How old is our modern day bible?

Question

Does it start w/ King James? What year?

Also, when were the ORIGINAL manuscripts written ?

Answer 1

Well King James Version was the first widely accessible English translation, first published in 1611. It's been revised several times because the first one was translated from mainly the Latin Vulgate instead of "original" texts and had all sorts of errors, even mentioned unicorns.

Most people today who read the King James read the NKJV, an updated edition, although some fundamentalists will only read the original because they believe the translators were inspired by God.

When it comes to the very original manuscripts, it's hard to put a date on them. Throughout the history of the church people have been employed as scribes copying it down word for word (keep in mind there was no printing press a thousand years ago) so what we have is mainly copies. The dates of the originals depend on the individual books of the Bible - for example the first book is Genesis, usually attributed to being written by Moses, and the earliest fragment we have is from sometime around 922 BC. The last book Revelation, was written by John, tradition says it was written around 95 AD but some people say it's more around 68.

There are dozens of books of the Bible, the number also differs depending on your denomination, and each one has a different author/date.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Adam was taking notes and his notes were taken onto the ark by Noah.

Moses took all those notes and compiled them for us into the Book of Genesis.

That's how old the oldest original manuscripts are.

The rest of the Old Testament was written mainly in Hebrew by 400 years BC. A couple of chapters of some books were written in Aramaic.

The book of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew within five years of when Jesus died.

The rest of the New Testament was written in Greek and Matthew was translated into Greek before 70 AD.

The only exception to that is the Revelation to John was written later perhap in the 90's AD.

The King James Version is a translation created in the early part of the 1600's and completed and published in 1611.

The KJV is at least the 8th translation into the English language.

Modern translations include the following:

RSV - 1952 Accepted by liberal denominations, rejected by Evangelical groups

NASB - 1971 - New American Standard Bible

NIV - 1980 - New International Version

ESV - 2001 - English Standard Version

The links below will tell you about lots of other translations as well. And the links below will tell you the full names of the above.

There are some nut cases which teach that the KJV is the ONLY insprired or authorized Bible and all others are junk or are to be compared with KJV as the Gold Standard.

That teaching is absolute nonesense, but some naive people actually believe it.

Pastor Art

Answer 3

The Old Testament was complete around 500 B.C. 70 scholars translated it from Hebrew(and a little Aramaic) to Greek in 70 days.They called that the Septuagint.That's the translation that was in use at the time of Jesus.Later ,Jerome used it to translate into Latin for his "Vulgate" and that was translated into English.It is very accurate.
The New Testament was finished about 95 A.D. It is said James was the first written by 45 A.D. Then the gospels Mark first (Peter's version as told to Mark) .Then Matthew written in Hebrew (all the others in Greek )them Luke and John.Paul wrote all his between 50 AD and 65 AD
The Bible was written over a 2000 year period by over 40 different authors ,most never knew each other and yet it does not contradict at all.

Answer 4

This is an awesome documentary! It's called "Who Wrote the Bible" and it's from the Britain's Channel 4. It was produced by a Christian professor from England.

"It's a question that has preoccupied biblical scholars for several generations but Beckford, who is director of the Centre for Black Theology at the University of Birmingham, forsakes the library and takes to the road in a journey from Jerusalem to Rome and on to the USA (with a stopover in Walthamstow). On the way, he talks to American pilgrims shouldering crosses on the streets of Jerusalem, to the head of the Pope's Bible Institute, to a former criminal and boxing promoter in East London, and many more. Beckford must be the only theologian in the UK who has his own Saturday night radio show, so he looks perfectly at home in the open top, electric blue fin-tail car he drives on the US leg of his quest..."

This will answer the questions about when the old and new testaments were written and it also addresses the origins of modern English bible translations. I'm an Atheist and I loved it.

Answer 5

You mean English translations? The earliest was the Tyndale translation, circa 1530, followed by the Great (1539) and Geneva (1560) Bibles. These were followed by the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible, the Bishop's Bible, and the King James.

The original Old Testament manuscripts were probably composed/compiled between about 500 B.C.-900 B.C., and the books of the New Testament probably were composed/compiled between about 50 A.D. and 200 A.D.

Answer 6

The last manuscripts were written in or around 95AD (revelation)

So it's roughly 1900 years old (Well....Revelation is)

The King James Version I believe was written in 1611
The New International Version was completed in 1982
I believe....I could be wrong with that one...something tells me it might actually be 1962

Edit:

Okay....the New KJV was written in 1982....the NIV was in 1962...there, now I feel better

Answer 7

The TORAH were written 3,000 years ago-most of the old testament . The King James version is only recent in 17th century. THANKS GOD; FEAR GOD; PRAISE GOD;GLORIFY GOD; HONOR GOD; LOVE GOD AND WORSHIP GOD. Pls visit soonest my website for various articles- http://groups.yahoo.com/grooup/THEGOODNEWSOFTHEKINGDOM/

Answer 8

I got it 5 years ago- it is an ESV.
I love it.

Answer 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

Educate yourself.