HOW WAS THE BIBLE WRITTEN?

How was the Bible constructed and compiles?

Materials Used

Writing surfaces such as papyrus were perishable and therefore mostly lost.

““Papyrus was the common writing material especially until the third century, for classical literature until the sixth or seventh century, and even later for some documents.” (Greenlee, INTTC, 10)[1]

The Cambridge History of the Bible gives an account of how papyrus was prepared for writing: The reeds were stripped and cut lengthwise into thin narrow slices before being beaten and pressed together into two layers set at right angles to each other. When dried the whitish surface was polished smooth with a stone or other implement. Pliny refers to several qualities of papyri, and varying thicknesses and surfaces are found before the New Kingdom period when sheets were often very thin and translucent. (Ackroyd and Evans, CHB, 30) The oldest papyrus fragment known dates back to 2400 BC. (Greenlee, INTTC, 9) The earliest manuscripts were written on papyrus, and it was difficult for any to survive except in dry areas such as the sands of Egypt or in caves such as the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.[2]

Parchment is the writing material made from the skins of sheep, goats, or calves and is very strong. Parchments have survived from about 1500BC.

Vellum was a high quality parchment made from the skins of calves, kids, or lambs. It was dyed purple. Parchment is so enduring that some of today’s manuscripts retain some of the ancient purple. The writing on these was usually done in gold.

Ostraca was unglazed pottery and was popular with the common people. The technical name is “potsherd.” It has been found in abundance in Egypt and Palestine (Job 2:8)

Stones have been found inscribed with pen.

Clay Tablets were engraved with a sharp instrument and then dried to create a permanent record. This was cheap and durable.

Wax Tablets were a layer of wax on wood which was written on using a metal stylus.

Writing Instruments ranged from an iron chisel to metal stylus to  reed pens and ink (charcoal, gum, and water). Paul speaks of parchments in 2 Timothy 4:13

Forms of Ancient Books

Scrolls, two-sided scrolls (opisthographs), codex / book form. It is possible that the technology of the codex form hastened the formation of the canon. (Kaminsky et al., AIB, 12)[3]

Types of Writing

Book-hand writing (used for more formal literature works) were characterized by more deliberate and carefully executed letters, each one separate from the other, similar to our capital letters (not uncials, a word that has precise meaning in Latin but only a derived and imprecise meaning in Greek).”

“Apologists Norman Geisler and William Nix note that the “most important manuscripts of the New Testament are generally considered to be the great uncial codices that date from the fourth and following centuries.” (Geisler and Nix, GIB, 391) Probably the two oldest and most significant uncial manuscripts are Codex Vaticanus (about AD 325– 350) and Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 340). Several scholars have suggested that these manuscripts may have been made by Eusebius when Constantine commissioned him to produce fifty copies of the Scriptures. (Metzger and Ehrman, TNT, 15)[4]

Minuscule Writing was a smaller letter and was cursive (from around the 9^th century).

Spaces and Vowels – both Greek and Hebrew had no spaces between words but the Hebrew also had no vowels until the sixth and tenth centuries. (Ehrman, The Bible, 382– 383)[5]

Divisions

Books and chapters – the first divisions were made during the Babylonian captivity but prior to 536 BC. The Pentateuch was divided into 154 groupings, called sedarim, which were designed to provide lessons sufficient to cover a three-year cycle of reading. Around 165 BC, the books of the Prophets were similarly sectioned. During the Reformation era the Hebrew Old Testament began to follow the Protestant chapter divisions for the most part.

“Some chapter divisions, however, had been placed in the margins as early as 1330.” (Geisler and Nix, BFGU, 174)[6]

Regarding the New Testament, the Greeks first made paragraph divisions before the Council of Nicea (AD 325), perhaps as early as AD 250

“The oldest system of chapter division originated about AD 350 and appears in the margins of Codex Vaticanus. However, these sections are much smaller than our modern chapter divisions. For example, in our Bible the gospel of Matthew has twenty-eight chapters, but in Codex Vaticanus, Matthew is divided into 170 sections.”[7]

Geisler and Nix write that:

“it was not until the thirteenth century that those sections were changed, and then only gradually. Stephen Langton, a professor at the University of Paris and afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, divided the Bible into the modern chapter divisions (c. 1227). That was prior to the introduction of movable type in printing. Since the Wycliffe Bible (1382) followed that pattern, those basic divisions have been the virtual base upon which the Bible has been printed to this very day. (Geisler and Nix, GIB, 340– 341)”[8]

Regarding verses – In the Old Testament, the first verse indicators were spaces between words. After the Babylonian captivity, for the purpose of public reading and interpretation, space stops were employed, and still later additional markings were added.

“These ‘verse’ markings were not regulated, and differed from place to place. It was not until about AD 900 that the markings were standardized.” (Geisler and Nix, GIB, 339)[9]

In the New Testament verse markings did not appear until the middle of the sixteenth century. They followed the development of chapters, “apparently in an effort to further facilitate cross-references and make public reading easier.

“The markings first occur in the fourth edition of the Greek New Testament published by Robert Stephanus, a Parisian printer, in 1551. These verses were introduced into the English New Testament by William Whittingham of Oxford in 1557. In 1555 Stephanus introduced his verse divisions into a Latin Vulgate edition, from which they have continued to the present day.” (Geisler and Nix, GIB, 341)[10]

[1] McDowell, Josh; McDowell, Sean. Evidence That Demands a Verdict (p. 60). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

[2] Ibid, 61.

[3]  Ibid, 63

[4] Ibid, 63

[5] Ibid, 64.

[6] Ibid 65

[7] Ibid, 65

[8] Ibid, 65

[9] Ibid, 66

[10]Ibid, 66