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How the Bible came to be
How the books of the Bible were written down, copied, gathered and translated — from scrolls and scribes to the first printed Bibles.
Scrolls, papyrus and parchmentGreek byblos (papyrus pith) gave biblion, “book” · scrolls often about 9 m long
The Masoretic TextFrom Hebrew masorah, “tradition” · Tiberias, about AD 500–1000 · basis of modern Hebrew Bibles
The SeptuagintGreek translation of the Hebrew Bible · Alexandria, from the 3rd century BC · abbreviated LXX
The Dead Sea ScrollsFound 1947–1956 in 11 caves near Qumran · over 200 manuscripts of biblical books
The great codicesCodex = bound book · Vaticanus, Sinaiticus (4th century), Alexandrinus (5th) · whole Greek Bibles
Which books are in the BibleGreek kanōn, “measuring rod, rule” · Hebrew Bible: 24 books, counted as 39 by Protestants
The Vulgate and other ancient versionsAramaic targums · Syriac Peshitta · Latin Vulgate · Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, Ge’ez, Slavonic
Printing and the Reformation BiblesGutenberg Bible about 1455 · Luther’s New Testament 1522 · King James Version 1611