Having an understanding of how ‘the Bible’ came to be is not only enlightening, it bolsters one’s confidence in the Gospel. There’s a big difference between knowing the stories in ‘the Bible’, and knowing the story of ‘the Bible’. Most of us have a personal copy of ‘the Bible’ that has been chaptered, versed, mapped, and wrapped in genuine imitation leather. Many even have footnotes. The Hebrew scriptures are bound together with the Christian manuscripts of the New Testament comprising ‘the Bible’.
Jesus is the reason that we have ‘the Bible’. The story of ‘the Bible’ does not begin with Genesis. The story of the Bible begins with Jesus’ resurrection after He had been crucified. If Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, ‘the Bible’ wouldn’t even exist. There would’ve been nothing to write about. The reason people documented the life of Jesus is because He rose from the dead. So we have these documents of the Gospel that were accounts of Jesus’ life. And these documents were considered reliable, valuable, sacred, and inspired. But ‘the Bible’ itself still didn’t even exist. There were just separate accounts of Jesus’ life that the early church held in high regard.
And Paul and others left Judea and started telling the Gentiles about Jesus. And more and more Gentiles in different parts of the world embraced the Gospel and came to faith in Jesus. And churches were created and the Epistles were generated. And these early Gentile Christians, who previously had zero interest in the Hebrew scriptures, saw that they pointed to the Messiah, who they recognized and believed to be Jesus. The Hebrew scriptures didn’t become the first part of the Christian Bible, first.
But they began to accept the Hebrew scriptures, in addition to the Christian manuscripts of the New Testament, and it set the stage for the inclusion of the Hebrew scriptures into ‘the Bible’…the Christian Bible…in the 4th century.
Christianity not only preceded the Bible; Christianity is the reason that we have ‘the Bible’. And there were many thousands of Christians before ‘the Bible’ ever came along in the 4th century.
