Introduction
INTRODUCTION
THE BIBLE. No other book has had so many books written about it—so why yet another one? Though there are many books that help readers understand the content of the Bible, few explain its origins. This volume provides an overview of how the Bible was first inspired, canonized, read as sacred literature, copied in ancient Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, and translated into the languages of the world.
The first section, “The Authority and Inspiration of the Bible,” focuses on the Bible’s divine inspiration, lasting authority, and infallibility. The second section, “The Canon of the Bible,” reveals the processes that went into selecting the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament to be part of canonized Scripture. This section also has an essay on the Old Testament and New Testament apocrypha. The third section, “The Bible as Literary Text,” elucidates the literary background of the Bible and shows how the Bible is a literary masterpiece. The fourth section, “Bible Texts and Manuscripts,” describes the ancient biblical manuscripts that have been discovered and used in forming editions of the Hebrew and Greek texts. The fifth section, “Bible Translation,” provides information about the biblical languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek) and Bible translation itself. Furthermore, this section gives a brief history of the English Bible and of other versions in many languages.
I hope this book will inspire fresh appreciation for our Bible and greater understanding of the processes that went into making the Bible the inspired text that it is.
Philip W. Comfort