Page 61 - Doctrine and History of the Preservation of the Bible Student Textbook
P. 61

Study Section 9:  The History of Preservation - continued


               9.1 Connect
                       Have you ever tried to learn a new language?  For some, it is easy.  For others, it is very difficult
                       and sometimes takes years to master it.  When God chose to write down the Bible, He very
                       carefully selected two main languages main because they are extremely accurate languages.  If
                       He wrote them with a particular meaning, those languages were exact.  Today we are going to
                       learning about the languages God used to write the Bible, and how over the years He has
               preserved the information so that the Bible we have today is 100% reliable.

                9.2 Objectives

                    1.  The student should be able to describe the languages God selected to write the Bible and why
                    He selected them.

                    2. The student should be able to explain the methods that believers over the years have used to
               ensure that each copy of God’s Word was totally reliable.

               3.  Translating the Bible from one language to another is a monumental task.  We will investigate the
               challenges to do so.

                9. 3 Biblical Languages and preserving the texts

                       What languages was the Bible written in?

                       The Old Testament was written over a period of 1,100 year in one main language: Hebrew.
                       There are three small sections of the OT that were written in Aramaic (the language of the
                       Babylonians).  They are: Daniel 2:4-7:28, Ezra 4-6:18, 7:12-26, Jer. 10:11.  Since they are such a
               small part of the OT language, we will not consider this language.  The Hebrew Bible contained 24 books.

               They are Hebrew Bible (24 books)

               The Law                      The Prophets                 The Writings
               Genesis                      Joshua                       Psalms
               Exodus                       Judges                       Proverbs
               Leviticus                    Samuel                       Job
               Numbers                      Kings                        Song of Solomon
               Deuteronomy                  Isaiah                       Ruth
                                            Jeremiah                     Lamentations
                                            Ezekiel                      Ecclesiastes
                                            The 12 Minor Prophets        Esther
                                                                         Daniel
                                                                         Ezra-Nehemiah
                                                                         Chronicles

               The New Testament was written in the common language of the day when Christ was on earth: Greek.
               Because of Alexander the Great’s conquering of the middle east, the culture and language was


                                                             60
   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66