How To Eat An Elephant Blog Series - #1 The Overview of The Bible

Most people are very intimidated by the Bible.  It has more copies sold than any other book of all time.  But because it is so big and can seem so intimidating most collect dust on our Grandma’s coffee table.  I don’t care if you’re a Christian or not… this book is overwhelming, elephant like to be exact!  It’s a big book... literally!  There’s a lot of stuff in there!    So “How do you eat an elephant?”  The answer is…one bite at a time!  You break it down. You take small bites. You have to have discipline. You have to focus all your attention and tenacity on it! And you have to have a game plan!

I’ve heard all kind of things about this book…it’s out of date, it’s cultural, it’s archaic…it’s a nice book.  It’s boring.  It’s too difficult.  It’s a good book!  It’s the only book that we need!  It’s the very words of God!  The Holy Spirit through this book is changing your lives, hold tightly to this book!

But I think most people think and ask questions like this about the Bible:

§  Where would I start?

§  I didn’t go to Bible College or Seminary?

§  Where should I begin reading?

§  What am I supposed to do once I start reading?

§  What if I have questions?

§  What if I don’t understanding what I’m reading?

We have all these questions and they become paralyzing so what do we do…we put this book down because we’re confused, afraid or overwhelmed! And the reality is this…too many Christ-followers are depending on the Pastor of their church to tell us what’s in this book!  They are Bible-illiterate!  If I asked you what book Noah is in…many of you couldn’t tell me.  If I asked you to tell me 6 of the 10 commandments…many of you would struggle.  If I asked you to tell me which book of the New Testament did Jesus write?  The answer is none of them!  I want you to fall in love with this book.  My heart for the church is that we would take small bites and over time become confident about this book!  

The words on the outside of this book say Holy Bible: which means:  Holy Book.  We got the word Bible from a city in Venetian. The town was called Biblios in Greek. The town in Hebrew Gibal. They were the largest importer in the world of Paprus.  We get our word paper form it.  If you had a Bible in that time it was made from that town. It comes from the Greek noun “biblos” which by definition means the inner bark of a papyrus plant, a scroll. And Holy means dedicated or consecrated to God.

In 10 chapters a day you can read the Bible in 120 days.  You can read the Bible three times through in a year.  100 Chapters a day you can read it in 12 days.

The Bible is a compilation of 66 books that are split up into 2 sections (Old & New Testament). There are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. The 39 books of the Old Testament form the Bible of Judaism, while the Christian Bible includes those books and also the 27 books of the New Testament.

The Bible was penned by 40 authors (from different backgrounds…Kings, shepherds, fishermen, tax-Collectors, doctors, prophets from very rich to very poor.) In 3 different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic & Greek), written in 3 different continents and written over a period of 1,500 years (1400 BC to 50 AD).  There are 929 Chapters in the Old Testament. 260 chapters in the New for a total of 1,189 chapters with an average of 18 per book.  23,145 verses in the Old Testament and 7,957 verses in the new for a total of 31,102 verses on average of 26 verses per chapter.  Psalm 117 is the middle chapter (594 chapter before and 594 after). Psalm 117 is also the shortest chapter with only 2 verses.  Psalm 103:1-2 are the middle verses (15550 before and after). There is no middle verse in the Bible; there are two middle verses.

It was until 1400 BC that God inspired and gave Moses the Words to pen the first 5 books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers), which is called the Pentateuch or the Torah.

Now that God had inspired these 66 books of the Bible someone had to put them all together. To make sure that no non-God inspired books make the cut. Which brought in the beginning of the Council of Jamnia. In 90 A.D. this group of scholars and theologians got together to approve the 39 books of the Old Testament.  Based on the criteria that the books were historically accurate, written by a patriarch of the faith and that they were not in conflict with other scriptures.

In 303 A.D. Rome declared that all of the Bible’s be burned up and destroyed forever.  But thanks to the many men and women who sacrificed their lives to save copies of this amazing book.

By 367 A.D. there were many letters and stories circulating around about the life of Jesus and instruction for how Christians were supposed to live. So once again a group of theologians and scholars met. This time it was the council of Carthage.  They met to determine what letters and stories were actually written by reliable sources and then those books make up the New Testament.

The Canon

How did all these books end up in the Bible?  Were there other writers of other books?  How did all they all end up in this book known as the Bible?  These books have been developed through debate & agreement by the several different counsels (Jamnia and Carthage).  Believers came up with the word Canon or Canonicity: which simply means "a straight rod" or a "measuring stick."  The canon refers to the books regarded as inspired by God and authoritative for faith and life.  No church created the canon, but the churches and councils gradually accepted the list of books recognized by believers everywhere as inspired by God. They looked meticulously at each book determining them inspired by answering these 4 guidelines.  

1. Authoritative and authentic - A book had to be written by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle. For example, Mark was not an apostle, but was a close associate of the Apostle Peter. When in doubt, throw it out was the councils motto.

2. Nature of the Book - Does the message of the book agree with the content of divine revelation in the Old Testament? Does the book reflect the character of the person and work of Jesus Christ and agree with the existing apostolic writing?

3. Universality - Is the book being read and practiced in the churches throughout the Body of Christ? This criterion addresses the degree to which the people of God recognize and accept the authority of the book under consideration.

4. Inspiration - The word inspiration literally means "God-breathed." Does the book have a spiritual character that agrees with the Holy Spirit who indwells all believers?  

This would be close to impossible for all of these factors to line up without problems of inconsistency, inaccuracy, and error…I mean come on…40 people from over 1,500 years, through 3 continents and 3 different languages…unless God inspired them to write it! This is it!  We’re not waiting for the next edition.  There is no sequel to this book.  It’s complete. This is God’s Word!  This is God’s love letter to us and it is all about Him!

How the Bible was officially broken down.

In the Old Testament the 39 books are broken into 5 sections.  The first five books of the Bible which were written by Moses are called the Law section (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Number & Deuteronomy). The next section of the Old Testament are the History books (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther). The next group of books in the Old Testament are the Poetry books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, & Song of Solomon). Then we come to the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel & Daniel).  Lastly in the Old Testament are the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, & Malachi).  The difference in the major and Minor Prophets have nothing to do with major and minor leagues.  They are only major and minor because of the actual size of the books.  Major Prophets aren’t better prophets they are just more long winded...

Like the Old Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament are broken down into 5 sections as well.  The first section is The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John). The next section is the history section (Acts).  Which is the history of the early church. The next group is the Letters of Paul (Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus & Philemon).  Most people also include Hebrews as well in the Letters by Paul as do I believe personally as well.  But Paul does not tell us he is the author of Hebrews so it is not for certain.  The next section is the General Letters (Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, & Jude).  Lastly we have the Prophecy section (Revelation).

Transmission of the Bible

Now that we have the 66 books of the Holy Bible more issues arise.  During the next 1,000 years which was known as the dark ages.  A group of men known as monks worked tireless hours in very uncomfortable conditions writing out copies of the Bible word for word by hand.  Once they got finished writing out the Bible they would count every letter to make sure that they were identical to the original.  And if they weren’t identical they would throw it out and start over.  As you know this took a very long time for them to produce a copy of the Bible.  Which in return lead to the cost of owning a Bible very expensive and there were not many available.  Copies of the Bible were only available to the priesthood and they were written in a language that only the priesthood could understand.

So, a man by the name of John Wycliffe believed that a Bible should be available and understood by all people not just the priesthood. So he began to translate the Old Testament from Latin to English.  John Wycliffe was an English scholar, philosopher, theologian and lay preacher.  He was also a teacher at Oxford University in England.  Having the Bible in a language that was understandable by more people was great but that didn’t make it any easier to get the Bible into the hands of people outside of the priesthood.

By 1450 A.D. Johannes Gutenberg who was a German blacksmith, goldsmith, printer and publisher, designed and created the movable type printing press. The movable printing press allowed them to begin the process of mass-producing the Bible.  It unfortunately took 5 years for them to move the individual letters that would make up the entire Bible.  But after those 5 years they had successfully created the first mass-produced copy of God’s Word.

This process created a huge desire for the entire Bible to be translated into English language not just the Old Testament by John Wycliffe.  So a man by the name of William Tyndale began the process of translating the entire Bible from Latin to English in 1535 A.D. William Tyndale was burned at the stake for beginning this process and Miles Coverdale finished the job in 1575 A.D.

Chapter & Verse

30 years later after Miles Coverdale finished the translation of the entire Bible into English in 1615 A.D, a group of Bible scholars from Switzerland broke the Bible up into the numbered verse division.  Which were not written in the original texts.  They were simply long letters written on scrolls.  Chapter divisions were added by Stephen Langton in 1205.  Their purpose was simple…to help Christ-followers locate, find and know how to get around this very big book.  Think of it this way…the name of the book was like find a city.  The chapter & verse was like finding a street name & a house number, all for the purposes of helping people navigate through the Bible.   

Bible Translations

Dr. Lewis Foster a professor at Cincinnati Christian University was one of those who helped translate the NIV and the NKJV said, “It is necessary to continue making new translations and revising old ones if people are to read the Word of God in their contemporary languages. Along the way just in English we’ve had the Bible translated in Old English in the 11^th century, Middle English in 12^th century, Early Modern English were made between 1500-1800 & Modern English in the 19^th century.  There are 30 ore more English translations in circulation.  The best Bible scholars and professors from all over the world would collaborate to mull over the Scriptures in the original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic & Greek) to translate the Bible is contemporary translations preserving it’s original intent!  The translations that we typically used are the NIV (New International Version) that was completed in 1978.  The NIV is the most popular English version.  The NLT (New Living Translation) was completed in 1996. The King James Version was finished in 1615.  One of the most current/new translations that has mostly today’s current wordage and even slang it The Message translation by Eugene Peterson. My personal favorite is the ESV Bible! Dr. Lewis Foster said this… “To keep the translation of God’s Word living it must be kept in the living language the people are using.”  And it has been written in over 2,287 languages all over the world.

My hope is that we all realize the amazing gift that the Bible is.  Also, we should all be overwhelmingly grateful for the hundreds of lives that died to get us the Bibles we have.