Just as in the case of the Old Testament, we know very little about the process by which twenty-seven of the many ancient Christian books came to be considered as scripture. The Christian canon, preserved in all Christian Bibles to the present, followed a slightly different order, with historical books (Genesis through Esther), poetic books (Job to Song of Solomon), and prophetic books divided between the Major Prophets (longer books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel), and the twelve Minor Prophets from Hosea through Malachi. The Jewish canon established a tradition that organized the books according to the three categories: Torah, Prophets, and Writings. The rabbis and Jesus often referred to the Old Testament collection of books as the Law and the Prophets. But there was a sense that the Bible contained three types of books and that, just as on the plates of brass, the Law or Torah (the five books of Moses) had preeminence. Because the texts were written on separate scrolls, there was little need to organize them in any particular order. The earliest list of the thirty-nine specific books of the Old Testament is from the end of the first century AD and records that those books were originally found on twenty-four scrolls-because several of the smaller books could fit onto a single scroll. Early Jews thought of the Bible as a collection of three different kinds of material, as reflected by the fact that Jesus spoke of “the law of Moses, and the prophets and the psalms” (Luke 24:44). One of the earliest examples we have of such a collection is the plates of brass from 600 BC, which contained the books of Moses, a history of Israel, a collection of prophetic books, and genealogy (see 1 Nephi 5:10–14). At some point in ancient times, a collection of those books was made that eventually became what we call the Old Testament. Whereas there is much scholarship that deals with the canonization of the books of the Bible, there is little if any explicit information from the earliest historical circumstances of why and how certain ancient books were preserved and considered as canonical or standard works. Many books were written in antiquity that were considered sacred by various groups in various places and at different times. The English word Bible is derived from a Greek word, biblia, meaning “books,” reflecting the fact that is a collection. The book divisions occur from the fact that the Bible is a collection of many different books the divisions into paragraphs, chapters, and verses are all artificial and were done centuries after the texts were written. From this reference, a reader knows to turn to the book of Matthew, chapter 7, verse 7, where the reader finds the passage, “Seek, and ye shall find.” But this system was not part of the original texts of the Bible. And yet the modern reader can instantly find and turn to any particular passage in this massive book by following the data given in a simple formulaic reference such as Matthew 7:7. The Bible is a huge book-containing 766,137 words in English. He is a member of the international team of editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and specializes in Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and temple studies. He received his BA in Greek and an MA in classics from Brigham Young University and an MA and PhD in Near Eastern studies from the University of Michigan. His research interests include early scribes and manuscripts of the New Testament.ĭavid Rolph Seely is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He received a BA and MA in ancient Near Eastern studies from Brigham Young University and an MA and PhD in New Testament studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Is an associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University.
He is the author of books and articles on ancient and modern scriptures, Latter-day Saint history, and the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.įrank F. He received a BA in ancient studies from BYU and an MA and PhD in Near Eastern studies from the University of Michigan. Jackson is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University.
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