How Did the Old Testament Arrive in Our Bibles?

 ***The bulk of this information was paraphrased from Jensen's Survey of the Old Testament.***


A. Revelation

There are two types of revelation, General Revelation and Specific Revelation. GR is God's communication with man through such things as conscience and creation. On the other hand, SR is God's verbal communication with various human beings. The Bible (comprised of both OT and NT) is the collection of written records of SR in addition to the writings of men carried along by the Spirit to pen the very words of God.

B. Inspiration

Scripture was written by men carried along or moved by the Holy Spirit. As such, all of Scripture (although recorded by men) is the word of God. Also, it is perfect and without error for a perfect God neither makes errors nor transmits them through His speech.

C. The original autographs

All of the original autographs of the Bible have been lost to such causes as fire, flooding, and/or deterioration.

D. Transmission

Though the original autographs have been lost, the extant copies we do have so closely resemble their more recent counterparts that it is safe to assume that they have always been preserved in such a way as to not lose their integrity. Also, if God were willing to make available His words to us in written form for the purpose of preservation and continuation, He will see to it that His Word is not lost to error. No other book in the world has been so fiercely pursued with attempts of annihilation; yet, in spite of all that, it remains the #1 most published book in all the world. Also, even though there are some discrepancies between the different manuscripts which have been preserved until the present day, none of them call into question a single doctrinal truth contained in the OT.

E. Canonization

Many of the details about why the books that now comprise the OT have been kept in the canon (list of books included in the OT) and why others were excluded have been lost to history. Nonetheless, God was at work and sovereignty ordained those which were truly of divine origin to become part of the OT that we now possess (goes for NT too, but not part of discussion). By the time of Christ, the canon of Scripture had been finalized because both He and His apostles referred to the OT collectively as the Scripture(s). The Hebrew Bible only includes 24 distinct books, whereas the majority of English translations acknowledge 39. This may seem like a discrepancy, but the Hebrew Bible actually contains the same texts as the English Bible (with the exclusion of the Apocrypha in the Roman Catholic Bible). The Hebrew Bible achieves a lower number by combining books, most noticeably the twelve lesser (shorter) prophetical books into one book by the name of The Twelve.

F. Translations

"The first translation of any portion of the OT was the Greek Septuagint (LXX)." The next major translation was the Latin Vulgate which "was the official Bible of Christendom on the Continent for a thousand years." The Reformation Era brought about several English translations: Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, Great Bible, Bishops, and the King James to name the most prominent and widespread. The present day and age is considered the modern missions era. One of the highlights of this time is the before unsurpassed translation of the Bible into many, many languages, and their dispersion throughout the globe.