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BIBLE

Neither Jews nor Christians originally called their Scriptures “the Bible” (lit., “the Book”). Jews often used words signifying “the Scrolls,” and Christians did call their Scriptures “the Books” (lit., “the codices”). In the early centuries, the Christian Bible appeared almost exclusively in the form of codex fascicles, each containing either one of the larger books (e.g., Isaiah) or a collection of smaller books (Paul’s Letters), so the Scriptures physically corresponded to Lat. biblia, “the books” (cf. Jerome: bibliotheca, lit., “the library”). The term derives from bublos or bublion, loanwords from Egyptian, denoting originally the stalk and, then, the inner pitch of the papyrus plant from which scrolls were commonly made.

In both the Hebrew of Jewish Scripture and its oldest Greek translations, one of the most common technical names for Scripture is “the Scrolls.” In Dan. 9:2 Daniel interprets the book of Jeremiah which he finds “in the Scrolls” (cf. 1 Macc. 12:9; 2 Clem. 14:2). Without the definite article the Hebrew noun can be used generically for “literature” other than the Bible.

The NT itself lacks the Greek plural, tá biblía, as a name for Scripture, though this term does occur for nonbiblical collections (John 21:25; Acts 19:19; 2 Tim. 4:13; Rev. 20:12). The technical counterpart is haí graphaí, “the writings.” The singular Greek terms, bíblos or biblíon, occur in reference only to portions of Scripture, such as a single scroll (e.g., “the book of Moses,” Mark 12:26; “the book of Isaiah,” Luke 3:4), a “book” within a larger single scroll (e.g., “the book [Joel] of the prophets,” Acts 7:42), or even a “book” that becomes part of the NT itself (e.g., John 20:30).

The earliest references to a parchment codex used for literary purpose (Lat. membrana) date from the last two decades of the 1st century c.e. A Greek transliteration of this term occurs in 2 Tim. 4:13, when Paul asks Carpus to bring from Troas his cloak and “also the scrolls (tá biblía), especially the parchment codices (tás membránas).” Assuming Pauline authorship, this reference might be the earliest known reference to literary codices.

What was signified by this reference to “codices” remains a mystery, while “the scrolls” could easily suggest books of Jewish Scripture, copies of Paul’s letters, or some other literature. Perhaps Paul edited and published a first edition of his own letters. Membránas could refer to ephemeral notes of Paul, some other unknown resources, or copies of a codex literary collection that Paul himself had published or a late letter editorially attributed to Paul.

Jewish Scripture

Heb. tôrâ can signify teaching, instruction, and law. It may indicate normative teaching by a priest or later rabbi (Jer. 18:18), a written collection of prophetic oracles (Isa. 8:16), parts of the book of Deuteronomy or other smaller collections of laws, the first five books (Josh. 1:7-8), or all of Jewish Scripture (cf. Dan. 9:10). Much later the term could refer to the revealed subject matter of both Written Torah (Scripture) and the Oral Torah (Mishnah and Talmud).

Since the 19th century, most scholars have identified “the book of the Torah” mentioned in 2 Kgs. 22-23 with at least the core of the present book of Deuteronomy (perhaps chs. 12–26 and 28) (cf. Athanasius, Jerome, Chrysostom). Most modern scholars have argued that behind the partly fictive depiction of events in 2 Kings lies evidence pointing to a real historical moment associated with the editing and first public reading of the book of Deuteronomy. However, the parallel account in 2 Chr. 34–35 presents these same reforms by Josiah in his 11th year (627), prior to the discovery of “the book of the Torah.” The extensive citations from the Pentateuch in Chronicles also may imply that the editors probably considered this to be the pentateuchal Torah rather than just the book of Deuteronomy.

The five-book scroll of the Torah, first published and read ca. the middle of the 5th century by Ezra (Neh. 8), constitutes the earliest reliable instance of a scroll being regarded as a part of a Jewish Bible. The Torah scroll of Ezra seems to be a combination of different traditions, only partially harmonized, from different groups of exiled Judeans identified in this period as “Jews” who have been allowed to return to their land and to rebuild their temple and religious life together. (Only after this period do we begin to see evidence of “commentaries” on Jewish Scripture, with a distinction between “biblical text” and “comment.”)

According to Josh. 1:7-8 Joshua commanded the people to “meditate day and night” on “this scroll of the Torah” (cf. Ps. 1:2-3). As part of a prebiblical “Deuteronomistic history,” the “scroll” in question would have been Deuteronomy. But with later editing by the time of Ezra, when Deuteronomy became part of the Pentateuch, “this scroll” clearly refers back to the preceding five-book Torah of Moses.

The term “the Torah” serves the double purpose of labeling a uniquely biblical genre of literature — the five-book Torah (Deut. 1:5; 31:24) — and of naming the revelatory subject matter of that same literature, which by later extension is also the subject matter of the whole of Jewish Scripture. This Torah may be described as “secret things,” which God alone can make known to Israel (29:29[MT 28]; cf. 30:11-14). God reveals the Torah through Moses, who is a “prophet” par excellence (cf. 34:10). (Later Jewish tradition generalized this idea for other books of Scripture so that even Solomon is called a “prophet” in the Targums to describe his role as a writer of Scripture. Here is a specialized concept of prophetic inspiration for the books of Scripture.) The Torah is heard in a present and future tense in that it is ever addressed “to us and to our children forever” (29:29[28]; cf. 4:9-10; 6;2, 7; esp. 31:13), speaking directly to later generations rather than simply describing or recalling certain past events. The Torah is not expressed in a heavenly language but is “written” in human words on a scroll (cf. Exod. 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Num. 33:2; Deut. 28:58, 61; 29:20, 21, 27[19, 20, 26]; 31:9, 22).

The written human words of the Bible convey revelation only when they are heard as a perpetual “witness” or “testimony” to the Torah (Deut. 31:26; cf. 32;46) i.e., when the testimony of the text and its subject matter can be heard together. In this sense, “testimony” is a mode of discourse peculiar to Scripture, analogous to but not reducible to legal statements at a trial, eyewitness statements, or final statements attendant to the reading of wills. This testimony is spoken by a prophet and bears witness to something only God can make known. The older theological language of “inspiration” (2 Tim. 3:16) sought to secure this difference on the side of the human language of the Bible, while the conception of “revelation” has been used to mark the difference in terms of the subject matter from which the testimony lives and finds its only claim to validity.

This testimony of the Torah is preserved as a written “covenant” (Deut. 31:26) between God and Israel. It delineates their identity as a people, their terms of possessing and governing a particular land, and other mutual obligations of God and Israel to each other. Beyond its essential narratives, we might best describe this covenant as a peculiar set of rules governing behavior (mundane as well as holy) and the proper construction of holy spaces, holy implements, and ritual procedures.

The difference between the laws given in Exodus and those of Deuteronomy has been explained by the claim that Moses delivered the Torah to the first generation of the Exodus but in Deuteronomy he “interpreted the Torah” (Deut. 1:5) to the next generation after the first rebellious generation had died. So, the necessity of interpreting Scripture from generation to generation is built into the structure of Jewish Scripture itself.

Within the Bible itself Moses is not called “an author,” but is, more accurately, the only person named as “writing” it and may therefore be called its “designated writer” or even its “author.”

The link between various named persons and books of Jewish Scripture has stimulated an endless preoccupation with the “lives” of these biblical figures, whether named explicitly as writers or not (e.g., Jonah, Ruth, Esther). These considerations must inform whatever criteria we apply in judging the integrity of a biblical book on the basis of its naming a principal, dominant, or authoritative “writer.” Any modern effort to do justice to “writers” and scribes of Scripture must take into account this legacy of ponderable differences, so that only after empathetic imagination of a world foreign to our own might we venture in the vernacular of our own day an intelligible history of the same things across time.

The precise list of books and the determination of the official text of the Hebrew Bible became a particularly important issue with the dawn of rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the temple in 70 c.e. and the Second Jewish War of 132-135. Though most of the books belonging to Jewish Scripture had been recognized by some Jewish groups as early as 180 b.c.e. (cf. Sirach), Jewish Scripture among the rabbis in the 2nd century might best be seen as an inclusive, critical mass of books corresponding to the greatest breadth of the Jewish community. That relatively comprehensive collection could be secondarily debated, leading to official lists, continued debates over certain books, refined efforts to arrange the order of biblical books, and an effort to establish an official text. It would be more accurate historically to say that Jews felt that God through Scripture had chosen them, than to say that members of their leadership ever thought they chose the books of Scripture.

The decision about the specific text of Jewish Scripture appears again more as a reaction to recognition of a Scripture than an effort to create it. From evidence of Qumran manuscripts and from old Greek translations, we see the existence in earlier periods of various textual traditions, sometimes with substantial differences. We may call “proto-Masoretic” the official text of Scripture accepted by rabbis in the 2nd century. Though it has precedents in texts that can be traced back into the preceding centuries, it also anticipates the real Masoretes of the 6th century c.e. who help to refine textual details, adding vowels, accents, and other notations.

Christian Bible

We have no evidence of a Christian Bible until the 2nd century c.e., in the same period when leaders of rabbinic Judaism officially published the scrolls of Jewish Scripture and began to codify the Mishnah. Rabbinic Judaism and postapostolic Christianity began to consolidate their own identities and sharply distinguish themselves from one another.

The Christian Bible is not the product of a triumphant Church in the West. While the Christian Bible implies a clear distinction between Jews and Christians, it also admits its direct dependence on Jewish Scripture. Christians did not need a handbook on prayer in the NT because they already had a sufficient one, the book of Psalms, which served that function for both church and synagogue. Yet, Christians traditionally interpreted the Psalms as a testimony to the gospel and read, in a manner entirely foreign to Jewish midrash, parts of the lament psalms as “messianic.” In general, Christians sought to read Jewish Scripture, unlike rabbinic interpreters, in the light of the NT, but they also used “the OT” to supplement and to shed light on the NT.

The textual fragments of the Christian Bible that have survived suggest that it was published ca. 150 in the form of codex fascicles. Each codex contained a portion of Scripture, probably one for the Gospels, for Acts and the General Epistles, for Paul’s Letters, and for the book of Revelation. The OT was entirely in Greek, dependent on selected (e.g., Theodotion for Daniel) and improved copies of earlier Jewish Old Greek translations of Hebrew originals. This may actually be the first published “LXX,” meaning a complete collection of Greek translations of Jewish Scripture in a single publication series. We have no evidence that a complete collection of Old Greek scrolls ever played the same role as did the Greek OT within the Christian Bible.

According to Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, this Christian Bible ought to prevail against Marcion’s version which treated Jewish Scripture as an inferior revelation and contained only a single “Gospel” — an edition of Luke expunged of its “Judaizing” elements — together with the “Apostle,” a collection of 10 letters of Paul. This first Christian Bible appears to be a comprehensive, ecumenically generous, collection of books. Subsequently, scholars and church leaders would debate whether certain books truly deserved this status and seek to determine a more precise list, order, or text for the Bible. Similar to the case in Jewish Scripture, the publication of a critical mass of books seems to have gained circulation prior to more nuanced decisions, including agreement on whether the text of the OT ought to conform to the Hebrew of Jewish Scripture or simply rely on the earliest official Greek publication of the Christian Bible.

Christians knew what would characterize a Christian Bible because the notion of a scriptural corpus had already been accepted for several centuries among Jews. “The Gospel” indicates both a uniquely biblical genre of books (the four Gospels) and the subject matter of revelation for all of Christian Scripture, including the OT. Christians retained the Torah by incorporating it in various ways as interpreted and fulfilled by the Gospel or as playing more limited roles, such as a law (nómos) that serves as a preparation for hearing the gospel. Christian Scripture guaranteed access to the revealed gospel which had been “the Word” with God from the beginning (John 1:1-5) and belongs as well to the end of time.

The Jewish understanding of Scripture as prophetic testimony to the Torah is conspicuous when NT writers cite Jewish Scripture as a revealed “testimony” (e.g., Acts 13:22; cf. Heb. 2:6). Related statements about the nature of Christian Scripture occur in the editorial note at the end of the Gospel of John (ch. 21) and in the mention of the impending deaths of Peter in 2 Peter and of Paul in 2 Timothy. 2 Tim. 1:8 seems to assume that this testimony now belongs to a “standard” (v. 13) manifest in Scripture itself (3:14-17).

2 Tim. 3:15 clearly seems to refer to the OT, but the assurance in v. 16 that “All Scripture is inspired by God” may well reflect circumstances of the 2nd century when this Christian Scripture will be used in refutation of Marcion’s gospel, as well as the proposals of others. Peter seems to anticipate the Christian Bible by referring readers to “your apostles,” citing Paul as an “apostle” and Paul’s own letters as a prime example. What Peter appears to describe is the transition from the prebiblical teaching of Jesus and his disciples to a biblical form of apostolic teaching, on a par with Jewish Scripture.

In sum, the Christian view of “all Scripture” as prophetic or apostolic “testimonies” to God’s revelation of the Gospel plays a major role in the late editing of the NT books and finds its precedent in a Jewish understanding of Jewish Scripture. Both Jews and Christians realized from ancient times that the Bible is at most a testimony to a revelation that exists before, within, and beyond the words of the Bible. Only in this light can we understand the logic behind both midrash in Jewish rabbinic interpretation and the conception of a normative “literal sense” of Scripture as advocated by Christians. For Christians, both Torah and Gospel address them through the human witnesses of Scripture from God’s side, so that the best of Christian confessions can likewise be at most a testimony to the mystery of God’s revelation rather than entirely capture it in human words.

Bibliography. D. M. Carr, “Canonization in the Context of Community,” in A Gift of God in Due Season, ed. R. D Weis and D. M. Carr. JSOTSup. 225 (Sheffield, 1996), 22-64; B. S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Minneapolis, 1992); H. Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church (New Haven, 1995); G. T. Sheppard, “Biblical Interpretation After Gadamer,” PNEUMA 16 (1994): 121-41; The Future of the Bible as Scripture in the Church (Toronto, 1990); W. C. Smith, What Is Scripture? (Minneapolis, 1993); D. Trobisch, Paul’s Letter Collection (Minneapolis, 1994).

Gerald T. Sheppard

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BIBLE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)