I have something of a fascination with the Scriptures. I have been told
that I am obcessed with them although I think I might have to deny that. No
matter how much time we spend in Scripture…is it possible to classify that time
as an obcession?
I guess one could be obsessed with Scripture if they did not hold with
the beliefs of the Scriptures and therefore were spending time in them for some
other reason but then…no, even that would not be an obsession.
I don’t think you could ever become obsessed with the Scriptures.
But anyway…that is a bit beside the point. I recently watched a
documentary on the history of the Scriptures. It was truly fascinating and I found
myself wanting to watch it again almost as soon as it ended. But I also found
myself with more and more questions over the weeks after I watched that
documentary.
It started with a need to understand more about those years in which the
Scriptures were preserves by handwriting them. Oh, the monumental tasks those
scribes and Christians had. In learning more about that I set out to write the
Scriptures. I had no goal to write all of them. Had no plan beyond wanting to
write them. I simply wanted to experience something of what the Christians and
scribes of old experienced in their task of preserving, copying, and owning a
copy of the Scriptures.
And learn I did.
It didn’t take me very long to discover that there is something infinitly
different in the experience of writing out the Scriptures. There is a
connection to them that we don’t get when we walk into a store, pick up a
Bible, and lay our money or credit card on the counter.
But my interest, my fascination, my need to understand didn’t stop there.
In truth I doubt it will ever stop. I hope it never stops.
As the Scriptures took on a bit of a different meaning to me…or at least
as I began to understand a tiny bit of what it took for the Scriptures to be
preserved so that we might have them today…I began to think about the
Scriptures. To wonder. To need to know more.
My first question was exactly how and when did the Scriptures come to be
called the Old and New Testaments? I don’t recall ever reading either of those
terms in Scripture. And yet…today we define much of Scripture by those terms.
We put great importance on those terms because they represent the Scriptures.
But…are those terms in Scripture? And how did we come to have them?
So I began to research…
I quickly discovered that it’s pretty easy to find out what the Old and
New testaments are but that it isn’t so easy to discover how they came to be
called the Old and New testaments.
There seemed to be no end of places to find out that the Old Testament is
the first section in the Bible and that it consists of 39 books. Well, yes, I already
knew that. That wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Nor was the information
that states that the Old Testament is the history of God’s people. It didn’t
help to read that the New Testament consists of 27 books either. Nor was it
helpful to find article after article that said the New Testament is the
written demonstration of the fulfillment of the prophesies in the Old Testament
and letters that teach of the way a Christian should behave.
It also didn’t
help to read that there is just over 400 years between the end of the Old
Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. That 400 plus year gap in the
Scriptures marks the line between what one might call part one of the
Scriptures and part two. It is the dividing line between what we call the Old
Testament and the New Testament.
That’s all very
important information and we need to know it. It is a basic outline or summary
of the Scriptures but it didn’t help any in my question as to how the Bible
came to be called the Old and New Testaments.
We live in what
they call the information age. Technology is literally at our fingertips pretty
much 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And yet…I couldn’t seem to find the
information I was seeking.
I am fairly
certain that none of the writers of the books of the Old Testament called what
they were writing the Old Testament. I’m fairly certain they did not even know
to call them the Old Testament. Therefore…that is a man-made term, not an
inspired term. How then did it come to be used? I know what the Old Testament
is. I know some of how it was preserved and I know that it is speculated to
have been completed as early as 3 AD, but…how did it come to be called the Old
Testament?
I did find some
very interesting information as I researched. Some of that information came
from very anti-Christian sources. For instance one article I read said that
most religions have a religious book and that the Bible is the religious book
of Christians. It was lumped in with any other book falling under the label of
religion. No more importance was given to the Scriptures than was given to any
other religious book. It was just one of many.
And yet, even in
that…secular?...source, I found much interesting and informative information on
our very sacred Writings. I’m sure I could have found the same information in
Christian sources if I had kept looking but I wasn’t looking for all the little
facts and details…I wanted an answer to a certain question. How did the Bible
come to be labeled as Old and New Testaments?
And I seemed to
be finding everything but the answer to that question. I found out that the 39
books commonly labeled as the Old Testament were originally written in Hebrew
and Aramaic, I knew that, and that they come from the 24 books of the Jewish
Bible which is divided into three sections, I didn’t know that. Nor did I know
that they are numbered and ordered differently in the Jewish Bible than they
are in the Old Testament.
Okay, something
new learned. But still not the answer to my question. I kept researching. And I
learned more about the Scriptures…I did not know that the first five books of
the Bible…Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy…are not only
referred to as the Law but that they are also called the Torah. I have a
tendency to try and avoid, at all costs, any understanding of other religions.
I do not feel the need to prove or disprove what I believe and I do not feel
the need to allow something that does not hold with my Lord into my head.
But there I was,
learning things I did not know, some of it from other beliefs, in my quest to
find the answer to a question that should be easily answered. How did the
Scriptures come to be labeled as Old and New Testament?
And so I kept
learning. Torah means ‘to teach’ and it is called that, I suppose, because it
is the story of how Israel, or God’s people, came to be. I guess it is called ‘to
teach’ because it teaches us about the beginnings.
At that point I was
sure I was being taught but I wasn’t learning what I wanted to. Still…did I mention
I have a fascination with the Scriptures? I was happy to learn more about the
Scriptures even if I wasn’t learning the answer I sought. So I kept going.
Which took me
into the prophets. The word, or term, prophet comes from the Greek word meaning
‘to speak on behalf of’. The prophets were men that spoke on behalf of God.
They were preachers or teachers that shared the Lord with others. I found out
that the books that fall under the label of prophets are separated into two
catagories, the Former Prophets…Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings…and the
Latter Prophets…Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, plus a section called the
twelve, or the Minor Prophets, Hosea, Joel, Amos Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum,
Habukkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah,
and Malachi.
All
great information. Not the information I wanted. And so I worked my way through
learning about the Writings…Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and 1st
and 2nd Chronicles. And then I learned about the books of Wisdom…Job,
Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes…and on to Ruth and Esther, and… well you get the
idea. There seemed to be end to what I could find out about the Old Testament
but where was what should be a very simple answer to how it came to be called
the Old Testament?
There
was much interesting information about the books of the Bible. Like reading of
how Psalms were collected and compiled to be used in worship and how the books
of wisdom were written in a way that was used throughout the ancient Near East.
But…interesting as all that was…it wasn’t what I was looking for.
I
kept looking and learned much about the New Testament. I read of the Gospels
and how that term means ‘good news’, something I already knew.
I
read of how it is believed that Matthew and Luke used Mark to write their
Gospels. The New Testament places Mark second in the line of New Testament
books but it was actually the first Gospel written.
I
read of how those three gospels are the synoptic Gospels and can be compared,
one to another, because synoptic means ‘viewed together.’ There are Bibles out
there called parallel Bibles, they take two different versions of the Bible and
print them side by side so that you actually have two different Bibles in one,
and are able to read them side by side. I think it would be interesting to have
the Gospels in a similar form.
I
once tried comparing two different copies of the exact same Bible, turning
between the Gospels in them so that I could mark the synoptic verses of the
Gospel. That kept me busy for a while until I decided there had to be a better
way. I was fairly sure that there must be something online where the work of
figuring out which Gospel verses go together has already been done. I gave up
the task of comparing them with full intention of finding that list…I have yet
to even look for it. But I do think it would be neat to have a copy of the
Gospels all written out side by side so that they could be easily compared to
each other.
I do
know that the Gospel of John is written to the believer whereas the other
Gospels are written more toward everyone. And in my research I came across
something that talked of the difference in John verses the other Gospels.
I
read of how the Epistles were copied and circulated among the Churches and I thought
of what it might be like to receive a letter…we’ll just say through the mail…that
was even just one of the Epistles, hand written, to learn from, to explore, to
enjoy. What treasure would we hold in our hands, even in our day, even in my
house where numerous Bibles live, if we could hold a handwritten copy of one of
the Epistles…or any other section of the Scriptures…in our hands?
As I
write this, Christmas is rapidly approaching. I think the greatest gift I could
receive for Christmas, or any time, would be just such a letter. A handwritten
letter of Scriptures. Oh, what wonder would be contained within those pages.
And how I would enjoy them.
There
is just something about even a single page of handwritten Scripture.
I
imagined the people of the early churches with no copy of the Scriptures…at
least not like we have them today…and how they must have had their hearts
lifted to receive one of those letters. What edification they must have gained
from reading them.
And
although I had yet to find the answer to the question that plagued me I was
learning much fascinating information and so I kept digging and I learned…what I
was looking for. Finally, after wading through more information that it seemed
would be needed…I discovered the answer to my question in the midst of a
secular article.
I do
have to wonder why the answer came in a secular form when it would seem that
anyone claiming the title of ‘Christian’ should have an interest in at least
understanding how the Book they claim to put so much stock in came to be. And
maybe the answer can be found in many a Christian article but I didn’t find it
in any of the Christian articles I read.
This
article, as it spoke of ‘the Christian Bible’ gave me the answer to what I was
looking for. It was an article for informative purpuses, laying out the details
the same way one might write of the history of any other book. There was
nothing in it about the holiness of the Scriptures, nothing about its
sacredness…but there was, in it, the answer to my question.
The
Bible is separated into the Old and New Testaments…as we know…and these
Testaments are labeled as such because of the Covenants of Scripture. I had
wondered about that but I didn’t want to assume anything. I wanted to KNOW. And
the knowing was a lot harder to come by than the wondering.
Apararently
the Old Testament and the New Testament are often called the Old Covenant and
the New Covenant. I had to stop there. You see, I grew up in and out of ‘church’
buildings, I was raised a ‘Christian’ and I had never heard the Old Testament
or the New Testament referred to as The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Not
in relation to the sections of the Bible.
I
know much of the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant but I
have never heard Scripture separated into the Old Covenant and the New
Covenant. And it was at that point, a point that I had already begun to think I
didn’t much care for some of the man-made terms applied to the Scriptures, that
I realized I much preferred the terms Old Covenant and New Covenant. They are
terms that can be found in Scripture, and they just seem to…fit with the holiness
of the Scriptures so much better than the terms Old and New Testaments.
There
is a huge difference in the definition for testament. According to the oxford
dictionary, the definition I got with a quick internet search, testament is
defined as being a persons will, something that serves as a sign or evidence of
a specified fact, even or quality, and…
I found
this part interesting and a bit mystifying.
It is
defined as…
(in biblical use) a covenant or
dispensation.
There was a
distinction made for it being a covenant or dispensation. That distinction was
only when it is used biblically. In other words the word testament appears to
have been made to fit the use it was given. Because it was used to represent a
covenant it now holds the definition of being a covenant but only when used in
relation to the Bible.
At least, that is
my understanding. So then I had to wonder…why in the world was the term
Testament used when it would have been just as easy to label the sections of
Scripture as Covenants?
But I didn’t
follow through that at that time. I was still researching my original question
and didn’t want to get sidetracked. With such a mystifying, and what seemed to
me to be unnecessary labeling of the Scriptures I moved on to what a covenant is.
A covenant is a contract. In Scriptures covenants are pacts made between the
Lord and His people.
God made a
covenant with Abraham to made the people of Israel His people. Christ made a
covenant with his blood. These were holy agreements between the Lord and His
people. Covenants are…to me…an entirely different thing than a testament is.
And yet…our holy Scriptures are separated into Old and New Testaments.
There even seems
to be some overlapping of the division of the Scriptures. Our Bibles are
separated into Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament ends at the end of
Malachi but the new covenant doesn’t go into effect until the death of Christ,
or the moment when Christ says that He institutes a new covenant. And yet…the
birth of Christ happened under the Old Covenant. The way our Bibles are divided
puts the years between the beginning of the New Testament and the beginning of
the New Covenant into the New Testament and yet they fall under the Old
Covenant.
The lapse of 400
years between Malachi and Matthew makes a very big dividing line in the
Scriptures. It is a time when we had no written instruction from the Lord
recorded and it may well be that that time period was the Lord’s way of
dividing his Scriptures…what do I know? But it seems as if we have a labeled
division in the Scriptures not because the Lord put it there, but because man
did. The Lord put the time gap there but what of the line that marks the end of
the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New? Again…I know nothing…I’m just
thinking and wondering and I’m doing it by writing which means I will share it
with others…but… it seems to me that the division between the Old Covenant and
the New Covenant is of much greater importance than the division between the
beginning of that 400 year gap and the end of it.
And this got me
to thinking of something else. Our Scriptures have been much changed from their
original forms. They were originally written in three different languages by many
different authors over many centuries.
They were
written, in most cases, by men that did not know each other, and in many cases,
by men that had few if any of the other Scriptures at their disposal. The Bible
consists of 66 books written by 40 authors, that we know of, over a time span
of about 1500 years. These men came from different times, different
backgrounds, and spoke different languages. Since there was no Bible in the
days that the Scriptures were written the men that wrote the Scriptures had no
idea that their writings would one day be placed into a single book with other
writings. They each wrote independently through divine revelation so that all
of their writings support one another. They speak of creation, of God’s plan,
of salvation, of redemption. They even foretold the future and got it right.
When the
Scriptures were written they were written as individual writings. They were
written on scrolls. As letters. As visions. They were not written with the
intent of being included in a single book of any kind. The names of the books
of the Bible as we have them were not written down at the top of that set of Scriptures
before the writing started.
When I sat down
to write out the Scriptures I got a notebook…really a composition book…and,
after deciding to begin at the beginning of the New Testament, I wrote Matthew
across the top of the first page in my notebook. I then proceeded to copy the
Scriptures down.
The original
writers of Scripture did no such thing. They no more named what they were
writing that I name a letter I send to a friend or family member. Luke did not
write his name above the story of the very holy happenings he recorded. He did
not decide that what he was writing should hold his name and therefore make his
name the first thing in those writings. At some point in time someone other
than the authors of the books of the Bible named those books.
The point I’m
getting to is that the more I thought of the history of the Bible the more I realized
that much of the Bible comes to us with the addition of the things of men.
Someone somewhere labeled each book. Supposedly, I have not seen this for myself,
the Jewish Bible puts several of the books from the Bible into one book instead
of two. They do have less books in their version than the Old Testament does.
Who made those
distinctions?
I don’t need to
know the answer to that question, although it might be interesting, I only ask
the question because there is an important fact to be considered there. Someone…some
person…decided what the books of the Bible would be named and in many cases
where they would be divided into different books.
Because the New
Testament comes to us as the New Testament we have a tendency to see the line
in the sand, so to speak, as being the split between the Old and New Testaments
but the reality is that those terms, and that separation, was decided by men
and not by the Lord.
The same
situation arises through the separation of the books of the Bible. Now in those
we do get a bit more separation through the Scriptures themselves. There is
often a theme to a certain book and a change of author. But still…someone
decided where in the Bible that book would go and they gave it the name it has.
I recently had a
stack of letters in my hands that were written by two different people. I was,
you might say, an in between point for these two people. I was sharing what
this one said with that one and what that one said with this one. In doing that
I had multiple letters in my hands, written by different people, and I was
juggling those letters trying to keep them separate and trying to figure out
which page of which letter came first.
On that day I was
sitting in the floor with those letters, written on different kinds of paper,
on different colors of paper, and I was transcribing letters. And as I did
that, as I tried to keep the pages straight, I began to think of how it might
have been to have the Scriptures written on loose paper the way those letters
were.
There, in my
hands, were the original letters, but I had more than one letter written by
each person. Each letter was written to me but I was trying to share the words
of the two people that wrote to me with both of them. I was the go between.
What if I had copied down those letters the wrong way? What if I mixed up page
two of the first letter with page two of the third letter?
I’m not at all
implying this happened with Scripture. Scripture is divinely inspired and
divinely preserved. What I’m saying is that as the one that was in the middle
with those letters I had to decide what was important enough in each letter to
be shared and in what order I should share it.
Because the
Scriptures were not originally written into a book, someone, somewhere had to
decide how those Scriptures would go into a book when the book was put
together. And someone, somewhere named the different sections. Just as someone,
somewhere, picked the terms Old and New Testament…for what reason I never did
find…and chose the line that would divide the Scriptures.
There is much
fascinating history in the Scriptures. Just the knowledge that the New
Testament was written in a totally different language (Greek) than the Old
Testament, or the understanding that the original Scriptures…or as close to
them as we have today…were written on animal skins, or the understanding that
some of the oldest surviving Bibles, even pieces of them, were written on
cotton and linen ‘papers’ and therefore are not prone to the same kind of
deterioration that our modern Bibles, written on wood pulp paper, are.
I am, even as I write
this, working on another writing, that one on Revelation 1:10. In that one I wrote
of how the change of a single word can often effect how we see Scripture. If we
have the word ‘on’ before this day…we assume that we are speaking of something
taking place on this day, such as, it was this day, but if we have the word ‘in’
before this day, we think of a future happening. In this day…a day to come…this
will happen. They are little differences but sometimes a little difference can
be all the difference needed to make us think one thing when the reality is far
different from what we think.
The use of the
terms Old and New Testaments give us a far greater difference than the use of
the terms Old and New Covenant. In fact, despite the fact that I was raised a ‘Christian’
in ‘church’ buildings…I don’t think I ever heard the terms old and new
covenant. If I did they sure didn’t sink in. Which means they couldn’t have
been used very much if any.
Even the term
Bible. We so often call the Scriptures the Bible but the word Bible simply
means book. And it can be found nowhere in the Scriptures. Someone, somewhere
decided to label the Scriptures as Bible…and now it is the common acceptable
term for the holy Scriptures. We even capitalize it to show respect for it and
yet…it is nowhere in the Scriptures. We have allowed men to put a label…one
that truly shows nothing of the sacredness of the Scriptures…in fact if you
stop and think about it…how respectful is it to label the most sacred writings
we’ve ever had as ‘the book’?
It is ‘the Book’
of all time. It is the greatest ‘Book’ ever written. But…the Lord never called
it ‘the Book.’ In my research I saw someone state that we don’t find the term
Bible in the Scriptures because the Bible, as we know it, didn’t exist then,
but I have to ask…in a Book that holds so much prophecy…did the God that gave
us the inspired holy Scriptures not have the ability to know that the
Scriptures would one day be called the Bible? Could He not have used that term
if He had wanted to? Instead we see it nowhere in Scripture.
We are given
instead the description of ‘word’. The Scriptures are referred to in the
Scriptures as the word of God. Which just so happens to be the same description
used to refer to Christ. John 1:1 is a wonderful example of that…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. (NIV)
The Scriptures
are described as being the word of God but never as being ‘the book’, or ‘the
Bible.’ We also see written in Scripture that they are referred to as Scripture…
All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 2
Timothy 3:16
For whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through
patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Romans 15:4
In my research I
saw where someone had said that if we had the original copies…the very first
writings…of Scripture that we would make idols of them. I don’t know if that’s
true or not but there is much about Scripture that we could make idols of. I have
a fascination with the Scriptures and a desire to understand much of them. That
fascination isn’t only in the words of the Scriptures but also in the history
of the Scriptures. I would love, absolutely love, to see a very hold Bible. Even
more so, I would love to be able to touch one, to hold it in my hands. I would
even love to own one.
So far the Lord
has allowed me to see them only through pictures. But even as I have seen them
in pictures…I still want to see one in person.
There has been
much controversy over which version of the Bible is the ‘right’ version. I even
spent a time wondering and researching that very thing myself. Maybe that’s a
good thing so long as it isn’t taken to extremes. Scripture tells us to test
everything and in our day there are many versions of the Bible that have been
changed to the point that we probably should not even give them the name Bible.
I think…that
much of the history of the Bible could become an idol if the interest in its
history were to ever outweigh a person’s love of the Lord, or even their love
of the Scriptures themselves. But I do think that we can learn much by looking
to the history of the Scriptures and in my case…I have gained a deeper
understanding of the Scriptures by questioning the things that men have added
to the sacred writings.
And for me…there
much more reverence in ‘the Scriptures’ than there is in ‘the Bible’. Yes, the
Bible is the common description but just as I think it would be wonderful to
have a written copy of any part of the Scriptures, I think that there is much
difference in how we refer to the Scriptures.
The Bible…or
the Book…is a common term that holds little or any of the reverence that seems
to come through when we speak of the word of God or the Scriptures. There is a
holiness about those two terms that cannot be contained in the word Bible…or so
it seems to me.
It could just
be the reverence that I place on the different words. But it does seem as if
the descriptions used in the Scripture for the Scriptures hold more meaning
than the descriptions given by men.
Oh, the
treasures to be found within the Scriptures if we only dig deep enough to find
them. Like buried treasure that must be unearthed we must think, and wonder,
and question, to find the wonderful treasures within the Scriptures.
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