How We Got the Bible
Below are two diagrams that give a visual overview of how we got our English versions of the Bible. Explanations of the elements of these diagrams are below.

Original Manuscripts
The Bible is made up of 66 separate books. The Old Testament was written in the Hebrew language; the New Testament in the Greek language. The Old Testament includes 39 books. The New Testament includes 27 books. The original writers hand wrote each book. Sometimes scribes were used to copy down the words of the author.
In the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, he makes this statement. "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." (See Luke 1: 1-4.)
The Apostle Paul often used a scribe. Here is a reference to Tertius, the scribe who wrote down the words of Paul that we know as the Letter to the Romans. "I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord." (See Romans 16:22.)
Paul also indicates that he wrote certain letters himself as in the Letter to the Colossians. "I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you." (See Colossians 4:18).
There are no original documents written by the authors in existence today. We do have hand written copies of the originals. A copy is referred to as a manuscript. The term "manuscript" is from the Latin, manu (hand) and scriptum (written). The manuscripts that exist today may be a small portion of a Bible book up to the Bible as a whole.
The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian.
The oldest preserved manuscript of a New Testament text is a portion of the Gospel of John. It is called the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 (also known as the St. John's fragment). It is a fragment of papyrus measuring only 3.5" by 2.5" located in the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, UK. The front of the fragment contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John (John 18:31-33) in Greek. The back of the fragment contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38. There has been much discussion about the date of the fragment. The most common date is the year 125 A.D. It is estimated that the date that John originally wrote his gospel is between 90-100 A.D. If we accept the later dating, then there would be only 25 years between the original document and the earliest known manuscript.
A team of scientists and scholars has been working on a papyrus fragment of the Gospel of Mark, discovered as part of an ancient Egyptian funeral mask. It is suggested that this fragment may even predate that of Papyrus P52.
The Codices
A codex is a book made of sheets of paper, vellum, papyrus or other materials. The term is now typically used of books written by hand. The book is usually bound with the pages stacked on each other. The plural of the word codex is codices. The Romans developed the original codices from wooden writing tablets. The codex gradually replaced the scroll, which was the dominant book form in the ancient world.
There are four codices of complete (or nearly complete) Greek Bibles that have survived to the present day. These include the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus. These are discussed below.
Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus (also known as Codex B) is currently located in the Vatican Library. It is generally believed to be from the fourth century (300 - 325 A.D.) and is thought to be the oldest (nearly) complete copy of the Greek Bible in existence. Lacking from it are most of the book of Genesis, Hebrews 9:14 to the end, the Pastoral Epistles, and the book of Revelation. These parts were lost by damage to the front and back of the volume, which is common in ancient manuscripts.
Codex Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus (also known as Codex A) is a Greek manuscript of the Bible written in the 4th century by four scribes. It includes portions of the Old Testament, the entire New Testament and some Aprocryphal books. It is the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament. A complete list of the contents of Codex Sinaiticus can be viewed by CLICKING HERE.
The codex is now split into four unequal portions: 347 leaves in the British Library in London (199 of the Old Testament, 148 of the New Testament), 12 leaves and 14 fragments in the Saint Catherine's Monastery, 43 leaves in the Leipzig University Library (in Leipzig Germany) and fragments of 3 leaves in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg Russia.
It includes portions of the Old Testament, the entire New Testament and some Aprocryphal books.
Codex Alexandrinus
The Codex Alexandrinus contains the Septuagint (the Koine Greek version of the Old Testament) and all of the books of the New Testament.
Codex Alexandrinus contains the entire Bible in Greek, comprising the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint), together with the entire New Testament. it also contains several extra books, including Maccabees as part of the Septuagint Old Testament and the First Epistle of St Clement of Rome (d. 99) at the end of the New Testament.
It is dated between 400 and 440 A.D. and is located in the British Library.
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (also know as Codex C) is a Greek copy of the Bible containing material from every New Testament book except Second Thessalonians and Second John. It contains only six books of the Greek Old Testament. It is dated at 450 A.D. and is located in Paris at the National Library of France.
Ancient Texts
Aramaic Targums
Some of the first translations of the Jewish Torah (Genesis - Deuteronomy) began during the first exile in Babylonia, when Aramaic became the common language of the Jews. With most people speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues.
Greek Septuagint
The Septuagint (also known as LXX), was the very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language. It later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the Christian church and the basis of its canon.
The name “Septuagint” comes from the Latin word for seventy. The tradition is that 70 (or 72) Jewish scholars were the translators behind the Septuagint. The Septuagint was translated in the third and second centuries B.C. in Alexandria, Egypt. As Israel was under the authority of Greece for several centuries, the Greek language became more and more common. By the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C., most people in Israel spoke Greek as their primary language. That is why the effort was made to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek – so that those who did not understand Hebrew could have the Scriptures in a language they could understand. The Septuagint represents the first major effort at translating a significant religious text from one language into another.
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text is the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the ninth century A.D. It was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries. Their goal was to preserve the integrity of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. They examined Old Testament manuscripts and carefully copied them. They counted the number of words and letters on each page and in each Bible book. This counting system helped them to verify the accuracy of certain manuscripts.
Other Translations
The Bible was translated into Gothic in the 4th century by Ulfilas. Ulfilas was ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as a missionary. In 348, in order to escape religious persecution by a Gothic chief, probably Athanaric. Ulfilas obtained permission from Constantius II to migrate with his flock of converts to Moesia and settle near Nicopolis ad Istrum in modern northern Bulgaria. There, Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek into the Gothic language and devised the Gothic alphabet. Fragments of his translation have survived, notably the Codex Argenteus held since 1648 in the University Library of Uppsala in Sweden. A parchment page of this Bible was found in 1971 in the Speyer Cathedral.
In the 5th century, Saint Mesrob translated the Bible using the Armenian alphabet invented by him. Also dating from the same period are the Syriac, Coptic, Old Nubian, Ethiopic and Georgian translations.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls were were originally discovered in the winter of 1946 or 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd named Mohammed edh-Dhib, who was looking for his lost goat. In his search, he came across a cave where he found several nearly-complete scrolls hidden in clay jars. The cave was located on the western shores of the Dead Sea.
Most of the texts use Hebrew, with some written in Aramaic and a few in Greek. Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. The scrolls are estimated to have been written between 200 B.C and 68 A.D. The scrolls contain handwritten copies of every Old Testament book except Esther. These manuscripts were 1,000 older than any manuscripts that had been previously found.
The significance of these scrolls is that the modern translations of the Bible have a 95% word for word accuracy as compared to the ancient Dead Sea scrolls. The 5% variation consists mainly of obvious scribal errors and spelling variations.
Due to the poor condition of some of the scrolls, scholars have not identified all of their texts. The identified texts fall into three general groups:
Some 40% are copies of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures. Approximately another 30% are texts from the Second Temple Period which ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc. The remainder (roughly 30%) are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group (sect) or groups within greater Judaism, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing.
The biblical manuscripts from Qumran include at least fragments from every book of the Old Testament, except perhaps for the Book of Esther. The scrolls include a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were were originally discovered in the winter of 1946 or 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd named Mohammed edh-Dhib, who was looking for his lost goat. In his search, he came across a cave where he found several nearly-complete scrolls hidden in clay jars. The cave was located on the western shores of the Dead Sea.
Most of the texts use Hebrew, with some written in Aramaic and a few in Greek. Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. The scrolls are estimated to have been written between 200 B.C and 68 A.D. The scrolls contain handwritten copies of every Old Testament book except Esther. These manuscripts were 1,000 older than any manuscripts that had been previously found.
The significance of these scrolls is that the modern translations of the Bible have a 95% word for word accuracy as compared to the ancient Dead Sea scrolls. The 5% variation consists mainly of obvious scribal errors and spelling variations.
Due to the poor condition of some of the scrolls, scholars have not identified all of their texts. The identified texts fall into three general groups:
Some 40% are copies of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures. Approximately another 30% are texts from the Second Temple Period which ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc. The remainder (roughly 30%) are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group (sect) or groups within greater Judaism, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing.
The biblical manuscripts from Qumran include at least fragments from every book of the Old Testament, except perhaps for the Book of Esther. The scrolls include a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah.
The Latin Vulgate The Latin Vulgate is a Latin version of the Bible translated by Jerome. Jerome was born around 347 A.D. in Stridon (modern Bosnia). He was a priest, theologian and historian. He began in 382 by correcting the existing Latin language version of the New Testament, commonly referred to as the Vetus Latina (Old Latin). These translations were made by individual Christians for use within their own community. By 390 he turned to translating the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew, having previously translated portions from the Septuagint which came from Alexandria. He translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Latin. Up to that time translations of the Old Testament were based on the Greek Septuagint. |
John Wycliffe
The Gutenberg Bible
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John Wycliffe was born in the 1320s in England. He was a scholastic philosopher, theologian, Biblical translator, reformer, and seminary professor at Oxford. Wycliffe was also an advocate for translation of the Bible into the modern language of the people. He completed a translation directly from the Latin Vulgate into Middle English in the year 1382, now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395. This is the first English translation of the Bible. |
World’s first printing press with moveable metal type was invented in 1455 in Germany by Johann Gutenberg. The first major work printed with this new technology was the Latin Vulgate version of the Old Testament and New Testament. This invention is perhaps the single most important event to influence the spread of the Bible.
Erasmus
In 1516 Desiderius Erasmus produced his Greek/Latin Parallel New Testament. The Latin was not the Vulgate translation of Jerome, but a new translation taken from the Greek New Testament text that Erasmus had collated from six or seven partial New
Testament manuscripts into a complete Greek New Testament. Erasmus‘ work would become a very valuable tool to both Martin Luther, in translating the Bible into German and to William Tyndale, in translating it into English. The Latin that Erasmus translated from the Greek exposed the corruptions that had crept into the Latin Bible over the previous thousand years. |
Martin Luther

In 1522 Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. This translation gave the average person greater access to the Word of God.
Martin Luther was born in 1483. He was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, and monk and a key figure in the Protestant Reformation. As a Catholic priest he came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He disagreed with the church's view on indulgences that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517 that he nailed to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg.
His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.
Martin Luther was born in 1483. He was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, and monk and a key figure in the Protestant Reformation. As a Catholic priest he came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He disagreed with the church's view on indulgences that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517 that he nailed to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg.
His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.