• The second of 54 columns of text in the complete scroll of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah found in caves overlooking the Dead Sea. Hidden away more than two thousand years ago, the parchment scroll is amazingly well preserved and its text clearly readable (see http//:dss.collections.imj.org.il).

How the Bible was Written

At one time critics would say that the Bible could not have been written when it claims to have been, because writing was not known so long ago. A visit to any of the major museums in the world shows that writing has been known certainly from much earlier than the time of Abraham who lived about two thousand years before Christ.

Excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia, where Abraham came from, have unearthed libraries of clay tablets as well as bank records, trading accounts and hire purchase agreements. Writing in Ur consisted of Records required for a limited time were dried to make the tablets hard. Permanent records were baked even harder.

At the time when Moses lived in Egypt, writing was on papyrus with pen and ink. Records have survived on sheets made from the papyrus reed which was scraped, soaked and laid criss-cross, then pressed and dried. The natural gum made a good writing surface. There are many examples of the hieroglyphic picture writing in the British Museum in London as well as of the everyday, simpler script.

Other permanent writing materials were parchment (scraped, stretched and dried skin) and vellum, a much finer material made from calfskin. Ink was made from finely ground charcoal in a thin gum or egg white.

• Cuneiform script on a clay tablet from Mesopotamia
• Cuneiform script is wedge-shaped characters made in clay with a shaped stick or stylus.
• CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Scrolls were made from sheets of parchment sewn together and could become very bulky; so when lengthy records had to be kept, successive scrolls were numbered. That is why in the Bible we find the First and Second Books of Kings and the First and Second Books of Chronicles.

If a book was important – and the sacred books (scrolls) of the Jews were important – they would be copied with great care so that they could be read by more people in different places. In New Testament times, the letters to various groups of Christians were copied and passed to other groups:

"After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea"

• Colossians 4.16 NIV

Jeremiah, like all of the Old Testament writers, wrote mainly in Hebrew. Paul wrote in Greek, as did most of the other New Testament writers. It is a huge benefit for us to be able to read the Bible in our own language. Many people over a long period of time were involved in making this possible.

• A Jewish scribe continues the tradition of copying the scroll of the Torah by hand.
• Writing the 600,000 characters will take him about a year.
• Photograph Jim Reed/Tampa Tribune

The first major translation

When Egypt was part of the Greek Empire around 250 BC, its ruler, Ptolemy Philadelphus established a library at Alexandria. His aim was to collect a copy of every important book, wherever it came from in the Empire. Josephus the Jewish historian describes the way in which the sacred books of the Jews were included in the library:

"Demetrius Phalerius, who was library-keeper to the king, was now endeavouring, if it were possible, to gather together all the books that were in the habitable earth, and buying whatsoever was anywhere valuable, or agreeable to the king’s inclination, (who was very earnestly set upon collecting of books;) to which inclination of his, Demetrius was zealously subservient."

• Josephus: 'Antiquities of the Jews'; Book XII, Chapter 2, Para.1

We can understand how 'zealously subservient' Demetrius was. His life as well as his livelihood might depend upon how well he did. He was commanded to get in touch with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to arrange for a translation of the Jewish Scriptures to be made. He wrote to the High Priest who, Josephus tells us, wrote the following reply:

• Alexandria in Egypt was home to the largest Jewish colony in the ancient world, a centre of learning with a famous library.

"It is not fit for us, O king, to overlook things hastily, or to deceive ourselves, but to lay the truth open; for since we have determined not only to get the laws of the Jews transcribed, but interpreted also, for thy satisfaction, by what means can we do this, while so many of the Jews are slaves in thy kingdom?"

• Josephus: 'Antiquities of the Jews' Book XII, Chapter 2, Para. 2

In other words, the High Priest was saying that they could work with much more enthusiasm if something could be done to deal with the ongoing problem of the number of Jewish political prisoners still being held. He did not say the work could not be done; the arrangements were already being made, but such was the keenness of Ptolemy to obtain the Jewish Scriptures in Greek, tradition has it that he agreed to the release of 100,000 Jews.

Greek and Hebrew scholars were selected and it is believed that eventually 72 scholars took part in the work. This important translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek became known as the Septuagint Version (Septuagint is from the Latin 'septuaginta' meaning 70) – see the two Timeline pages above.

The Scriptures of Jesus and the apostles

In New Testament times copies of the Old Testament books were available in the synagogues in Hebrew as were copies of the Septuagint translation of the books of the Old Testament into Greek. Although the Greek Empire had now been succeeded by the Roman Empire, the language of the educated people for official purposes was still Greek and that of the Jewish synagogue was Hebrew. However, in the home and the street it was mainly Aramaic, an ancient Semitic language closely related to Hebrew.

On one occasion when the Apostle Paul had been arrested and was about to be taken into the Roman barracks by the soldiers, he said to the commander, 'May I say something to you?' The commander immediately replied, 'Do you speak Greek?' He thought that Paul was an Egyptian terrorist who had started a revolt sometime earlier. However, Paul asked permission to address the crowd and

"... When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic: 'Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defence'. When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet"

• Acts 21.37–40; 22.1,2 NIV

The use of both Greek and Hebrew is very helpful to our understanding of the Old Testament (OT). When quotations are made from the OT by the New Testament (NT) writers, because the NT was written in Greek, it is usually the Septuagint version that is quoted. Luke tells us that when Jesus went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, he found Isaiah chapter 61 and read:

"The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted."

• Luke 4.18

Jesus would have been given the scroll written in Hebrew but because Luke wrote in Greek, he made the quotation from the Greek Septuagint version. If we compare this with Isaiah chapter 61 in the OT, we read:

"The Spirit of the LORD GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted ..."

• Isaiah 61.1

• The tradition of reading from the scroll of the Torah still continues in the synagogue today.
• Photograph by Abba Richman/Dreamstime.com

You will notice that the NT reading from Luke has the word 'gospel' where the OT rendering is 'good tidings' (or good news). The difference is because Jesus was quoting from the OT book of Isaiah. Although we read both Testaments in English, the quotation in Luke has been translated twice – from Hebrew to Greek to English. However, this reminds us that the meaning of 'gospel' is 'good news' and if you look at a translation into more modern English like the New International Version (NIV), that is exactly what it says:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor"

• Luke 4.18 NIV

The value of an historical translation

The example above is a simple one that confirms the meaning of the word 'gospel'. Sometimes the value of a translation made before the time of Jesus is much more important. Isaiah foretold that when the Saviour came, he would be born of a virgin:

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

• Isaiah 7. 14

Bible critics have claimed that the word Isaiah used and which is translated 'virgin', really means a young woman, so the prophecy does not have the special significance that Christians claim. It is true that the word in Hebrew translated 'virgin' can also mean a young woman, but what did Isaiah mean when he made that prophetic statement?

When Jewish scholars 250 years before the time of Christ were translating the prophecy of Isaiah into Greek (in the Septuagint Version), they used a Greek word which could only mean 'a virgin'. Two and a half centuries before the time of Christ, the Jews themselves understood Isaiah to have prophesied that the Messiah, when he came, would be born miraculously of a virgin. The NT writer Matthew leaves us in no doubt about the accuracy of the prophecy:

"All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means, God with us"."

• Matthew 1. 22, 23 NIV

The next major step forward

Up to the early centuries after the time of Christ, the OT manuscripts in Hebrew had been copied and copied by hand for generations. The originals were no longer in existence but great care was taken in the copying and every manuscript was checked and rechecked. Because the books were sacred to the Jews, every letter of the text was counted before any copy was regarded as authoritative. The Greek translation was also available and many copies of this had been made too.

The NT manuscripts written in Greek were also being copied. As Christianity spread, so the copies were taken all over the Roman world. However, language was also changing. Latin was now the language of the Roman Empire and fewer and fewer people could read Greek.

• Jerome's Vulgate version continues to be used by the Catholic Church to this day.

• Title page of the Latin Vulgate edition of 1590

Because of this, a monk called Jerome made it his life's work to translate the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, into Latin. His translation was called the 'Vulgate'. The English word 'vulgar' really means common or ordinary and the Vulgate was the Bible in the common or ordinary language – the language of the people. The Vulgate was to be the Bible in use for many centuries.

When Augustine came to Britain he brought this Bible with him; it also went to Spain, North Africa and other parts of the world. Sadly, with the breakup of the Roman Empire, fewer people could read the Bible for themselves. Latin was no longer spoken and they had to rely on priests and missionaries. Their teaching was often far removed from the original Bible message.

Times change and language does too

As the years went by, the cycle of change repeated itself. When Greek was spoken, the Hebrew Old Testament could not be read by people who did not understand Hebrew. Under God's hand the Jewish Scriptures were translated into Greek (see chart opposite). In the early history of Christianity, the official language of the Roman Empire was Latin and so the work of Jerome was essential in enabling both Old and New Testaments to be read.

The Bible in Latin had come to Britain but ordinary people did not speak Latin. The work of translation had to continue, as the message of the Bible was still closed to them.

The English Translations

The Anglo-Saxon spoken by the people of Britain was very different from the English spoken today, but the Bible was needed in Anglo- Saxon. By AD 709 Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherbourne, had translated many of the Psalms into West Saxon and twenty five years later the Venerable Bede translated the Gospel of John. King Alfred translated a number of the Psalms in the early part of the tenth century AD.

History was moving on and so was the language of the people. AD 1066 was the date of the Norman invasion of England and the language was now changing by being mixed with Norman French. No more Saxon translations appeared but the foundations of our modern English Bible were being laid. John Wycliffe was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. He resigned from this post to become priest of Lutterworth, and by the year of his death in 1384 he had completed his life's work of translating the whole Bible from Latin into English with the help of a group of faithful followers. This Bible was handwritten and it would have taken about ten months for a written copy to be made. So although the Bible was being written in the language of the people, it was not freely available.

The Church in Control

The extent to which people understood the teaching of the Bible was under the control of the priesthood who were able to quote from the Latin text and could not be contradicted. However, important developments were now to dramatically affect the course of the Bible's history.

First, more Bible manuscripts were coming to light and scholars were able to study the Bible not only in Latin, but by looking at the original Hebrew and Greek texts. But the authority of the Church and the very small number of Bibles available still limited access by ordinary people to the Word of God.

• The opening of John's gospel in Wycliffe's version. The small format was maybe designed for travelling preachers.

This changed dramatically when Gutenburg invented the printing press. Printing meant that once the type had been set up, instead of taking nearly a year to copy the Bible by hand, copies could now be made available in large numbers and much more cheaply.

• Replica of Johannes Gutenburg's first printing press.

By the end of the fifteenth century, Bibles were being produced in French, German, Italian and Spanish and in 1530 the first printed English Bible appeared.

William Tyndale

This was the work of William Tyndale, whose aim was to make the Bible widely available so that everyone could read it. He said that if God spared his life, before many years he would cause the boy that drives the plough to know more of the Scriptures than did the Pope.

• Matthew 6.19-23 Tyndale's translation

His work was not approved by the clergy who saw their authority being eroded. Tyndale's copies of the New Testament were confiscated and burnt at the instigation of the Bishop of London. However, as the copies were destroyed, so more were printed in Europe and smuggled into England. Eventually, Tyndale himself was betrayed and arrested for advocating that people could themselves learn the Gospel from the Bible and he was burnt at the stake on 6th October 1536.

Erasmus

Another important development was the result of the work of a scholar, Desiderius Erasmus who worked for many years in England as a professor at Cambridge. He published a Greek NT text and a Latin translation. This influenced Martin Luther and provided a sound basis for much of Tyndale's translation. Erasmus wrote:

"I wish the sacred Scriptures were translated into all languages of all people, that they might be read and known, not merely by the Scots and Irish, but even by the Turks and Saracens. I wish that the husbandman may sing parts of them at the plough, that the weaver may warble them at his shuttle, and that the traveller may with his narratives lighten the weariness of the way."

Language was still changing. Look at the passage from Tyndale opposite and compare it with how we speak today. This resulted in more and more translations and revisions appearing. The problem was that some Catholic translators added anti-Protestant footnotes to the text and anti-Catholic footnotes appeared in Protestant translations. For example, the Israelites were told that there was no further need to bring gifts for the Tabernacle (see Exodus 36.6,7).

A footnote in one Bible says, 'When will the Pope say "Stop" and prevent people still bringing gifts to build St. Peter's?;.

Contemporary records show that there were fierce arguments about the footnotes and which was the best translation. At a conference at Hampton Court Palace in 1604, King James the First of England commissioned a new translation because: "In the Geneva translation some notes are partial, untrue, seditious and savouring of a traitorous conceit. To conclude the point, let errors of matters of faith be amended and indifferent things be interpreted and a gloss be added unto them."

• The Geneva Bible, showing the many notes in the margins which offended King James
• Photograph via GFDL via Wikimedia

The King James version

Forty-seven scholars in six groups met at Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster. The title page (see opposite) says that it was 'Newly Translated out of the Original tongues' (so the scholars went back to copies of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures): " ... and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised by his Majesty's special Commandment."

The new translation, known as the King James Version (KJV), was completed in 1611.

• The title page of the King James Bible (now often known as the 'Authorised Version') of 1611.

Language was still changing, as those of our readers who studied the works of William Shakespeare at school will know very well. For example, 'to prevent' means to stop something happening. The English word comes from the Norman French 'pre' (before) and 'venir' (to come) so at the time of Shakespeare and the KJV 'to prevent' meant 'to come before'.

Paul wrote (as translated in the KJV) that when Jesus returns, those that are alive will not 'prevent' those that are dead (I Thessalonians 4.15). He did not mean that those who are alive will not stop those who are dead. He meant that they will not 'come before', or have any advantage over those who are dead – because when Christ comes "the dead in Christ shall rise first" (verse 16).

The New International Version (NIV) translates the verse:

"... we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."

• 1 Thessalonians 4. 15, 16 NIV

More recent English translations

Many other words have changed their meaning and the 'old' verb endings ('cometh' instead of 'comes') and the use of 'thee' and 'thou' in the King James Version make the language of the text unfamiliar. (Note: this is not to criticise the translation, merely to recognise that the language has changed).

However, towards the end of the nineteenth century it was felt desirable to produce the Revised Version (RV). The whole Bible was issued in 1885 although the New Testament was available earlier. There has been a continuous effort in the past century to make sure that the Bible is available in a language that is accessible to everyone. Some translations have been more successful at achieving this aim than others.

The New International Version, The New King James Version, The Good News Bible, among a number of others, have been produced by teams of scholars, checking and rechecking each other's work. In addition there have been a number of 'one man' translations. All have their supporters. All have various strengths and weaknesses being translations into the everyday language of ordinary people.

What is important as far as the Bible student is concerned is that we are able to hold in our hands a book which brings before us the mind of God Himself. If we can read, we can be transported into events which demonstrate the unfolding of God's plan for the world. We can be brought close to divine principles that can change our lives. We can find the way to salvation and have the opportunity of learning the true Gospel message and eventually receive the gift of eternal life.

We can have all this by reading the Bible in our own language and by following its teaching. No minor blemishes of an imperfect translation will prevent this, whichever modern translation we read.

• The Bible readily available and easier to read.
• Photograph by Hriana/Dreamstime.com

But how can we be sure of this?

Based on the "Light on The Bible" special issue in 4 parts:

1. Introduction, the claim of the Bible
2. How the Bible was written? The English translations
3. Can we trust the Bible, the evidence of archaeology and prophesy
4. Reading the Bible for yourself

Next article (part 3) is Can we Trust the Bible?