Learning to Enjoy the Bible Session Two: Understanding the background of the Bible 1. The Bible The world s Best Seller Many don t realize: Bible is Number One publishing success of all time. First book off the printing press Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. Translated into more languages about 350 at last count More copies sold than any other book in all of history about 100 million annually. The Bible can be intimidating and frustrating The sheer size of the Bible almost two-thousand onionskin pages. Strange customs, culture, names, places For many the problem is: Misunderstanding the nature of the Bible. its purpose, origin, authorship, and composition. People try to read it like a novel. first becomes immersed in the storyline and then moves forward as the plot develops with interactions between the major and minor characters. The problem with approaching the Bible this way, is that it simply doesn t work it isn t a novel! 1
2. Taking time to first learn the Bible s background and nature. greatly aid us in avoiding confusion and frustration. A. Why is the Bible called The Bible? One of the first questions many people have is, What does the word Bible mean? Bible comes from: Latin term biblia Greek word biblios, both words mean a book, or a scroll. Today, books: = many individual pages bound together in one text, This did not exist in the ancient world. People wrote on rolls of animal skins or plant material, i rolls could be connected sewing them together, they became fairly long. Byblos, was an ancient city located in what is now Lebanon, famous for the valuable papyrus reed scrolls made there. paper scrolls were used throughout the ancient world. eventually the name of Byblos became synonymous with the papyrus scrolls produced there. Example: Xerox invented the first photocopy machine Copies became known as a Xerox, 2
The sense of Biblia meaning a book is still preserved in other languages: Spanish: biblioteca, meaning a library a place where many books are kept. English we also use bibliography, which is a list of the various books an author cites as reference sources. So, the word Bible, merely means book. And possibly, as you progress in your knowledge of its contents, you will discover, as many others have, that it is truly The Book of the Ages. B. The Bible it s role in the history of writing Today a single book: recent development Misleading not originally produced this way. Began as oral traditions passed down generations Writing and reading developed was a big deal Bible right there Today: Very literate world but this wasn t so in past. Writing and reading--specialized & expensive (scribes, paper) Meant writing was not frivoulous Important: Ability to record and retain information: Communications, royal courts, religious, gov. docs 3
C. The Bible its diverse background It is a compilation of many scrolls 40 authors, 66 books, written over 1,500 years Diverse Authors: Shepherds, nobility, prophets, priests, and laymen. Diverse Topics: Religious practices, morals and ethics, history, poetry, music, personal letters, and prophecy. Diverse settings & cultures: Knowing this helps us to understand the different contents in the bible. D. The uniqueness of the Bible 1. Central tenets of the Bible: forty different writers but God was the single author He was the one who inspired the words they wrote. not a disjointed compilation--remains a cohesive story about the plans and purposes of God for mankind, His moves through history to bring those plans about. 2. characters described were far from perfect. Even in first pages of Bible disobedience, family breakdowns, murder, rebellion, and much more. depicts the good, the bad, and the ugly of mankind stories reveal triumph and failure, faithfulness and futility. 4
Bible so believable and so easy to relate to is the writers lack of effort to sugarcoat the characters and their human frailty. God tells of adulterers, embezzlers, traitors, and villains as well as the meek, strong, honorable, and victorious. It is a book that covers the whole gamut of human emotion from utter despair to joyous elation. 5