The Bible’s History

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.
Isaiah 40:8

Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.
Matthew 24:35

The Word of God is eternal; it has always and will always exist in some form. It has not always been bold black print on fine paper as we know it today. Centuries ago, the Word of God was written by hand on scrolls made of leather (parchment) or papyrus (a material made of reeds). The apostle Paul was referring to certain scrolls when he urged Timothy to bring the parchments with him on his trip to Rome (II Timothy 4:13). Similar ancient manuscripts have been discovered recently in caves throughout Israel -- some of them dating back to the 7th and 8th century B.C.

The first real attempt to combine the books of the Bible into a single unit took place in about A.D.

400. This was a Latin translation called the Vulgate, and it remained the standard Catholic Bible for about a thousand years.

Throughout the dark ages, the Bible was confined almost completely to the Latin language. Any attempt by anyone to translate the Word of God into English meant arrest and certain death. It was not until about 1385 that the Bible was translated into the English language by an English Bible scholar named John Wycliffe. William Tyndale’s English translation and mass production of English Bibles makes him the man most responsible for Bible reform. Tyndale eventually died a cruel martyr’s death because of his pioneer work in Bible reformation.

The most commonly accepted translation among religious circles today is the King James Version. This particular translation took place in the year 1611 and was the work of 54 scholars under the leadership of King James I. Their translation, taken from both the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts with some help from the Bishop’s Bible, has remained the most preferred version for over 350 years.