How did the ancient christians know scripture

[anon91549587]

Those ancients like St Anthony of Egypt , St Macarius of Egypt , St Panteleimon etc , was their “pre-bible bible” in the form of separate books as opposed to an entire compilation ?

 

[adamhovey1988]

They still would have had some idea of scripture, and it would have been read in the liturgy. And the earliest Christians, being Jewish converts, would have known the Old Testament.

 

[Seagull]

That’s a great question -
I first think of today - how were over saturated by the Bible.
Back then, people had to hang on to every word.

Today, I’m not sure if our society - is ‘obviously’ more holier -
than our ancient communities - say of the 1200’s - 1300’s.

 

[anon91549587]

Exactly . Christians quarreling over biblical differences when followers were killed over owning scripture in the past.

 

[guanophore]

Those ancients like St Anthony of Egypt , St Macarius of Egypt , St Panteleimon etc , was their “pre-bible bible” in the form of separate books as opposed to an entire compilation ?

They used the Septuagint, as did Jesus and the Apostles. They had many of the NT letters, and the “memoirs of the Apostles” (Gospels).

 

[anon91549587]

Which means Jesus and the apostles could read greek ?

 

[guanophore]

Which means Jesus and the apostles could read greek ?

It was not their first language, of course, but they lived in a culture where Greek and Latin were common. Whenever they interacted with non-Jews, they likely did not use Aramaic. The charges against Jesus were written in all those languages and nailed to the cross.

It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. (John 19).

There are numerous references in the NT books that come from the Septuagint.

 

[Dan_Defender]

There were compilations in circulation, called ‘codices’. They were difficult and expensive to make, so only a few copies would be available to be read in churches. In Egypt, as it was Hellenised, the codices were probably in Greek.

 

[Sedona]

This is a great thread and I see some great responses. Thanks for posting it!

 

[PJH_74]

The first Gospels were written a few generations after Jesus’ life and seeming by those who were Greek speaking and likely converts. There are no Aramaic versions that I’m aware of.

 

[HeDa]

There is a rhythm and rime in the Hebrew and Greek that is very difficult to translate into other languages. They also relied on an oral tradition.

Ps 119 with 176 verses is a very good example why. There are 24 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and each letter has 8 verses which begin with “A B etc” down to the last letter. That is very easy to memorise compared to the English translation.