I recently finished reading this book which was given to me while in the US this spring. The author, Paul Wegner, Old Testament professor at Phoenix Seminary in Scottsdale, Arizona, examines the centuries-long process by which the books of the Bible were written, collected, considered for inclusion in the biblical canon, translated, copied, and printed to reach the form we recognize today as our Bible today. There are five major sections to the book, each covering a specific part of the origin and development of the Bible.
The First Section includes basic information about the contents of the Christian Bible by surveying the different parts of the Old and New Testaments. Some of the questions answered in this section are “Why are the books in the Protestant Old Testament and Hebrew Bible arranged in different orders, even though the books themselves are the same?”, “Did the whole Church always agree on the 27 books of the New Testament that we have today?” and “If the original manuscripts didn’t include titles, then who decided the titles of the individual books of the Bible?”
The Second Section looks at the process of forming the biblical canon. This section starts out with a look at the necessities to having a written scripture, namely the development of alphabets (esp. Hebrew & Aramaic) and of writing materials. The section then looks at the canonization of the Old Testament, examining such issues as how and why the Jewish and Samaritan biblical canons were different, why Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant canons are different, and the difference between Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The following chapter, on the canonization of the New Testament, notes the distinct differences between the canonization processes and marks of canonicity of the two testaments. This section includes helpful discussion about why the New Testament canon is closed, and why that is important (like when dealing with “prophets” who claim to have received new revelation from God which contradicts the Old and New Testaments). This chapter also includes a distinction between the New Testament apocryphal writings (such as the Gospel of Thomas) and the writings of early church fathers which are sometimes mistakenly included as apocryphal (like the Didache) because they circulated with early copies of the New Testament.
The third section is devoted to examining the process by which the sacred scriptures were transmitted over the centuries. Since we have no original manuscripts of any of the books of the Bible, we rely on copies of those manuscripts. A large portion of this section looks at textual criticism – “the science and art that seeks to determine the most reliable wording of the biblical text” (177). Interesting to this section is how the study of fragments of manuscripts from different periods in history and from different locations can be used to help us gain a better understanding of how the Holy Scriptures were transmitted over the centuries.
The fourth section looks at early Bible translations. Although the earliest translations of the Hebrew Scriptures were treated in previous chapters (such as the transition from the old Hebrew script to the familiar Square script following the exile in Babylon, and the wide acceptance of the Greek Septuagint by the time of Christ), this section looks at translations of the Christian Bible. (such as Latin versions culminating in Jerome’s Vulgate, Old Slavonic, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Gothic). It was interesting to note that many of these translations were based on the Greek Septuagint rather than on the Hebrew. This section also discusses the renewed interest in studying Hebrew and Greek during the Renaissance and the first printed editions to include the original languages.
The fifth and final section of the book looks at English translations of the Bible. What starts with early translations from the 8th century into the Anglo-Saxon language, then moves into pre-Reformation and Reformation-era translators such as John Wycliffe and William Tyndale, before discussing the development of the Authorized Version/King James Version. A considerable amount of space is devoted to surveying the major English translations of the Bible which appeared in the 20th century, as well as the reasons why so many translations exist. (Some of those reasons being the development of the English language, better understanding of Hebrew and Greek grammar as additional ancient manuscripts are discovered, and simply correcting bad translations of the past.) In a later post, I’ll look at a few of the “strange” translations that have appeared in English over the years.
This section reveals many interesting facts about the Bibles we use today. For example, the King James Version which appeared in 1611 has undergone many revisions through over the centuries, the last one being in 1769 by Benjamin Blayney, who standardized the KJV into the form still used today. Later revisions and updates of the KJV never replaced the 1769 KJV, but rather became known as separate translations (e.g. the Revised Version and the New American Standard Version). It was also common practice for the Apocrypha to be included in Protestant Bibles until 1826 when the British and Foreign Bible Society omitted it due to financial (not theological) reasons.
Evaluation of book
This may not sound like the type of book that everyone would like to sit down and read, but I could hardly put it down. It delivered the information clearly without getting bogged down in details. This was greatly aided by the numerous charts and other figures throughout the book.
The book is obviously written from a Christian Protestant perspective. While Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Jewish views on the Bible are included, they are not always treated equally, as the Protestant view always “wins out.”
Since this is a book for English-readers, it makes sense that a great deal of attention would be spent looking at English translations. I would have liked, however, to have seen a bit more discussion about modern translations in languages other than English, including the translation work of missionaries such as Wycliffe Bible Translators besides a single mention in an endnote.
I could easily see this book being used as an introductory textbook for ministerial students studying the Bible. (I remember learning much of this information during my first semester of college, but in class lectures rather than in a well-organized and easy-to-read textbook.) Beyond ministerial students, laypersons wishing to learn more about the development of the Bible would find this accessible, although without a basic understanding of church history it could possibly become overwhelming at a few points. Any pastor would find this volume useful to answer parishioners’ questions about the Bible, such as why Protestant and Catholic Bibles differ, and why are there so many Bible translations.
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