How We Got the Bible.

What are the origins of the Bible? When was it written? Can we believe what it says?

Have you ever wondered how and when the Bible came to be? Of course, most of us know that the Bible didn’t drop down from heaven as a complete book, but many do not know how the Bible developed.

The Bible is made up of many books written by many authors.  How were the books that make up the Bible chosen?  And what were the criteria for including those books? 

The Old Testament

The Christian Bible is made up of two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the Sacred Scripture of the Jewish people and, because of this, it was the only Bible that Jesus, the Apostles, and the early Christians had.  Originally written in the Hebrew language, it included books of the history of Israel, the writings of the Prophets, and Wisdom literature (Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon). 

The Jewish Diaspora began when the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 BC, and the inhabitants were scattered across the Middle East.  Later, in 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar deported many Judeans (people living in the southern part of Israel known as Judea), although some escaped to Egypt.  When the Jewish people were dispersed to other nations after these conquests, the Jews began to speak the languages of the people where they now lived.  Following the conquests of Alexander the Great people in the conquered areas learned to speak Greek.  Even the Jewish Scriptures were translated from Hebrew into Greek to be read in the synagogues, and this translation is known as the Septuagint.  It was the Septuagint translation that was the Scripture (Old Testament) used in the time of Jesus and the early Church.

The New Testament

The New Testament is made up of the four Gospels (Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of St. Paul, St. Peter and St. John, St. James, the Revelation of St. John and a letter whose author is unknown (Letter to the Hebrews).  The Acts of the Apostles was written by St. Luke.  The letters (e.g. Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, I Peter) were circulated to be read in the churches of the Mediterranean area which at that time was part of the Roman Empire.

The canon of New Testament Scripture was set down by Iraneus, a bishop of Lyon, France at the end of the second century (between 100 and 199 AD).  He accepted the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) even though two of them had not been written by Apostles (Luke and Mark).  Luke was a physician who travelled with Paul. Mark was possibly a nephew of Peter.  As there were other letters and gospels circulating at the time, Iraneus’ criteria for the canon were that they were  “... the teachings of the churches in the earliest period, meaning whichever of these writings had actually remained in use since that time.”  Therefore, the books which today are recognized by Roman Catholics, Protestant, and the Orthodox Church as Scripture, were agreed upon well before the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD (the 4th century) when they were formally declared to be part of Scripture.

The Catholic Church was responsible for the canon of Scripture (which books should be included) and the preservation of Scripture.  Since it was the only Church until the 15th Century, without the Catholic Church, we would not have the Christian Bible as it exists today.

Textual Criticism

When scribes (usually monks) copied the manuscripts, errors inadvertently crept into the copies.  Textual Criticism is a science which tries to identify and remove errors in transcription in the texts of any ancient manuscript.  The objective is to produce a text which is as close as possible to the original.  Often, in the case of classical manuscripts, there may be only one or two manuscripts in existence.  If there are more than ten, there is a great advantage of knowing what was originally written.  In the case of the New Testament, however, there are nearly five thousand manuscripts in Greek in existence as well as quotations from the books in the writings of others!  Furthermore, the manuscripts of classical authors usually date only from the Middle Ages, but there are manuscripts of the New Testament Scriptures as far back as the end of the 2nd century.  That is, they were written only a century after the original manuscripts had been written.  This means we can trust the words of Scripture more than we can trust the words of classical writings.

What are the Gnostic Gospels?

The Gnostic gospels are 13 volumes that were discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi in Egypt.  All of these books were written in the Coptic language and are probably translations from Greek.  They were believed to have been written in the 2nd century (100-199 AD).

Most Biblical scholars agree that the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were written before AD70, although some put Matthew at 75-80AD.  If this is the case, the Canonical Gospels would be more reliable accounts of the life of Jesus than the Gnostic gospels as they were written closer to the time that he lived.

Before AD70, there would have been witnesses still alive who could have protested any errors in them.  By the 2nd century (when the Gnostic gospels were written) anyone still living from the time of Jesus would have to be over 100 years old.

Inspiration of Scripture

The Catholic Church, as well as the Orthodox Church and Evangelical Protestant churches, believe that the writers of Scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit: God is the Author of Sacred Scripture:  "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit," CCC 105 and Dei Verbum 11.

"To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers, that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more," Dei Verbum V 11.

Scriptures in the Church

Before the invention of the printing press, the Scriptures were hand-copied.  The pages were often beautifully decorated as well.  Individuals did not own copies of the Bible and copies were often chained down in the Church, not to keep people from reading the Bible, but to ensure it would be available when someone did want to read it.  In other words, like our telephone books today, 'chaining them' prevented people stealing them.

By this time, Latin was the language used amongst the educated and was the language used in the universities across Europe.  Uneducated people could not read Latin and many could not read their own language, so books in English or German were not necessary in the early Middle Ages.  However, there are some instances of early translations into the vernacular (common) language of the people.  Two examples are: Bishop Ulfilas (318-380) who devised an alphabet for the Goths and translated the Old and New Testaments.  In the 9th Century, St. Cyril and St. Methodius invented an alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet, for the Slavic peoples and translated a Bible for them.

Quotations About Scripture

St. Jerome (AD340-420) said, “Not to know the Scriptures is not to know Christ.” St. Jerome translated the Scriptures from Hebrew and Greek to Latin, the language in use at that time.

A document from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) states, “Among other things that pertain to salvation of the Christian peoples, the food of the Word of God is above all necessary, because as the body is nourished by material food, so is the soul nourished by spiritual food, since, '...not by bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4).

And finally, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997): “In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, ‘but as what it really is, the word of God.” (103)

Sources:

Catechism of the Catholic Church. New York, London, Toronto: Doubleday. 1997.

Pope Paul VI. Dei Verbum: Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. The Vatican:1965.

The Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent website, accessed October 15, 2010.

The Jewish Virtual Library website, accessed October 15, 2010.

Why Does the Catholic Church Use Latin?

The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Israel - Latin inscription 'The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us'.


The Catholic Church has been accused of using Latin in order to keep the gospel from the common people. In fact, just the opposite is true.
To trace the use of Latin in the Roman Catholic Church we must first discover the languages which were spoken at the beginning of Church History.
The Greek Empire
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) established the Greek empire throughout the area of the Mediterranean and as far as Egypt and the borders of India. Greek culture and language became dominant in these areas.
By 146 BC the Roman Republic had conquered most of mainland Greece and for many this signified the end of the Hellenistic (Greek) period. Others claim that the date of the demise of the Greek Empire is 30 BC when Egypt was conquered by Rome. However, the influence of Greece in culture, art and language continued long into the Roman period.
The Roman Empire
During the time of Jesus and early Christianity, the Roman Empire extended throughout the Mediterranean; as far north as Britain and as far south as Northern Africa. The language of the Romans was Latin although most of the educated people spoke Greek as well. In the 3rd century BC there had been a movement by the cultured classes to introduce Greek elements into Latin and it was in this Latin that the orators, poets and historians wrote. It is now known as Classical Latin and two well-known examples are the works of Caesar and Cicero. The masses, however, continued to speak the ‘old’ Latin known as sermo vulgaris or Vulgar Latin. ‘Vulgar’ did not have the meaning it does today, rather, it meant, ‘common’.
The Language of Jesus and the Apostles
Aramaic was the language spoken in Israel during the second temple period (539 BC-70AD). It is not only the language of the Talmud but parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra are written in Aramaic as well. Jesus and the Apostles spoke Aramaic but the Scriptures they studied (what Christians call the Old Testament) was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (Septuagint). Priests in the temple and rabbis in the synagogue spoke Hebrew and most Jews had some understanding of it. In the final two centuries 'Before Christ', there were many Jews in Egypt, most of whom did not speak Hebrew. Some men (the legend is 70, hence Septuagint) undertook a Greek Translation of the Pentateuch, and later the remaining Hebrew Scriptures in the 3rd century BC.
Greek continued to be the language of education, trade and culture throughout the Roman Empire. Two of the Apostles (Andrew and Philip) had Greek names so they probably spoke Greek as well as Aramaic. Philip was approached by some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover feast. These were not necessarily men from Greece but rather Gentile, Greek-speaking converts to Judaism (see John 12:20). This passage is an indication that Philip spoke Greek.
We do not know if any of the Gospels were written in Aramaic but it is usually assumed that they were first written in Greek. Some believe that Matthew wrote his Gospel in either Hebrew or Aramaic and it was later translated into Greek. Luke and Acts (written by St. Luke) were, of course, written in Greek as were the letters of St. Paul. In other words, the New Testament letters were written in Greek because that is what most people spoke and read. No one bought these 'books' and 'letters'. The letters of St. Paul were written to a church (e.g. Romans, Corinthians) and passed around to other churches to read as well. They were not sold but shared among Christian communities.
The Early Church
At first (until about 235 AD) the liturgy and the writings of the Church were in Greek. The Gospel was spread mostly by the spoken word (preaching) and ‘ecclesiastical’ or church Latin was developing. The language that the Church used would have to be understood and appeal, not only to the literary classes, but to the all people. St. Augustine said, “I often employ words that are not Latin and I do so that you may understand me. Better that I should incur the blame of the grammarians than not to be understood by the people.” (from Psal. cxxxviii,90)
When Latin became the more familiar speech for the majority of the faithful, it eventually replaced the use of Greek in the liturgy. Today the only remaining Greek used in the liturgy of the Western (Roman) Church is the Kyrie: Kyrie Elesion, Christe eleison, kyrie elesion (Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy).
St. Jerome’s Vulgate
St. Jerome (340-420) was convinced of the need of a new translation directly from Hebrew to Latin, the language most Christians spoke. He was very knowledgeable in both Hebrew and the places and customs of Palestine. From A.D. 390-405 he completed the protocanonical books of the Old Testament from Hebrew and the deuterocanonical books of Tobias and Judith from Aramaic. He then went on to complete the New Testament revising from the Old Latin. St. Jerome’s version is called ‘the Vulgate’ as it was written in Vulgar Latin, that is, the Latin used by the common people, as opposed to Classical Latin.
The Middle Ages
Although Greek was used in the Eastern Church, Latin continued to be used in the Western Church for the liturgy throughout the Middle Ages. At this time Latin was the language of education, law and literature. An Englishman could go to Bologna to study law, without learning another language, because he would already know Latin. In the same way, an Italian going to Mass in London or Cologne would hear the liturgy; the readings and the hymns in the Latin that was familiar to him. The common people, who did not speak Latin, may be thought to have been at a disadvantage. However, the Mass has a standard form and the same words were used in the prayers and the responses of the people. Presumably they would have learned what these meant. However, the ability to read the vernacular languages was uncommon in the early Middle Ages. Thomas More wrote of the situation in England, “...farre more than fowre partes of the whole divided into tenne could never reade englische yet...” (More, Thomas. Apology. 1523). That is, more than 40% of the people could not read English in the year 1523!

After 1500
In the Middle Ages, monks copied the Scriptures by hand. This meant that Bibles were rare and would be expensive to buy. This is the reason they were chained to the lectern in churches. Rather than to keep the people from reading the Bible it was to ensure that no one stole (or borrowed) it. Like telephone books in telephone booths they were 'chained' so that everyone would have use of it.
Johan Gutenberg (?1400-?1468), a German Catholic, was the inventor of the moveable type printing press which made the printing of books much easier and faster. The first book printed on it was the 'forty-two line Bible'. By 1480 printing presses had been established in the major cities of Europe. By 1500, ninety four Vulgate Bibles and thirty vernacular Bibles had been printed.
Although there had been portions of the Bible in English since the 10th century, the first complete Bible in English was translated by John Wyclif in c. 1381. The Catholic Church did not approve his translation and it is not used by any Christian group today. The first English version of the Bible approved by the Roman Catholic Church was the Douay-Rheims Bible (New Testament in 1582 and Old Testament in 1609). Some feel that the English Bible was produced later than in other countries because of the Church’s fear of Lollardy. The Lollards stood for some of Wyclif’s ideas but their protests against the Roman Church became linked with political unrest in the 15th century. Another possible cause of the lag of a Church- approved Bible translation in English was that the Norman conquest of England in 1066 had greatly modified English and brought about changes to the vocabulary. Since there were Bibles in French this was used by the nobility in England and the need for an English Bible did not seem to be urgent. Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the door at Wittenberg in 1517 and this eventually led to the Reformation. Because of the printing press, the Reformers’ ideas, translations and commentaries spread more rapidly than they could have a century earlier.

Official language of the Church
Latin remained the language of the liturgy (although some readings and the homily were in the vernacular) until the Council of Vatican II (1962 -1965). The Council established changes to encourage greater lay participation in the liturgy and in the 1960’s, permissions were granted to celebrate most of the Mass in the vernacular languages.
Latin is considered by some to be a ‘dead language’. However, Latin is the basis of the vocabularies of medicine, law and the sciences. The Romance (from Roman) Languages (Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Romanian) all trace their origins to Latin. In English we have many borrowed words from these languages and directly from Latin.
Today although you will hear the vernacular languages in the Mass, Latin is the still the official language of the Church. Masses from St. Peter's in Rome will be essentially in Latin with the readings of Scripture done in various languages (e.g. Spanish, Italian, English, Mandarin, Hindi). The homily (or sermon) is in Italian. Since the Church is universal (worldwide) the use of Latin officially does not favour the language of any particular country or people; Latin is a neutral language. Latin can still be used in the celebration of the Mass in any country and there is often one parish in a diocese that offers the Tridentine or traditional Latin Mass.
It may surprise some to know that all documents from the Vatican are first written in Latin and then translated into other languages.

Did the Catholic Church Suppress the Bible?

Recently I watched a program which discussed the belief in the Bible as the Word of God before and after the Reformation. There were the usual ‘experts’ who gave their comments but in this particular program I must say they seemed to represent only Protestant thought and one that was particularly negative concerning the Catholic Church at that. Although some of it was very interesting, I felt that it misrepresented what the Roman Catholic Church has historically taught and still teaches concerning the Bible.
The line went, “The Catholic Church tried to keep the Bible from the people. We see this because the Bible was only in Latin, people were not encouraged to study the Bible and it was not translated into the languages of the people until the Reformation.” Although this is a popular fable passed around it is certainly not the complete story.
It is true that the language used by the Catholic Church for Scriptures and as well, the Mass, was Latin and remained so until Vatican II in the 1960s. In fact Latin is still the official language of the Church and important documents are still written first in Latin, thus not favoring any other particular language in use today.
In the Europe of the Middle Ages this had some other advantages. It was not uncommon for scholars to study in a university far away from their own country. Scholars and other educated people all understood Latin so one could be an Englishman studying in a university in, say, Bologna and still be able to understand the Mass. The university lectures would also be in Latin making it easier to study wherever you wanted to. Latin was a universally understood language in the Europe of the Middle Ages even more so than English is in the world today.
Now, of course, there were those who did not read or understand Latin: the common, uneducated people, and one might suppose they were at a distinct disadvantage. However, except for Scripture readings, the Mass follows the same pattern every time it is celebrated (even today) and those who attended would be familiar with the language they heard each Sunday. Furthermore, the homilies (or sermons) were in the language of the people so the teaching of the Scripture was in a language they could understand. It is probably true that the average person knew more of the Bible in the Middle Ages than they do today. The sermon at Mass, the art in the stained glass and paintings, the morality plays presented in the market – all these things taught the “unlettered” men and women the gospels in spite of the fact that they did not know Latin.
In any case, it was probably not until the late Middle Ages that the uneducated English could read their own language. Chaucer, who was born in 1340 or 1344, was the first to write in the language of the common man in England. How many ordinary people could read English? Until the printing press was invented probably not many.
It does seem though that in England the Scriptures in the language of the people lagged behind compared to other European languages. Remember that England had had Norman kings who spoke French and that only French or an Anglo-Norman dialect was spoken at court from the tenth to about the fourteenth century. English peasants called the animals in the field, cows, pigs and sheep but at court where the meat was served at meals they were boeuf, porc and mouton (which later came into English as beef, pork and mutton).
So much for England. Were there Scriptures in the language of the people in other countries in Europe?
Bishop Ulfilas (318-388) devised an alphabet for the Goths and translated the Old and New Testaments into their language soon after.
Another of the earliest translations of Scriptures must have been in 411 into Armenian by Mesrob who also invented their alphabet.
In the ninth century St. Cyril and St. Methodus invented an alphabet (the Cyrillic alphabet still used in Eastern Europe) for the Slavs and translated a Bible into Bulgarian.
Parts of Psalms, Revelation and some of the Old Testament were translated into French as early as the seventh century. A complete version of the Bible was made in the thirteenth century.
In Italy a complete version of the Bible in vernacular Italian was available in 1472 and this manuscript is now in the National Library at Paris.
There were numerous versions of parts of the Bible in German as far back as the seventh and eighth centuries and there was a complete Bible in the fifteenth century before the invention of printing and well before Luther’s New Testament in 1522.
The first Bible in Dutch was printed at Delft in 1475.
The first complete Polish Bible was printed at Kracow in 1561.
There were even portions of Scripture translated into Arabic as early as the tenth century and an Arabic Bible was published at Rome in 1671.
So we see that there were Scriptures in languages other than Latin available well before the Reformation. The Reformation or the Protestant Movement in the 16th century had the advantage of a newly invented printing press. The inventor of moveable type was the German, Johan Gutenburg (1400?-1468?) who, by the way, was a Catholic.
Before the printing press, Catholic monks had been copying Scriptures by hand from the earliest manuscripts down through the centuries We must remember that if they had not preserved God’s word neither Catholics or Protestants would have the Scriptures today.
Not only is it said that the Catholic Church did not have Scriptures available in the common languages, the Church is also accused of keeping the Bible away from the people, even going so far as chaining Bibles in the Church! Remember that before printing had been invented the Bible was hand-copied and therefore copies were both rare and expensive. Chaining the Bible to the Church would keep it from being taken away and therefore making it more available to those who were able to read. One can compare this with telephone books that are chained up at public telephone booths today – not to keep people from using them but keeping them available for all.
Did the Church discourage people from reading the Scriptures and “Bible study”? The answer to this is “yes” and the feeling of the danger of Bible Study has continued to recent times. Even though one might see Bible studies taking place in Catholic parishes today there are good reasons to discourage personal “Bible study”. One only has to look at the results of ‘uncontrolled’ bible study – the thousands of new denominations and even cults that develop because someone interprets a Bible verse in his or her own way. The resulting deep divisions are often over minute differences of Biblical interpretations. One simple example is: Paul wrote that a woman should cover her head in church. Is this something which reflects the culture of the time or is it a commandment from God that should be followed today? Some Protestant churches insist on women wearing hats in church but most do not.
Reading the Bible within the context of the Church is however encouraged by the Catholic Church today. With the guidance of scholars of the Church we can understand Scripture by knowing what the writer meant and how it was understood in the culture of the listeners of the time and then move on to what it can mean for us. The Church has people who are experts in languages, culture and translation who can help us understand the Scriptures. Furthermore, in the Catholic church perhaps the major reason for reading Scripture is that it might be obeyed, not so much that we need to dissect it every which way in order to understand it. Is it really so difficult to understand what it means to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” for example?

As to how the Catholic regards Scripture one only has to look at the following quotations to get an idea of this:
St. Jerome (340-420) said, “Not to know the Scriptures is not to know Christ.”

A document from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) states, “Among other things that pertain to salvation of the Christian peoples, the food of the Word of God is above all necessary, because as the body is nourished by material food, so is the soul nourished by spiritual food, since, '...not by bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4).

And finally, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “In Sacred Scripture, the church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, ‘but as what is really is, the word of God.” (103)
“And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting font of spiritual life. Hence, access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful.” (131)
It is sad to see ignorance that causes misunderstandings amongst Christians but sadder still to see ignorance perpetuated by television programs and books written by those who should have done their research beforehand.