How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)
    Author

    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.

    Read more from J. Daniel Hays

    Related to How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Did You Know?

      Feb 11, 2022

      The Holy Bible is a collection of many type of books – historical books, books of poetry, prophetic books, epistles (writing directed or sent to a person or group of people), and the Gospels. Here are the 17 historical books of the Bible: Genesis, E

      2 min read

    • Article

      How Well Do You Actually Know Your Bible?

      Aug 7, 2020

      The Bible is the handbook for Christianity. It includes every single instruction that we need d in in this this w world to survive. It is the only book that we have directly from God. You would think that as Christians ians who who have have spent ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Famous Fathers In The Bible

      May 20, 2019

      Scripture is filled with people who we can learn much from. When it comes to the challenging vocation of fatherhood, several fathers in the Bible show what is wise to do—and what is not wise to do. Of course, the most important father figure in the B

      2 min read

    • Article

      Fake News, Fake Gospels!

      Dec 31, 2021

      Fake News, Fake Gospels!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Proclaiming The GOOD NEWS Laying Everything Down For The Sake Of The Gospel

      Apr 22, 2019

      In Romans 1, we read the story of Paul the apostle giving a message to the church in Rome. After the resurrection, Paul tells the church that their faith is being proclaimed to the whole world; that Jesus, their Messiah, was raised from the dead and

      3 min read

    • Article

      CHARACTERS OF THE BIBLE Jonah

      Jun 15, 2020

      We like to throw around the term “man of God” today, with the implication that such a person is mighty, anointed by God, and spiritually superior to all others. Often, people love to call themselves a “prophet” for similar reasons. They believe that

      3 min read

    • Article

      Joshua

      Sep 24, 2021

      Joshua
      3 min read

    • Article

      Getting to Know God Jesus is God

      Nov 27, 2020

      The doctrine of the Trinity is what makes Christianity’s monotheism unique. Last month we began a three-part series on the Trinity. We noted how the Bible’s monotheism differs from the monotheism of Islam and Judaism. This month, as we continue to ex

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Holiness Of God

      Nov 19, 2021

      The Holiness Of God
      3 min read

    • Article

      Ask Val

      Sep 23, 2022

      Ask Val
      2 min read

    • Article

      Getting to Know God What is God Like?

      Jun 12, 2020

      In previous articles we established the importance of knowing God, and the basis upon which we can know Him best. It is from God’s self-revelation found in the Bible that we can learn most clearly who God is and what He demands from us. With this art

      3 min read

    • Article

      Did You Know?

      Dec 31, 2021

      How many books are in the Bible? The Bible contains 66 books, divided among the Old and New Testaments. How many books are in the Old Testament? There are 39 books in the Old Testament. How many books are in the New Testament? There are 27 books

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for How the Bible Came to Be (Ebook Shorts)

    3.5/5

    7 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A 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.
    • 4/5
      This 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

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1