How did we get the Bible?

If you’ve ever been asked or asked yourself about where the Bible comes from and still have this really fuzzy idea of “well somebody knows for sure” or “my pastors told me we should just trust it” or “come on, no one doubts the Bible” then I’d suggest this refresher on how the Bible has come into existence.

So how do we get from Moses or Paul writing something on some parchment to what we believe about the tabernacle or baptism?

1. Autographs – this is what we call the original writings, the ink put to paper by David or Peter. They most likely don’t exist anymore.

2. Canonization – who decided and what criteria were used to determine which books were included in the canon of scripture? This is an important point but would require a history lesson on the early church and the many councils and synods that were held to affirm the writings that were already widely accepted. All this to say that we know who did it and what criteria they used and ultimately that God was sovereign in this whole process.

3. Manuscripts – copies of the original writings, over 5,000 of the NT alone, this is orders of magnitude more evidence than we have for any other old writings (writings of Plato, Homer’s Iliad, Caesar’s Galic Wars…).

4. Textual Criticism – the process of studying and comparing all the manuscripts to determine which one’s are reliable and how they fit together.

5. Critical Text – the consensus (Greek) text compiled from all the manuscripts we have.

6. Translation – from original language (Greek or Hebrew) to your language (English), this is just one translation step.

7. Version – during translation different versions will translate word for word (NASB, KJV, ESV) thought for thought (NIV, NLT), or simply paraphrase (Living Bible, The Message) in order to convey the meaning in the Greek; usually a tradeoff between accuracy and “readability”.

8. Interpretation – Historical-Grammatical method (hermeneutics). Process of finding the intended meaning of the text from writer to his audience. This original intended meaning of the text is drawn out through examination of the passage in light of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre as well as theological (canonical) considerations.

9. Doctrine – Creeds, Catechisms and Confessions are public declarations of what a church or community of believers believes. These would include common examples such as the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed; the Heidelberg Catechism; and the Belgic, Westminster, and 1689 Confessions of Faith.

My take on the Bible vs. Confessions
This is an illustration I used when I was teaching a kid’s Sunday school class several years ago on doctrine. See what you think.
Imagine the Scriptures as a big bowl of chef’s salad. There is a lot of stuff in salad; lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, hard boiled egg, olives, bacon bits, croutons, dressing… and it tastes really good all mixed together, one bite may be composed of mostly lettuce, cheese and dressing. Other bites might have just cucumbers and a chunk of tomato, but the different combinations in each bite are savory and satisfying.A confession isn’t like that. A confession takes that salad and picks out all the lettuce and lays it in a stack. Then it takes out all the tomato and puts it into another pile and so on, pulling out classes of ingredients and grouping them together. Eventually you’re left with a bunch of stuff in the bottom of the bowl that you don’t quite know which pile it goes in, so you just leave it in the bowl and don’t try to sort it out.
In my salad, lettuce could represent God, it’s the most common and abundant ingredient, just about every bite will have some lettuce in it. But some bites might not have it (book of Esther anyone?). Anyway, I think you can see my analogy; a confession is just an attempt to pick out the most important topics of the Bible (God, man, sin, Jesus, saving faith…) and carefully study and define them according to the systematic usage in the whole Bible. While confessions are not inspired by God, they are serious attempts by committed Christians to organize and understand God’s revelation truthfully. The main purpose is to prevent any weird cultic or heretical departures from the truths of Scripture and provide a sense of unity for the local church.

So I’d invite you to consider what are the most important things contained in the Bible, then look at a confession and recognize that many Christians long before us have valued these same things. We are not meant to be Christians in a historical and cultural vacuum.