Bible History

Bible History

Many people pick up a Bible without realizing that this book has a history all its own—a long journey stretching thousands of years, across languages, cultures, and even empires. The Bible wasn’t dropped into the world fully formed. Instead, it was carefully written, copied, translated, and gathered into the collection of books we have today. Along the way, there were debates about which writings belonged, what language they should be read in, and how best to keep them accurate and faithful to the original message. If you’ve ever wondered why different Christian traditions have slightly different Bibles, or why some translations include books called the Apocrypha, or what makes the Septuagint so important, this story will help you see the bigger picture. Understanding where the Bible came from doesn’t make it any less inspired—it helps us appreciate how God has worked through history to preserve His Word so we can read it today.

If you pick up a Bible today—whether it is Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox—you are holding a collection of books that have traveled a long and complicated journey to reach your hands. That journey is a story of faith, language, cultural upheaval, and the often-overlooked reality that what we now call “the Bible” did not always look exactly the same.

In the modern West, many Christians assume the Old Testament was fixed and identical in every detail from ancient Israel through the time of Jesus, that Hebrew was the only legitimate language of Scripture, and that the shorter Protestant canon has always been the default. But the historical record tells a richer—and sometimes messier—story. To understand how our Bible took shape, we need to travel back to the centuries before Christ, when the world was changing and the people of God were grappling with exile, diaspora, and the challenge of faithfulness in a multicultural empire.

The Formation of the Hebrew Scriptures

Long before there was a Septuagint or any debate about which books belonged in the Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures were taking shape among the people of Israel. This process was not instant. It unfolded over centuries as God inspired prophets, priests, and leaders to record His words and His works.

The first foundational collection was the Torah—the Five Books of Moses. These books, also called the Law, were central to Israel’s identity from the beginning. Deuteronomy records Moses instructing the Levites to place the book of the law beside the ark of the covenant, so that it would serve as a witness for generations to come (Deuteronomy 31:24–26). By the time of Josiah’s reforms in the 7th century BC, the Torah was already recognized as authoritative Scripture (2 Kings 22:8–13).

After the Law came the writings of the prophets. From Joshua through Kings, the historical books retold Israel’s story through the lens of covenant faithfulness and failure. The prophetic books—from Isaiah to Malachi—preserved the words of warning, hope, and promise spoken by God’s messengers. While not all the prophetic books were immediately collected in one scroll, there was a growing awareness that these words carried divine authority.

Finally, the Writings (Ketuvim) included poetry, wisdom literature, and other sacred texts such as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Daniel. These books were cherished and read in worship, but their precise boundaries were more fluid in the Second Temple period. For example, some Jewish groups considered Sirach and other later works part of this collection.

By the time of Ezra and Nehemiah in the 5th century BC, a recognizable body of sacred writings was being read publicly and explained to the people. Nehemiah 8 describes Ezra standing on a platform and reading the Law aloud, while the Levites helped explain its meaning so the people could understand. This public reading was central to Jewish life and ensured that the Scriptures were passed down accurately.

Over the next several centuries, Jewish scribes and scholars known as the “Sopherim” (the Scribes) took on the task of carefully copying and preserving these texts. They developed meticulous traditions for counting letters and words to guard against errors. This devotion laid the foundation for what would later become the Masoretic Text.

By the 3rd century BC, the Hebrew Scriptures were established as the defining story and law of the Jewish people. However, as communities spread across the Mediterranean, many Jews could no longer read Hebrew fluently. This reality set the stage for the creation of the Septuagint—a translation that would shape both Judaism and Christianity in profound ways.

The Linguistic Context: Greek Ascendant, Hebrew Revered

By the time Alexander the Great conquered the Near East in the 4th century BC, Greek had become the dominant language of commerce, government, and culture. Even in places like Judea, where Hebrew remained sacred, many Jews gradually adopted Greek as their daily speech. This was especially true in Egypt, where a massive Jewish community flourished in Alexandria.

Hebrew did not disappear, but it became increasingly a language of liturgy and religious study rather than everyday life. In a sense, it took on the role Latin would later have in medieval Europe—a holy tongue preserved for worship and scholarship.

This shift was so thorough that by the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, many Jews could no longer read Hebrew fluently. Their Scriptures had to be translated to remain accessible. Contrary to the idea that Hebrew was the default language of God’s people in Jesus’ time, the reality is that Greek was often the living language, while Hebrew was revered as a link to their heritage.

The Creation of the Septuagint

Around the 3rd century BC, under the patronage of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a project began to translate the Hebrew Torah into Greek. According to the ancient Letter of Aristeas, seventy-two Jewish scholars worked independently and miraculously produced identical translations, a story meant to affirm that their work was divinely guided.

Though the legend is likely embellished, there is no question the translation that emerged—the Septuagint (from the Latin for “seventy”)—became the Bible of the Jewish diaspora. Over time, the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures were translated as well, and additional Jewish writings composed in Greek were included alongside them, such as Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, and 1–2 Maccabees.

These books were not seen as foreign additions but as part of a living body of sacred literature that guided Jewish faith and identity in the centuries leading up to Christ. Indeed, some Jewish scholars praised the Septuagint for making the law known to the nations and for preserving the Scriptures in a language that could be widely read.

The Bible in Jesus’ Time

By the first century AD, when Jesus was born in Judea, the Scriptures read in synagogues varied. In Palestine, Hebrew and Aramaic were still used. But in Greek-speaking synagogues, the Septuagint was the standard. This explains why the New Testament authors, writing in Greek, overwhelmingly quote the Old Testament in Greek form, often using Septuagint readings that differ slightly from the Hebrew Masoretic Text later standardized by the rabbis.

For example, Hebrews 10:5 cites the Septuagint’s rendering of Psalm 40:6, “a body you prepared for me,” rather than the Hebrew “my ears you have opened.” Romans 15:10, quoting Deuteronomy 32:43, uses the Septuagint’s line, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people,” which does not appear in the later Masoretic version. These examples are not trivial. They demonstrate that for the apostles, the Greek Scriptures were authoritative and inspired.

Jewish Reactions and the Move Away from Greek

As Christianity grew and spread among Gentiles, Jewish communities became increasingly uneasy about the way Christians used the Septuagint to argue that Jesus was the Messiah. In the second century AD, Jewish scholars began to produce new Greek translations (like those of Aquila and Theodotion) that aligned more closely with the Hebrew text and avoided the messianic readings Christians favored.

This shift was partly polemical—a response to the church’s claim that the Septuagint prophesied Jesus. Over time, rabbinic Judaism came to favor what became the Masoretic Text, a carefully preserved Hebrew version standardized between the 7th and 10th centuries AD by the Masoretes. This text is the basis for most modern Old Testaments in Protestant Bibles.

Jerome and the Vulgate

In the late 4th century, Jerome was tasked with producing a new Latin Bible for the Western church. At first, he planned to revise the Old Latin version, which was itself based heavily on the Septuagint. But after learning Hebrew, Jerome concluded that the Hebrew text should be considered the authentic Old Testament, and he began translating directly from it.

This was a major departure. Though he included the books of the Septuagint that were not in the Hebrew canon (calling them “ecclesiastical books”), he considered them secondary. Jerome’s view did not immediately prevail. Augustine, for example, strongly disagreed, arguing that the Septuagint was inspired by the Holy Spirit and had been providentially prepared for the coming of Christ. He wrote in City of God: “The translators were not seven individual translators, but seventy together, so that God might show that the Holy Spirit was in them as one.”

Over time, Jerome’s Vulgate became the dominant text in the Latin-speaking church. But even in the Vulgate, the so-called Apocrypha remained in use, read in the liturgy, and cited by theologians. No one in the early church treated these books as unimportant or dangerous.

Canon Formation and the Apocrypha

Contrary to popular belief, there was no single moment when all Christians agreed on the exact list of Old Testament books. While the Law and Prophets were universally accepted, the boundaries of the Writings were more fluid. The Septuagint’s broader collection was widely used in the early church, which is why the first complete Christian Bibles (like Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) included the books Protestants now call the Apocrypha as part of Scripture.

It was not until the late 4th century that councils like Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) began to formalize the canon, affirming the wider Septuagint collection. Even then, debates continued about the status of certain books.

Reformation and the Loss of the Apocrypha

During the Reformation, many Protestant leaders, while still printing the Apocrypha in their Bibles, began to question its authority. Luther famously moved these books to a separate section and called them “useful and good to read but not equal to Holy Scripture.” The Geneva Bible, the King James Version of 1611, and nearly every other major English Bible continued to include them. It was not until the mid-1800s, under pressure from Bible societies aiming to reduce costs and avoid controversy, that most Protestant editions dropped the Apocrypha entirely.

This history is often forgotten, but it is essential to understanding why the Old Testament in Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Bibles looks different. The Catholic and Orthodox churches never abandoned the broader canon they had received through the Septuagint, while most Protestant traditions eventually embraced a shorter list based on the Masoretic Text.

Why the Septuagint Still Matters

There are several reasons serious students of Scripture should consider the Septuagint:

First, it is the version most often quoted by New Testament writers. When Paul, Peter, and the author of Hebrews cite the Old Testament, they almost always use Greek readings. This alone is a compelling reason to pay attention to it.

Second, the Septuagint preserves ancient textual traditions that differ meaningfully from the later Masoretic form. In some cases—such as the longer ending of Esther or the additional material in Daniel—these variations offer valuable insight into how Jewish communities understood their Scriptures centuries before Christ.

Third, the Septuagint demonstrates that the early church did not share the assumption that Hebrew alone was the pure language of revelation. They believed God had prepared the Greek Scriptures to proclaim the gospel in the language of the world.

Fourth, the widespread acceptance of the Septuagint by early church fathers—many of whom called it Spirit-inspired—shows that the current Protestant canon, though defensible, is not the only historical approach. Recognizing this should not divide Christians but should invite humility about the limits of our traditions.

Bibles Today and Why They Are the Way They Are

By the time the Reformation swept across Europe in the 1500s, the question of which books belonged in the Old Testament had become a point of deep controversy. Catholic leaders continued to affirm the broader canon that had been passed down through the Septuagint and officially recognized at councils like Carthage and Hippo. These included books like Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and 1 and 2 Maccabees—texts that had been read in Christian worship for over a thousand years.

Reformers such as Martin Luther did not immediately remove these books but moved them into a separate section, calling them “Apocrypha”—a label that meant “hidden” or “not equal to Scripture.” Luther acknowledged they were useful for reading, but he believed they should not be used to establish doctrine. This decision was partly theological and partly a response to debates with Catholic theologians. Over time, other Protestant traditions followed suit.

For the next several centuries, English Bibles continued to print these books. The original 1611 King James Version included them in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments. The Geneva Bible did the same. It was not until the mid-1800s, when Bible societies began mass-producing inexpensive editions, that the Apocrypha disappeared from most Protestant Bibles altogether. Many believers grew up never realizing their grandparents or great-grandparents had owned Bibles with these texts included.

Meanwhile, Catholic and Orthodox churches retained the broader canon, seeing it as the natural inheritance of the early church. Catholic Bibles today still include the Deuterocanonical books. Orthodox Bibles include even more, such as 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151.

At the same time, modern scholarship has brought renewed interest in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which sometimes preserve readings older than the Masoretic Text. Some translations, such as the New Revised Standard Version and the Orthodox Study Bible, attempt to give readers footnotes and cross-references that reflect these ancient differences.

This is why, if you pick up three Bibles from different Christian traditions, you may notice variations in which books are included and how certain verses are phrased. Rather than seeing this as a threat to faith, it is better understood as evidence of a living tradition—one in which God’s Word has been carefully preserved, debated, and revered in different communities.

For many believers, learning this history feels unsettling at first. But it also provides a deeper confidence. The core story of Scripture has remained unchanged through every language and tradition: creation, covenant, redemption, and the hope of resurrection in Jesus Christ. The variations in canon reflect centuries of faithful transmission rather than some conspiracy to alter the gospel.

Understanding why Bibles today look the way they do helps us appreciate how much care and sacrifice went into preserving them—and why serious students of Scripture should read broadly, consult multiple translations, and consider what earlier generations regarded as sacred and instructive. It is not about adding confusion but about deepening our grasp of the full story God has been telling from the beginning.

A Pastoral Invitation

At the end of this long and sometimes confusing story stands a simple truth: God has preserved His Word. Whether you read it in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or English, you are encountering the same unfolding revelation of God’s character, His promises, and His redemptive work.

But understanding how the Bible was shaped—how it was transmitted, translated, debated, and cherished—helps us to see that our faith is not built on legends or the preferences of a later generation. It rests on a foundation that reaches back through centuries of faithful witness.

Far from undermining confidence, this history should strengthen it. The Bible has survived empires, wars, and controversies precisely because it is not a human invention. It is the living Word of God.

And whether you hold a Protestant Bible of 66 books, a Catholic Bible of 73, or an Orthodox collection that includes even more, one thing is certain: all of them testify to the God who has spoken—and who still speaks today.