What is Scripture?
The word "scripture" simply means "writings," and refers to the 66 individual books that make up the one book that we call the Bible. Scripture was originally written in three languages, Hebrew (OT), some Aramaic (OT), and Greek (NT). Scripture is divided into two major sections, the Old Testament (39 books) and the New Testament (27 books), and the books within these division are arranged by genre of literature, not chronologically.
What does Scripture say about Itself?
Scripture makes many claims about itself. For example, Scripture claims to be a guide for our life (Ps. 119:105) and to be truth (John 17:17). Probably the most important claim that Scripture makes about itself is to be directly from God. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that "All Scripture" is literally "God-breathed." This is something that Christians call the inspiration of the Scriptures. Basically the idea is that God so worked through the human authors of Scripture that the words that they wrote can be said to be the very words of God as well. In other words, there is a divine "co-authorship" to Scripture. 2 Peter 1:21 affirms this by saying that the human authors of Scripture were "carried along by the Holy Spirit." Along with being divinely inspired, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 also claims that Scripture is authoritative, profitable, and sufficient.
In looking at what Scripture says about itself, it is monumentally important to consider what Jesus Himself had to say about Scripture. Jesus treated Old Testament accounts at straightforward facts, such as the creation of man and woman and the first marriage (Mark 10:4-9), and the account of Jonah being swallowed by the whale (Matt. 12:40). Jesus also attributed authorship to commonly accepted authors of Scripture, such as Moses (Mark 7:10). In short, Jesus' view of Scripture reflects the claims that Scripture makes about itself elsewhere.
How did we arrive at what we know the Scriptures to be today?
Without getting too technical, the process of Scripture being written involved a divine revelation and inspiration on God's part. This would result in the original copies of the scriptures being written. Because of wear and tear, among other reasons, the original copies of Scripture would need to be copied in order to be preserved. This process is called transmission. The next step in the process would be called translation, where the copies of the original Scriptures are translated into a given language (for more about Bible translations, see below). That, basically, is a very simplified explanation of how we arrive at the Bibles we hold in our hands today.
Can we trust Scripture?
One question that often arises is this: If all we have is copies of the original Scriptures and not the originals themselves, how can we know that what we have is absolutely trustworthy? As far as the Old Testament goes, when one observes the rigorous copying process that the scribes would have to go through in copying the sacred writings (scripture), it is hard to imagine that one would not trust that the copies we have are sufficient. Every page a scribe would copy would be proof read several times and any page found with just a few "typos" (they didn't actually have typewriters!) would be destroyed and the scribe would have to start over.
When it comes to the New Testament, one can simply subject the New Testament manuscripts that we have to the same scrutiny that we would subject any other ancient work and they will find that the New Testament is simply unparalleled in its trustworthiness. When examining any ancient work, two things are considered to examine a documents trustworthiness: the number of copies available and the amount of time that has elapsed between the original writing and the earliest copies. There are over Five and a half thousand copies New Testament manuscripts available and the earliest copies date to within a century (some sources say even sooner) of the originals. Many other ancient works like Aristotle's, Plato's, Homer's, etc. have far fewer manuscripts and and much, much more time elapsing between the copies and the originals and yet there are seen as trustworthy. This should give all Christians tremendous confidence in the preservation and accuracy of the Scriptures that they have.
What about Bible translations?
For the sake of not making this a more lengthy blog than it already is, I will refer you to an article by Pastor Mark Driscoll on bible translations that I found particularly helpful. It can be found here.
What is the point of Scripture?
In a word: Jesus (John 5:39, 46). Scripture tells an amazing story that begins with a very good creation. That creation becomes devastated and cursed by sin and the rest of the story is basically a Hero working to seek that devastated and cursed creation and race of people Redeemed. All of scripture is to point us to Jesus, because Scripture is in fact more than just a story. Because scripture's story is a real story of how everything began and where everything is going, it ultimately touches our own story. A great tragedy for any Christian is to know about Scripture and to read Scripture without coming face to face with its great Hero, Jesus Christ. He is also the Hero of our own story, who did what we nor anyone else could do by coming into History as a human being and dying in our place for our sins on the cross, and then rising again from death to redeem us. May we remember every time we open the Scriptures that we hold much more than just another book about God, but that we hold the very words of the God of this universe and in so reading we come face to face with our glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
For further reading about scripture, see Mark Driscoll's blog here and check out His two books On the Old Testament and On the New Testament.
