The Big Questions About the BibleSample

Who Put the Bible Together?

The question of who put the Bible together comes up over and over again.

The Christian Bible consists of 66 different small books, written over a period of up to 1,500 years, by different authors in different times and cultures. It’s divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament consists of the Hebrew Scriptures – the books written before the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. The Jews were scrupulous in making sure they copied the Scriptures accurately. The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed that the Old Testament from hundreds of years before Jesus is virtually identical to what we have today.

When we come to the New Testament, things get more interesting. Some people incorrectly claim Emperor Constantine had a hand in choosing what should be included, about three centuries after Christ. Others point to the existence of the “gnostic gospels,” which they claim are as reliable as what we have in the New Testament. Still, the gnostic gospels were primarily written centuries after the New Testament.

The books accepted as the New Testament were written during the first century by the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and the earliest Christians. There were two or three books they weren’t too sure about, basically because they couldn’t pinpoint who wrote them, but they worked through it and came to a decision.

As Christians, we would say the Bible wasn’t put together by a decision-making process but that God had his hand over its development and how it has survived throughout history. So, when you read a Bible, you can be sure you are reading the same content the first believers in Jesus Christ also read.

– Eliezer Gonzalez