The Aletheian Christadelphian Fellowship:
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THE BIBLE
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‘. . . Have they not heard?
Yes, verily, their sound went out into all the earth,
and their words unto the ends of the world.’
(
ROMANS 10:18)FEW PEOPLE
recognise the tremendous impact which the English Bible known as the Authorised Version has made since its appearance in 1611. Because of its intrinsic literary worth it endeared itself to many and even today there are numerous expressions in common use which are derived from this wonderful book. Phrases such as ‘feet of clay’, ‘gospel truth’, ‘corn in Egypt’ and ‘the writing on the wall’ are examples of this.Far more important, however, is its religious and devotional value, for a belief in the existence of God leads at once to a recognition of the necessity for a divine revelation. One of the great Christian Writers of the first century directed his readers to the fact that His eternal power and Godhead has been clearly perceived in creation, but the power of God for salvation is to be found in the gospel
(Romans 1:20 & 16). So in a later communication, written when he was nearly at the end of his life, the same writer declared that the scriptures (the Bible) are able to make one wise unto salvation (2 Timothy 3:15).Thus it is that true Christians accept the Bible as the inspired word of God, which reveals much about the past working of the Divine Hand and also delineates the purpose of God and how man can share in the blessings which the Almighty holds out by way of promise to those who make His precepts their rule of life. Christadelphians believe that the Bible has a message for today in providing this rule of life. The claims of the Bible to be a divine revelation are examined on another web page
(No. 03 Is the Bible a Divine Revelation?). The objective of the web page you are now reading is to show how the Bible has come to us in English, in view of the fact that it is derived from very ancient documents written in Hebrew and Greek many centuries ago; and the high degree of trust we can place in the reliability of the versions we have today.The Bible consists of sixty-six sections, which nowadays we might call booklets. They are grouped into two volumes called the Old and New Testaments. There were something like forty different writers who wrote during a period of about fifteen hundred years and lived in different countries often many miles distant from one another. The Old Testament was for the most part written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek.
The oldest books in the Bible include the first five which were written by Moses well over three thousand years ago, while the last book was the Revelation given to John in Patmos in AD. 96. The writers came from all walks of life. Luke was a physician and Amos a herdsman; the psalmist David was a king and Matthew was a tax collector. The prophet Ezekiel wrote his messages while in exile in Babylon by the river Chebar. Paul wrote some of his letters from Rome. Peter lived in the Holy Land and wrote his letters there. Jeremiah gave some of his prophecies in Egypt. Yet in spite of such diversity of authorship, spread over such a long period of time, the book which we call the Bible is a united whole presenting varied details of one divine message.
Throughout the book the writers continually make reference to the fact that what they wrote was God’s message. Moses says he wrote ‘by the commandment of the Lord’.
(Numbers 33:2). Nehemiah declares that the prophets testified by the Spirit of God (Nehemiah 9:30), and Paul says that what he preached was really the word of God and not the word of men (Thessalonians 2.13). Peter wrote that: ‘the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost {Holy Spirit}’ (2 Peter 1:21). This is summarised in a statement by Paul that: ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God’ 2 (Timothy 3.16), which means that it is inspired insofar as it represents what was originally written by the prophets, apostles and other writers.It has been said that the Old Testament is essentially Jewish and the New Testament essentially Christian. There is a sense in which this is true, but it must not be forgotten that the Christian religious community of the first century included very many Jews as well as people of other nations. Moreover, their beliefs had their basis in the Old Testament. This is evidenced by the enormous number of references and quotations which occur in the New Testament. In the Acts of the Apostles there are some sixty references to the Old Testament. Paul makes over one hundred and eighty references and James in his short letter no less than eight. The very first chapter of the New Testament provides a very obvious link between the two Testaments.
The Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) was already in existence as a collection of writings in the third century
B.C., and in fact was translated into Greek in Alexandria about the year 280 B.C. The historian Josephus gives an account of this in his ‘Antiquities of the Jews’. This Greek translation is known as the Septuagint and is valuable because it was made from Hebrew manuscripts older than any now extant. Apart from the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, all the Hebrew manuscripts extant belong to the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. or later. Nevertheless their accuracy is attested by the textual agreement of independent copies and by the Greek translations of greater antiquity. These date back to the third and fourth centuries A.D. and a few earlier than that. The Septuagint was the Greek Old Testament used by the early Christians.The New Testament, as already mentioned, was written in Greek, and its last book dates back to
A.D. 96. The Greek used was the language of the common people and not what we nowadays refer to as classical Greek. There are copies extant belonging to the second century A.D. In addition, translations were made into other languages including Egyptian, Ethiopian, Armenian, Latin and Syriac. The Latin and Syriac versions were made about A.D. 150 and the Egyptian about A.D. 200. The copies we have are the lineal descendants of the original translations made at these dates.Thus we have copies and translations of both Old and New Testaments which take us back to early Christian times. The position with regard to manuscripts today is that there are many Hebrew manuscripts of the complete Old Testament which date from the ninth or tenth century
A.D. together with some 1,700 fragmentary ones. There are 350 of the Greek Septuagint together with 4,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and 8,000 of the Latin Vulgate (see below). It is worth quoting here the words of the late Sir Frederick Kenyon of the British Museum on the subject of the availability of Bible manuscripts compared with those of the classics:‘For all the works of classical antiquity we have to depend on manuscripts written long after their original composition. The author who is in best case in this respect is Virgil: yet the earliest manuscript of Virgil that we now possess was written some 350 years after his death ... For Livy it is about 500 years, for Horace 900, for most of Plato 1,300, for Euripides 1,600. On the other hand, the great vellum uncials of the New Testament were written perhaps some 250 years after the date when the Gospels were actually composed, while we now have papyrus manuscripts which reduce the interval by a hundred years’.
(The Story of the Bible, p. 33)
It is encouraging to Bible-lovers to note that Sir Frederick concludes the same book as follows:
‘It is reassuring at the end to find that the general result of all these discoveries and all this study is to strengthen the proof of the authenticity of the Scriptures, and our conviction that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable Word of God’.
In addition to Bible Manuscripts there have come down to us the writings of the early Christians, who were accustomed to quote from both Old and New Testaments. It has been stated that the whole of the New Testament except eleven verses could be reconstituted from such quotations. These early Christians are sometimes termed Apostolical Fathers and include Polycarp, Clement, Barnabas and Ignatius. An extract from the writings of Polycarp will show how such embodied their quotations. The following is taken from Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians:
‘But he that raised Christ up from the dead shall also raise up us in like manner, if we do his will, and walk according to his commandments, and love those things which he loved; abstaining from all unrighteousness, inordinate affection, and love of money, from evil speaking, false witness; not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing, or striking for striking, or cursing for cursing; but remembering what the Lord has taught us, saying, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: forgive and ye shall be forgiven". Be ye merciful, and ye shall obtain mercy: "for with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again". And again "Blessed are the poor, and them that are persecuted for righteousness sake; for theirs is the kingdom of God".’
By the time these letters were being written, Greece had lost her world power and Rome was the dominant influence. Greek was therefore being superseded by Latin as the language of the times. As evidence for the increasing use of Latin we recall that the wording over the cross of Jesus ‘was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin’
(John 19:19-20). So gradually there arose a need for a Latin translation of the scriptures. The beginning of the third century, then, saw Latin translations of both Old and New Testaments, and copies of the Scriptures had become greatly multiplied. But among these divergences were appearing, and so there was a need for revision.At the request of Pope Damasus this was undertaken by Jerome. This work took twenty years and produced what became known as the Latin Vulgate, which remained the standard version of Western Europe for a thousand years. Jerome translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, and is said to have used the Septuagint and the Syriac too. He was undoubtedly the greatest scholar of his day. He completed his work and died in Bethlehem. When Augustine and his companions landed on the Kentish coast in
A.D. 597 to preach to the Saxons, it was probably the Latin Vulgate of Jerome which they brought with them.Soon the need arose for Anglo-Saxon versions and these began to appear in the eighth and ninth centuries. They were rather fragmentary and much removed, of course, from English as spoken today. In 709
A.D., Aldheln, Bishop of Sherbome, produced the Psalter in West Saxon, and in 735 A.D. the Venerable Bede’s ‘Gospel according to St. John’ appeared. Tradition has it that about this time Caedman, a lay brother of the monastery of Whitby, sang about the beginning of created things. A poem attributed to him has come down to us together with paraphrases of JOHN other Bible accounts.History records that King Alfred, to improve the culture of his people, invited learned men from abroad, superintended their work and himself helped to translate from Latin into English books on philosophy, travel and history. In 901 his translation of the Psalter into West Saxon appeared. At the turn of the tenth century, too, a number of paraphrases in Northumbrian and Mercian were made. In the tenth century too, an Anglo-Saxon gloss (word for word translation between the lines) was added to the famous Lindisfarne Gospels. These consisted of the Latin Vulgate of the four gospels written about
A.D. 700 by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and the gloss was written in Northumbrian by Aldred.After the coming of the Normans in 1066 Saxon versions ceased to appear. The language of the country was changing because of the gradual mixing of Saxon with Norman French. This brings us to the time of Chaucer and John Wycliffe. The latter was born in Yorkshire and became Master of Balliol College, Oxford in 1360. He resigned from this post and later became priest of Lutterworth.
By the year of his death in 1384 John Wycliffe had completed his life’s work of translating the whole Bible from Latin into our mother tongue. This he accomplished with the aid of a band of followers, one of whom, John Purvey, is famous for his continuance of the work of translation and revision. The companions of Wycliffe were known as Lollards and these ‘poor preachers’ spread abroad his teaching that every man had the right to study the Scriptures for himself. The opening passage of Matthew 3 is reproduced below:
We notice here the Romish influence in the expression ‘do ye penance’, instead of repent. At this time the Bible was not divided into verses as it is now. This division took place in 1560 when the Geneva Bible was issued, but the division into chapters appears in Wycliffe’s as in our own Bibles. Copies of Wycliffe’s Bible were widely circulated, especially among the wealthier people who could afford them. There are said to be one hundred and seventy copies remaining today.
Great changes were taking place in the world of knowledge following the days of Wycliffe. Bible manuscripts were coming to light and being studied. Scholars were becoming proficient in ancient languages. In addition the invention of printing greatly altered the outlook so far as the dissemination of Bible knowledge was concerned. A direct translation from the original languages was now becoming possible, and the demand for such a translation grew as it came to be recognised that Wycliffe’s Bible was a translation of a translation (i.e. from the Vulgate).
By the end of the fifteenth century printed Bibles in French, German, Italian and Spanish were being produced, while in 1530 the first printed Bible in English appeared. This was the translation of William Tyndale. He had studied all the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of his day as well as Wycliffe’s Bible. Tyndale became familiar with the Bible first as a matter of scholarship at Cambridge where he met Erasmus, the great Greek scholar. Having translated some portions from Greek, Tyndale applied to the Bishop of London for permission to continue work at the palace. But the ecclesiastical authorities were opposed to making the Bible available in the common tongue. Tyndale was branded as ‘a heretic in logic, a heretic in his Divinity’, and permission was refused. Consequently, Tyndale removed to the Continent to continue his work.
In 1525 at Cologne some sheets of the New Testament were ready, but Tyndale was betrayed and had to flee to Worms. Here he produced the whole of the New Testament and sent copies to England in bales, cases, barrels, sacks etc. They were confiscated by the thousand. Many were actually bought by the Bishop of London to burn, but this only supplied Tyndale with more funds.
Later he revised his New Testament translation and issued it in 1534. Eventually he was betrayed again and was finally strangled and burnt at the stake on October 6th, 1536. Tyndale’s work had been chiefly in relation to the New Testament but he had translated parts of the historical books, the Pentateuch and the prophets. Succeeding versions were but revisions of Tyndale’s and it is estimated that nine-tenths of our New Testament (Authorised Version) is as Tyndale translated it.
Miles Coverdale is the next name to mention. His translation added the parts which were missing from Tyndale’s Bible. Printed in Zurich and issued in 1535 to 36 Coverdale’s Bible is sometimes called the ‘treacle Bible’ because of its rendering of Jer. 8:22 where the word treacle is used instead of balm.
About this time Cranmer and some of the advisers of Henry VIII wanted a Bible really worthy of the nation. Coverdale was selected to produce this. It was published in 1539 and ‘Authorised to be used and frequented in every church in the kingdom’. Henry VIII made a proclamation in 1541 to every vicar to procure a copy. It was chained to a desk in churches and came to be called ‘The Great Bible’ because its pages were 15 inches by 9 inches (381mm by 229mm).
The reformers in exile in Geneva issued an English translation of the New Testament in 1557 and of the Old in 1560. This Bible was smaller in size and used small type with Roman letters. It was divided into verses and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. It is sometimes called the ‘Breeches Bible’ because in one edition its translation of Gen. 3:7 gave the word ‘breeches’ instead of ‘aprons’.
The English Church authorities, however, wanted an official translation, and so we find the Bishop’s Bible produced in 1568. The translation, however, proved to be inferior. The need for a version which all could accept was therefore quite real, especially as the Geneva Bible included Puritan notes.
The confusion caused by the use of several translations was brought to a head during a discussion at Hampton Court in 1604. Dr. Reynolds, the leader of the Puritan party, suggested that a new translation be made, but the Bishop of London disagreed. King James I, however, commanded a new translation and fifty-four scholars, including churchmen and Puritans, were invited to engage in the work. Actually forty-seven took part. This panel was divided into six groups which met at Cambridge, Oxford and Westminster. Their work commenced in 1607 and in 1611 what we commonly call the Authorised Version was issued. It should be mentioned at this stage that during the preparation of the Authorised Version a Roman Catholic version in English called the Douay Version appeared in 1609. This was a translation of the Latin Vulgate, whereas the Authorised Version was a revision of previous English translations, with the added use of Latin versions and French, Italian and Spanish translations to help in the understanding of the Hebrew and Greek of the original writings.
The committee’s work was monumental, and this translation has won its place by its intrinsic merit in addition to the working of Providence. This and subsequent translations have largely reflected Tyndale’s work. It has been said that his wording can be traced to the extent of 80 per cent in the Old Testament and 90 per cent in the New. Certainly the Authorised Version owes its literary beauty to Tyndale.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century it was found desirable to produce the Revised Version. The whole Bible was issued in 1885, though the New Testament was available earlier. The changes were mainly verbal because of considerable change in the English language since the days of the Stuarts. In this connection the following are examples of words which have changed in meaning:
‘let’ once meant ‘hinder’ but now means ‘allow’
‘conversation’ once meant ‘behaviour’ but now means ‘speech’
‘prevent’ once meant ‘precede’ but now means ‘stop’.
Another and perhaps more important reason for revision was that hundreds of early biblical manuscripts had been discovered and were now available to scholars, including three particularly ancient ones dating back to the fourth and fifth centuries.
In 1627 the Codex Alexandrinus (5th century) was given as a present to Charles I. The Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) was discovered by Tischendorf in St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai in 1844 and was subsequently purchased by the British Museum. In 1868 access was granted to the Vatican Manuscript (4th century). These were all Greek translations of the whole Bible and were largely complete. Missing portions have subsequently been filled by the study of other ancient manuscripts. It is a remarkable fact, however, that the changes made in the Revised Version are comparatively minor, and rarely affect the sense of the text. Thus the numerous discoveries which had been made only tended to confirm the accuracy of the Bible as contained in the Authorised Version.
The chart below provides a summary showing how the Bible has come down to us, and the sources used in the various translations referred to above.
In the present century there have been a number of further translations such as
the American Standard Version in 1901, the Revised Standard Version in 1952, the Complete New English Bible in 1970 and most recent of all the New International Version. Its world-wide distribution is exemplified by the following statistics provided by the British and Foreign Bible Society for 1969:Languages in which the whole Bible has been published .. .. 244
Languages in which a complete New Testament has been published 324
Languages in which a complete book has been published .. .. 845
The world circulation by National Bible Societies for 1969 was 145,335,092.
These statistics are all the more remarkable when consideration is given to the attempts which have been made to get rid of the Bible. This has occurred all over the world in former times, particularly in the early days when Christianity was beginning to spread throughout the Roman World: for example, during the ten years persecution of the Christians by Diocletian. This began on 23rd February 303 and opened in Nicomedia. John Foxe, writing of this in ‘The Book of Martyrs’, says:
‘The prefect of that city repaired one morning to the Christians’ church, which his officers were commanded to break open, and then commit the sacred books to the flames. Diocletian and Galerius who were present, ordered their attendants to level the church with the ground. This was followed by a severe edict, commanding the destruction of all other Christian churches and books... The persecution became general in all the Roman provinces, but more particularly in the East, and lasted ten years’.
With regard to the English Bible, the treatment of its translators, often ending in exile and martyrdom, shows the attitude of those in authority against its production. The Convocation of Oxford in 1408, presided over by Archbishop Arundel, decreed that no man should ‘by his own authority translate any text of scripture into English or any other tongue’. It further prohibited the reading of Wycliffe’s Bible. In 1414 it was further enacted that all those found reading the Bible in the mother tongue should ‘forfeit land, catel, lif and goods’. Further, the Council of Constance commanded all such books to be burned and gave directions for the desecration of the sepulchre of John Wycliffe!
The closing years of the reign of Henry VIII were characterised by restrictive measures as to the reading and use of the Bible. Tyndale’s version was prohibited by Act of Parliament in 1543. Three years later Coverdale’s Bible was included in the proscription. With the accession of Mary, the persecutions of the English Bible and its friends were renewed. Men like Coverdale had to flee from the country.
In modern times men’s energies have been directed less on the physical destruction of actual Bibles than on denigrating its message and authority. Critics in the last century doubted whether writing was known in early Old Testament times but the discoveries of archaeologists have completely silenced this criticism. The British Museum currently exhibits many examples of writing dating back long before the times of Moses, as well as specific inscriptions belonging to Bible times, actually describing events referred to in the Old Testament. The baked clay hexagonal prism inscribed with the annals of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, describing his siege of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah, is an example of this.
In more recent years the learning of some scholars has been directed against the subject matter of Scriptural narrative. For instance, a substantial volume of criticism has been directed against the creation account which is recorded in the book of Genesis and referred to many times throughout the rest of the Bible.
(The reader is referred to Web Page, File 05, ‘The Origin of Life — Design or Chance?’ specifically dealing with this subject.)Sad to relate, eminent Church leaders have added their voices in criticism too. Bible miracles have been questioned, first century Christian doctrines have been rejected and even the teaching of Jesus himself about his return and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth has been doubted.
Christadelphians are not really surprised at this because there are so many prophecies in the New Testament predicting this very attitude. Such passages as the following may be cited and the unbiased reader will realise how that such current religious attitudes, in the light of such testimonies, strengthen the faith of believers in the Bible:
‘Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold’
‘False prophets shall rise . . . to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect’
‘When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? ‘
(Luke 18:8).‘Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them’
(Acts 20:30).‘The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith’
(Timothy 4:1).‘The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine’
(2 Timothy 4:3).Other criticisms which must also be mentioned related to alleged contradictions, historical inaccuracies, and errors of translation and transmission. Less and less is being heard about the last two, because as more and more ancient manuscripts come to light the accuracy of the English Bible is vindicated. Moreover the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 and their subsequent translation has done much to silence those who doubted reliable transmission.
In passing, the reader may be interested to know that precise rules were given in the Talmud to guide the Hebrew scribes in copying the rolls for the synagogues. Manuscripts were to be transcribed from approved copies and the skins of clean animals had to be used. Each skin had to have an exact number of columns of equal length and width. Black ink of prescribed composition was required. When any of the divine names had to be written the pen must be washed. The copy had to be examined as soon as finished, and if there were additions or omissions or even if two letters touched each other, the sheet was spoiled. With such meticulous care the transmission of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures was achieved with a degree of accuracy which is amazing.
The historical background of Bible narrative is continually being confirmed by archaeological discovery. Sir Charles Marston wrote in his book ‘The Bible comes alive’:
‘This book records some of the outside evidence that concerns the Old Testament, recently supplied by the Science of Archaeology. It is of the first importance for a correct comprehension of the whole Bible to have a true perspective of this earlier part. It will be seen that the discoveries tend to vindicate the Sacred Text from the critical doubts that have been cast upon it ... But because the archaeological evidence in this book refers to the Old Testament, it should not be supposed that similar evidence is lacking for the New Testament. A recent discovery in connection with the latter deserves passing notice . . .’
On the matter of contradictions, very little is heard nowadays for two reasons. Firstly, fewer people are reading the Bible systematically in spite of its being so easily available, therefore knowledge of the Book is decreasing. Secondly, those who do make a study of the Bible to learn the ways of God, do so with the reverent intention of accepting its truth and trying to explain its difficult passages, instead of looking for points of criticism which they can use as an excuse for avoiding its moral code. So when faced with one verse which says ‘Answer a fool according to his folly’
(Proverbs 26:5) and another which says ‘Answer not a fool according to his folly’ (Proverbs 26:4) they will reply with a third verse which declares ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven’ (Ecclesiastes 3:1).The publishers of this Web Page would therefore like to conclude with some words of the Apostle Paul, who said: ‘I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified’
(Acts 20:32) in the hope that you will read the Word of God for yourself. The servants of God have done this all down the ages and the last book of the Bible contains this message from Jesus for all of us.
(This article is placed on the web by
to draw attention to the true teaching of the Bible).
Web Page Edition: April 2008
If you have any questions or comments about The Aletheian Christadelphians and their beliefs, please contact us:
The word Christadelphian is a Greek word, and translated, it means the brethren of Christ (Heb. 2:11), We are a body of people associated together by a belief in the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12); and by immersion into Christ (Gal. 3:27) for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38) and a part in his resurrection (Rom. 6:5).
We do not profess to have received any new revelation, but hold that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are able to make wise unto Salvation (2 Tim. 3:15,17). Believing in the Divine Authorship of the Bible, we think it only reasonable to reject any interpretation thereof which fails to harmonise all the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures; and finding that the creeds of the various sects around are, in a great variety of ways, opposed to the direct teaching of the Bible, we feel compelled to stand apart, making appeal in all such matters to the statements of Scripture, and testing all creeds thereby.
We believe in the personal, visible return of Christ to the earth, to set up his power and reign thereon, and we seek to share this knowledge with others. We offer our services in expounding the message of the Bible without cost of any kind.
