"Inspired" Order We should begin by asking if there is there an "inspired order" for the books of the Bible. There are those who say that there is. They say, "If you want to understand the books of the Bible, you must understand their proper order." They insist that the
King James Bible has the books in the wrong order. People with this belief point out that it is wrong to take a book written by a certain author and change the order of the chapters. They say that one cannot take an introduction and put it at the end. They say one cannot take a conclusion and put it in
the middle. And, they say that this is exactly what has happened to the Bible---that the books are out of order and this mixup causes us to understand the Scriptures incorrectly. Please note that below we have summarized what many believe to be the "inspired order" of the books of the Bible. The summary is titled "The Sevenfold Division of the Bible." It is important to note that we simply cannot prove the "correct" order of the books of the Bible. The Bible itself does not tell us what order, if any, should be followed.
| The Sevenfold Division of the Bible | | |
| OLD TESTAMENT | | NEW TESTAMENT |
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| I. THE LAW (Pentateuch) | | IV. GOSPELS |
| Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy | | Matthew, Mark, Luke, John |
| | | |
| II. THE PROPHETS | | V. ACTS |
| Joshua, Judges, 1Samuel, 2Samuel, 1Kings, 2Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi | | |
| | | |
| III. THE WRITINGS (Poetic Books) | | VI. EPISTLES (General Epistles) |
| Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Songs of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1Chronicles, 2Chronicles | | James, 1 Peter , 2 Peter , I John, 2 John , I2 John , Jude
Pauline Epistles
Hebrews, Romans, 1 Corinthians , 2 Corinthians , Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians , 2 Thessalonians , 1 Timothy , 2 Timothy , Titus, Philemon |
| | | |
| | | VII. REVELATION |
But we do know that Jesus gave us an indication that the Old Testament was divided into three sections--the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms or Writings (Luke 24:44). In this passage, He was not only giving His stamp
of approval to the Scriptures that were used by the Jews. He was also acknowledging that the Holy Scriptures had some type of order to their arrangement. They were not simply a random collection of loose books. How the Old Testament Was Preserved Skeptics have pointed out that the oldest extant version of the Old Testament is less than 1,500 years old. The skeptic looks at the manuscript and says, "The first books of the Bible were written hundreds and hundreds of years before this copy." He says, "All we have available to us is a copy of a copy of a copy, etc. After centuries and centuries of transcribing copies of copies of copies, there must be HUNDREDS of errors in the text of the Old Testament!" This point is well taken. The argument reminds one of the game where about twenty children sit, in a circle. The first one whispers a sentence into the ear of the second child. The second child whispers the same message into the ear of the third child. The
message is whispered all the way around the circle. By the time it reaches the ear of the last child, it is usually a totally different message than what came out of the mouth of the first child. Bible skeptics say this is surely what has happened to the Bible as it was recopied over the centuries. The accurate preservation of the Bible should be a concern for all Christians. It is important to understand that the copying methods used in reproducing the Bible were computer-like in their accuracy. Notice the beginning of the history of biblical preservation: "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, "Take this book of the law, and put it
in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee" (Deuteronomy 31:24-26). Here we see the beginning of the sacred trust given to the Levites to safeguard the Scriptures. The "writings of words" referred to here are the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, also known as the Law or Pentateuch (Greek) or Torah (Hebrew). From that time forward, the religious leaders of Israel became the zealous guardians of the Scriptures. Later, after the Babylonian captivity of Judah, these Scriptures were practically worshipped as much as was the Creator Himself. It could be said that the
love that the Jews had for the Law was tantamount to idolatry! They watched over these Sacred Writings more carefully than any other possession in the Holy Land. Joshua, Moses' successor, also instructed the Israelites to have a special concern for "all the words of the Law" (Joshua 8:35). He told the people to sit down as the Law was read to them. This reading probably took several days because the Torah was a
lengthy volume. Many people assume that Paul wrote more of the Bible than any other servant of God. Actually, Paul wrote more books than anyone else, but Moses wrote more volume. Each of Moses' five books was much longer than any of Paul's smaller books.
All in all, Moses wrote about three times as much material as Paul. In the time of Joshua, the entirety of the Torah was read to the children of Israel. A great reverence for the Scripture had developed within one generation after the Exodus. We also see that, the Levites were not the only ones involved in preserving the Scriptures. God knew that the day would come when His people would reject Him as their king and that they would insist on having a human king (Deuteronomy 17:14-15). But notice what God instructed the new king to do: "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his
life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them" (verses 18-19). The kings of Israel not only had to study and obey the Law, they also had to write their own personal copies of that Law! The Rules of Copying Now, the result of this reverence was the creation of a system of copying which is nothing less than astounding. The Levites had to create a system of making new copies of the Bible as old copies wore out and had to be destroyed. They knew it would be easy to
make a mistake in copying a new transcript, so here is what they did. They developed elaborate and meticulous RULES for transcribing. They decreed that when a person was making a new text, he had to copy the original page with such exactness that the number of words on a page could not be changed. If the original page had 288 words, then the page being copied had to have the same 288
words. Each line on a new page had to be the exact same as the line on the old page. If the first line on the original page had nine words, the first line on the copy page had to have nine words. After a page was copied, the number of letters on that page was counted and compared with the original. After a page was copied, each letter was counted and compared with the original. After a page was copied, someone would check to see what the middle letter was on the copy and the original. "A synagogue roll [remember that they did not have paper as we do today] must be written on the skins of clean animals, the length of each column must not extend less than 48 or more than 80 lines; the breadth must consist of 30 letters. No word or
letter, not even a yod, must be written from memory... Between every consonant the space of a hair or thread must intervene, between every book three lines. Besides this the copyist must sit in full Jewish dress, and wash his whole body" (Hebrew Text of the Old Testament, Davidson). The scribes were not allowed to copy sentence for sentence or even word for word. They had to copy letter for letter. After a page was copied and checked by another, still a third person would check to see what the middle word was on the page. Then, when the whole book was finished, another would count the phrases. These are just a few examples of the great detail that went into ensuring the accuracy of the Scriptures. There were many more steps taken in the process. All of this could be characterized as a "fence to the Scriptures (Massorah) because it locked all words and letters in their places... It records the number of times the several letters occur in the various books of the Bible; the number of words, and the middle word; the number of verses,
and the middle verse; the number of expressions and combinations of words, etc... All this ...for the set purpose of safeguarding the Sacred Text, and preventing the loss or misplacement of a single letter or word" (Bullinger, The Companion Bible). These men had no worry whatsoever that there might have been an error. For that reason, they felt no more need to keep their older copies than a data processing manager feels a need to keep his older printouts when he knows his current hard copies are
accurate. The Role of the Scribes The ancient Israelites kept a copy of the Scriptures in the first Temple. They put it inside the Ark of the Covenant. This copy became known as "The Temple Scriptures." Even though the first temple was destroyed and the Jews were taken to Babylon, the Scriptures were preserved. In the Babylonian captivity, a group of Levites who became known as the Scribes painstakingly copied and disseminated the Scriptures to other Jews. One of the most important historical figures during this time was Ezra. He was not only a scribe, but the last of the Old Testament prophets. He probably wrote Chronicles and is said to have fixed the Old Testament canon around 400 B.C. After the Jews returned to Palestine, the Scribes continued to take an active part in preserving and distributing the Scriptures. When the second temple was built, another master copy was put in the Holy Place. By the time Jesus was born, the Scribes had become so obsessed with counting jots and tittles that they forgot the very messages that were in the sentences they were transcribing. Their obsession with detail caused Christ to say, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law--judgment, mercy, and faith" (Matthew 23:43). Even after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the Scribes continued their work. They were eventually replaced by the Massoretes, who were in charge of preserving the Scriptures from approximately 500-1000 A.D. These new custodians of the Scriptures have
left us the Masoretic text on which most modern translations are based. Has the Old Testament been accurately preserved for us today? Absolutely! Jack Finegan, a noted Bible scholar said, "It has been ...estimated that there are ...variations in hardly more than a 1000th part, of the text." This means the Old Testament is at least 99.9% true to the original! Do We Have the Right Books? Now, the question is asked, "All right. The books we have today have the same words that were written several thousand years ago. But how do we know these are the right books?" To find our answer, we begin by noting that we do not have to research all the way back to the nation of Israel, the original authors, and the preservers of the text. We only have to go back to the time of Jesus. If the Jews during the time of Christ's earthly ministry were using the wrong books, He would have mentioned it and the Gospel writers would have recorded it. But as we pointed out earlier, Luke 24:44 puts Jesus' stamp of approval on the Old Testament that was
utilized by the Jews of His time. Jesus made many references to Old Testament events. He talked about the Creation epic and the Flood. He talked about, men such as Abel, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and others. He talked about the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah. Christ had no problem whatsoever with the Old Testament canon that existed in His time. Nor should we, since it was the very same canon that we have in most, modern translations! The Apocrypha And what about the Apocrypha? These books are part, of the Catholic Bible and a few other versions. The books include Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, and I & II Maccabees. There are 14 apocryphal books which some
believe should be part of the Old Testament. Actually, there were hundreds of such books. The word "Apocrypha" comes from the Greek word meaning "secrets." Most of these books are mystery books and were written between 200-100 B.C. Tradition tells us that Ezra closed the Old Testament canon around 400 B.C. The apocryphal books were written after Ezra's closing of the Old Testament. Virtually all of the Old Testament was written by Israelites who lived in Palestine. The Apocrypha, however, appears to have been written by Jews in Alexandria, Egypt. This city had a large Jewish colony before the birth of Jesus. Masoretic Text or Septuagint (LXX)? All modern Bibles are translated from either the Septuagint text or the Masoretic text. At this time, it is worthwhile to ask, "Which one is better?" The Septuagint Bible has an interesting if somewhat questionable history. It was prepared in
Alexandria, home of the apocryphal writings. Supposedly, in the third century B.C., 72 Jewish scholars from Jerusalem went to Alexandria. In 72 days they translated the Old Testament into Greek, and their translation became known as the Septuagint or the LXX. It was probably originally
known as the LXXII for the 72 scholars and 72 days, but this heading became abbreviated to LXX. When reading various versions of the Bible, you should remember that any version based on the LXX is a translation of a translation. For example, the Catholic Bible is translated from the Greek Septuagint, which was translated from the original Hebrew. Most
other Bibles are direct translations from the original Masoretic text and are thus more reliable than those translated from the Septuagint. God's Word is True We can now see that God has preserved His written Word for us. Granted, no English translation as perfect. Each has been translated by imperfect men and contains minor errors. But the original Hebrew Bible from which they are translated is virtually impeccable. For this reason, we should look at several translations when we have difficulty in understanding a particular verse. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). Written by: Wesley White |
