How We Got The Bible

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How We Got The Bible

• Its Transmission
• Thru the Ages

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Lesson Two
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(No Transcript)
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Review

• Why study
• Books - 1450 AD
• Writing - 3500 years ago
• Bible
• OT 1500-450 BC
• NT 50-95 AD
• Assumptions

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Review-2

• Writing materials
• Stone
• Clay
• Wood/Wax
• Metal
• Ostraca
• Papyrus

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Review-3

• Writing materials
• Hammurabi
• Siloam
• NT written on papyrus
• P52 oldest NT witness on papyrus

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Parchment-Writing Material

• The Greeks called it membrana - a word they
  borrowed from Latin
• Came down to us as membrane in English
• Greek word pergamene gave us our English
  parchment
• It is animal skins
• More durable and lasting than papyrus
• Known to have been used in Egypt back to 2500 BC

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Parchment

• Not just crude animal skins, but after having
  been prepared it made a good material
• Vellum was for a time a superior parchment, but
  now the words are used synonymously
• Vellum is related to the English word veal
  (reference to calfskin)
• Most Dead Sea scrolls are written on parchment

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Qumran Column I The Great Isaiah Scroll
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Codex Bezae
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Vellum fragment 10th Century AD
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Parchment Greek Psalm 34-8
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Parchment and the Bible

• Ancient tradition required OT to be copied onto
  parchment
• 4th Century AD parchment replaces papyrus and is
  used for NT copies too

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More Words

• Canon - Greek kanon meaning a rod, i.e. like a
  yardstick, with markings on it
• Came to mean a list based on the markings, until
  now we have a list (canon) of official Biblical
  books
• For a period also connoted the rule of faith or
  truth - a summary of Christian teaching

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Testament

• Normal meaning is a will, but not when related to
  OT and NT
• From the Latin testamentum, which was used to
  translate the Greek diatheke (a settlement or
  agreement)
• Not between equals
• Btwn a clear superior and inferior
• The word covenant has that meaning

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Alphabets

• Pictures the first writing
• Egyptian hieroglyphics - never had an alphabet
• Writing on clay tablets is 5000 yrs old (3000 BC)
• 1750 BC - the first alphabet developed by
  Semitic peoples
• All others are derived from this one

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Alphabets-2

• Moses is 1st person in the Bible recorded as
  writing
• Alphabetic writing dating around 1500 BC found
  near Sinai
• By the time of Moses there were at least 5
  alphabets in use in his world
• Alphabets assign distinct characters to
  significant sounds in a language

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Alphabets-3

• English has 26 letters
• Latin had 23 letters (no J, U or W)
• Before encountering Greek they had only 21
• Roman alphabet came from the Etruscans, who got
  theirs from the Greeks (E-24 letters)
• Tradition says the Greek alphabet came from the
  Phoenicians (22 letters-all consonants)
• Phoenician letter names are almost the same as
  the Hebrew and the Greek is very similar

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Lesson Three
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Hieroglyphics
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Luxor - Ramses II Hieroglyphics
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Hieroglyphics
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Alphabets-4

• Hebrew letters at one time represented objects
• Some written right to left
• Hebrew
• Syriac
• Arabic
• Samaritan
• Greek started that way and then became left to
  right

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5th Century AD Syriac
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Alphabets-5

• Cuneiform of Babylon was read top to bottom right
  to left.
• Some languages/people would mix it up
• The oldest Latin is right to left (400 BC)
• Phoenician alphabet goes back to at least 1250 BC
• The oldest samples of Hebrew date 1000 BC and 850
  BC

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Cuneiform
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Cuneiform
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Alphabets-6

• The Biblical languages are all living languages.
• Hebrew - Israel
• Aramaic - Assyrians in Iraq, Syria Persia
• Greek - Greece
• All have changed over the centuries, but the
  changes in Hebrew and Greek are less than that
  between 1066 AD English and modern English

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Hebrew

• A Semitic language
• Name derived from Shem
• W/NW Semitic includes Hebrew, Canaanite, Moabite,
  Phoenician
• E Semitic includes Babylonian and Assyrian -
  Akkadian
• S Semitic includes Arabic Ethiopian

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Hebrew-2

• Jews, Canaanites Phoenicians probably
  understood each other
• Carthaginian language is related too!
• Language of Israel until Babylon
• 22 letters in its alphabet
• Psalm 119
• Lamentations

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Hebrew-3

• No vowels in written Hebrew
• Systems to show vowels in writing exist, but only
  aid non-native speakers
• Format of letters changed around 200 BC
• Most of OT is written in Hebrew

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Hebrew
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Hebrew