Review: Know How We Got Our Bible

Ryan M. Reeves and Charles E. Hill. Know How We Got Our Bible.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, August 7, 2018. 208 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

How did we get our Bible and what is the history of the transmission of the Christian Bible?  Christians who love God and the Bible should care about this question!  So here is a great resource for general readers by two authors that are qualified to teach us about this matter.  The first author is Ryan Reeves, an Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and the second author is Charles E. Hill Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity.  Charles Hill has also written and edited books related to text of Scripture and manuscripts.  Yet they wrote in a way that was accessible for the general Christian audience to understand all the while being informative and narrating the history and contexts of Bible editions.

After an introductory chapter, the second chapter is on the Old Testament that also talked about Dead Sea Scroll.  Chapter three was on the Septuagint.  Here I thought it was interesting that the order of the books was changed and the grouping is largely based upon literary forms and our Christian canonical order is largely influenced by the Septuagint.  Chapter four is on the New Testament.  Chapter five is on the early Christians.  Chapter six is on the Vulgate.  Chapter seven is on the Medieval Bible.  Chapter eight is on John Wycliffe’s Bible then the next chapter is on the Reformation.  Chapter ten is on the Protestant Bible in English and chapter eleven is on the King James Bible.  Chapter twelve is on the modern Bible and chapter thirteen is on the Bible Today and Tomorrow.

I like the format.  After each chapter are study questions based upon the reading along with recommended readings.
One of the chapters I learned a lot about is on Medieval Bible.  I guess I never appreciated the medieval contribution before.  As Europe was transitioning away from Latin we see the impact in this is felt in other ways: the name Bible is coined during this time from the Latin word meaning book, the effort to reform Latin copies of manuscripts we see better handwriting to lower chance of copy errors and also standardizing verses for the Bible.  Copying Bibles was hard work and took a lot of time and involved a high cost.  A good pace for a monastery would produce two to four Bibles annually.  It is so costly Bibles were never sold commercially and also people’s illiteracy.  I think this chapter also cover how there was few who could afford buying the whole Bible too since the economy then didn’t have a middle class and this was before the Printing Press allowing mass printing of the Bible.  Chapter five on the early Christians was also of interests to me since it does touch on the Canon.  I learned here the early church leader Justin Martyr shared the Jewish canon and didn’t embrace Apocrypha.  Likewise Melito of Sardis did not hold to the Apocrypha.  I also appreciate learning about the Geneva Bible in contrast to King James Bible.  Geneva Bible was used by those who were more non-conformists than those who were tolerating of the official Church of England.  It was seen as a politically subversive Bible throughout history.  The final chapter’s discussion about the role of Bible Society to help spread the Gospel through Bible translations and distribution was also very informative and fascinating; I’m grateful for Christians in the past work here.

This is a book I recommend.  Even if one does know about Bible editions in history one will find this book enjoyable and one might still learn something from this book.

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