A friend of mine made some claims, in her blog, based on THE BIBLE. I haven’t talked to her about it yet, but have been poundering on what to say. I’ll tell you the background story later, in a more appropiate forum.Anyway…
- Who gathered all the writtings and put together the first Bible? I know I’ve heard it before, but can’t remember the name. Did that particular group consider themselves Catholic, as we think of Catholics today? Any data you have will greatly help.
The first books of the Old Testament were composed and transmitted orally – you can see that in the two versions of the Creation, two versions of the flood, and three versions of Abraham saying Sarah is his sister (the third time, it’s Issac who makes that blunder.)
The oral stories were written down by several people (Scholars tend to identify four different people who wrote down the first five books of the Old Testament.)
Around 300 BC, the Ptolomies of Egypt were collecting books for the famous Library of Alexandria. They wanted the Jewish scriptures, but in Greek. A group of 70 (or 72) scholars translated the Scriptures into Greek – this version of the Bible is called the “Septaugent” for that reason. It became the most-used version, even in Judah, where people now spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, and learned Greek for commercial purposes.
The canon of the Bible was not stable in those days – the Saducees, for example, rejected all but the first five books.
The Christians read “the memoirs of the Apostles” at communion (the Mass). Over time, Church tradition accepted certain documents as suitable for being read at mass and rejected others.
By the 4th Century, there was a huge mass of Christian literature – a good bit of it forged to uphold various heresies. In the late 4th Century, a formal examination of all these documents was made, and Pope Damasus proclaimed the Canon of the Bible – the list of legitimate books in both the Old and New Testaments.
- My mom’s Catholic Bible has more books than the King James version. Would that mean that King James actually corupted the original written word? Whose Bible would be the 'real" Bible? Once again, I’ll need data.
Thanx
Kim
Yes. Christians – including people like Martin Luther – recognized the canonicity of the Deutrocanonical books (the missing books) for more that 1500 years before the King James version.
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