14th - 7th Century BC
Sometime during this rather large block of time, the
Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) took its
final form.
Traditional
Conservative View: The Pentateuch was written by
Moses during Israel's wilderness period, with additions made
after his death, perhaps by Joshua. Since archeology has now
proven that writing existed in the time of Moses, and since
Moses would probably have been educated in the palace, it is not
unlikely that he would have been his people's scribe as well as
their leader.
Liberal View:
Liberal scholars believe the Pentateuch is a
compilation of a variety of sources and that it was edited into
its final form during the Babylonian Exile. They consider the
songs of Deborah and of Miriam to be among the oldest writings
of the Old Testament. The liberal view relies on the
documentary hypothesis, which speculates that the
Pentateuch utilized the following sources:
1. Yahwist - Presumably
written during David's reign, it refers to God as Yahweh.
2. Elohist - Presumably written in the northern part of the
divided kingdom, around the 9th century BC, it refers to God as
Elohim.
3. Deuteronomic - Presumably, the Deuteronomic code was
written during the reign of Hezekiah. Scholars accepting this
hypothesis believe this code is "the book of the law"
rediscovered during Josiah's reign. Deuteronomic historians are
also credited with writing Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.
4. Priestly - Finally, it is presumed that during the Exile,
the priests collected the previous three sources and edited the
Pentateuch into its final form, no doubt adding new material of
their own in the process. The Pentateuch was then known as the
"Torah" or law.
These sources do not
actually physically exist today. Their prior existence is
merely a hypothesis based on some scholars' interpretations of
the textual evidence.
621 BC The high priest finds the "Book of the Law" during Josiah's
reign, leading to a national revival. Reference to this discovery
proves that the book of the law must have existed well before this
time; long enough, at least, to have been lost and rediscovered.
Liberal scholars assume that the "Book of the Law" refers only to
the deuteronomic code, while conservative scholars tend to think it
refers to the complete books of Leviticus and/or Deuteronomy.
250 BC - 70 AD
Septuagint Compiled
The Septuagint
was a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and it began with
just the Pentateuch. Over time, however, it came to include all of
the Hebrew scriptures, as well as additional books written in Greek,
which Protestants term the "Apocrypha."
The Septuagint, including most of the Apocrypha, forms the Old
Testament scriptures in the Catholic, Greek, Slavonic, Armenian and
Ethiopian Bibles. However, the Catholic Bible excludes 3 Ezra (also
called 1 Esdras) and the Prayer of Manasseh. The Ethiopian Bible
also includes other Pseudepigraphalbooks not in
the Septuagint, such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees. The books of the
Apocrypha that the Catholics call "deutercanonical"
include 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Sirach, Wisdom, and
Baruch, as well as additional parts of Esther and Daniel (such as
Bel and the Dragon).
200 BC - Prophets By this date, the prophets are widely accepted as part of
the Hebrew Scriptural canon
135 - 63 BC I and II Macabees, later included in the Septuagint and the
apocrypha, were written during this time, recounting the Maccabean
Revolt of 167-164 B.C.
200 BC - 200 AD
Pseudepigraphal Writings The
term pseudepigrapha literally means "false inscriptions." We are
aware of at least 52 of these works, which were written by Jews and
Christians between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. Writers often credited
their works to famous biblical characters, such as Enoch. Though not
part of most Bible canons today, these works influenced both Judaism
and Christianity as well as the writers of the Bible. For instance,
Jude in his epistle refers to a story from the Assumption of Moses
and directly quotes the Book of Enoch.
30 - 40 AD - Sayings
of Jesus
Some bible scholars believe the sayings of Jesus were collected
during this period and that parts of this document, called the "Q"
source by scholars, underlie the gospels of both Matthew and Luke.
59 AD - Paul's Letters Most of the apostle Paul's letters were in circulation by
this date, and they are the first unified Christian writings that
have come down to us today.
65 AD - Mark The Gospel of Mark was probably in circulation by this
date.
80 AD - Matthew, Luke,
and Acts The Gospel of Matthew was probably in circulation by this
date. It may have been written for the Jewish Christians in
Palestine and Syria, who had recently been banned form attending the
synagogues. At about this time, a gentile convert to Christianity
wrote Luke and the Acts, which are directed at the Greek
communities.
90 AD - John The Gospel of John was probably in circulation by this
date.
90 AD - Hebrew Canon
Established By This Date After the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, the Jews
began to associate Christianity with the Roman threat. Christians
were expelled from the synagogues, and a strict separation between
Jews and Christians began to develop. The rabbis met in Jamnia to
solidify the canon, and under the leadership of Johanan ben Zakkai
they selected twenty-four books to be included in the
Palestinian Hebrew Scriptural canon. None of the Apocryphal
books were seriously considered for inclusion. The only two books
that were hotly debated were Song of Solomon and Ecclesiasties, but
they were finally included. The Palestinian canon is the accepted
Jewish canon to this day. The canon is also equivalent to the
ProtestantOld Testament, though
Protestants divide the books further into thirty-nine: Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (the Pentateuch); Joshua,
Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2
Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (the Histories); Job, Psalms,
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Songs (Wisdom Literature); Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micha, Nahum, Habbakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and
Malachi (Prophets).
200 AD Tertullian was the first to use the title "New Testament"
to describe the commonly accepted Christian scriptures.
367 AD - Earliest New
Testament List The earliest surviving list of books exactly matching the
modern New Testament Canon dates from 367 AD and comes from a festal
letter to the churches written by Athanasius of Alexandria. Shortly
after this letter, the theologians Jerome and Augustine defined the
canon of 27 books.
397 AD - New Testament
Canon Officially Established In A.D. 393, the Synod of Hippo officially
listed the 27 books of the New Testament, which had already been
widely accepted in practice. This ruling was reconfirmed four years
later by the Synod of Carthage in 397 A.D., thus
putting an end to debates about the canon. Up to this point, many
books had been questioned. Revelation and Hebrews, in particular,
were strongly disputed by many Christians, as were James, 2 Peter,
and 2 and 3 John. These books were eventually included in the canon
but other disputed books, considered inspired by some, were not:
Shepherd of Hermas, 1 and 2 Clement, and the Didache. The books
selected at the Council of Carthage have been accepted as the New
Testament ever since, by both Protestants and Catholics. These books
include: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1
Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus,
Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John,
Jude, Revelation. (This is the order in which these books are
arranged in modern Bibles--they were not always placed in this
order.) The disputes are now for all practical purposes at an end,
though individuals may continue to question; Martin Luther, after
all, questioned whether Revelation should be included.
405 AD - Vulgate Jerome completed his Latin translation of the Bible, known
as The Vulgate, at about this time. He worked with the
Septuagint, older Latin translations, and the old Hebrew texts. In
doing so, he noticed that some of the works contained in the
Septuagint and older Latin translation were not in the Hebrew
canon. These books he described as "the crazy wanderings" of a man
who has lost his senses. He gave these books the label "Apocrypha,"
which means "hidden." Nevertheless, they continued to be popular
among Christians.
1236 AD Chapter divisions were added to the Bible by Cardinal Caro.
1382 AD - Wycliffe The first complete English translation of the Bible was
made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers. All
of Wycliffe's works were condemned at the Council of Florence in
1415.
1408 Council of Oxford
This council forbade translations of the Bible into the vernacular
unless approved by Church authority.
1454-1456 - Guttenburg Access to the Bible was dramatically increased by
Guttenburg's invention of the printing press.
1525 - Tyndale's Bible Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament was made
from Erasmus's Greek text and compared to the Vulgate. In 1536,
Tyndale was put to death.
1534 - Luther's Bible
By this time, Luther had translated the entire Bible into German (he
finsihed the New Testament first). A version was published in 1541
in Wittenberg. In translating the Old Testament, Luther excluded
the Apocrypha from the canon. He also assigned a greater value to
some New Testament books than to others, considering James, Jude,
Hebrews, and Revelation to be inferior.
1535 Miles Coverdale Coverdale, the first Protestant Bishop of Exeter, published
his English Bible translation, which was translated from Latin and
German.
1539 The Great Bible Also known as Cromwell's Bible, it was the first English
Bible to be authorized for public use in churches. It was revised
in 1561 and was then known as the Bishop's Bible.
1551 AD Individual verse and numbers were added to the Bible by
Robert Stephens.
1557 Geneva Bible The only New Testament translation to be published during
Mary Tudor's reign, it was most likely the Bible Shakespeare read,
and it remained the family Bible in England until the Civil War
(1642). The text was divided into verses for the first time in any
English Bible.
1610 Catholic Bible A Catholic English translation of the Old Testament was
published. Earlier, a New Testament had been translated at Rheims,
and some claimed the King James was indebted to it.
1611 King James
(Authorized Version) The most famous English Bible translation was commissioned
by King James and included the Apocrypha as an appendix.
1611 Algonquin Bible This was the first Bible translated into a Native American
language.
1885 Revised Version
1901 American
Standard Version
1945 Knox Bible Ronald Knox translated the Bible in an idiomatic style from
the Vulgate.
1946 Revised Standard
Version This Version is a rewording of earlier English
translations, substituting modern idiom for archaic language. The
Apocrypha was so translated in 1957, and a Catholic version of the
RSV appeared in 1966. The New Revised Standard Version came out in
1998 (scroll down in timeline for details).
1947 Dead Sea Scrolls
Discovered
Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, the oldest surviving
Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts dated form the 9th century (A.D.).
The Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain about 170 biblical manuscripts,
date from the 3rd century B.C. to the 1st century (A.D.).
1966 Jerusalem Bible This is the first complete English, Catholic Bible
translation made from the original languages.
1970 The New American
Bible The New American Bible was completed primarily by Catholic
scholars, and it is the first American Catholic translation based on
the original languages. (Previous translations were based on the
Vulgate.)
1978 New
International Version This translation, made by Evangelicals and relying directly
on the original languages, was finally completed after over two
decades of study.