ow We Got the
ible
A Time Line of Key Events in the
History of the Bible
AD 500
The Masoretes
Special Jewish scribes (Masoretes) are
entrusted with the sacred task of making
copies of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old
Testament).
Approximately AD 500-900
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The Masoretes
• The Masoretes developed a meticulous
system of counting the number of
words in each book of the Bible to
make sure it was copied accurately.
• Any scroll found to have an error is
buried according to Jewish law.
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Gen. 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters be
collected".
Letters in black, vowel points and
dageshim (letter doublings) in red,
cantillation signs in blue
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings
from the Bible in synagogue services.
The Masoretes
circa 700 C.E
The Masoretes were the ones who made
these copies. They had to follow certain rules
when making a copy of the Synagogue Rolls
of the Hebrew Scriptures.
1. The parchment must be made from the
skin of clean animals; must be prepared by a
Jew only, and the skins must be fastened
together by strings taken from clean animals.
2. Each column must have no less than 48
nor more than 60 lines.
3. The ink must be of no other color than
black, and it must be prepared according to a
special recipe.
The Masoretes
4. No word nor letter could be written from
memory; the scribe must have an authentic
copy before him, and he must read and
pronounce aloud each word before writing it.
5. He must reverently wipe his pen each time
before writing the word for "God" [which is
Elohim] and he must wash his whole body
before writing the name "Jehovah" [which is translated
"LORD" in the King James English Bible] lest the Holy Name be
contaminated.
6. Strict rules were given concerning forms of
the letters, spaces between letters, words,
and sections, the use of the pen, the color of
the parchment, etc.
The Masoretes
7. The revision of a roll must be made within
30 days after the work was finished;
otherwise it was worthless. One mistake on a
sheet condemned the sheet; if three mistakes
were found on any page, the entire
manuscript was condemned.
8. Every word and every letter was counted,
and if a letter were omitted, an extra letter
inserted, or if one letter touched another, the
manuscript was condemned and destroyed at
once. [From General Biblical Introduction by H.S. Miller, 1960, p. 184-5]
The Tanakh
• The Tanakh (also spelt Tanach) is the
Hebrew acronym for the Jewish Bible,
based upon the initial letters of its three
parts:
• Torah (Teaching, Law)
• Nevi'im (Prophets)
• Ketuvim (Writings, Hagiographa)
LXX vs. Masoretic
• The text of the LXX is usually very close to
that of the Masoretic, differing in one verse or
another.
• Several factors led Jews to eventually
abandon the LXX, including the fact that
Greek scribes were not subject to the same
rigid rules imposed on Hebrew scribes; that
Christians favored the LXX; the gradual
decline of the Greek language among Jews.
Witnesses
• Textual criticism based
• The oldest witnesses to
on comparisons of
the LXX include 2nd
existing copies of the
century BC fragments
Septuagint, Masoretic
of Leviticus and
Text, the Samaritan
Deuteronomy (Rahlfs nos. 801,
text, and the Dead Sea
819, and 957), and 1st century
scrolls suggests that the
BC fragments of
Septuagint was not
Genesis, Exodus,
translated directly from
Leviticus, Numbers,
what is today the
Deuteronomy, and the
Masoretic Text, but
Minor Prophets (Rahlfs nos.
rather from an earlier
802, 803, 805, 848, 942, and 943).
Hebrew text no longer
available to scholars.
Dead Sea Scrolls
• The Scrolls have revolutionized textual
criticism of the Old Testament.
Interestingly, now with manuscripts
predating the medieval period, we find these
texts in substantial agreement with the
Masoretic text as well as widely variant
forms.
Dead Sea Scrolls
• Only Caves 1 and 11 have produced
relatively intact manuscripts. Discovered in
1952, Cave 4 produced the largest find.
About 15,000 fragments from more than
500 manuscripts were found.
• In all, scholars have identified the remains
of about 825 to 870 separate scrolls.
Dead Sea Scrolls
• There are now identified among the scrolls,
19 copies of the Book of Isaiah, 25 copies
of Deuteronomy and 30 copies of the
Psalms .
• The Isaiah Scroll, found relatively intact, is
1000 years older than any previously known
copy of Isaiah. In fact, the scrolls are the
oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts
ever found.
Dead Sea Scrolls
• Prophecies by Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Daniel
not found in the Bible are written in the
Scrolls.
• The Dead Sea Scrolls enhance our
knowledge of both Judaism and
Christianity. They provide a wealth of
comparative material for New Testament
scholars. They show Christianity to be
rooted in Judaism and have been called the
evolutionary link between the two.
AD 400
Bible Copies
Two of the oldest vellum
copies (AD 325-350) that
exist today are the:
 Vatican Codex
 Sinaitic Codex
1500 BC
500 BC
AD 1
AD 500
AD 1000
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AD 1900
AD 2000
Witnesses
• Relatively complete manuscripts of the LXX
include Codex Vaticanus
• Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century CE
• Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century.
Codex Sinaiticus
• Codex Sinaiticus (London,
Brit. Libr., Add. 43725; Gregory-Aland no. ‫א‬or
is a complete, 4th
century uncial
manuscript of the New
Testament. It also
contains a substantial
portion of the
Septuagint.
• Along with Codex
Vaticanuss.
01)
• Codex Sinaiticus that
was found by
Constantin von
Tischendorf on his third
visit to the convent of
Saint Catherine, on
Mount Sinai in Egypt, in
1859.
• The entire codex
consists of 346 1/2
folios, written in four
columns.
Codex Sinaiticus
• Codex Sinaticus is
one of the most
valuable
manuscripts of the
Greek New
Testament.
• The Codex Leningrad
is one of the surviving
Masoretic texts.
• Of these 199 belong
to the Old
Testament and 147
1/2 to the New,
along with two other
books, the Epistle of
Barnabas and part
of The Shepherd of
Hermas.
The Codex Vaticanus
• The Codex Vaticanus, so called because it
is the most famous manuscript in the
possession of the Vatican library, is
generally believed to be from the fourth
century, and is thought to be the oldest
(nearly) complete copy of the Greek Bible
in existence.
The Codex Vaticanus
• Lacking from it are most of the book of
Genesis, Hebrews 9:14 to the end, the
Pastoral Epistles, and the book of
Revelation; these parts were lost by damage
to the front and back of the volume, which
is common in ancient manuscripts.
A Sample of the Text
Codex Vaticanus, Matthew 11:8b-10a
Codex Alexandrinus
• Codex Alexandrinus received its name from
the circumstance that its earliest known
location was the Egyptian city of Alexandria.
It is believed to be from the fifth century
• This codex consists of 773 parchment leaves
measuring 12.6 by 10.4 inches. Virtually all of
the OT (630 leaves) and NT (143) are
preserved in the codex.
Codex Alexandrinus
• Normally the quires are made up 8 leaves.
The text is written in two columns per page
with 46 - 52 lines each and 20 - 25 letters
per line. The letters are written in a plain
uncial script with the beginning lines of
books in red ink. Letters at the ends of lines
are often smaller and crowded
Witness - Josephus
• One of the most important pieces of evidence
in favor of the forming and closing of the canon
at a time prior to Christ may be found in the
writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian.
• He writes (at about 100 AD) "It is true our
history has been written since Artaxerxes very
particularly but has not been esteemed of the
like authority with the former by our forefathers,
because there has not been an exact
succession of the prophets since that time."
The Council of Jamnia
• The next major piece of evidence to be noted is the
Council of Jamnia, which seems to have taken place
around 90 AD.
• This council established and closed the canon
authoritatively for nearly all Jews. It has been their
canon ever since.
• Yet it should be noted that the council did not speak
for all Jews, there were Jews living in Ethiopia who
either did not hear of it or did not accept the
decision of Jamnia. To this day they use a different
canon than their Palestinian brethren [Encyclopedia Judaica,
Vol 6, p 1147].
Witness – Philo
Philo of Alexandria
(c.20 BC - c. AD 50)
Of some interest are the writings of Philo, a
prolific Alexandrian Jew who lived in roughly
the time of Christ. Though he gives us no
canon, it is worthy of note that he does not
use the books under dispute between
Protestants and Catholics.
Witness – Philo
Philo of Alexandria
(c.20 BC - c. AD 50)
• While it is true, on the other hand, that there
are many books accepted by both that he does
not quote -- the fact that he does not quote
Wisdom seems to require explanation since its
contents appear consistent with his thought.
• It may be that he simply wanted to convince the
widest audience possible with his writings and
therefore chose to stick with the universally
accepted portion of the canon for his support.
Witness – Philo
Philo of Alexandria
(c.20 BC - c. AD 50)
• We can only speculate about why he did not
quote the disputed books. Finally, consider
that Philo (while prolific) is not the only
rabbi of the period to leave us writings. The
Catholic Encyclopedia notes that a few
Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis quoted
the deuterocanonical books, apparently as
Scripture
The Latin Vulgate
Witness - Jerome
• One of the primary witnesses, not in order of time
but certainly in stature against canonicity of the
disputed books comes from a late period, the 4th
century -- St. Jerome.
• Jerome produced the standard Latin translation
of the Bible, the Vulgate, and he felt that it was
important for this purpose that he learn Hebrew.
He discovered the opinion of the Jews in the
matter of the canon, the falsity of the legend of
the translation of the LXX, and as a result made
many disparaging remarks about the disputed
books, "calling them apocrypha" [this seems to have
occurred about 390 AD, see "The Cambridge History of the
Bible" Volume 2, 92].
Witness - Jerome
• Moreover, he seems to attach a certain
importance to the idea that there should be 22
books in the Old Testament -- to accord with
the number of Hebrew letters.
• This seems to have also been a motivating
factor in his rejection of the deuterocanonical
books. In line with the Protestant view, he also
disparages the additions to Daniel and Esther,
in the prefaces to those books.
• These remarks were to color the opinion of
Christians in the West from that time forward
and most explicit lists of the books given by the
writers after him follow his thinking.
Witness – Origen
Origen Adamantius, ca. 185–ca. 254
• Origen, was a theologian and as a prolific
Biblical scholar. According to Eusebius, Origen
was born of Christian parents in Egypt,
probably about 185, and spent most of his life
in Alexandria
• Origen learned Hebrew and labored carefully to
produce the best texts. He notices many
differences between the Hebrew passages
used by the Jews and the passages in use by
Christians. Not just in the disputed books, but in
Job, Exodus, etc.
Witness - Origen
• He makes this remark "And, forsooth, when we notice
such things, we are forthwith to reject as spurious the
copies in use in our Churches, and enjoin the brotherhood
to put away the sacred books current among them, and to
coax the Jews, and persuade them to give us copies
which shall be un tampered with, and free from forgery!
Are we to suppose that that Providence which in the
sacred Scriptures has ministered to the edification of all
the Churches of Christ, had no thought for those bought
with a price, for whom Christ died; whom, although His
Son, God who is love spared not, but gave Him up for us
all, that with Him He might freely give us all things?" [A
letter from Origen to Africanus, Volume 4 of the Early Church Fathers
CD Rom]
Witness - Origen
• A letter from Origen to Africanus" [Early Church Fathers CD
Rom, Vol 4] we get the following quote: "... Where you
get your 'lost and won at play, and thrown out
unburied on the streets,' I know not, unless it is from
Tobias; and Tobias (as also Judith), we ought to
notice, the Jews do not use. They are not even found
in the Hebrew Apocrypha, as I learned from the
Jews themselves. However, since the Churches use
Tobias,..." demonstrating that the Church uses
Tobias and Judith despite the fact that the Hebrews
refuse to recognize it.
Witness - Origen
• The letter to Africanus, which I've already
quoted twice, is essentially a defense of the
story of Susannah as being rightfully part of
Scripture, and Origen's use of it in
discussion with a certain Bassus. He seems,
however, to regard the LXX as superior to
the Hebrew text in every way -- too extreme
a position based on the total evidence at
hand.
Origen and the Hexapla
• Origen did extensive work on the
Septuagint, producing several variations of
a similar study. The most complete,
however, was the Hexapla in which he
compared the Septuagint with three
parallel Greek translations of the Hebrew
Scriptures. The work was organized in six
columns.[1] (The name Hexapla is derived
from hex- meaning six.)
Origen and the Hexapla
• Note that each row represents a wordby-word transcription of the entire
Hebrew Scripture text. The original
Hexapla is thought to have consisted of
nearly fifty volumes, with each volume
in the form of a scroll equivalent in
length to a Gospel or the book of Acts.
Witness - Athanasius
• Born ~293 CE, Alexandria -- died May 2
373 CE, Alexandria)
• Council of Nicaea ( Ad 325)
• Fixing the date of Easter issue = Bishop of
Alexandria should have authority year by
year and advise by “festal Letters”
• Athanasius was bishop 328 to 373
• 39th Letter deal with canon of OT & NT
• Nicene Creed can refer to the original
version adopted at the council
Witness - Athanasius
• ‘Forasmuch as some have taken in hand to
reduce into order for themselves the books
termed apocryphal, and to mix them up with the
divinely inspired Scripture, concerning which we
have been fully persuaded, as they who from the
beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of
the Word, delivered to the fathers; it seemed
good to me also, having been urged thereto by
true brethren, and having learned from the
beginning, to set before you the books included
in the Canon, and handed down, and accredited
as Divine; From Letter XXXIX.—(For 367.)
Athanasius' Old Testament canon
has twenty-two books
1. The Pentateuch
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy
2. The Historical Books
Joshua, Judges, Ruth Samuel (1 and 2 Samuel are
one book), Kings (1 and 2 Kings are one book),
Chronicles (1 and 2 Chronicles are one book), and
Ezra (Ezra and Nehemiah are one book).
3. The Poetical Books
Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs,
and Job.
Athanasius' Old Testament canon
has twenty-two books
4. The Prophetical Books
(1) The Minor Prophets
The Twelve Minor prophets are one book.
(2) The Major Prophets
Isaiah, Jeremiah (including Baruch, Lamentations,
and the Letter of Jeremiah as one book), Ezekiel,
and Daniel.
5. Esther is not included in the list of canonical books.
6. Baruch included in Letter of Jeremiah
Witness - Athanasius
• Books appointed by the Fathers to be read for
instruction
Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith,
Tobit, the Teaching of the Apostles (Didache), and the
Shepherd of Hermas.
• Athanasius strongly emphasized the difference between
the canonical books and the apocrypha.
• The Athanasian Creed was ascribed to St. Athanasius most likely from Gaul circa 500
Old Testament Canon
• Canon was an historical process which
took place over the centuries in three
steps that came to form the Hebrew canon
of Law, Prophets and Writings.
• The first collection to be canonized
consisted of the first five books of the Bible
and was variously called: the Law
(Hebrew, Torah), the Pentateuch, the
Books of Moses. This collection was
canonized about 400 B.C.E.
Old Testament Canon
• The second collection canonized was the
Prophets (Hebrew, Nabim), which was
canonized about 200 B.C.E.
• Writings (Kethûbim, Greek, Hagiographa)
were canonized about 90 C.E. This last
canonization was understood as ratifying a
commonly used, complete collection since
the second or first century B.C.E.
Councils
• Several local councils of the Church were to
endorse the books later to be endorsed by
Trent. (AD 1545)
• The Council of Rome (AD 382)
• Hippo (AD 393)
• Carthage (AD 397 and 419).
• The Council of Nicea II (AD 797) approved
everything said by Carthage (AD 419).