Q&A Home > B > Holy Bible When was the Holy Bible written and particularly, who put it all together and when did this happen? The Holy Bible was written by about 40 divinely inspired writers. Those writers came from all walks of life (i.e., prophets, kings, fishermen etc.) and over a period of 1,500 years or more. The Holy Book of 2 Timothy 3:16 states that "All scripture is inspired by God..." In the Holy Book of 2 Peter 1:20-21, St. Peter reminds us "know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, … but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." The Holy Bible itself tells us that it is God who is the author of His book.
The Old Testament scriptures were originally written in Hebrew. Around 200 B.C. they were translated into Greek and were known as the Septuagint. Latin translations of the Septuagint became available late in the second century. Other works such as the 'Wisdom of Solomon', and 'Ecclesiasticus' were also used at times. The first complete 'gospel' didn't appear until around 60 A.D., but collections of sermons and writings were partly available some time before this. After the 'canonization' of the Bible, the Old and New Testament sections were formed. There are no original manuscripts of any of the books of the Holy Bible in existence today. Many of the handwritten texts in Greek, however, are available from those early times. The earliest complete manuscript of the New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus which dates from about the fourth century. Less complete manuscripts date as far back as the late second century or about 130 A.D. There are more copies of scripture and manuscripts available from the earliest times for the Holy Bible than any other ancient writings. From the many numerous manuscripts available, scholars try to achieve the most complete and accurate wording of the books of the Bible into modern languages. The earliest translations of the New Testament were the Syriac, Latin, and Coptic versions.
The Latin translation, from the original Hebrew and Greek, was done by St. Jerome in the fourth century. This was the authoritative Bible for the Western Church and was known as the Vulgate.
With the invention of print, the circulation of the Bible expanded rapidly. The pioneer of the English Bible is William Tyndale who published the New Testament in 1525. Complete Bibles such as Miles Coverdale's edition appeared as early as 1535. Thomas Cromwell had the Matthew Bible another English version. In 1604, King James sponsored a new translation of the Bible which appeared in 1611 and is known as the King James Version. Today there are many translations, each claiming a special merit of accuracy and good diction to the original Greek.
You can read more about this topic at http://www.suscopts.org/conference/2002general_information.pdf.
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