The Bible: a history

The making and impact of the Bible

Stephen M Miller, Robert V Huber, Kate Benson

• Publisher: Lion Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780745970332
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The Bible has had a profound influence on the diverse cultures of Europe and the British Isles, the Americas, Australia and Africa, and has even left an imprint on Asia. It is a book that has inspired the whole range of human emotion and experience, including some of the finest art and literature. And even in this current age, which often considers itself secular and post-Christian, the Bible remains the biggest seller of all books. This engaging and colourful book explores the life, development and impact of the Bible, from Old Testament times through to the 21st century.

5

The Bible in the Modern World

Over the past 200 years or so, missionaries with the help of Bible translators and Bible distribution societies have intensified the work of spreading scripture throughout the world – a mission still underway. Scholars continue to develop new tools and techniques to study the Bible and determine what the original writers intended to communicate. Countless new translations of the Bible are published, in an effort to better capture the meaning of scripture and express it in today’s languages. As the message of the Bible spreads, so does its influence on such far-reaching institutions as law, literature and theatre.

Enlightenment Dims the Bible

In the eighteenth century, during the period known as the Enlightenment, human reason was elevated above everything else and was even seen to limit God himself. In the seventeenth century, philosophers and scientists, such as Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton, had demonstrated that the universe was governed by natural laws. Philosophers of the eighteenth century concluded that they could come to understand the workings of nature by close observation and the application of reason.

They included the Scottish philosopher David Hume, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and the French writers Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Denis Diderot. Diderot went so far as to compile a vast encyclopedia covering all fields of knowledge. A number of Enlightenment thinkers concluded that, since the universe is governed by strict laws, even God himself must abide by those laws, resulting in a limit to his powers. Some claimed that, since creating the universe, God has avoided all contact with humans, and so revelation, as presented in the Bible, is a fiction. In his satirical novel Candide (1759), Voltaire considers all biblical theology bankrupt.

Questioning the Bible

For those who did not reject the Bible altogether, the rule of reason seriously influenced its interpretation. A number of elements were questioned.

First, the miracles described in the Bible were said to represent a break in the order God had established at the creation. Attempts were made to explain them away as literary devices – for example, when Joshua asked that the sun stand still (Joshua 10:12–13), he was merely expressing in poetic terms his hope of conquering his enemy before dark, and that is what happened; the sun did not literally stand still. Other miracles were seen as exaggerations of natural phenomena. And so, the manna found by Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16:4) was not really bread from heaven but a sugary substance excreted by insects that burrow into the bark of a desert shrub.

Prophecies that accurately predicted the future or prefigured the coming of Jesus were also questioned. In an ordered world, this could not happen, Enlightenment thinkers claimed. In response, one believer, Thomas Sherlock, held that prophecy had two meanings – the one intended by the prophet himself and another, imposed by God, that would be understood only after it was fulfilled. For example, when Isaiah prophesies that a ‘young woman’ (which can also be read in Greek as ‘virgin’) will bear a son who will be called Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), he is referring to a young woman of his day, perhaps the king’s wife; but in New Testament times, God’s deeper meaning emerges: the woman is seen as the Virgin Mary and the child as Jesus.

Studies in geology indicated that the earth was far older than indicated by the Bible and that living creatures had appeared on earth over a vast period of time; they were not created in a single day, as described in Genesis. (Irish archbishop James Usher had calculated that the creation occurred in the year 4004 BC, but observable evidence showed that the earth is far older.) In response, it was suggested that the Genesis account was a myth and not in the least historical. This elicited a huge cry of protest from traditional Christians, for even though many in the eighteenth century had turned away from their faith, many others clung to it with great fervour.

Devotional approaches to the Bible

Reaction against the rationalist treatment of the Bible led to a spread of Pietism in Germany. This movement had been introduced in 1677 by Lutheran minister Phillip Jacob Spener with the publication of a set of six proposals for restoring true religion. Spener called for an increase in the ‘practice of piety’, emphasizing an intensified study of scripture to enhance personal devotion. The influence of Pietism soon spread across Europe and into America.

A German biblical epic

Reacting against the negative treatment given to the Bible by many thinkers of his day, the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock tried to create a German biblical epic in the style of Milton’s English masterpiece. Drawing material from the New Testament and Milton’s Paradise Lost, Klopstock’s Der Messias (The Messiah) depicts the passion, death, resurrection and enthronement of Jesus Christ. It was published in 1773 and, in revised form, in 1800. Sadly, where Milton triumphed, Klopstock met with only moderate success.

Strongly influenced by Spener, the German Lutheran scholar Johann Albrecht Bengel published penetrating commentaries on the New Testament, which were greatly admired by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. In England, between 1708 and 1712, the Presbyterian minister Matthew Henry published biblical commentaries that were personally meaningful. In his commentaries, Henry sought to provide the general reader with biblical ideas and images that gave meaning to his or her individual life. Henry’s approach was adopted by John Wesley in his Notes on the New Testament, published in 1754 and 1765.

To bring these ideas to the people, small study groups appeared throughout the Western world. Earlier, Spener had established devotional circles for prayer and Bible reading, which met in his home.

At Oxford, in 1729, John Wesley organized what came to be called the Holy Club. Its members sought a deepening of their personal faith and relied heavily on readings from the Bible. The Holy Club developed into a number of overlapping groups throughout England and America. Seeking to escape the scholarly approach to the Bible, which fostered rationalist ideas, many groups of traditionalists met for private study without the interference of trained theologians.

Other popular movements can also be seen as reactions to Enlightenment views on religion and scripture. In the American colonies, between 1720 and 1740, a religious movement known as the Great Awakening spread across the land. The preacher George Whitefield travelled throughout the colonies and preached to crowds who were so large they had to meet in open fields. Whitefield brought out the emotions of his audiences, stressing the ‘terrors of the law’ to sinners and ‘new birth’ in Jesus Christ. At the same time, Jonathan Edwards, a Congregationalist preacher, attempted to help those who heard him at revival meetings to separate the true works of the Spirit of God from the false. Revival preachers were soundly criticized by church leaders for stimulating emotional excesses and dangerous religious delusions.

The wide diversity of views on religion and the Bible led to a broader toleration. In the nineteenth century, a new wave of popular interest in the Bible emerged, and the older Puritan approach to the Bible gave way to a new Evangelicalism, which favoured a strongly conservative approach to biblical interpretation. Also, nineteenth-century scholars found new ways to study the Bible in response to the questions raised by Enlightenment thinkers. The pessimism of Enlightenment views on the Bible was thus diminished.

BACH, HANDEL AND THE BIBLE

Inspired by the soul-searching Pietism of Johann Albrecht Bengel, the German Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach created vast numbers of compositions based on the Bible. The bulk of them consists of hundreds of cantatas that were composed for performance at church services. These sacred cantatas consist of citations, paraphrases or allusions to the Bible passages being read in church that day, including emotionally wrought arias, which give a personal perspective on the biblical passage, and choruses. Bach also composed two long pieces, The Passion According to Matthew and The Passion According to John. In these compositions, a narrator declaims the full text of the Gospel in recitative, a kind of speech song, with others singing the words of Jesus and other figures. As in the cantatas, arias and choruses comment on the text. Once again these are highly emotional, as Bach believed that music should appeal to the emotions of the laity. The emotion felt by the composer should be relived by the performer, and so communicated to the listener.

The German-born English composer Georg Friedrich Handel also wrote a large number of biblically based pieces. His masterpiece is Messiah, which meditates on the life of Christ, from predictions of his coming to his resurrection. It resembles an extended cantata in form, but all the text (even for the arias) is taken from the Bible, especially from Isaiah, Psalms, the Gospels and the letters of Paul. Messiah includes many impassioned arias and memorable choruses, including the ever-popular ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. In addition to Messiah, Handel composed oratorios on other biblical figures, but most of these are in a more dramatic form than Messiah, resembling plays set to music. They include: Samson, Joshua, Esther, Israel in Egypt and Saul.

Nineteenth-Century Bibles

The nineteenth century was characterized by a renewed interest in the Bible. Old translations were revised, new translations were made, and other Bibles appeared to appeal to particular denominations or to the average Christian.

A physician’s translation

Most Bible translators were either biblical scholars or missionaries who were specially trained for the purpose. A notable exception was B.J. Bettelheim, a Hungarian Christian of Jewish birth. While working as a physician in the Ryukyu Islands – a Japanese Island chain that includes Okinawa – Bettelheim translated the New Testament into the local Japanese dialect. He later revised the translation, with the help of native speakers of Japanese, to put it into standard Japanese.

Bibles in Europe

By the start of the nineteenth century, scripture had been translated into 48 European languages, including all the major languages of the continent, except Russian. Consequently, most of the activity in translating in the years that followed was devoted to revising earlier translations. In some cases, however, fresh translations were made. Often this seemed necessary because the language of the old versions became outdated, but people who cherished these versions did not want to see them changed, preferring to have new versions that could be used along with the older ones. In addition, improved versions of the Bible in its original languages called for new versions to incorporate the latest scholarly findings.

First-time translations into European tongues started with a full Bible in Gaelic, a language spoken by some people in Scotland, and similar to the native Irish tongue, also called Gaelic. The Scottish Bible was published in 1801.

Before Braille

In 1836, the New York Asylum for the Blind issued a New Testament with raised letters. This appeared almost 20 years before the development of the Braille system.

The first Bibles in Russian were also published in the nineteenth century. Until then, Russian Bibles were editions of the ancient translation made by Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century. This Old Slavonic translation had been retained for church use long after Slavonic ceased to be the language of the people, much as Latin was retained for use in the Catholic Church.

Then, in 1815, Paul’s letter to the Romans was published in a bilingual edition – Old Slavonic and Russian. The New Testament was published in 1821 and the Old Testament in 1867. The first complete one-volume Bible in Russian appeared in 1877, although it is known as the version of 1876.

Meanwhile, Unitarians set about ‘correcting’ the Bible. The Unitarians, who reject the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, had their origins in the Reformation. They were first established as an organized community during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Poland, Hungary and England, and soon spread to other parts of the world. In the nineteenth century, Unitarians turned to making their own translations of the Bible in order to restore the spirit of the original biblical texts, while at the same time purging the Bible of what they considered to be error. They considered all biblical passages that supported the concept of the Trinity – and other doctrines they disapproved of – as ‘spurious’, claiming that they were added to scripture at later times by copyists.

In 1808, the English Unitarian Thomas Belsham published an ‘improved version’ of the Bible. Then Abner Kneeland prepared an American version of the New Testament, basing it on Belsham’s Bible, but adding more ‘corrections’. Kneeland published his New Testament in Greek and English in 1823, with the hope of ‘correcting some of the monstrous errors that now exist in the Christian Church’. A large number of other Unitarian translations appeared throughout the nineteenth century.

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

The worldwide movement now known as Jehovah’s Witnesses was formed in the 1880s by the American lay preacher Charles Taze Russell as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Russell claimed that Jesus Christ, a perfect man, had returned invisibly to earth in 1878 to prepare for the kingdom of God, which would be inaugurated after the battle of Armageddon in 1914. Russell urged all people to study the Bible, and to warn as many people as possible of the impending end of time, so that they might survive a first judgment, Jesus’ 1,000-year reign on earth, and a second judgment, when only 144,000 people from all of human history would be taken into heaven. Russell drew these observations from his own interpretation of the book of Revelation. After 1914, when Armageddon didn’t materialize as Russell had predicted it would, the prophecies were reinterpreted. Russell died in 1916 and his successor, J.F. Rutherford, soon turned the m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Old Testament Takes Shape
• The New Testament Takes Shape
• The Bible in a Rapidly Growing Church
• The Book of the Reformation
• The Bible in the Modern World
• Epilogue
• Bibliography