Who decided what books should be in the bible? Many people seem to think that the Roman Catholic church found a cave full of ancient writings and got the bright idea of building a religion out of them. Religion is one way to have power and money you know. These ancient marketing types then decided which books would say what they wanted them to say and threw the rest out. Others think the bible is just a collection of writings that happened to fall into the hands of the church without any special criteria for determining their inclusion in our current bible. Perhaps you even think the bible showed up magically the way Joseph Smith claims he found golden tablets in Vermont, written by the angel Moroni.
Now if any of this is how the bible actually came about then you and I would have good reason not to trust it as “God’s word.” First of all we need to understand that the bible was actually “written” and we are not just dependent on stories being passed down from generation to generation. Anyone who has ever played the game of gossip or ever gossipped for that matter (that would be all of us) knows how we embellish and omit things as we verbally pass on information. Well, that’s not how we got the scripture. Writing was invented in the hometown of Abraham (Ur of the Chaldees) by the “Sumerians” around fifteen hundred years before Abraham was born.
Yes it’s true the story of creation had to be either passed down from Adam or revealed supernaturally by God. But science consistently ends up as our ally in supporting the likelihood of intellget design. Most of us think Moses actually wrote down the creation story after it was revealed to him by God. Although I can’t prove it I am positive that Adam & Eve told their children and grandchildren in great detail what God personally told them about their creation. Exodus 24:4, however points to Moses as the original scribe of the first part of the Old Testament; it says, “And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD” (Exodus Verse 7 says “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people” We are also told that a primary purpose of the Jewish people was to preserve and present God’s message. Romans 3:8 says, “The Jews were entrusted with the oracles (utterances or messages) of God. So this tradition of writing down what God was saying and doing was continued after Moses died.
The Jews took their role as record keepers of the deeds and words of God to the Jewish people very, very seriously. No one in their right mind has ever accused the Jews of trying to convert everyone to their religion so they could control them. If anything the Jews tried to exclude outsiders from their religion. So there was definitely no grand conspiracy to create a document of divine authority for the purpose of succeeding at the business of building a worldwide religion. I am not saying that’s never been done, but the people who gave us Genesis to Malachi were definitely not trying to do that.
What emerged eventually were professional writers called scribes who went to work every day, morning till evening, like modern day court reporters, copying down and recopying the records of what was happening in and around the nation of Israel. These professional writers were called scribes. It wasn’t like the Internet where everybody and their brother is writing volumes of words and you have to sift through carefully to find out what is true. No, these guys were meticulous. If they even made the smallest mistake they would burn the parchment they wrote on and start all over. It was actually a good thing that the bible wasn’t written today with all the word processors and the financial incentive to writing something sensational. These guys had no reason to care about anything but to get it right. One of the things that adds credibility to their work is that they copied down all the embarrassing stuff about the heroes of the faith as well as the commendable stuff. In my opinion the writings of scripture don’t have a hint of manipulation to create a desired perception. I don’t think this would be possible in modern society.
The most famous of these professional scribes were the Massorettes. Neil Lightfoot in his book How we got the Bible had this to say about the Massorettes. “They numbered the verses, words, and letters of each book. What this means is that the Old Testament has been preserved by Jewish scribes for more than 2000 years (actually closer to 2400 years). They would count the number of words in the text they were copying and if they were off by one number they would burn the scroll and start over. These scribes were called, “sopherim” which meant “counters.”.
Before he began his work each day, the scribe would test his reed pen by dipping it in ink and writing the name Amalek, then crossing it out (cf. Deut. 25:19). Then he would say, “I am writing the Torah in the name of its sanctity and the name of God in its sanctity.” The scribe would read a sentence in the manuscript he was copying, repeat it aloud, and then write it. Each time he came to the name of God, he would say, ” I am writing the name of God for the holiness of His name.” These guys were intense.
If you want to know more there’s a book written in 2007 called “The Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible.” Friends, not only are we standing on “holy ground” we are standing on solid ground when we stand on the word of God as recorded in the Bible.
The next time somebody says to you, “Oh the bible is full of errors,” say, “okay, show them to me?” The next time somebody says, “the bible was written by man,” say, “well sure but that doesn’t mean it came from man’s mind.” If I write about the car accident I came upon yesterday, does that mean I made it up. That’s ignorant logic. No, if send you an email that says, “I saw a car wreck on Rt. 140” yesterday.” Do you assume it didn’t really happen? And don’t you have at least 3 or 4 ways you can verify that I am telling the truth or lying?
One of the great verifications of the Old Testament was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. For a decade starting in 1946, 972 scrolls were found that contained original writings of at least parts of all the books of the Old Testament going as far back as 400 B.C. There’s a lot to be excited about here including the fact that there were no significant contradictions to the text that you are able to hold in your hand today.
There have been several councils that have met to re-examine the writing of scripture to re-examine their credibility, but that’s all they were doing. The work of meticulously perserving the words and deeds of God had already been done for them.
