How was the Bible assembled? If I find out it was done by the Catholics, I must rethink everything. What?

Question

How was the Bible assembled, and who decided what to include and what to exclude? The Bible we have now, when was it assembled, and what was the process? Exact facts and dates, if possible, would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The Roman Council of Nicea. In the year 325.

Christian writings had been circulating for about 300 years by then, and the Catholic church was just being formed in Rome. The Council decided what books and writings to declare as official canon. The writings did come from several very different sources, but in essence, yes, the Catholics put them in a book and in the order they are currently in.

Answer 2

>>How was the Bible assembled? If I find out it was done by the Catholics, I must rethink everything.<<

It was the Catholics. When I realized that, I gave up Christianity altogether, for about seven years. Then I converted to Catholicism. Either you trust the Catholic Church, or you don't. This "I trust them to put together the NT canon, but not to interpret it" nonsense doesn't work.

Answer 3

The brief history is as follows:

In ancient Rome, there were street entertainers that would stand on the streets and tell stories (these stories were passed from person to person...kind of like a chain letter).

As time progressed, these stories were written down, and eventually, all of the stories were compiled together into a book. This book is better known as the "Holy Bible"

Answer 4

Why do you need to rethink everything ?
The bible was assembled by the Church but was not written by the Church

God Bless You

Answer 5

Then start rethinking everything, buddy, because the only dominant church that came to power in the very beginning was the Catholic one, which split into Roman and Eastern Orthodox centuries later.

There really wasn't any other game in town for over 1,500 years after Christ.

Answer 6

I don't have the exact dates etc. but I can tell you this...the Catholics have nothing to do with it. But they do however have a Bible of there own that they have rewrote to fit what they teach.

Just make sure your not using one of there's and you will be OK.

The Bible can be trusted, go to www.amazingfacts.org
they have all kinds of Bible Questions & Answers and can help you with this and any other question you may have concerning the Bible. And they will answer you truthfully from the Bible & the Bible only. "DONT GO BY WHAT MAN HAS TO SAY, GET YOUR ANSWERS FROM THE BIBLE & THE BIBLE ONLY".

Good Luck & God Bless !

Answer 7

You might investigate a couple of sources, one being "The Bible Unearthed" by Finkelstein and Silberman, and "The Oxford History of Christianity."

Answer 8

O.T. 1110 years done 443 before Christ, N.T. done 50 to 100 years after Christ. The books were place as they are by man down the time to KJV Bible 1611 published, but as I study and get to know them, I ask myself, if I would have placed them different?
No, having them is what is important.
Knowing the time involved is a help.
Gen.5: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 25, 28 is 1056 Noah born. Gen.7:6 Noah age 600.
Gen.9:28,29;
Noah lived 350 years after the flood.
Gen.11:10,11;
Shem lived 502 years after the flood, has 150 years lfe when Abraham is born.
Gen.11: 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 is 222 and Gen.11:32 205 is 427 after flood.
Gen.12:4;
Abraham age 75 gets the Promised Land covenant AT 427 YEARS AFTER FLOOD.
Gen.25:7,9; Abraham age 175 dies 527 years after the flood. 1883 before Christ.
Gen.16:16; Gen.25:17;
Ishmael is 438 to 575 after the flood. 1835 before Christ.
Gen.21:5; 35:28,29;
Isaac is 452 to 632 after the flood. 1778 before Christ.
Gen.25:26; Gen.47:9,11; 28;
Jacob is 512 is [ 215 years in Canaan ], 642 at Rameses Egypt has 70 in family,
to 659 at death. 1751 before Christ.
Gen.50:26;
Joseph is 602 to 712 at death. 1698 before Christ.
Exo.6:16-23,26; Gen.15:13,16 [ 4th generation ];
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amran & sons Priest Levi, prophet judge Moses.
Exo.7:7 [ Aaron age 83, Moses age 80 ];
Exo.12:40,41 [ 430 years ]; Gal.3:16-18 430 years from Abraham 427 to law is 857
year to Exodus. Half a Million heirs from Gen.47:9; when Jacob was age 130, 215
years ago. Num.33:38,39; Aaron age 123 dies in 40th year. 05/ 01 / 1513 B.C.
Deut.1:3; 11 / 01 /1513. 34:7; Moses age 120 dies in 40th years, 897 years 1513 BC.
Josh.5:6,10,12; End of 40 years, 14th day into New Year at 898th year. 1512th B.C.
Judges 11:26; 300 years to judge Jair dies, 1198th after flood, is 1212 B.C.
Acts 13:20 450 Samuel after Moses 857 is 1307 to 1327 and 1083 Before Christ.
Saul 1295 to 1333, as 1117 to 1077 Before Christ.
David 1330 to to 1327 to 1333 to 1373 & 1107 to 1083 to 1077 to 1037 before Christ.
Solomon 1373 to 1377 1Ki.6:1 480 Moses 897 in Promised Land, 1Ki.11:42; 36
Solomon dies 1413 after the flood and 1037 to 1033 to 997 before Christ.
Judah kings 391st to Babylon captivity 1804 after flood and 606 before Christ.
Daniel at 3460 after Adam gives 2520 to WW1, Dan.12:1-3; Rev.9-5; 17:10-14; 12:1-12;
is 150 years to Rev.20:1-6,12,13 [ no Satan for 1000 year reign ];
2Chr.36:20-23; Jer.25:12; Dan.9:2 [24-27 Math to Christ ]; - 70 is 536 B.C. Cyrus.
Moses O.T. Bible books 1110 years to 443 before Christ.
World History at Empire #5 Greece 336 before Christ Matt.1:1-17;

Answer 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Canon#Christian_canons

Answer 10

Relax, it was the Jews.

The efforts of translating the Bible from its original languages into over 2,000 others have spanned more than two millennia. Partial translations of the Bible into English can be traced back to the end of the 7th century. Over 450 versions have been created over time.
Although John Wycliff is often credited with the first translation of the Bible into English, there were, in fact, many translations of large parts of the Bible centuries before Wycliff's work. Toward the end of the seventh century, the Venerable Bede began a translation of Scripture into Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon). Aldhelm (AD 640–709), likewise, translated the complete Book of Psalms and large portions of other scriptures into Old English. In the 11th century, Abbot Ælfric translated much of the Old Testament into Old English.

For seven or eight centuries, it was the Latin Vulgate that held sway as the common version nearest to the tongue of the people. Latin had become the accepted tongue of the Roman Catholic Church, and there was little general acquaintance with the Bible except among the educated. During that time, there was little room for a further translation. While the illiterate majority of the people little desired access to the Bible, the educated minority would have been averse to so great and revolutionary a change.
The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century version of the Bible in Latin partly revised and partly translated by Jerome on the orders of Pope Damasus I in 382. It takes its name from the phrase versio vulgata, i.e., "the translation made public", and was written in a common 4th century style of literary Latin in conscious distinction to the more elegant Ciceronian Latin. The Vulgate was designed to be a definitive and officially promulgated translation of the Bible, improving upon several translations then in use. It was the first, and for many centuries the only, Christian Bible with an Old Testament translated directly from the Hebrew rather than from the Greek Septuagint. In 405 A.D., Jerome completed the protocanonical books of the Old Testament from the Hebrew, and the deuterocanonical books of Tobias and Judith from the Aramaic. The remainder of the version and the psalter were translated from the Greek. Since the Council of Trent, the Latin Vulgate has been the official bible of the Roman Catholic Church. There are 76 books in the Clementine edition of the Vulgate Bible, 46 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, and 3 in the Apocrypha.
Vetus Latina is a collective name given to the Biblical texts in Latin that were translated before St Jerome's Vulgate Bible became the standard Bible for Latin-speaking Western Christians. The phrase Vetus Latina is Latin for Old Latin, and the Vetus Latina is sometimes known as the Old Latin Bible.There was no single "Vetus Latina" Bible; there are, instead, a collection of Biblical manuscript texts that bear witness to Latin translations of Biblical passages that preceded Jerome's. After comparing readings for Luke 24:4-5 in Vetus Latina manuscripts, Bruce Metzger counted "no fewer than 27 variant readings!" To these witnesses of previous translations, many scholars frequently add quotations of Biblical passages that appear in the works of the Latin Fathers, some of which share readings with certain groups of manuscripts. As such, many of the Vetus Latina "versions" were generally not promulgated in their own right as translations of the Bible to be used in the whole Church; rather, many of the texts that form part of the Vetus Latina were prepared on an ad hoc basis for the local use of Christian communities, or to illuminate another Christian discourse or sermon. There are some Old Latin texts that seem to have aspired to greater stature or currency; several manuscripts of Old Latin Gospels exist, containing the four canonical Gospels; the several manuscripts that contain them differ substantially from one another. Other Biblical passages, however, are extant only in excerpts or fragments.

The language of the Old Latin translations is uneven in quality, as Augustine of Hippo lamented in De Doctrina Christiana (2, 16). Grammatical solecisms abound; some reproduce literally Greek or Hebrew idioms as they appear in the Septuagint. Likewise, the various Old Latin translations reflect the various versions of the Septuagint circulating, with the African manuscripts (such as the Codex Bobiensis) preserving readings of the Western text-type, while readings in the European manuscripts are closer to the Byzantine text-type. Many grammatical idiosyncrasies come from the use of Vulgar Latin grammatical forms in the text.
The Septuagint /'sɛptuədʒɪnt/, or simply "LXX", is the name commonly given in the West to the ancient, Koine Greek version of the Old Testament translated in stages between the 3rd to 1st century BC in Alexandria. It is the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The name means "seventy" in Latin and derives from a tradition that seventy-two Jewish scholars (LXX being the nearest round number) translated the Pentateuch (or Torah) from Hebrew into Greek for one of the Ptolemaic kings, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 285-247 BC. As the work of translation went on gradually, and new books were added to the collection, the compass of the Greek Bible came to be somewhat indefinite. The Pentateuch always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon; but the prophetic collection changed its aspect by having various hagiographa incorporated into it. Some of the newer works, those called anagignoskomena in Greek, are not included in the Hebrew canon. Among these books are Maccabees and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. Also, the LXX version of some works, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than the Hebrew.[1] Several of the later books apparently were composed in Greek.
The term Old Testament refers to all versions and translations of the Hebrew Bible and is the first major part of the Bible used by Christians. It is usually divided by Judaism into the categories of law: Torah; prophecy: Neviim; and writings: Kethuvim (history, poetry, wisdom books); as denoted by the acronym Tanakh.

The Protestant Old Testament is for the most part identical with the Jewish Tanakh. The differences between the Tanakh and the Protestant Old Testament are minor, dealing only with the arrangement and number of the books. For example, while the Tanakh considers 1 Kings and 2 Kings to be one book, the Protestant Old Testament considers them to be two books. Similarly Ezra and Nehemiah are considered to be one book by the Tanakh.

The differences between the Tanakh and other versions of the Old Testament such as the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac, Latin, Greek and other works, are greater as some include books not in the Tanakh and even in the books included, some have sections that the others do not. For a full discussion of these differences see Books of the Bible.

All of these books were written before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, whose teaching and immediate disciples' deeds and teachings are the subject of the subsequent Jewish writings of Christian New Testament. The scriptures used by Jesus, a Jew, were according to Luke 24:44-49: "the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms ... the scriptures". According to most Bible scholars, the Old Testament was composed between the 5th century BC and the 2nd century BC, though parts of it, such as parts of the Torah, and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), probably date back much earlier.
Some of the first translations of the Jewish Torah began during the first exile in Babylonia, when Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Jews. With most people speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues. The most well-known movement to translate books of the Bible appeared in the 3rd century BC. Most of the Tanakh then existed in Hebrew, but many had gathered in Egypt, where Alexander the Great had founded the city that bears his name. At one time a third of the population of the city was Jewish. However, no major Greek translation was sought (as most Jews continued to speak Aramaic to each other) until Ptolemy II Philadelphus hired a large group of Jews (between 15 and 70 according to different sources) who had a fluent capability in both Koine Greek and Hebrew. These people produced the translation now known as the Septuagint.

Origen's Hexapla placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament, including the 2nd century Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite. The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted by the church previously), confirmed by the Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the book of Revelation), and later established by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 (with Revelation added), and Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 420. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising the earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, bypassing all translations, and going back to the original Hebrew wherever he could instead of the Septuagint. The New Testament was translated into Gothic in the 4th century by Ulfilas. In the 5th century, Saint Mesrob translated the bible into Armenian. Also to dating the same period are the Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Georgian translations.