History of The Bible for Those Who Have Five Minutes to Spare

The Bible, quite a book when you think about it. It always sounds smarter when you see a book that has a cover which shows two authors, it's like double the smartness went into it. The Bible is written by give or take 40 authors over the course of 1500-1600 years, which means it's a super smart text. Seeing as though God is omniscient this is no surprise there, He is also eternal so 1500-1600 years to write it isn't that long, give George R. R. Martin an eternity and he still wouldn’t finish the Game of Thrones series. I believe the theory that the way the TV series of Game of Thrones ended is the actual ending of the book series. Martin saw the backlash of his nihilistic nightmare and how it sucked and now he doesn’t know what to do with that information. I would get busy with other projects too if I were him to keep the excuses for not finishing up the books up my sleeve. Unlike Game of Thrones the Bible isn’t a total flop, it sells well and changes lives more than the aforementioned too. Not sure why I’m still comparing this series with the Bible but I need some kind of benchmark to work with. One area that the Bible severely loses in is the word count, there are 783,137 words in the King James version, half of which are likely Thou and Thine. Whereas the Game of Thrones series a Song of Ice and Fire boasts a massive 1.7 million words. What it makes up for in numbers it lacks in substance. Genres is where the Bible really leaves Martin behind. Game of Thrones can go first, it is Fantasy of the dark, sleazy and brooding type. Makes you think the author has a lot in common with Stephen King and they would like to violently deal with some people in their lives in weird and wonderful ways. The genres of Scripture are many and here are all seven of them.

Narrative: Narrative is the genre of telling a story and how it unfolded historically. Exodus for instance tells the story of Moses leading God’s people out of Egypt and the book of Acts with its telling of the emerging Church of Christ amongst persecution and growth.

Poetry: Love, praise and grief, plus many other aspects of life are centred in the Psalms which is all poetry. Poetry is also found in the Song of Songs and love sick King Solomon really showed how he was good at describing women in chapter 4.

How beautiful you are, my darling!    Oh, how beautiful!    Your eyes behind your veil are doves.Your hair is like a flock of goats    descending from the hills of Gilead.² Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,    coming up from the washing.Each has its twin;    not one of them is alone.³ Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;    your mouth is lovely.Your temples behind your veil    are like the halves of a pomegranate.⁴ Your neck is like the tower of David,    built with courses of stone;on it hang a thousand shields,    all of them shields of warriors.⁵ Your breasts are like two fawns,    like twin fawns of a gazelle    that browse among the lilies.⁶ Until the day breaks    and the shadows flee,I will go to the mountain of myrrh    and to the hill of incense.⁷ You are altogether beautiful, my darling;    there is no flaw in you.

She must have been a real beauty or a real monstrosity, depends on what you’re into, I guess. I like women with necks that are proportionate to their body, I’m fussy though.

Wisdom: The books of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes are very practical and keep you from doing stupid things. Or they remind you of all the stupid things you do and think and how you could be wiser.

Prophecy: Major prophets and minor prophets make up the list of prophecy books. These are good for us to learn from in applying the lessons to our day but not the prophecies themselves.

Gospels: These are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All give the account of the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. Another genre is found within the gospels which are Parables, lessons given through metaphors and similes, often used to demonstrate what the Kingdom of God is like. The gospels were written to document the monumental significance of Jesus and how His life shaped the world as we know it and proved the Old Testament to point to Him and His sacrifice and our salvation through Him. The gospels are written in faith and produce faith.

Epistles: These are letters written to certain people, groups and churches. Much about the Christian faith is learnt from these and a passion for the mission of the church is ever present in them.

Apocalypse: A genre that has many interpretations and anyone that shares an apocalyptic view from the book of Revelation but calls it the book of Revelations should be shamefully dismissed. The book of Daniel and Revelation through cryptic symbolism and warnings give prophecies for the audience they were written for at the time.

Three myths of the book of Revelation: It is written about us, Revelation is about the future and it is written in mysterious code.

Revelation was addressed to the seven churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor, not us. Revelation is not a book of fortune telling for the future, it is a prophecy of warning for the coming judgement and a call for repentance. Followed by the author John also promising salvation and restoration. Lastly Revelation is apocalyptic literature and apocalyptic/apokalypsis means Revelation in Greek. The type of literature is known for its use of symbolism and visions, the author pulls back the veil and reveals what is happening in human history. The original readers would’ve understood the symbols as they were commonly known for their time.

Unlike Game of Thrones the Bible doesn’t have a Fantasy genre, the closest thing would be the gospel of Thomas which is non-canon. That is the last of the Game of Thrones comparing, thank you George R. R. Martin for allowing your book series to be unfairly matched up against the Bible.

How then did the Bible get compiled, why the need for canonising? Firstly, before the canonisation, the Bible needed to be written and this was done across history leading up to this moment of canonising that I’m trying to write about. The Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible was retold as oral history. It took them a while to pick up pen and paper (or the equivalent of that for that day and age, feathers for a pen and ox blood for ink? Or something more sophisticated?) and get to writing. I think the rest of the Old Testament was more closely written down as events transpired, couldn’t be bothered looking that up so let’s assume so. The New Testament being mostly Gospels and Epistles were all written quite close to events, the Epistles especially quite close considering they are letters and are always done there and then. The Gospels were written after the time of Jesus, Matthew being 50-60 years after, Mark 35-40, Luke 50-70 and John being 90-100 years. If these accounts seem like a long time then you could be right in some regards, however, they are all written about a man who is historically proven to exist. His accounts are written some time after, yet that does not discount his miracles and ministry which is corroborated across the Gospels. All Gospels were written within a lifetime of Jesus’ ministry and (except for John) were written with the accounts of eyewitnesses. This was still a culture that could lean heavily on oral historical retelling. There are plenty of compelling facts and arguments for the legitimacy of the gospels out there and I’m trying to talk about canonisation so let’s get back to that.

Why canonise then? Simple answer would be that there needed to be a rule for legitimising what was accurate, hearsay and heretical. The time of the apostles had passed and the church was growing, teachings need to be set straight as new views and movements grew. In the mid second century the early Christians were guided by a Rule of Faith which was an outline of what should be believed through a standard of apostolic, authoritative faith and by being a measure of what was orthodox. “It was better than nothing.” Combined quote from Tertullian, Origen and Irenaeus, the creators of the Rule of Faith (not a real quote, they didn’t say that. They may have thought it. Conjecture). A strategic goal was to help prevent it mixing Christian and pagan teaching and making a mongrel of the belief known as Syncretism. After several canons and decisions, the Bible with today’s canon was decided on in 397, also known as the Third Synod of Carthage canon. The basis for choosing would’ve been painful as there would’ve been a lot of dudes who had some hills to die on when it came to the certainty of the categories of judging what was canon. These criteria included apostolicity, orthodoxy, christocentricity, inspiration and traditional usage. I’m assuming the criteria were also a labour to decide upon as well with no simple criteria words like funnest, coolest, most exciting and favouritest. Like all things we as people cannot agree and after a while the Great Western Schism happened in the church. There were two popes (normally there was only one. They could’ve combined their powers and become Mega Pope, instead they didn’t) and they weren’t about to face off in an arm wrestle or jousting competition. They were going to settle things through deciding where God, the Pope and the people stood. The Papal position which is bogus Christianity known as Catholicism believe the Pope is the grand authority below God and he has God on speed dial, not the people. Anything that comes from the Pope’s mouth is gospel and he becomes a man-made God. Marsilius of Padua had the other view which was that God came first and the people came under Him, he kind of had the idea that we could go to God without the need of the pope to be the middle man, or just the boss over the people. It was an edgier form of Catholicism and possibly laid a small platform for Protestantism to stand on not much later in the future. All this happened around 1324, which is a time when your great grandparents were still not around. Now to get back to the topic at hand, the Bible, we hit the year 1440 and our mate Johannes Gutenberg (Gutenberg in English means Good burger) has gone and made himself a nuclear bomb… wrong inventor actually, Good Burger made a printing press. If he knew such things as Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series were to come from such an invention then he probably wouldn’t of bothered. Good news for Christians though and Martin Luther as the Bible can now be printed. The benefits of this are significant for the main reason that the Bible is taken out of the cherry-picking hands of the Pope and Priests and is given to anyone who can read. This means no more verses taken out of context and no more telling believers that they have to pay their way to salvation and aren’t lied to about paying for the salvation of the deceased that they once loved. The printing press also allowed Luther to print the 95 Theses and bang it on the door of a lavish church to let them know the gig is up and that the Protestant Church is going to be a thing. Out of this came legitimate Christianity that isn’t works based but is formed around the 5 Solas. Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), Sola Fide (faith alone), Solus Christus (Christ alone), Sola Gratia (grace alone), and Soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone). The Bible has amazingly survived through all this and we still use the final canonisation of it that was decided upon all those years ago. Catholics have a slightly different Bible, their Old Testament has 7 extra books.

That then is what I have to say about the Bible for now, will probably come back with a more applicatory piece next time. Hope you learnt something, go pick up your Bible and read it! Ask the Holy Spirit into your reading and apply the change the text will bring.