where did the Bible come from?

So the past few weeks we've been talking about scripture and its place in the life of a follower of Christ. You can hear Part 2 (Part 1 wasn't recorded) here.

We covered a lot over the last three weeks, but one of the things that we didn't have as much time to talk about are some of the common, Da Vinci Code-esque myths that people hold regarding the origin of the Bible. Now it's easy to come by these myths: the time when most people hear them is in college, and the fact is that most youth group students aren't taught an equally compelling story before they get to college. Most youth group students just aren't at a place where they can really deal with the idea of a "perfect word" coming from imperfect people, inspired by a perfect God. There's just a lot of thoughts there that are hard for any teenager to hold in tension together, and so usually they're fed a much more basic, "this is God's Word, end of story" explanation, which doesn't hold up once you get to college and take a course on the New Testament as literature. 

So, drawing upon a great conversation some friends and I had on this blog two and a half years ago, let me fill in the blanks and correct or at least counterbalance some of the myths out there. 

• The Bible was written by a bunch of old white men in a room

• I must categorically disagree with this statement. While it is true that the canon we have today was fixed by various leaders of the church, this was done internationally, over the course of centuries, and was really not that hotly debated. As early as the second century, the “memoirs of the apostles” were mentioned by Justin Martyr. By 160 Irenaeus cited almost the entire New Testament in his writings, leaving out only a few letters. The Muratorian Fragment, of which we have the 7th century Latin copy, is generally argued to be a 2nd century document (though this is still debated), and it contains a list of nearly all of the books of the New Testament. By the fourth century ecumenical councils, the canon was not even in debate: what people differed on during those councils wasn’t the books themselves, but the conclusions that they were making from those books. 
• By the way, this might be a good place to mention that most argue that by the time the aforementioned lists were coming out the Gnostic gospels were only just being written. In other words, regardless of what one may believe about Gnosticism as a belief, its central writings were “second-generation” in the sense that they were responses to the Christian gospels written half a century or more earlier, and the accounts of witnesses who lived more than a hundred years before the Gnostics. 
• In fact, this relates to a central fact about Christian scripture that is greatly misunderstood by both Christians and non-Christians alike: that the New Testament came together out of necessity, not fiat. The canonical gospels state of themselves that they are simply an “orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled…handed on…by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses…” (opening of Luke). In other words, they were not first written, then believed, but the opposite. They were written down some years after a core group of thousands either witnessed the events for themselves, or heard about them first hand, and this was done for the same reason any accounting of events is written: in order to keep exaggeration and human error in check (note that by the time Luke’s book came out, the Gnostic gospels were still fifty to a hundred years away). Any such accounts that came out were passed around from community to community, and their survival depended upon the agreement of these thousands of first-generation Christians (people who either knew Jesus for themselves or who heard about him through the Apostles). Only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John survived that rigorous test. 
• By the time of the first ecumenical council in Nicaea, the canon was not a debate topic. In fact, it is important to note that Nicaea was the first ecumenical council called by the church since the council of Jerusalem recounted in the Book of Acts. This means that for three-hundred plus years the church did fine determining on its own, in a manner that balanced grassroots belief with the leadership of democratically appointed church leaders, what writings were true to the original teachings and events of the life of Jesus. Nicaea was called because one such leader, Arius, differed with another such leader, Alexander, and the difference threatened to split the church. This difference was not over which books should be in the bible, but over the conclusions each made from it. We can argue about whether politics played a significant role in the decision of the Council of Nicaea, but we cannot argue that it played a role in determining which books we now consider the Christian New Testament. That had been decided long ago by a consensus of thousands, and had been reaffirmed by subsequent generations of Christians in what I think is best described as a democratic and personal process. 

• How can we trust the Bible when it's changed so much over time? 
• Actually, the Bible is remarkable for how little it has changed over time. Again, as with all of the dates I'm mentioning here, we could debate about specific years and whatnot, but the truth is that since the Council of Nicaea there really has not been that much variation or error. In fact, those who copied the manuscripts were so meticulous that we have evidence of almost every variation that does exist in Scripture, and in many if not most Bibles there's a little footnote every time you run across one of those variations. And it's important to note here that not one of these variations puts into question the ultimate testimony of Jesus: that He is the Son of God who came to demonstrate God's love for us and take away the sins of the world. 
• This means that for 1700 or so years no one has been able to alter the text of the Bible. Not Napoleon. Not Hitler. Not a single Pope or Roman Emperor. If history's most powerful people weren't able to change one letter of the Bible they did not like, why do we have this impression in our minds that Scripture is constantly shifting and bending according to the whimsies of those in power? The truth: Scripture just hasn't changed, nor will it. No one has the power to change it. 

• How can we trust the Bible when it has so many errors and inconsistencies? 
• To this question I'd ask, "Which errors are you talking about, and do they affect your ability to trust what the Bible is telling you about Jesus Christ?" 
• The fact of the matter is that much of the Old Testament wouldn't hold up at an American Historical Association conference...if it were being read as a history text book. But that's not its purpose. Yes, I believe that everything written in Scripture is the Word of God, but I don't believe its authority is in question if Joshebbasshebeth the Tahchemonite killed 800 men at one time or 801 (or 8 for that matter!). That's the classic "slippery-slope" error. The records concerning Joshebbasshebeth do not confirm nor deny the validity of the account of the four gospels and the rest of the New Testament regarding Jesus Christ, nor were they ever meant to. 
• Hopefully this will also help you see why the Old Testament is not in conflict with modern day science: God never intended us to see science and Scripture as an either/or thing. Take the argument between Seven-Day Creationists and Evolutionists. How much of this is truly based on Scripture? If it were really about Scripture, then wouldn't those pro-Scripture notice that nowhere in the account of Genesis 1 does it say that the first three days were Earth days (the sun and the moon aren't created until the fourth day)? There is nothing in Genesis 1 that requires the Earth to have been created in seven Earth days. Yes the first day is recounted in verse 5 as "And there was evening and there was morning, the first day", but nowhere within those verses does it specify that we're talking about the sun rising and setting, since it hadn't even been created yet. What's more, the fourth, fifth, and sixth day are not described as beginning when the sun rises and ending when it sets either, leaving the time that creation took wide open, even under the strictest Scriptural lens. 

• How can we trust just one "holy text" when there are so many competing ones out there? Doesn't it make more sense to take the best that all the holy writings have to offer? 

• I agree with part of this statement. In fact, I think that the Bible itself never declares itself to be the only source of wisdom in creation. It is clear that truth can be found in many places, and I think it is every pastor’s duty to learn from these other sources as well. 
• Yet it is also clear that at times one writing directly opposes another writing. Take the Koran for example. It describes Jesus as a divinely appointed messenger and prophet, but definitely not God incarnate. It also rejects the idea that Jesus was crucified. Where then should we go regarding our understanding of Jesus of Nazareth? How do we determine whether to believe one, the other, or neither?

Alright, that's probably enough for now! Thanks for reading all of this, and I hope it was helpful to you!

image: http://www.islandcrisis.net/2010/08/dinosaurs-extinction-multiple-meteor-showers/