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An Introduction to the Bible
by Tim Webb
Built for EnduranceTo me, it’s a no brainer. The Bible has stood the test of time, after it was written by 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years, on three different continents, and its manuscripts have been carbon-dated to prove the time of its writing. Adding to its credibility are the many prophecies that have played out down to the very letter. No other religion can claim that.
If the Bible were a lie it would’ve disappeared years ago. Its writings wouldn’t have lasted this many years, from one generation to the next, if it were false because people aren’t willing to die for a lie. Only something true can last that long! With the exception of Jesus, the people in the Bible all had flaws. If the Bible were false it wouldn’t record the shortcomings of its own people. Proverbs 12:19 tells us, “Truthful words stand the test of time but lies are soon exposed.” The Bible may contain some minor contradictions, but none that matter, none that change its meaning, context, or story. The narrative of the Bible is simple: we are broken people living in a broken world, and we need a savior that leads us to God and gives us eternal life. All sixty-six books of the Bible point to Jesus Christ as that savior! The Bible is right for all people, is right for all places, and right for all times. The Bible is full of real people just like us, not fictional superheroes. The Bible is rooted in world geography and world history. It’s not like The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars where the places are fictional. The Bible is set in modern-day countries like Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
Some of the stories in the Bible are also recorded in secular history such as Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Roman and Greek history. Even Jewish history records that Jesus Christ lived and was crucified. With the Bible, it’s not like one man went into the desert and had an epiphany and wrote it down. Moses was inspired and directed by the spirit of God at the beginning of the Bible the same as the Apostle John was at the end of The Bible, over 1,500 years later. The Bible is just as true and relevant today as it was when it was written. Scriptural Compass While there are many pieces of scripture that serve as guideposts in my life, these particular verses are the ones that guide me as I teach the Bible.
Second Timothy 3:16-17“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
First Peter 2:2“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” First Peter 3:15 “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Acts 17:11“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
Hebrews 4:12“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Second Peter 1:20-21“Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.” NavigationI encourage everyone to be able to navigate the Bible by knowing where the books are located. Even if you can't memorize their order, try to know them well enough to have a good idea of where they're located. For example, you would know that the book of Psalms is located near the middle of the Old Testament, while Hebrews is located near the end. TranslationsIt's important to use a translation of the Bible that works best for you. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky with the King James Version (KJV), but now I like to read a translation that's closer to the language I speak, such as the New International Version (NIV) or the New Living Translation (NLT). Ultimately, the best translation of the Bible is the one that you will read. Formal translations such as The New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), and the King James Version (KJV), follow the original Hebrew and Greek texts as closely as the English language will allow, while functional translations like the New Living Translation (NLT) and The Message (MSG) are designed to be less word-for-word, but more readable and understandable. Five Cultural Principles of the Bible Most scholars agree that the Bible was written between 1446 BC and 95 AD. We have to remember that the Biblical narrative is made up of mostly broken people just like us, which reminds us that we all need a savior. The Bible reflects the human culture that dominated society during the time in which it was written. Many of these cultural principles, such as slavery and the treatment of women as second class citizens, were instituted by man, not God. If the Bible was being written today, the Apostle Paul would simply email the churches that he established instead of writing to them on a scroll. It's important to distinguish between the culture of man verses the will, love, grace, and character of God. 1. The Bible was written in a patriarchal culture.2. The Bible was written in a monarchical culture.3. The Bible was written in a polytheistic culture.4. The Bible was written in a slave Holding culture.5. The Bible was written in a culture where polygamy was accepted. God's TimelineIt’s Important to remember that God does things on his timeline, not ours. God has eternity behind him and eternity in front of him. His perspective and his time zone are a little different than ours. “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day,” Second Peter 3:8. God's View on DeathThere’s a lot of death and carnage in the Bible. Usually it’s the bad guy who dies, but we see multiple times that God isn’t beyond killing large numbers of people to fulfill his purpose. We have to remember that God looks at death differently than we do. To us, death is the end. To God, our death here on earth is only the beginning. The book of James reminds us that this life “is like the morning fog, it’s here a little while and then it’s gone.” Online Biblical Resources1. Gotquestions.org is a great place to ask questions about the Bible. They have over 700,000 answers that are scripturally based. It’s easy to navigate and is free.2. Soniclight.com is a great Bible commentary with detailed notes on every verse in the Bible.3. Biblegateway.com is simply an online Bible with access to several translations. 4. The Bible Project with Tim Mackie and Jon Collins offers extremely well-done videos on understanding the Bible, while presented in a millennial-friendly format.5. Logos Bible Study is an awesome audible Bible study done by retired UCLA English Professor Dr. Bill Creasy, that can be purchased book by book, relatively cheap, from iTunes or Audible.com. Dr. Creasy is enjoyable to listen to, as he infuses world history and Biblical culture with scripture, along with a dash of humor. Ten Bible Facts1. The Writing of the Bible: The Bible was written over a 1,500-year period by approximately 40 authors, on three different continents. The time of the writing was from around 1446 BC to 95 AD.
2. The Divisions of the Bible:While the Bible is one book, it contains 66 smaller books. The books of the Old Testament were written before the birth of Jesus Christ and the New Testament covers the life of Christ and beyond.
3. Chapters and Verses:Each of the books, except five, are divided into chapters and verses. The five which aren’t divided by chapters are Obadiah, Philemon, Second John, Third John, and Jude. These are short books which only have verse divisions. Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro both developed systematic divisions of the Bible in the early 13th century. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern chapter divisions are based. Verse divisions were not added until the year 1551 by Robertus Stephanus.
4. Breaking Down the Numbers:All scripture is inspired by God. All of it! All 66 books. All 1,189 chapters. All 41,173 verses. All 3,566,480 words. The longest chapter of the Bible is Psalm 119 with 176 verses. The shortest chapter is Psalm 117 with only 2 verses. Incidentally, the middle chapter of the Bible is also Psalm 117. The longest book of the Bible is Psalms with 150 chapters, or psalms. It contains 43,743 words. The shortest book is 3 John with only 1 chapter and 299 words. The longest verse in the Bible is Esther 8:9 with 90 words. The shortest verse is John 11:35 with only 2 words, “Jesus wept,” when his friend Lazarus died.
5. The Bible is God’s Word:There are many books written about various religions. But the Bible is the only one which includes the actual words of God. Those who believe the Bible also believe that God inspired various people through the years to write down his actual words for mankind. The Bible says more than 3,000 times “thus saith the Lord,” and the words which follow are quotes from God.
6. The Bible is Historically Accurate:There were several secular historians who wrote about the events of the New Testament at the same time the Bible was being written. The Jewish historian Josephus is the most well-known of them. Tacitus was a Roman historian who, like Josephus, would have no benefit from not telling the truth. Both these men, as well as others, can be used to back up the historical accuracy of the Bible. There are historical and archaeological discoveries regularly coming to light that continue to support the accuracy of the Bible. Merrill Unger, who compiled a Bible dictionary wrote, “Old Testament archeology has rediscovered whole nations, resurrected important peoples, and in a most astonishing manner filled in historical gaps, adding immeasurably to the knowledge of Biblical backgrounds.”
While there are no original manuscripts, or autograph copies of the Bible, there are over 25,000 early manuscripts, or copies of the Bible. The next most commonly copied document are 1,757 partial copies of Homer’s Iliad. Thus, the Bible manuscripts outnumber those for Homer by nearly fourteen to one. No one questions the validity of the Iliad, so why would anyone question the validity of the Bible.
7. The Business of the Bible:There are more than 168,000 Bibles either sold or given away per day in the United States according to the Gideons, Wycliffe International, and the International Bible Societies. Historically, the Bible is the most sold book of all time. It is regularly on various best seller lists. The Bible has been translated into more than 1,200 languages.
8. The Bible Never Contradicts Itself:There are no contradictions in the Bible. Various people claim to find contradictions, but they have to take verses out of context to do so. When looking at the Bible as a whole and understanding its teachings there are no contradictions. This is amazing when one considers that the Bible was written by so many people, over such a long period of time.
9. The Prophecies of the Bible:Fulfilled prophecies are evidence for the reliability of the Bible. Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events, in detail, many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which have already been fulfilled to the letter with no errors. While the number of exact prophecies vary, depending on the Bible scholar, conservatively, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies during his earthly ministry, down to the exact detail.
The statistical probability of these prophecies being fulfilled is one in 10 to the 17th power, which is one hundred thousand trillion. That would be the same as covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. Then blindfold a person and tell him to wade out into the money and pick up the silver dollar that has a red dot on it. That’s the likelihood of all the prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Christ coming true by way of coincidence.
It would be easy for a non-believer to discredit the Bible, perhaps saying it was all written a few hundred years after Christ, but made to look like it was written before, during, and after Christ, using prophecy to cleverly tell the future. Sometimes it’s hard to convince people of the solidity of the Bible on faith alone. They want concrete scientific proof, and God gave us that proof in 1946 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Hebrew manuscripts that were found in the Qumran Caves in the Palestinian desert, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in 1946. They contained all of the Hebrew scriptures in the protestant Bible canon except the book of Esther. The texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. Scholarly consensus dates the scrolls from the last three centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. Bronze coins found at the same sites support the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls.
10. The Writers of the Bible:While there were at least 40 different people who wrote parts of the Bible, some were more prolific than others. Moses wrote the most with five books and one Psalm that totaled 125,139 Words. Ezra wrote three books that totaled 43,618 words. Luke is credited for writing the majority of the New Testament with only two books, but those two books are jam-packed with 37,932 words. Jeremiah is number four on the list with two books and 35,306 words. The Apostle Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament but is only fifth on the list because many of those books are short with a total of 32,408 words. These five authors wrote 45 percent of the Bible. The word count for this list is derived from original Hebrew & Greek texts.
If the Bible were a lie it would’ve disappeared years ago. Its writings wouldn’t have lasted this many years, from one generation to the next, if it were false because people aren’t willing to die for a lie. Only something true can last that long! With the exception of Jesus, the people in the Bible all had flaws. If the Bible were false it wouldn’t record the shortcomings of its own people. Proverbs 12:19 tells us, “Truthful words stand the test of time but lies are soon exposed.” The Bible may contain some minor contradictions, but none that matter, none that change its meaning, context, or story. The narrative of the Bible is simple: we are broken people living in a broken world, and we need a savior that leads us to God and gives us eternal life. All sixty-six books of the Bible point to Jesus Christ as that savior! The Bible is right for all people, is right for all places, and right for all times. The Bible is full of real people just like us, not fictional superheroes. The Bible is rooted in world geography and world history. It’s not like The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars where the places are fictional. The Bible is set in modern-day countries like Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
Some of the stories in the Bible are also recorded in secular history such as Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Roman and Greek history. Even Jewish history records that Jesus Christ lived and was crucified. With the Bible, it’s not like one man went into the desert and had an epiphany and wrote it down. Moses was inspired and directed by the spirit of God at the beginning of the Bible the same as the Apostle John was at the end of The Bible, over 1,500 years later. The Bible is just as true and relevant today as it was when it was written. Scriptural Compass While there are many pieces of scripture that serve as guideposts in my life, these particular verses are the ones that guide me as I teach the Bible.
Second Timothy 3:16-17“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
First Peter 2:2“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” First Peter 3:15 “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Acts 17:11“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
Hebrews 4:12“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Second Peter 1:20-21“Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.” NavigationI encourage everyone to be able to navigate the Bible by knowing where the books are located. Even if you can't memorize their order, try to know them well enough to have a good idea of where they're located. For example, you would know that the book of Psalms is located near the middle of the Old Testament, while Hebrews is located near the end. TranslationsIt's important to use a translation of the Bible that works best for you. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky with the King James Version (KJV), but now I like to read a translation that's closer to the language I speak, such as the New International Version (NIV) or the New Living Translation (NLT). Ultimately, the best translation of the Bible is the one that you will read. Formal translations such as The New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), and the King James Version (KJV), follow the original Hebrew and Greek texts as closely as the English language will allow, while functional translations like the New Living Translation (NLT) and The Message (MSG) are designed to be less word-for-word, but more readable and understandable. Five Cultural Principles of the Bible Most scholars agree that the Bible was written between 1446 BC and 95 AD. We have to remember that the Biblical narrative is made up of mostly broken people just like us, which reminds us that we all need a savior. The Bible reflects the human culture that dominated society during the time in which it was written. Many of these cultural principles, such as slavery and the treatment of women as second class citizens, were instituted by man, not God. If the Bible was being written today, the Apostle Paul would simply email the churches that he established instead of writing to them on a scroll. It's important to distinguish between the culture of man verses the will, love, grace, and character of God. 1. The Bible was written in a patriarchal culture.2. The Bible was written in a monarchical culture.3. The Bible was written in a polytheistic culture.4. The Bible was written in a slave Holding culture.5. The Bible was written in a culture where polygamy was accepted. God's TimelineIt’s Important to remember that God does things on his timeline, not ours. God has eternity behind him and eternity in front of him. His perspective and his time zone are a little different than ours. “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day,” Second Peter 3:8. God's View on DeathThere’s a lot of death and carnage in the Bible. Usually it’s the bad guy who dies, but we see multiple times that God isn’t beyond killing large numbers of people to fulfill his purpose. We have to remember that God looks at death differently than we do. To us, death is the end. To God, our death here on earth is only the beginning. The book of James reminds us that this life “is like the morning fog, it’s here a little while and then it’s gone.” Online Biblical Resources1. Gotquestions.org is a great place to ask questions about the Bible. They have over 700,000 answers that are scripturally based. It’s easy to navigate and is free.2. Soniclight.com is a great Bible commentary with detailed notes on every verse in the Bible.3. Biblegateway.com is simply an online Bible with access to several translations. 4. The Bible Project with Tim Mackie and Jon Collins offers extremely well-done videos on understanding the Bible, while presented in a millennial-friendly format.5. Logos Bible Study is an awesome audible Bible study done by retired UCLA English Professor Dr. Bill Creasy, that can be purchased book by book, relatively cheap, from iTunes or Audible.com. Dr. Creasy is enjoyable to listen to, as he infuses world history and Biblical culture with scripture, along with a dash of humor. Ten Bible Facts1. The Writing of the Bible: The Bible was written over a 1,500-year period by approximately 40 authors, on three different continents. The time of the writing was from around 1446 BC to 95 AD.
2. The Divisions of the Bible:While the Bible is one book, it contains 66 smaller books. The books of the Old Testament were written before the birth of Jesus Christ and the New Testament covers the life of Christ and beyond.
3. Chapters and Verses:Each of the books, except five, are divided into chapters and verses. The five which aren’t divided by chapters are Obadiah, Philemon, Second John, Third John, and Jude. These are short books which only have verse divisions. Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro both developed systematic divisions of the Bible in the early 13th century. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern chapter divisions are based. Verse divisions were not added until the year 1551 by Robertus Stephanus.
4. Breaking Down the Numbers:All scripture is inspired by God. All of it! All 66 books. All 1,189 chapters. All 41,173 verses. All 3,566,480 words. The longest chapter of the Bible is Psalm 119 with 176 verses. The shortest chapter is Psalm 117 with only 2 verses. Incidentally, the middle chapter of the Bible is also Psalm 117. The longest book of the Bible is Psalms with 150 chapters, or psalms. It contains 43,743 words. The shortest book is 3 John with only 1 chapter and 299 words. The longest verse in the Bible is Esther 8:9 with 90 words. The shortest verse is John 11:35 with only 2 words, “Jesus wept,” when his friend Lazarus died.
5. The Bible is God’s Word:There are many books written about various religions. But the Bible is the only one which includes the actual words of God. Those who believe the Bible also believe that God inspired various people through the years to write down his actual words for mankind. The Bible says more than 3,000 times “thus saith the Lord,” and the words which follow are quotes from God.
6. The Bible is Historically Accurate:There were several secular historians who wrote about the events of the New Testament at the same time the Bible was being written. The Jewish historian Josephus is the most well-known of them. Tacitus was a Roman historian who, like Josephus, would have no benefit from not telling the truth. Both these men, as well as others, can be used to back up the historical accuracy of the Bible. There are historical and archaeological discoveries regularly coming to light that continue to support the accuracy of the Bible. Merrill Unger, who compiled a Bible dictionary wrote, “Old Testament archeology has rediscovered whole nations, resurrected important peoples, and in a most astonishing manner filled in historical gaps, adding immeasurably to the knowledge of Biblical backgrounds.”
While there are no original manuscripts, or autograph copies of the Bible, there are over 25,000 early manuscripts, or copies of the Bible. The next most commonly copied document are 1,757 partial copies of Homer’s Iliad. Thus, the Bible manuscripts outnumber those for Homer by nearly fourteen to one. No one questions the validity of the Iliad, so why would anyone question the validity of the Bible.
7. The Business of the Bible:There are more than 168,000 Bibles either sold or given away per day in the United States according to the Gideons, Wycliffe International, and the International Bible Societies. Historically, the Bible is the most sold book of all time. It is regularly on various best seller lists. The Bible has been translated into more than 1,200 languages.
8. The Bible Never Contradicts Itself:There are no contradictions in the Bible. Various people claim to find contradictions, but they have to take verses out of context to do so. When looking at the Bible as a whole and understanding its teachings there are no contradictions. This is amazing when one considers that the Bible was written by so many people, over such a long period of time.
9. The Prophecies of the Bible:Fulfilled prophecies are evidence for the reliability of the Bible. Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events, in detail, many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which have already been fulfilled to the letter with no errors. While the number of exact prophecies vary, depending on the Bible scholar, conservatively, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies during his earthly ministry, down to the exact detail.
The statistical probability of these prophecies being fulfilled is one in 10 to the 17th power, which is one hundred thousand trillion. That would be the same as covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. Then blindfold a person and tell him to wade out into the money and pick up the silver dollar that has a red dot on it. That’s the likelihood of all the prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Christ coming true by way of coincidence.
It would be easy for a non-believer to discredit the Bible, perhaps saying it was all written a few hundred years after Christ, but made to look like it was written before, during, and after Christ, using prophecy to cleverly tell the future. Sometimes it’s hard to convince people of the solidity of the Bible on faith alone. They want concrete scientific proof, and God gave us that proof in 1946 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Hebrew manuscripts that were found in the Qumran Caves in the Palestinian desert, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in 1946. They contained all of the Hebrew scriptures in the protestant Bible canon except the book of Esther. The texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. Scholarly consensus dates the scrolls from the last three centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. Bronze coins found at the same sites support the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls.
10. The Writers of the Bible:While there were at least 40 different people who wrote parts of the Bible, some were more prolific than others. Moses wrote the most with five books and one Psalm that totaled 125,139 Words. Ezra wrote three books that totaled 43,618 words. Luke is credited for writing the majority of the New Testament with only two books, but those two books are jam-packed with 37,932 words. Jeremiah is number four on the list with two books and 35,306 words. The Apostle Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament but is only fifth on the list because many of those books are short with a total of 32,408 words. These five authors wrote 45 percent of the Bible. The word count for this list is derived from original Hebrew & Greek texts.