II.
How the Bible was written by God and men
A. Revelation
The idea of "revelation" is that God wants to reveal things to men that they can't discover on their own. God has done this in that he has caused a book to be written which explains who he is, how to get in touch with him, and how he wants men to live. Many people think that the way God does this is by sending down a copy of a perfect book kept in heaven and having an angel dictate this book to a prophet. However, the Bible does not claim this for itself. Instead, it claims to be written by both God and men, and written in a way that perfectly says whatever God wanted it to say.
The Bible consists of two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. These are two separate sections within the Bible. The Old Testament was written before the time of Jesus and the New Testament was written soon after Jesus had returned to heaven.
The Old Testament is God's word to the Jewish people, written during about 1,000 years. It was written in Hebrew with some small portions in Aramaic. It contains 39 books, some of which were written by the same author (e. g. the five books of the Torah which were all written by Moses). Even though there were many human authors, the Jews accept all these books as being from God.
The New Testament is not a changed version of the Old Testament, but new revelation given to Jesus' disciples after Jesus had ascended to heaven. It shows how the Old Testament pointed forward to and was fulfilled by Jesus, and it explains how Jesus' life, work, and teachings relate to our daily lives. It contains 27 books. Some of these were also written by the same author (e.g. the apostle John wrote a Gospel, three letters and the book of Revelation).
The following scriptures provide an explanation of the revelation process:
Within the Bible there are many different types of literature, e.g. history, poetry, proverbs, biography, preaching, direct teaching, letters and prophecy. All the people God used to reveal his word were devout and holy, but they were different sorts of people: prophets, kings, shepherds, fishermen, scholars, a soldier, a civil servant, a doctor, missionaries. All of these were chosen by God to act as prophets by receiving, speaking, and writing his words to people.
God used many methods to reveal his word to these individuals. To some he spoke directly, or in dreams or visions. To others he sent angels. In most cases he guided people as they wrote using all their normal human faculties of intelligence and personal writing style to write a work of history or a letter, for example. God guided them all, making sure that what they wrote was what he wanted said, without error, so that their words were truly God's word. All of the Bible's writers were supervised in this perfect way by God's Holy Spirit, who inspired their thoughts and words, so that the whole Bible is equally God's inspired revelation. As the Bible itself says:
When Jesus was in the world, he accepted the Old Testament as being holy scripture. Even in the small portion of Jesus' words and teachings recorded in the Gospels, he referred to almost every book of the Old Testament. Jesus frequently referred to the Old Testament in his teaching and always spoke of it and treated it as the uncorrupted word of God. He never spoke of the Old Testament as having been dictated by angels as a copy of a heavenly book. He recognized the human authors but spoke of their prophetic writings as the true word of God.
Christians have accepted the Old Testament as Scripture without any changes on the authority of Jesus and this has always been the case since the beginning of the Church. The Jews do not accept the New Testament as Scripture because they do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
B. Jesus did not receive a book from heaven
There is no Scriptural or historical evidence that Jesus received a book from heaven which He then delivered to his disciples. This can be seen from the following facts:
- Jesus: Matthew 11:5 a quote from the Old Testament, Isaiah 61:1; Mark 1:15
- John the Baptist: Luke 3:18
- Matthew: Matthew 9:35
- Peter: Acts 8:25; 15:7; 1 Peter 1:12
- John: Acts 8:25; Revelation 14:6
- Paul: Acts 14:15; 20:24; 1 Corinthians 9:16
- All the other Apostles: Acts 14:7
Jesus did not leave a book to his disciples but instead promised to send the Holy Spirit who would guide them in what they wrote. There is no evidence that Jesus gave a book to his disciples. From the Apostles through the Church Fathers down to our day, the books of the New Testament, including the four Gospels have been viewed as the fulfillment of the following promise by Jesus:
"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14:26 (NIV))
The Bible claims to be the Word of God and fully recognizes the role human authors have played in its revelation. These authors were prophets inspired by God's own Spirit and protected from writing errors. Jesus upheld this view and never accused the Old Testament of corruption because of its human authors. He held it to be the Word of God given through men. Jesus also promised this same kind of revelation to his disciples. There is no evidence that Jesus received a heavenly book which he then gave to his disciples. Instead, he confirmed the revelation that went before him and promised a similar one to come. These are the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible.
C. How the Bible was collected by God and men
There are two stages in the collection of the individual books that make up the Bible. The first is the collection of the 39 books that make up the Old Testament. The second is the process of the collection of the 27 books making up the New Testament.The Old Testament books were collected by the Jews over a 1,000 year span of time ending 400 years before the birth of Jesus. As God gave revelation through His prophets their writings were recognized as sacred, holy Scripture. Copies was kept by the priests, first in the Tabernacle (Deut. 31:24-26) and then in the Temple (2 Kings 22:8). This continued until the time of Jesus. They were also copied and kept by the different communities of Jews as they were scattered through the ancient world. Before the time of Jesus, Jews in Babylonia, Palestine, Egypt, and all over the Roman world had copies of the entire Old Testament. They had protected their Scriptures from being corrupted for hundreds of years. Jesus confirmed this in that He quoted or alluded to almost all of the 39 books of the Old Testament, and He never made a statement that the Old Testament had been corrupted. Instead He only affirmed its complete trustworthiness and divine authority. Note Jesus' words:
"I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." (Matthew 5:18, NIV)
The collection of the New Testament books also protected revelation given to the Church from corruption. Jesus promised that He would, through the Holy Spirit, direct the Apostles into all the truth (John 14:26; 16:13). Every New Testament book was written by an Apostle or a companion of the Apostles receiving the gift of prophecy. These writers received revelation from God which they carefully recorded. God guided them in what they wrote and protected their writings from error. Though these books were not collected and kept at the Temple, they were treasured and protected by the Christians. They were copied carefully and shared among the churches. The best evidence that they were protected from corruption is provided by the modern science of textual criticism. Many early copies of the New Testament or parts of the New Testament still exist and when compared to each other show that they have not been changed. Later, as false prophets and teachers claimed to write or have other books that should be in Scripture, the Church was forced to make official statements as to which books were already recognized as Holy Scripture and which were false books.
Many today question whether the Apostle Paul's writings should be in the New Testament. In examining this it must be remembered that his writings have been regarded by Christians as inspired by the Holy Spirit and true Scripture since the days of the Apostles. Note the following things concerning Paul and his writings:
- Acts 9:131
- Acts 22:121
- Acts 26:23
Paul went from being a zealous persecutor of Christians to being perhaps the most zealous of preachers of Christ.
- Galatians 2:10
This applied especially to Peter and John, two of Jesus' closest disciples.
- 2 Peter 3:15,16
The doubts expressed by some scholars today are based on speculative interpretations of the existing firm historical evidence. They were written within the same 30 year time period as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Paul also knew at least three of the four writers of the Gospels personally and had their full confidence. Mark and Luke had both been Paul's traveling companions on missionary journeys. Paul met John and probably met Matthew (the fourth Gospel writer) in Jerusalem when his teachings were approved by all the Apostles. Paul's writings represent the knowledge of Jesus and His teachings shared by all of the Apostles.
Polycarp (AD 69 - AD 155), was a student of the Apostle John, who wrote the Gospel bearing his name, the three epistles bearing his name , and the book of Revelation, all in the Bible. In his letter to the Philippians, Polycarp quotes Paul's epistles, Matthew's and Luke's Gospels, Acts, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and John's epistles all as Holy Scripture, as well as numerous Old Testament books. He also mentions Paul by name as the Apostle who taught the Philippians "accurately and firmly the word of truth" referring to Paul's epistle to the Philippians in the Bible. He also numbers Paul with the other Apostles as being one of them. (1)
E. The early history of the Bible's collection
The early history of the Bible's collection as Scripture can be summarized as follows:
It must be remembered that all of this occurred with the Church being scattered around the Mediterranean and the Middle East without the convenience of modern communications. Also, in Christianity's first 300 years of existence it was an illegal religion with its books subject to destruction, Christians subject to imprisonment, and no central authority over the whole Church to oversee the collection and protection of the Bible.
F. The Apocrypha
The books of the Apocrypha are books of ancient Jewish literature written between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D. Some of them are historical and others are spiritual in their contents. Some are said to have been written by prophets whose writings are in the Jewish Bible or Old Testament, but this is not true. They have historical inaccuracies and theological contradictions that disqualify them from being Scripture. Also, none of these books was written by a genuine prophet and they were not included as Scripture by the Jews of Jesus' time. They were not inspired by God and Jesus never quoted from any of them, as He did the Scriptural books.
When the Jewish Bible was translated into Greek (the Septuagint version) the Apocrypha was included in the translation, but it was clearly understood which books were Scripture and which were not. Later, some Christians began to wander away from the true Bible's teaching they to set up ways of doing things which were not what God had said He wanted. At the same time the books of the Apocrypha came to be seen as being true Scripture, even though they were not. The Churches which have grown from this way of thinking are the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches, they are ruled by popes or patriarchs. As they went further away from true Biblical Christianity the Popes officially recognized the Apocrypha as Scripture. Roman Catholic Bibles contain 15 books of the Apocrypha (I and II Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, The Rest of Esther, The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, The three additions to Daniel, The Prayer of Manasses, and I and II Esdras.) of which all but the last three were officially recognized as Scripture at the Council of Trent in 1548. Greek Orthodox Bibles contain 10 books of Apocrypha (I Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1,2,and 3 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the Letter of Jeremiah.) and they were officially recognized at the Council of Jassy in 1642, but even Greek Orthodox scholars now see them as being "less inspired." (2)
When the Protestant churches separated from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Anglican Church chose to keep the Apocryphal books in the Bible, but returned to the old way of defining clearly that they were not fully Scripture (Article 6 of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church). Most Protestant churches have gone far beyond this in removing them from the Bible altogether, returning to the original Jewish way. The Apocrypha should not be thought of as part of the Bible, or as being given by God.
G. The Gospel of Barnabas
Many Muslims claim that the book, The Gospel of Barnabas, is the real gospel that Jesus gave to his disciples. An Italian version of this book came to light in the early 1700's. It is a book that gives many alternative accounts of events in Jesus' life than those in the four Gospels of the New Testament. Many of the events and discourses it records are not in agreement with the four Gospels. This book, though, has been proven to be a forgery, almost certainly written in 1585.(3) It has historical, geographical, and doctrinal errors that prove it could not have been written by Barnabas, the disciple of Jesus in the early church. It also contradicts the Qur'an in many places, for instance calling Muhammad the Messiah rather than Jesus, and saying that Mary did not suffer birth pangs in child-birth. (4)
The translation of The Gospel of Barnabas most used by Muslims is the one done by Canon Lonsdale and Laura Ragg in 1907. The translators state in their introduction to the translation that "the true date lies ... nearer the sixteenth century than the first." (5)
"We believe that when honest men throughout the East know the contents of the book, they will assign its true historical value - which is exactly nil." (5)
This book can in no way compete with the four Gospels of the Bible as being a more trustworthy source. It is more likely an interesting but insignificant glimpse of events in Renaissance Europe.
H. Conclusions
The Old Testament was recorded, collected, copied, and preserved carefully through the 1000 years of its revelation. The Jews treasured it and protected it with diligence and devotion. Jesus confirmed this in his use of the Old Testament and his own careful devotion and obedience to it. The New Testament was likewise recorded, collected, copied, and preserved carefully. The Christians treasured it and the Old Testament and considered them both necessary to their Scriptures. The Christians also thoroughly guarded the New Testament from the addition of unauthentic books. The Apostle Paul was a true apostle of Jesus and his writings deserve their place in the New Testament as revelation from Jesus through Paul. The Gospel of Barnabas, while presenting a drastically different view of the life of Jesus, cannot be regarded as an authentic book from one of Jesus' disciples. It is instead a fraud and a forgery.