Contents:

Why does the Bible exist?

How did the Bible take shape?

How was the canon of Scripture decided on?

BIBLE, FORMATION AND CANON OF      The word "Bible" was formed from a Greek term meaning books in the plural. Our Bible is, in fact, the collection of books written by various authors that possesses final authority in Christian communities. It has no rival in its pervasive influence upon Western culture, and increasingly over world culture. It is a perennial best-seller and has been translated into more than two thousand languages and dialects.

Why does the Bible exist?

The answer has to do with the transmission of the gospel down through the generations. Once God had revealed Himself and His plan of salvation to Israel and to the believers surrounding Jesus, the question arose how this truth would be passed along to posterity without its suffering distortion from later interpreters. The only obvious answer to this question was written documentation. It would be necessary to secure the revelation in a fixed, written, and authentic form so that the truth would not be lost in the transmission. Both from a human and a divine standpoint, then, a Bible was required to be the vehicle of transmission of the gospel, conveying the revelation intact to succeeding generations.

Does the Bible itself give this answer? 
You can see that it does when you consider, first, the fact that leading figures in the Bible, such as Moses, Jeremiah, Luke, and Paul, are described as writing things down precisely for people who are unable to talk with them directly. Second, you find that Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament had a very high view of the divine authority of the Hebrew Scriptures which they believed God gave by inspiration (2 Tim. 3:16). The idea of the Bible was not a late afterthought in the history of salvation but was in the process of being formed almost from the first. It seems reasonable to conclude that God’s plan of salvation included the Bible as a book which would convey the truth of the gospel down through the years.

How did the Bible take shape?

A general acquaintance with the book goes a long way toward answering this question. In the case of the Old Testament, people must have told and retold the stories of God’s interaction with Israel before they were collected into the books we now possess. They carefully preserved the law of God given through Moses and accepted it as binding on them. The inspired prophecies could not be allowed to be forgotten even when they were painful. Of course, the wisdom of the sages and the hymns of the people had to be preserved. The process of formation can thus be viewed both from the point of view of God’s purpose and with an eye on the natural historical dynamics. In the case of the New Testament, it is clear that four writers undertook the task of presenting the life of Jesus, each of them with some special emphases and with a particular audience in view. The apostle Paul, as well as some others, had the practice of writing letters to groups of people to communicate with them when visiting was difficult. Writing was a way of instructing them in the things of God from a distance. One can see how the Bible must have been formed just by looking at it. Each of its parts was created and preserved because it met a need in the covenant community and qualified to be treasured for transmission to posterity.

How was the canon of Scripture decided on?

The word canon comes from a Sumerian term meaning "reed," and it came to designate the list of books which were normative and sacred. The simplest answer to this question is a practical one: the books which ended up on the canonical lists in the end were those which proved themselves in a variety of ways to be God’s Word to His people as they used them over the years. The historical answer is a little less clear. We just do not know as much about the process of canonization as we would like. The best clues are in the Bible itself. The law of Moses was written down and became the core of the later Old Testament. This is the assumption of all the later documents. There is much less said about the composition and preservation of the other writings. Certainly the divine authority claimed by the great prophets of Israel attached to the books which preserved their preaching. It is possible that the Old Testament canon as we know it took shape under the influence of the scribe Ezra who rounded off the task long in process. This would explain the tenacity of the Jews ever since to preserve their Hebrew canon. As for the New Testament, the books involved are many fewer and were composed over a mere half century. The respect for the words and deeds of Jesus is obvious and would explain both the preparation and the respect accorded the four Gospels. Paul’s apostolic authority guaranteed respect for his epistles from the beginning. Respect grew later when the original witnesses began to die off and the epistles circulated among the churches. The authority of a prophecy like the Revelation of John, if deemed authentic, would be automatic. An extraneous factor which speeded the process toward developing a canon was the work of second century reformer Marcion, who proposed dropping the Old Testament and much of the New Testament as well, forcing orthodox Christians to make up their minds on the question of the canonical list. The die was already cast in the Muratorian Canon of 170 A.D. where one finds the essential New Testament as we know it today.

Is there an interplay then of subjective and objective factors in the determination of the canon of Scripture? 
Yes, we need to view it in terms of God’s providence guiding and directing His people in this matter. God sent His messengers and the Scriptures in their wake. God’s Word to the people had to make its own impact upon human minds. There is the historical solidity of God’s revelation in history, but there is also the need for God’s sheep to hear the voice of their Shepherd. God has given us His written Word and allowed it quietly and unhurriedly to make its impact upon us. It did not require a big council when the decision would come down from the leaders of the churches. All that was needed was that God’s people be satisfied in the matter of the historical authenticity and then of the practical efficacy of the books in question. The fact that substantially the whole church came to recognize the same books as canonical is remarkable when we remember the agreement was not at all contrived.

The body of our canon is solid and well-supported, and proves itself over again in our use of the Bible. Therefore, we can live happily with a little uncertainty around the edges.

With the writer of Psalm 119, we should give thanks to God for His gift of the Scriptures, in which we can hear His voice and meet with Him. We know the Bible is God’s Word, not because we are scholars, but because we are people of faith and experience its authority and truth. The formation of the Bible was in part a human process, directed, we believe, by God. We have reason to feel full confidence when we accept the sixty-six books as God’s inspired Word to us. We treasure the Bible because it gives us firm anchorage in history and is the source from which we can continually draw inspiration for renewing our faith and finding the path to follow in serving the Lord.

The interpretation of the Bible (or any piece of literature, for that matter), is called hermeneutics.

Biblical interpretation, or hermeneutics, has had a long and checkered history. The way in which almost all Christians today read and interpret the Bible only gradually developed. It was not until the era of the Renaissance and Reformation that the science of biblical interpretation was clarified. Today we follow what is generally known as the literary historical method of interpretation.

Origen (who died in 254 A.D.) was the first major biblical interpreter and Christian theologian. In addition to the obvious, simple, literal meaning of a passage, which Origen believed was only for the simple believer, Origen found a hidden or deeper meaning embedded in the words of Scripture. This hidden meaning was the pure word of God to the mature Christian, and much to be preferred over the simple, literal meaning. Origen made extensive use of allegorical interpretation to derive this deeper, preferred meaning of Scripture. This allowed Origen to import his underlying philosophical position into the Scriptures, as though this was the message of God to us.

The School of Antioch was the bright spot in the ancient world, so far as biblical interpretation was concerned. The biblical interpreters associated with this school insisted that the Bible be interpreted in the light of the literary form and historical situation of a particular passage. They carefully avoided reading philosophical and speculative preconceptions into the text in the fashion of Origen and his followers. Today, this would seem to be the obvious way that Scripture should be interpreted, but that was not the general opinion in the ancient world. Not until the time of the Reformation (1517) did this kind of biblical interpretation become the dominant approach to the Scripture.

In the Middle Ages (500-1500), Origen’s allegorical approach to the interpretation of Scripture was the accepted pattern. Indeed, Middle Ages interpreters expanded on Origen’s two meanings and found anywhere from four to seven different levels or types of meanings. 

A fourfold meaning was usually sought in Scripture: 
The literal-historical, for the simple believer; 
The allegorical, which supplies a deeper meaning for faith; 
The moral, which guides conduct; 
and The anagogical, a mystical interpretation which points towards the ultimate goal of the Christian in his pilgrimage. 
Various terms were used to denote these four different levels of meaning.

With biblical interpretation so complicated, it is no wonder that the Roman Catholic Church took the Bible out of the hands of the lay people and left biblical interpretation to the clergy. The ordinary person could not possibly know how to derive from four to seven different levels of meaning out of a given passage.

Biblical interpretation as we know it today began in the period of the Renaissance and Reformation.   In the age of the Renaissance, people began to realize the true literary character of the Bible. Luther learned anew the important place of the Bible and made a determined effort to put the Bible back in the hands of the people. One of Luther’s cardinal principles was "sola scriptura," only by Scripture, or Scripture alone.

Luther and other Reformers insisted on the perspicuity of Scripture -- Scripture is clear enough that the ordinary believer can read and understand it by observing the grammatical and historical elements of the text.   Calvin insisted (in the preface to his commentary on Romans) "It is the first business of an interpreter say what he [the Scripture writer] does, instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say."

Following the time of the Reformation, great emphasis was placed on letting the Bible speak for itself. The science of textual criticism was developed. This was the analysis of all of the available biblical manuscripts, comparing the variant readings, and making an informed judgment as to what the original text of the Scriptures really was. J. A. Bengel was of major importance in the movement to determine an accurate text.

Bengel was also influential in insisting on accurate, literary-historical interpretation, letting the Bible speak its own message, rather than reading a preconceived interpretation into it. The practice of scientific exegesis, or accurate biblical interpretation, had its beginnings in the years following the Reformation.

In the development of the modern practice of hermeneutics, great emphasis was placed on grammatical and historical elements. Much effort was expended on determining who the original writer of a portion of Scripture was and learning what the historical-cultural conditions of his setting were. Great effort was made to analyze the grammatical constructions employed by the writer, as well as the choice of words. Careful attention was given to the literary style employed by the author: narrative, poetry, apocalyptic, literal, figurative, etc.

In the earnest search for accurate, faithful interpretation of the Bible, the historical-critical method of interpretation was developed. The word "critical" comes from a Greek word which means to judge or to make a decision in the light of evidence. With this type of interpretation, more attention is given to historical considerations than merely clarifying the historical context in which a passage of Scripture is set. Some developers of this method saw history as a closed system. They thought everything must be explained on the basis of forces and causes that are resident within the normal historical experience of humans. Thus, by definition, miracles could not be explained on the basis of an act of God who reaches into history; some natural explanation had to be found for what appears in the Scripture record as a miracle.

What is at fault here is not the method of interpretation as such, but the presupposition that miracles are impossible. This hermeneutical approach is often confused with the literary-historical interpretation practiced by more conservative interpreters. The two are very similar, differing primarily in the presupposition of the interpreter rather than in method as such.

Many varieties of so-called "scientific exegesis" have been developed as refinements of the historical-critical method. They employ very sophisticated and technical methods to analyze the factors that lie behind the text as we have it: who the author was, what the motive was in writing, identification of various sources of material used by the writer, the writer’s position among God’s people, the relationship to other biblical writers, how and why each idea was developed, the meaning the writer was trying to convey.

Another approach to biblical interpretation is in the form of the history of religions hermeneutic. In this type of biblical interpretation, parallels are sought between what is found in Scripture and what is found in the development of other systems of religion. This shows what biblical writers shared with their culture, what they adopted and adapted from the culture, and what they had in unique distinction from their culture. An extreme position here can expect biblical teaching to be little different from what is found in other religions. A more conservative position recognizes that God used the culture to teach His people but also that He pointed the way to be a holy people distinct from the culture.

As a reaction to the radical insistence on history being closed to outside influences, another approach to biblical interpretation has developed. It is called the new hermeneutic and is often based upon the philosophy of existentialism. According to this approach, the message of the Bible is not to tell me what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. It is to create in me new spiritual experiences, or encounters with God; or, at least, it is to show me the possibilities that are open to me when I place my faith in Christ.

The dominant type of biblical interpretation used by conservative Christians today is the literary-historical method.

Contents:

Questions to Ask

Historical Task

Literary Task

Spiritual Task

BIBLE, HERMENEUTICS   The science of interpreting the Bible (or any piece of literature) is called hermeneutics. The word comes from a Greek word, hermeneuo, which means to interpret or to explain. Interpreting the Bible is not a simple process of reading what has been written. The art of biblical interpretation developed slowly.

While there have always been some people who interpreted the Bible in ways similar to what we do today, the science of biblical interpretation began to develop in the days of the Renaissance and Reformation and was given new importance by the work of Luther and Calvin.

Questions to Ask

The meaning of a piece of writing is seldom clearly self-evident to anyone who happens to read it. Especially is this true if the writing is a very old document, written for someone who lived in a very different cultural-historical setting. 

If we want to interpret a piece of literature, we must ask at least five questions: 
1) Who was the writer and to whom was he writing? 
2) What was the cultural-historical setting of the writer? 
3) What was the meaning of the words in the writer’s day? 
4) What was the intended meaning of the author and why was he saying it?
5) What should this mean to me in my situation today? 

These basic questions lead into other questions that must be explored in a serious attempt to understand the message of the Bible. The reader today must somehow try to enter the world of the biblical writer and seek to understand what the writer was saying. Then he must bring that ancient message into today’s world where the reader lives.

There are some basic principles that should be observed by the interpreter of the Scriptures. 
1) The Bible is a divinely inspired book (2 Tim. 3:16) and should be reverently approached. Perhaps the reader should hear what was said to Moses as he stood before the burning bush: "Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). We must be careful to reverence the divine character of Scripture. 
2) The Bible has a genuinely human element, also, since God used ordinary people to write the Scriptures. Recognition should be given to the human elements utilized by the Holy Spirit in giving us God’s Word. To miss the human element is as much a mistake as to miss the divine element. 
3) The primary aim of the interpreter is to discover the original meaning of the author who wrote the passage under consideration. 
4) Preference should be given to the interpretation which is clearest and simplest, the most obvious. 
5) Only one meaning should be given to any passage of Scripture, unless a later passage of Scripture assigns it a second meaning. Only an inspired writer of Scripture can be allowed to give a passage more than one meaning. 
6) Careful attention must be given to the literary form of a passage in determining its meaning. 
7) Careful attention must be given to the historical situation of a portion of Scripture.

Historical Task

Interpretation begins with a historical task. The interpreter needs to know as much as possible about the writer and his cultural-historical setting. If we know nothing concerning who wrote a passage, when it was written, or under what conditions it was written, we are almost left to guess what its meaning might be. Knowing what an author has experienced and what the thought forms of his day were aids us in understanding his writing. It is important to know the approximate date when a passage was written. For instance, words about God’s Spirit written before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost might be given one meaning while they would be given a different meaning after Pentecost. The reader also needs to know who the intended recipients of a passage were. Words addressed to unbelievers would be interpreted very differently from words addressed to believers. The meaning of a passage might depend upon knowing whether the original audience was Jewish or Gentile. The interpreter also needs to know what occasioned the writing, or why the writer wrote his message and what his purpose was.

Literary Task

A literary task follows the historical task of the interpreter. The literary task begins with the task of translation of the Scripture from the ancient Hebrew and Greek into the language best understood by the interpreter. Translation is itself a stage of interpretation. For translation is more than simply substituting English words for the Greek and Hebrew words. If you cannot do a good job of translating Greek and Hebrew into English (or whatever your language is), then you must rely upon good translations of the Bible. You really should utilize several good translations to help you understand what the ancient writer was trying to say to you.

Lexical study is the next phase of your literary study of the Bible. You must consult a lexicon or dictionary to find the meaning key words had when the original writer used them. His words may have a different meaning today, and you must know what they meant when originally used.

The next stage of the literary task of the interpreter is the grammatical or syntactical phase. Here, you must examine the form of the writer’s grammar: what is signified by the grammatical constructions, the verb forms used, what is given emphasis in a sentence, the relationships of the words to each other, etc. The tense, voice, mode, case, etc. of the words used is very important in understanding what the writer was trying to say to you, the reader. These matters are acutely important in the work of translation, but they also must not be overlooked in the process of interpretation. You should consult good critical commentaries that analyze these grammatical matters for you, even if you do your own translation.

Rhetorical analysis is another important phase of the literary task of interpretation. Here, the interpreter seeks to determine what kind of rhetoric, or language, the ancient writer was using. It is extremely important to recognize the various literary forms that are used by the different writers of the Bible. Major portions of the Bible are written in ordinary prose, plain descriptive narrative. Other portions are pure poetry. Sometimes vivid figures of speech are incorporated in narrative portions. Such figures of speech must be interpreted in their symbolic sense rather than as literal, descriptive language. Portions of the Bible are written in apocalyptic language, a well-known literary style often used in the ancient world, but hardly known to us today. Apocalyptic literature employs vivid symbols and fanciful images to convey some message or mystery or prophecy in a veiled, highly imaginative way. The Book of Revelation and certain portions of Daniel and Ezekiel are examples of apocalyptic literature in the Bible.

Consideration must be given to the context of a passage of Scripture. No portion of Scripture ought to be interpreted without regard to its content. The context is the setting in which the particular passage is located. Generally, the paragraph in which a statement appears is the minimum context. However, the context of a passage may be the whole chapter in which a verse occurs; it could even be the entirety of a book, in the case of the shorter books of the Bible. Meaning that is given to a verse, without regard to its context, is very likely to be the wrong meaning. The Bible is made to say many things the original writers did not intend by interpreting particular statements without regard to their contexts.

The literary task of the interpreter must include comparing the meaning given to a passage to what is taught elsewhere in the Scriptures. This does not mean that we should arbitrarily force one viewpoint upon all of the Scriptures. But it does mean that we should be careful not to interpret Scriptures in such a way that we introduce contradictions into our interpretation of the Bible. There is an overall unity to the Bible; it teaches one theme, one message. But within that unity, there is also diversity. There is diversity due to the vast amount of time spanned in the writing of the Bible. There is diversity due to the many different authors employed by the Holy Spirit. There is diversity due to the progressive nature of revelation. God gradually revealed more and more of Himself and of His will for humans as the message of the Bible proceeded from Genesis to Revelation. While there is progression, there is not contradiction in the Scriptures. The careful interpreter will always want to compare an interpretation of a passage with what the Bible teaches elsewhere to see if the interpretation "fits" with what the Bible says in other places.

Spiritual Task

There is a personal, spiritual task of the interpreter.   One who would be a good interpreter must be devoted to diligent, careful study of the Scriptures (2 Tim. 2:15), prayerfully seeking the leadership of the Holy Spirit continually while interpreting the Scriptures (John 16:12-15; 2 Peter 1:19-21). Only illumination or divine guidance can lead to correct interpretation. On the one hand, the Bible is a piece of literature that is to be interpreted just like any other piece of literature. On the other hand, the Bible is unique in that it is inspired by God through the Holy Spirit; one who reads the Bible should therefore seek the guidance of God in understanding what is written there.

One additional task remains for the interpreter. Seek to apply the teaching of the Bible to your present situation. It is important to know what the Bible said to its original readers, the people to whom it was originally addressed. But it is equally important to apply the ancient message to us today in our life situation which may be very different from that of the ancient world of Moses or Jesus or Paul.   If the Bible is a living revelation of God to us, as we say it is, then we must do more than decipher its ancient history. We must apply the principles discerned in that ancient history to our life situation today.

Contents:

The Period of the Handwritten Text

The Printed Bible

BIBLE, TEXTS AND VERSIONS   The preservation and transmission of the Bible from the time that it was written until the present involves two areas of study. The study of the process by which the documents (66 in all) were written, used, collected into groups, and elevated to the authoritative place that they occupy today is called the study of the canon. The other is the process of preserving in writing and translations the text of the documents. This is the study of text and versions.

There are two periods in the history of the text of the Bible. 
The first is from the time the documents were written until the time of printing (A.D. 1453). 
The second is from that date until the present. 

The invention of printing was very important for the transmission of the text of the Bible. Before that date, the only way that a person could have a copy of any written work was to make a copy (or have it made) by hand, letter by letter. This was slow and often expensive. Some have calculated that the cost of one complete Bible made by a professional scribe in the fourth century would equal the salary of a member of the Roman legion for forty years. Certainly not every church, let alone every Christian, could afford to have a copy of the Scriptures.

The Period of the Handwritten Text

The story of the Bible is really the story of two Testaments, the Old and the New. The story came together for Christians in the second century A.D., when the Christian writings began to be equated with the Hebrew Scriptures and thus published side by side as the Christian Scriptures. Even then, however, the history of the text used by Christians differed some from the text used and preserved by Jews.

Old Testament Text and Versions. The difficulty of tracing the history of the Old Testament text is the scarcity of manuscripts that go back beyond the ninth and tenth century. One reason for this scarcity is the practice by Jewish scribes of burying old manuscripts in a storehouse called a genizah and then destroying these manuscripts. The text from that period is called the Masoretic Text because it derives from the work of a group of Hebrew scribes known as Masoretes, whose work spans the time from A.D. 500 to 1000. The manuscripts used most frequently in editing the Old Testament today are of this variety.

Textual scholars use several tools to trace the text behind the Masoretic Text. One is the Samaritan Pentateuch. This refers to the text of the first five books of the Old Testament as it was preserved among the Samaritans after their separation from Judah about 400 B.C. until the present. This text is preserved in Israel today by a few hundred Samaritans who still live at Nablus (near Mt. Gerazim where their ancient temple stood, John 4:20) and just south of Tel Aviv. The importance of this text is that it was preserved independently of the Masoretic text even though the oldest copies in existence were not made until the eleventh century. Only in a few instances do scholars think that the Samaritan Pentateuch preserves readings superior to the Masoretic text.

Another tool to trace the history behind the Masoretic text is the Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament known as the Targums. They originated because the Jews in the synagogues in the Middle East could not understand the Hebrew Scripture. Someone stood alongside the reader of the text (read in Hebrew) and recited Aramaic paraphrases, which in time became stereotyped. The earliest of these to be written down came before the time of Christ (a fragment of a Targum on Job was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in the eleventh cave from Qumran). Most of the manuscripts of the Targums originated 500 to 1000 A.D. Because they are paraphrases and not strict translations, the Targums are more of interest for determining Jewish doctrine in the time of their origin than for determining the early stages of the text of the Old Testament.

A much more important source for textual history is the Septuagint. This is a Greek translation of the Old Testament made from about 250 to 100 B.C. or shortly thereafter. It was made in Alexandria, Egypt, to meet the needs of Jews and others who wanted to read the Old Testament but lacked the facility to read Hebrew. The Septuagint represents an official translation which likely replaced a variety of earlier unofficial translations. Basic problems in using a translation to seek to study the earlier wording of the Hebrew text are: the difficulty of determining the exact readings of the Hebrew text(s) used by the original translators because of the innate differences in all languages, the difficulties in establishing the original readings of the Greek translation by studying the many manuscripts of it, and uncertainty concerning the quality of the translation itself. Nevertheless, the Septuagint does preserve some readings (especially in Exodus, Samuel, and Jeremiah) that appear to be superior to the Masoretic text. Some of them are supported by copies of the Hebrew texts found at Qumran. There are other Greek translations of the Old Testament made by Jews to replace the Septuagint. The two most famous were made in the second century A.D. by Aquila and Theodotion.

The most important source for textual information beyond the Masoretic Text is the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of these were discovered in the caves by the wadi Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea beginning in 1947. Others were found further south in the wilderness of Judea and at Masada. The oldest copies of Old Testament Scriptures found in these discoveries are manuscripts written in the second century before Christ. They are over a thousand years older than the basic manuscripts of the Masoretic texts. They represent the remains of a library of a group of separatist Jews who lived in the caves in the area and worked in a type of monastery. Along with Old Testament manuscripts, the caves preserved documents written by the participants in the community and their founders. Biblical manuscripts have been found containing fragments or complete copies from every book of the Old Testament except Esther. The scrolls from Qumran do differ from the Masoretic text in some places (1375 places in Isaiah), but most are insignificant.

Other versions of the Old Testament such as the Syriac, Old Latin, the Latin Vulgate, etc. can be used, but none of these yield many significant variants from the Masoretic texts. The copies of the Hebrew Bible available today are the work of very careful Hebrew scribes. Though there are variations, the text of the Hebrew Bible is essentially as it existed in the time before Christ. The early Christians had access to either the Hebrew text or to the Septuagint. When the Septuagint was no longer used by the Jews (about A.D. 90), it was preserved by the Christians and used by them. About half of the Old Testament quotes in Paul are from the Septuagint as are almost all of the quotes in 1 Peter, James, and Hebrews. The famous Latin Vulgate of Jerome contained the books in the Septuagint not found in the Hebrew Bible plus 2 Esdras. These are called the Apocrypha. They were relegated to an appendix by Martin Luther and most Protestants today.

New Testament Text and Versions. From near the middle of the second century on most Christians equated many Christian writings with the Scriptures of the Jews. The term "Old Testament," implying a "New Testament," was first used by Christians in A.D. 187. These writings were preserved at first mostly on papyrus, a form of paper made from the papyrus plant which grew in the Nile Delta. It was perishable, and very few copies survived. In 1976, only 88 separate fragments of papyrus New Testament manuscripts were known. Few of them contain in their present state more than a part of a single page of text. The original papyrus manuscripts contained only portions of the New Testament, such as the Gospels and Acts or Paul’s letters or the Revelation or some or all of the General Epistles. The earliest of these date from the second and third centuries. During that period the New Testament did not circulate as a single volume. Apparently all New Testament manuscripts so far discovered were made in the leaf form of books, not on rolls.

The New Testament circulated as a single volume in the time of the great parchment manuscripts. Parchment was made from the skins of animals. The earliest of these to contain the New Testament also contain the Old Testament (in the form of the Septuagint with the outside books) and other Christian writings such as 1 and 2 Clement or The Shepherd of Hermas and the Letter of Barnabas. The earliest of these were written in the middle of the fourth century.

Not only manuscripts written in Greek, the language of the New Testament, but also Christian writings which quote from the Greek New Testament furnish evidence for the text of the New Testament. However, some of the Christian "fathers" were very loose in their quotes or quoted from faulty memories. Another factor is that not all the writings were preserved carefully.

Another major source of information about the text of the New Testament is the versions. From the very beginning of the Christian story, translation has been an essential part of the process. We have less than a dozen words of Jesus preserved in Aramaic, the language which He spoke. Hence, almost all that he said was translated into Greek before it was written down. The accusation written over the cross was written in the three languages used in Palestine: Latin, Hebrew (probably Aramaic), and Greek. When the Christians, fleeing from the persecution in which Stephen died, arrived in Antioch, they needed to use Syriac to evangelize the surrounding areas. By the middle of the second century, extensive efforts had been made to translate all the Scriptures into the Old Latin and Syriac. From the third century on followed translations into the various dialects of the Egyptian languages, the languages of Armenia, Georgia, Ethiopia, Arabia, Nubia, and the areas of Europe.

In the West, Latin became the major language of the church. The Latin Vulgate, produced about 400 A.D. by Jerome, became the Bible of the Latin Church. Among the Eastern Orthodox, Greek remained the official language of the Scriptures. Thus during the long period from 400 to 1500, most New Testament Greek manuscripts used the official text of the Orthodox Church. Hence, today most Greek New Testament manuscripts are of the type designated as Byzantine, Ecclesiastical, Koine, Standard, or Eastern. The earlier and (for most scholars) the most reliable ones are of the Alexandrian (also called Neutral, Egyptian, and African) type. When the printers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries looked for manuscripts from which to edit the earliest printed Greek New Testaments, all that they could find were those of the Byzantine type. Since then, the process of discovery and editing of manuscripts has brought to light over 5,300 handwritten copies of all or part of the New Testament. The process of editing and utilizing all of this material in producing the earliest possible text for readers today is the task of textual criticism. It is a painstaking job done mostly by scholars in the universities, colleges, seminaries, and Bible societies. As always, a major impetus for this work is missionary. Without textual criticism no modern Bibles in any language would be possible.

The Printed Bible

The significance of the printing of the Gutenberg Bible for Bible distribution is impossible to overestimate. From that time on, producing large numbers of copies of written documents that were identical in every detail was possible. From that time on, a steady stream of Bibles has poured from presses around the world. Simply to list and give a very brief description of all of the English editions of the Bible since that time requires a book of over 500 pages.

Over twenty major editions of the English New Testament appeared before the Hampton Court Conference in which King James approved the project that produced the KJV. Most of these and also the KJV were little more than revisions of the work of William Tyndale. Estimates of the per cent of Tyndale’s New Testament in the KJV New Testament run as high as nine-tenths of the actual wording. Even so, the KJV was a magnificent achievement and did much not only for Bible reading in the English world but for the stability and beauty of the English language. Much of the wording of the KJV has been preserved also in the revisions of it in the Revised Version (1881), American Standard Version (1901 and later), the Revised Standard Version (1947 and later), and the New Revised Standard Version.

There are three reasons why no translation in any language will ever be completely satisfactory for the people of succeeding generations. 
1) All languages are in a constant state of change. The study of editions of English dictionaries only twenty years old will demonstrate such change. The word "prevent" in 1 Thes. 4:15 of the KJV did not mean to "hinder" in 1611 as it does today. It meant simply "to precede." 
2) The text of the Greek New Testament during the time of the KJV rested on less than a dozen manuscripts, the oldest of which was twelfth century. There are known today more than 5,300, the earliest of which dates from the second century—a thousand years older. 3) In a world where communication between all cultures has become not only possible but an absolute necessity, the art of translation has been greatly improved. The discovery of tens of thousands of documents from the Hellenistic Greek period has provided enormous resources for the translators. These furnish vastly improved understanding of the meanings of not only words but all sorts of expressions.

The need to speak the message of the Bible in clear and understandable modern language has never been greater. The missionary demand of Jesus requires that the process of translation go forward in all languages in which those for whom Christ died daily seek to communicate. Modern versions such as the New English Bible, the Good News Bible, and the New International Version are essential to the present missionary task. The work of trained translators, such as those who work with missionaries, is also essential. The number of languages that have received Scripture is now over 1900, but the goal must be to include eventually every dialect of the human race.

Contents:

Early Translations

Reformation Translations

English Translations

English Bible Translations in the Twentieth Century

BIBLE, TRANSLATIONS   
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and 
the New Testament in Greek, the languages both of the writers and of those who were expected to read the books in the first instance. The complete Bible has been translated into 293 languages and dialects, the New Testament into 618 additional ones, and individual books into 918 more languages. The process of translation is ongoing in the effort to make God’s Word available to all in languages which everyone can understand.

Early Translations

The Samaritan Pentateuch used by the Samaritan community is a form of Hebrew written in a different script (Samaritan characters) from that which the Jewish community later came to use. The Aramaic translations called Targums have their beginning in the pre-Christian period and are represented in the Qumran finds; but the major Targums came later.

The Old Testament was translated into Greek about 250 B.C. for the royal library of Alexandria. Named from the seventy translators who are said to have made it, the Septuagint, though made by Jews, has come down to us through Christian channels. Later Greek translations were made in the early period by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion.

The evangelistic thrust of the early church gave impetus for many translations to impart the gospel to peoples in diverse language areas of the Roman empire.    Before the 400 A.D., the Bible had been made available in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Georgian. The succeeding centuries brought still other translations.

In the West, the church primarily used Latin after the end of the second century, and unofficial translations were made. In the fourth century Pope Damascus invited Jerome to revise current Latin translations based on Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Jerome completed the new translation after eighteen years of work at Bethlehem. Jerome’s translation came to be the accepted Bible, and by 1200 A.D. was called the Vulgate, the official version for the Roman Catholic Church.

Reformation Translations

The invention of printing in 1443 and the onset of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 stimulated great interest in Bible translation. Most of the modern languages of Europe had printed translations made at that time: German, 1466; Italian, 1471; Spanish, 1478; and French, 1487. Each of these areas has a long history of manuscript translation prior to printing.

English Translations

Efforts to render Scripture into English began with Caedmon’s paraphrases into Anglo-Saxon (A.D. 670). Bede (A.D. 735) is said to have translated the Gospel of John, completing it on the last day of his life. It was, however, John Wyclif and his associates (A.D. 1382) who are given credit for having first given the English the complete Bible in their own language.

Erasmus printed the Greek New Testament for the first time in 1516. Luther made his German translation in 1522-1524; and William Tyndale in 1525 brought out his English New Testament—the first printed one to circulate in England. Making use of Tyndale’s material where available, Miles Coverdale brought out his complete Bible in 1535.

From this point the history of the English Reformation and the history of the English Bible go hand in glove with each other. Coverdale’s Bible was followed by Matthew’s Bible in 1537. Then in 1539, Coverdale with the king’s approval brought out the Great Bible, named for its large size.

With the coming of Mary Tudor to the throne in 1553, the printing of Bibles was temporarily interrupted; but the exiles in Geneva, led by William Whittingham, produced the Geneva Bible in 1560. This proved to be particularly popular, especially with the later Puritans. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, then had the Bishops’ Bible prepared, primarily by bishops of the Church of England, which went through twenty editions. Roman Catholics brought out their Rheims New Testament in 1582 and then the Old Testament in 1610. The period of Elizabeth was the time of England’s greatest literary figures.

With Elizabeth’s death and the coming of King James I to the throne at the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604, the king accepted the proposal that a new translation be made. The outcome was the King James Version of 1611. It is number nine in the sequence of printed English Bibles and is a revision of the Bishops’ Bible. The KJV was heavily criticized in its early days; but in time, with official pressure, it won the field and became "the Bible" for English-reading people—a position it has held for almost four hundred years. The KJV has undergone numerous modifications so that the currently circulating book differs from that of 1611 in many ways, though the basic text is essentially the same.

By 1850, large numbers of people felt the time had come for a revision. A motion made by Bishop Wilberforce in the Convocation of Canterbury carried, setting in operation the making of the Revised Version whose New Testament appeared in 1881 and its complete Bible in 1885. The best British scholars of the day participated in the revision, and American scholars were also invited for a limited role. Though launched with great publicity, the revision eventually provoked harsh criticism. In time it became obvious that people still preferred the KJV. The revised edition was more accurate; however, the style was awkward.

The Americans waited out the fifteen years which they had promised before they would bring out a rival revision. The American Standard Revised Version was issued in 1901 with the American preferences in the text and the British in an appendix. It was more accurate than the KJV; but the revisers made the mistake of using an English style not native to English at any time. Wishing a literal translation, they produced one which is really English in Greek and Hebrew grammar and word order.

English Bible Translations in the Twentieth Century

At the turn of the century Adolf Deissmann, using study of the papyri from Egypt, persuaded scholars that the New Testament was in the common language (the Koine) of the first century, giving impetus to an effort to present the Bible in the language of the twentieth century. Accompanying this development was the rise of archaeological discovery which gave new manuscripts of both the Old and New Testaments. The Cairo Genizah collection of Hebrew manuscripts was found at the end of the last century, and the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Perhaps twenty-five Greek manuscripts of the New Testament could have been used in 1611. Now 5357 are known. The papyri which now total ninety-three items and are older than the great codices were found. Wider knowledge of the nature of the biblical and related languages has been gained, making for more accurate definitions. New scholarly grammars, dictionaries, and anthologies of texts grew out of these developments. Besides these matters is the simple fact that the English language continually changes so that what is understandable at one period becomes less so at a later one.

The first half of the twentieth century saw a spate of translations which abandoned the effort to revise the KJV and attempted to reflect new trends, each from its own viewpoint. They had a limited vogue in some circles while being criticized in others. Some were works of groups; others were prepared by one person; none seriously threatened the dominance of the KJV.

The Revised Standard Version, with its New Testament ready in 1946 and the complete Bible in 1952 bore the brunt of criticism of modern translations because it was the first serious challenge after 1901 to the long dominance of the KJV. It retained the Old English forms in liturgical and poetic passages, as well as using Old English pronouns when deity is addressed. Eventually an edition was issued with modifications to make it acceptable for use by Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics which is called the "Common Bible." After forty years the RSV is rapidly becoming archaic. The New Revised Standard Version appeared in 1990.

The British have prepared the New English Bible (1970) which represents certain trends in British biblical scholarship. The American reader will see differences between British English and American English.

Roman Catholics issued the Jerusalem Bible, which with its notes is used both in and out of Catholic circles. Of more widespread influence is the New American Bible (1970) which was used in preparing the English version of the liturgy of the Roman church. While making some concessions, its notes support Catholic doctrine.

The Jewish community has produced the New Jewish Publication Society translation (1962-1982).

The paraphrase found a champion in Kenneth Taylor with his Living Bible Paraphrased (1971), which has more recently been issued under the name The Book. Taylor attempts to restate the biblical message in different words from those used by the writers, hoping to make it more understandable. Taylor, not a Hebrew or Greek scholar, paraphrased the American Standard Version. The accuracy of his work has been heavily criticized by Greek and Hebrew scholars. A revision was being prepared as this article was written.

Those who prefer literal translation found their representatives in the New American Standard Bible (NAS) prepared by the Lockman Foundation (1963). An attempt to give the ASV new life, this effort removes many archaisms from the ASV; it reflects different judgments on textual questions from the ASV, and its generous use of items which have been supplied by the translators in italics invites reinterpretation of passages.

An effort to preserve as much of the old as possible is the New King James Bible (1982). This is a "halfway house" for those who know that something needs to replace the KJV but who are not willing to have a translation which represents the current state of knowledge and which uses current language.

An effort to meet the needs of those who have English as a second language or those who have a limited knowledge of English is Today’s English Version (TEV), also known as the Good News Bible (1976). Recasting of language, consolidation of statements, and paraphrasing have all been employed in the effort to make the message simple enough to be grasped by the reader.

The New International Version was issued in 1978 by the International Bible Society from a cooperative project in which more than 110 scholars representing thirty-four religious groups participated. Abandoning any effort to revise the KJV line of Bibles, the NIV is a new translation aiming at accuracy, clarity, and dignity. It attempts to steer a middle course between literalness and paraphrase while attaining a contemporary style for the English reader.

The translation effort in all its forms is a sincere effort on the part of many people of many different religious persuasions to make the Bible accessible and understandable to people to whom it might otherwise be a closed book. A diligent study of any of the efforts will increase one’s understanding of the Bible. The ultimate translation is one that influences the behaviors in readers’ lives and brings them hope. The task of translation is not finished. New discoveries and new students of God’s Word will bring still more translations of the Bible to serve the church and its mission in generations to come.

Contents:

Historical Observations

Basic Approaches

Practical Suggestions

BIBLE, METHODS OF STUDY   Conscious, organized approaches that help one arrive at the meaning of God’s Word without pre-determined conclusions.

Certainly we cannot and must not try to limit or master God’s sovereign self-revelation by human methods. The living activity of the Holy Spirit is above and beyond all systems of communication. Methodology is appropriate and necessary, however, insofar as the Bible was written and is read by human beings. Methods serve to clarify and prepare the understanding of the Bible; their character is auxiliary. They help to remove obstacles hindering or falsifying the process of listening to the message. Adequate methodology reflects the manifold dimensions of life. The Biblical message originated in life and aims at being experienced anew in life. This process comprises various cultures, ages, circumstances, societies, people, languages, traditions, emotions. Methods follow certain presuppositions, concerning what people can know and communicate. Methodology, therefore, touches our understanding of reality, experience, and reason. Methods must be open to general testing, not self-contradictory, and evident. Not everyone has the same experiences which others have; and we must be aware of so far unknown aspects of reality. This requires from methodology that it does not narrow down experiences to be communicated, but rather leaves room for all the dimensions of life.

Historical Observations

As we have the Biblical message in the form of texts written in ancient languages by people 2000 to 3000 years ago, the traditional methods concentrated on questions of literature, language, and history. The "historical and literal sense" became predominant, not only since the time of the Protestant Reformation, but even before, despite the many attempts in the Middle Ages to detect "deeper" meanings in the text (about doctrine, ethics, and eschatology). The Reformation criticized the abuse of the so-called "fourfold sense of Scripture," emphasizing that we must not find anything in the text which was not intended by the authors. Scripture is clear, not obscure. Protestantism, in connection with modern thinking, has sometimes tended, however, to become preoccupied with literary, linguistic, and historical observations only. Modern research added a number of aspects along these lines; comparative religion, archeology, source and form criticism, sociology and psychology of religion, philosophies of historism and existentialism, etc. Again and again, therefore, the importance of actually understanding the word and, even more, of a theological interpretation had to be emphasized, in order not to get lost in many outward details. In recent times the role of the interpreter, bringing personal traditions and expectations to the text, and the process of communication (the relation between sender and receiver, codification, etc.) widened the horizon of a comprehensive approach to the Bible.

Basic Approaches

The most common method takes a historical approach. It starts with the text and possible variant readings (textual criticism) and the context, analyses the vocabulary and grammar (philology), investigates possible written and oral sources (literary and tradition-criticism), considers the shape and style of the text (form-criticism) and the life setting of the tradition (so-called "Sitz im Leben"). It goes back to the historical origin of what is reported and sketches the situation in which the text was written (historical criticism). The author’s contribution and intention (redactional criticism) usually conclude the course of the method.

Compared to the traditional approach with its historical view-point, the theory of communication emphasizes the functional and present (synchronic) aspects. What was a text written for, what did it effect, what is its "pragmatic intention"? The question of history ranges second. The approach is closely related to rhetoric (the art of speech), to semantics (the meaning of expressions) to semiotics (the meaning of signs), i.e. to all sorts of communicational aspects. In practice the method deals with three dimensions of a text. The surface dimension is made up of the words as verbal, literary signs, composed according to the rules of a language (grammar, syntax). Their exact relation among one another has to be clarified. The second dimension of the text deals with the meaning of the words and sentences. What was the author saying by using and combining certain expressions? In which tradition was the writer at home? The third and basic dimension has to do with the function of a text, in particular with the relation between author and recipient. Texts usually want to achieve something—to change or confirm an opinion, comfort or persuade a person. Values, emotions, actions, attitudes are involved both on the side of the author and of the addressee. The question needs consideration whether author and recipient communicate on different levels, one communicating on the level of information about facts, the other, however, on that of personal relationships.

The methods need not be mutually exclusive but should assist each other. In addition, every method must be aware of the wide range of reality. Every event and document can and must be considered from the various perspectives of human knowledge, such as social and political sciences, humanities, economy, psychology of religion, value systems, etc.

Practical Suggestions

No set of methods can claim to be the most perfect one. We should avoid any schematism, too. There are, however, certain steps in the interpretation of Biblical texts, following a rather natural sequence, gained from experience.

(1) After the first reading of the text the interpreter’s own relation to it needs some clarification. Is the text new or familiar—perhaps too familiar? Does it remind you of previous events (sermons, situations)? What are your feelings about the text: do you like it, or is it alien or rather abstract? The interpreter thus reflects on a personal attitude to the text. Furthermore, you try to formulate a preliminary description of what the text speaks about.

(2) The interpreter continues considering the text as a whole to define its character more clearly. Is the passage a more or less independent unit? Where does it begin and end? What are its relations to the context? After that, the structure of the text may be analysed. Are there indications of subsections with logical or other links? Does it lead to a climax? What is of central importance? In the same way the key persons and/or terms should be located. Does the text contain essential points of activity, qualification, description, judgment, etc.? In the course of these observations the nature of the text receives further clarification. Is it a narrative, a hymn, a psalm, an admonition, an argumentation, etc.? What can be normally expected in such portions? What is surprising?

(3) It is advisable to ask at this point the so-called journalist’s questions: Who wrote, when, where, to whom, why, what for? These questions cannot be answered with the same accuracy for all parts of the Bible, since we lack information sometimes. The available information is collected in handbooks, introductions, and commentaries to the Bible. It helps to reconstruct the original situation of the text, to understand the needs and expectations of the people involved, to see the manifold aspects of reality touched, and to avoid wrong applications if important aspects have changed today. The interpreter should ask the question, what is really helpful to understand the message, in order not to do too little or too much.

(4) The background of the text is further analysed along the lines of "this reminds of . . ." or "this seems to be taken from . . .". Every author uses traditions, often in smaller, sometimes even in larger units. Are there any quotations or allusions? Bible concordances and dictionaries are the best help at this point, not to forget a sound Bible knowledge. It is important to locate the specific message of a text in the longer course of God’s history with His people.

(5) A detailed analysis of the passage can now be made. It is helpful to compare different translations; occasionally they may even reflect variant readings of the original. Helpful, too, is the method of translators to cut a text into its smallest components of meaning, i.e. into short and simple sentences. (Even a single adjective e.g. might be transformed into a small sentence). The translation and analysis thus becomes a paraphrase, i.e. a reformulation in our own words, usually somewhat longer than the original.

(6) What is the contribution of the text, first in the original situation, then also in the history of the early church, the entire history of salvation? Contribution comprises both effect and message, activity and doctrine. What could have happened if these words had not been given to Jeremiah’s or James’ generation? What would be lacking if that message had not been preserved by Luke? Which details would cause us to suffer clarity or completeness in our knowledge about Jesus Christ, the church, or ethics? In so asking the interpreter will get a better glance of the specific value of the text.

(7) As an interpreter, you must not think you are the first and only recipient of the text. Others in the history of the church have read it before; their experiences and reactions are worth a comparison (so-called "history of reception," found in good commentaries). This may also help avoiding a one-sided interpretation by pointing to a more balanced picture of the Biblical revelation. Equally, the Biblical message was and is not given just to individuals but rather to the people of God. The essential life-setting, therefore, is the church and its service. The final test to an adequate interpretation of the Bible is whether it leads to gratitude and praise, to service and mission.

Contents:

Types

Origin

Content

Central Theme

BIBLE, THEOLOGY OF   Biblical theology is one of four primary types of theology and needs to be carefully distinguished from the other three.

Types.

(1) In common usage, the single word "theology" usually denotes the study of doctrine in a systematic or orderly, organized form. It draws insight both from the Bible and from history and numerous other fields of study to give the widest possible application of the biblical principles. Systematic theology may be done in a denominational context. For instance, Baptist theology or Methodist theology is the Christian doctrines presented as Baptists or Methodists understand them. Such a doctrinal statement of belief may be strongly influenced by biblical teaching, but insight is also drawn from the history of Baptists (or Methodists, etc.). No denomination’s theology is a presentation of "pure" biblical thought; its theology draws insight from its own history, and seeks to apply biblical principles to its current life setting. Systematic theology seeks to give a comprehensive statement of belief, describing all of the major points of belief in their contemporary significance.

(2) Historical theology is a study of the doctrinal teachings in various ages, usually tracing the development from ancient times to the present, bringing out the distinctive and changing emphases from age to age. This discipline is closely related to church history, but it is historical study narrowly focused on theology or doctrine.

(3) Philosophical theology is a statement of Christian belief which seeks to take the basic elements of the teachings of the Bible and translate them into philosophical concepts. It may also seek to use the creative powers of human reason to create a system of belief. Such a statement may be fairly closely related to biblical thought. On the other hand, such a system of belief may be entirely speculative, going far afield from biblical teachings.

(4) Biblical theology is a narrowly focused field of study, as compared to these other types of theology. Usually, biblical theology does not even seek to give the doctrinal or theological teachings of the Bible as a whole. It seeks to isolate and express the theological teachings of a specific portion of Scripture, such as the theology of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament), or the theology of the prophets, or the theology of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), or the theology of John, or the theology of the Pauline writings, etc. Such study seeks to show the development of thought from early times to the close of the New Testament. As some people do biblical theology, such a study only emphasizes the diversity found in the Bible. Others find an overall unity of theological thought, but trace considerable diversity within that unity. Some will interpret the theology of the Bible in such a way that there is only unity, allowing for no development of thought, or diversity, from Genesis to Revelation. Some who seek to develop biblical theology will finally synthesize the teachings of the Bible as a whole as the end product of their study of the theology of the Bible. They choose not to leave biblical theology as a series of statements of differing beliefs found in various periods of the Bible. Such a statement should not be taken to mean that the Bible teaches exactly that point of view at every point in the Scriptures. Rather, this is a statement of the biblical teaching in its completed form, allowing for development of the various themes from the beginning to the end of the Bible.

Origin.

Biblical theology, or study of the doctrinal theology of the Bible, is a relatively recent development. One might assume that biblical theology has been a basic element in Christian studies from the beginning of Christian history. Such is not the case. In ancient times, most theological thought was heavily influenced by philosophical studies. An enormous amount of attention was given to historical theology, especially the history of the teaching of the church fathers, the teaching of the church leaders in the first five centuries after Christ. Much attention has also been given to the development of doctrinal studies with regard to individual denominations or special points of view, drawing upon much more than the Bible itself for these formulations.

Biblical theology as we know it today actually began after the Reformation (1517). Prior to the Reformation, most biblical study was done primarily to bolster the teachings of the church which were developed out of several sources. Luther and Calvin placed renewed emphasis upon the Bible in the life of the church. However, while the Reformers and their followers made new and fresh use of the insights of the Bible, they did not in any sense seek to develop a theology of the Bible. They too were using the Bible selectively to undergird the doctrinal points of view that they were trying to emphasize. In the years of the Post-Reformation period (1600-1800), biblical study was tightly held in a straightjacket of doctrinal conformity to rigid statements of belief. These rigid standards of belief were originally adopted in an attempt to guarantee the preservation of the basic doctrinal teachings of the Reformers. This extreme emphasis on conformity of belief actually had a deadening effect on the life of the churches and resulted in a breakdown of the doctrinal positions they were designed to preserve.

The Enlightenment, which began after 1700, was a period in which many fields of modern learning either took shape or were greatly expanded. This period gave birth to the field of biblical theology as such. Various people began to emphasize studying the Bible apart from preconceived doctrinal standards. They wanted to study the Bible alone, with complete objectivity, letting it speak for itself. Most of these persons wanted to approach the Bible just as any other ancient document is approached, without any preconceived ideas, subjecting it to rigorous historical, literary analysis.

Many credit J. P. Gabler, German biblical scholar, with beginning the field of biblical theology. In his inaugural address in a professorship in 1787, Gabler called for a sharp distinction between dogmatic (systematic or doctrinal) theology and biblical theology. For Gabler, biblical theology must be strictly a historical study of what was believed in the various periods of biblical history, independent of any modern denominational, doctrinal, philosophical, or cultural considerations.

In general, the principles that Gabler called for were right, and he influenced the development of biblical theology for many years to come. However, it should be noted, that there is no such thing as "a study of the Bible alone with complete objectivity." Every interpreter brings certain presuppositions to the task. These have considerable influence upon the process of interpreting the Scriptures. As a result, the field of biblical theology is a checkered field with every imaginable variation in what is held to be the theology taught by the Bible.

Biblical theology is utterly dependent upon the hermeneutics of the theologian.

The methods employed in interpreting Scriptures are crucially important to doing biblical theology. One’s biblical theology can be no better than his methods used to interpret Scriptures.

Content.

What, then, is the theology of the Bible as a traditional conservative theologian views it? Biblical theology today needs to give due consideration to the real history recorded in the Bible and seek to interpret the Scriptures in the light of historical considerations, with due regard for their literary form and construction. Such theology recognizes an overall unity of the Bible. The Bible is much more than a book of miscellaneous, disconnected religious ideas that emerged over a period of nearly two thousand years. These theologians recognize a development of teaching, a progressive revelation, as God has worked with His people leading them from a point of beginning to the climax of New Testament Christianity. Many New Testament teachings are not found, or even hinted at, in the Old Testament. These New Testament advances are the completion or fulfillment of what was started in the Old Testament, not a contradiction. Later revelation does not contradict earlier revelation; the later expands, fulfills, or interprets the earlier. With the development, historical diversity, and progression, God has led to a unity of teaching. A distinct difference separates the Old Testament and the New Testament, but a fundamental unity joins the two Testaments. The Old Testament is the preparation for the New. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. Theological themes begun in the Old Testament are often carried to completion in the New Testament. For instance, the practice of sacrifice which began as early as Genesis 4:4 (apparently without any divine command) and became an officially commanded practice of the Old Testament under the law given through Moses, was carried through to the climactic once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.

Central Theme.

One central theme runs through the Bible from first to last. God is the central character in the Bible. His work to bring redemption to humans is the central theme. The Bible is a religious book, focused narrowly upon redemption and its implications for our lives.

The Bible begins with the religious teaching that God created humans and the world in which they live. Human responsibility to God is grounded in the religious truth that humans come from God’s creative hand. The first man and woman sinned in deliberate rebellion against God, breaking their fellowship with God. Their sin spread from them to all of their descendants, making sinful alienation from God the number one problem of all of us as human beings. The spread of this sin is not an automatic process but one which involves the personal, willful act of each of us so that we are all accountable for our sins. The Bible then proceeds to develop the theme of God’s redemptive grace, tracing various stages of God’s revelation of Himself: the call of Abraham; the establishment of the covenant with the Israelite community as His chosen people; the institution of the sacrificial system, teaching the people the proper way to approach God for forgiveness; the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the provision of forgiveness and regeneration for those dead in sin; the church as the new covenant community, the redeemed people of God on mission for Him in the world; finally, the life to come, in heaven for the redeemed, and in hell for the unregenerate.

The theme of the two covenants is crucially important to the unity of the Bible. God’s plan of redemption, bringing people into a right relationship to Himself, begins with the call of Abraham and the establishment of a covenant with him. Subsequently, this covenant was reaffirmed with his son Isaac; with Isaac’s son Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel; and finally the covenant was reaffirmed with the whole nation of Israel. It was an unconditional covenant on God’s part but a conditional covenant from the human side: God’s people must live up to the covenant responsibilities. The major portion of the Old Testament is the story of repeated failure to live up to the covenant responsibilities. The prophet Jeremiah looked forward to a new day when God would write His covenant on the hearts of the people so that it could not be broken (Jeremiah 31:31-34), a prophecy of the new birth referred to by Jesus in John 3:1-8. Jesus termed His death on the cross as the sacrifice instituting the new covenant referred to by Jeremiah (Luke 22:20). This shows the remarkable unity of the Old and New Testaments as anticipation and fulfillment.

God. The doctrine of God begins in the Old Testament with the work of God in creation. The Old Testament has four major emphases concerning God. 1. First, and most basic, is the unity of God: one and only one God exists and rules this world. The theme was hard to establish in the minds of the people who repeatedly fell into worship of idols and pagan deities. 2. The holiness of God teaches the wholly otherness of God. God’s holiness is the qualitative difference between God and all else. It is supremely important for humans to learn that God is holy and must be treated with reverence. 3. God’s sovereignty is often expressed as His lordship. Since God is sovereign, He must be obeyed at all costs; all persons must give account to Him. 4. God’s faithfulness. God is not fickle and changeable like the gods of the pagans. He is faithful and unchanging. The New Testament completes the doctrine of God by sharpening the focus on God as Father and the primacy of God’s love.

A person is a creature of God but a very special creature. A person is made in the image of God. This means that God has created a spiritual being, made primarily to live in fellowship with God and act responsibly in maintaining God’s creation. In an act of selfish rebellion the first people sinned against God. Sin corrupted human nature, leaving all people highly susceptible to sin. Except for Jesus Christ, each person who has lived since Adam and Eve has followed in their footsteps, sinning against God.

A person’s need for redemption has at least five aspects: 1. guilt must be forgiven and removed; 2. people must learn responsible obedience; 3. they must learn reverence and respect for God; 4. they must learn to live by faith; 5. they must learn to live for God’s purposes, not selfish whims. The whole Bible is the unfolding story of how God has met each of these needs through the salvation that unfolded finally in its completed form through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who took on human life, living as one Person who was both God and human in a single human life on this earth. His coming was prophesied in the Old Testament as the coming of a Messiah, a Suffering Servant who would redeem His people. In the New Testament, His life unfolded as a revelation from God of what God Himself is like. He spoke the ultimate message from God, in clearer, more forceful ways than God had ever spoken by prophet or priest in other times. He died on the cross and was raised the third day as the ultimate fulfillment of the ancient sacrificial system. New Testament writers saw His death variously, not only as the ultimate sacrifice, but also the ultimate expression of God’s forgiving love. They saw Jesus’ death and resurrection as the way in which God conquered sin and death, and opened regeneration to mankind as God shares the power of Jesus’ resurrection with those who come to Him by faith.

Following Jesus’ personal ministry on the earth, He ascended to the Father in heaven to resume His rightful place at the right hand of God. In His place, the Holy Spirit of God came as the very presence of Jesus with the disciples of Jesus, dwelling in each believer. The Holy Spirit is the agent of regeneration and supplies both nurture and guidance to the Christian, equipping each believer for an effective life of service to God in the church and in the world.

Salvation. Salvation comes to the individual person upon a response of faith in receiving the free gift of God’s grace. Salvation includes both the forgiveness of sin and the regeneration of the sinful human nature. Salvation issues in a new style of living under the leadership of God, with the Christian living for the purposes of God in this world. Salvation, properly understood, should include a life of spiritual growth, ever moving towards the goal of Christlike living.

The church is seen as the new covenant community, the fulfillment of the old covenant community in the Old Testament. It is not a radical break with the old covenant community but is the logical outgrowth of the people of God in the Old Testament era. It is described as the body of Christ, with Christ as the head of the body, His life flowing out into all parts of the body, as He gives direction to it and works through it in the world just as once He worked through His own physical body in the world.

The Bible points to a time of ultimate fulfillment when God shall complete what He has been doing in this world from the beginning of creation. Jesus will return to this earth, the kingdom of God will be consummated, the dead will be resurrected, and all persons will have continued existence, with the unregenerate spending eternity in hell and believers in Christ spending eternity with God in heaven.

This is the broad outline of the theology of the Bible, expressed in a very condensed, summary form. Many other doctrinal themes could be developed as the theology of the Bible. Much greater detail could be given concerning the doctrines only briefly referred to here. Notice that this sketch of biblical theology centers on the theme of God’s redemption and interprets everything in the light of that theme.