Christians, do you know how old the bible is?

Question

The bible was compiled in 348 CE by the council of Nicea, where they combined manuscripts and notes with personal beliefs and religous opinions. This event was 350 years after the events described in the bible, imagine finding notes from the renaissance and building your religion from those, plus adding in your personal religious desires, leaving out the parts you do not believe fit your idea of religion. How accurate can this be and how can this be PROOF of your religion?

Answer 1

I believe the book of Job may be the oldest book we have on record.

Answer 2

First of all, the Dead Sea Scrolls (carbon dated to BC times) prove that the OT has not been altered. Many copies of the NT (carbon dated to before 348) prove it is still the same.
The council of Nicea is used by atheists to someone say the Bible was "invented" by the Romans. This is not true. The council of Nicea simply collected the reliable sources of scripture and put them into a comprehensive volume. Any dufus can write a book, "I met Jesus and he told me to smoke pot." Doesn't mean it's the truth. Early Christians sought to separate fact from fiction by collecting the books known to be true gospels.
It was not done by simple personal opinion. Careful time was spent backing up each gospel with evidence, and making sure the gospels agreed with each other on what really happened.

Today, we have conspiracy theorists who "document" all their own crazy ideas. They say the Holocaust never happened. They say Neil Armstrong never really walked on the moon. They attempt to rewrite our own history right in front of us. Yet history books (compiled by mere humans) only choose to acknowledge history as it really happened. The council of Nicea was the same concept.

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Answer 3

When asking how old the Bible is, I assume you're asking when it was WRITTEN.

As the Bible (Greek: Ta Biblia = The Books) is a collection, different parts were written at different times by different people. You are incorrect in your assesment that it was written during the Council of Nicea. The final canonization (determination as to which books made it in and which didn't) happened then, however the actual books were written before.

The Pentateuch (First Five of O.T Genesis through Deuteronomy) was illegedly written by Moses, however archaeology has determined that it was probably written around 900 BC.

The subsequent Prophetical books were written by their respective prophets during their own times.

As far as the New Testament, the Gospel According to Saint Mark is the oldest, closest to the actual time of Jesus, (circa 65AD). Luke is the newest gospel (circa 140AD). All the letters and epistles (mostly written by Paul, as many argue that he is the second founder of Christianity) were written in the second century AD (as Paul never actually knew Jesus). The letters and epistles are not about the life of Jesus, they address problems with the early church up to the second century so there is no issue there.

This is the truth about the Bible, however it says absolutely nothing about it's validity, just when and by whom it was written. Seeing as the Bible was written by many people at many times in many places, whats the big deal that it took another century or so to collect the current cannon, and decide what belongs and what doesn't? Thats what happens with a collection.

Say we discover a wonderful Poet who had their life's work written on different continents at different times, and now centuries after his/her death we collect it to make an album. Does we not being the original authors collecting it after the fact make the poetry invalid of the author? Of course not!

Please use your head!

Answer 4

the Bible is made up of many books so each book has its own date of origination - the council of Nicea did not just pick some notes and manuscripts all the books of the Bible were known and were being circulated to all believers since they were written in the first century - all they did at Nicea was put them in one binder then the ideas and beliefs you speak of came from those books and were developed into the Creeds

Answer 5

The Bible was NOT compiled at Nicaea. The canon of Scripture was recognized long before that. Christians were scattered from Egypt to Asia Minor and communication was usually on foot or on horseback by messenger. Christians were also experiencing intense persecution from the Romans, who considered Christianity a threat to the Empire. So what constituted the accepted canon of Scripture was of no small importance. But the general canon of Scripture was recognized at least 200 years before Nicaea. Eusebius was simply recognizing what was already established. If I were you, I wouldn't get my church history from the DaVinci Code.

Answer 6

The Gospels were written by witnesses to the fact of Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection. They have been actively preached since that time. They didn't sit in some library for hundreds of years. They were written by those who knew Jesus.

Answer 7

This is so cool. I am glad that someone has perhaps enlightened someone on this, and made them think about it. Hurray for you. And for those of you who will say that God would not allow anything in the Bible that wasn't "supposed" to be there, I would say to you that God is not the one that wrote the Bible. And that all writers of the Bible were not divinely inspired. Can you think of ANYONE who was or is divinely inspired in recent history even?

Answer 8

C.S. Lewis coined the term "chronological snobbery" for the error of refuting something merely by dating it. I suggest we call this fallacy argumentum ab annis-"argument because of age."

Answer 9

I don't know when the old testament was written but the new testament was written thirty to forty years after Christs' death

Answer 10

You're referring to the new testament, it is releveant because that is all we have left of Jesus's time on earth.