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Bible Question: How
old is the Bible?
Bible Answer: The
Bible has thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the
New Testament for a total of sixty-six books. In order to determine
how old the Bible is, we need to know when the oldest book in the
Bible was written. The oldest book is Job, and it was written approximately
1500-1450 B.C. The next book is Genesis and it was written somewhere
around 1450-1400 B.C.
Nehemiah was the last book of the Old Testament.
It was written about 424-400 B.C. Then there was a 400 year gap before the first
book of the New Testament was written. The first book of the New Testament was
James and it was written about A.D. 44-49. The last book of the Bible was Revelation
and it was written in A.D. 94-96.
The Old Testament was written in both Hebrew and
Aramaic, and the New Testament was written in Greek. The Old Testament was
eventually translated into Greek. The translation is known as the Septuagint
Bible or the LXX. Jewish tradition says that seventy scribes translated the Hebrew
Bible into Greek between 285 BC and 247 BC. Both the Old and New Testaments have
been translated into many different languages. The
first English Bible was translated in
1388. The English Bible was written in
free flowing text without chapters or verses.The following table provides some
interesting information about the divisions into chapters and verses.
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Event |
Date-A.D. |
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Divided
into chapters - by S. Langton |
1228 |
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O.T.
divided into verses - by R. Nathan |
1448 |
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N.T.
divided into verses - by R. Stephanus |
1551 |
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The Bible was divided into chapters and verses by A.D. 1551.
Conclusion: God
has been faithful to keep the Bible accurate. You might be interested
in a study entitled, "How
Accurate Is The Bible?" Our God wants us to
know Him and to know that He loves us!
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