Page 6 - Bible Study Methods-Textbook_Neat

feet)) and sewn together to form the scroll. If a scribe made the slightest mistake in copying, such as
allowing two letters of a word to touch, they destroyed that entire panel and the panel before it
because it touched the panel with the mistake! This demonstrates the level of faithfulness to accuracy
applied to the preservation of God’s Word throughout the first couple thousand years of Biblical
transmission. All scrolls that were damaged or began to show wear were copied, then destroyed to
show reverence to God’s Word.

English and Hebrew are similar in that both languages are “picture languages.” Their words form a clear
picture in your mind.

By 500 BC, the 39 books that make up the OT were completed and were preserved on scrolls. Between
400 BC and 30 AD, the books of the Apocrypha were completed, but were recorded in Greek rather than
Hebrew. By 100 AD, all the books of the New Testament were completed.

How Did We Get the Bible? – Living Stones Churches

Canonicity - Who decided which of these books was God’s Word?

Remember, the books that God wrote were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The books came together as
they were RECOGNIZED by all that they were Scripture. Of course, men created various criteria in order
to recognize a book as part of the canon, but God determined whether a book was inspired and thus
canonical—and God directed men to recognize his Handprint on the documents. Men do not
determine which books are canonical. God does. God gives the books of the Bible their divine authority.
God’s people recognized this authority, but they do not determine its authority. As J. I. Packer has said,
“The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of
gravity” (God Speaks to Man, p. 81). Newton recognized the force of
gravity. God’s people recognized those books that were inspired by God.

The collection of 66 books was properly recognized by the early church as
the complete authoritative scriptures not to be added to or subtracted
from. But how did the early church recognize the books to include and

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