Most everyone has moved into a new city or neighborhood and had to find their way around. It's confusing at first. But in just a little while we find our way to the grocery store, gas station, and wherever else is important to us. Even with a map, the first few times out of the house are often trips down dead end streets. Who hasn't stopped and asked for directions after having been around the same block umpteen times? Beginners often have a similar experience with Bible study.

You can begin at Genesis and try to read and understand every word of the Bible---but you probably will fail. Without a strong Bible background you'll soon be mired down in foreign names you can't pronounce, geography of which you're not familiar and customs that seem odd and strange to us today. These get acquainted studies will zero in on one topic at a time. This method enables the Bible writers to speak for themselves. It also allows us to get as many points of view as possible about a specific subject---in both the Old and New Testaments. This gives a more well rounded knowledge of Bible subjects. In this study, you will be asked to look up texts in your own Bible and read them for yourself. However, we won't leave you with just a map and compass. We'll even get in and ride along like a tour guide, pointing out important things and places along the way.

The Bible is a small collection of 66 holy books. It was written over 1600 years by some 36 authors. The Bible is not a text book, a history book, or a set of lessons laid out in a simple easy to read fashion. Instead, the Bible contains "Salvation History" or records of God working through His people to do His will---for their best good. In short, the Bible is about Jesus the coming Messiah of the Old Testament and Jesus the Savior in the New Testament. The Old Testament people looked forward by faith to His day. Today, using the Bible, we study the long ages of history to find guidance and hope in our daily struggles. In these times, from our Bibles, we learn from the teachings of Jesus and the ancient writings so that, by faith, we can look forward with confidence to the future.

The 39 books of the Old Testament are the earlier ones and the 27 books of the New Testament are the later ones. The Old Testament books are divided into three basic divisions. Jesus referred to them as, "...the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." Luke 24:44. "The law of Moses" was a common Jewish expression for the first five books of the Old Testament. The books of the Old Testament included in "the prophets," and are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and the twelve smaller prophetic books. "The psalms" included all the remaining books. The book Genesis is thought to have been written about 1500 B.C. and Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, about 425 B.C.

Jesus made a very clear statement about the value of the Old Testament when He said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." Matthew 5:17 NIV.

Today we arrange the books of the Old Testament into four groups: The five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers). The 12 Historical books from Joshua to Ester. The five books written in the form of poetry; from Job to the Song of Solomon. The five Major Prophets from Isaiah to Daniel and the 12 Minor Prophets (smaller books) from Hosea to Malachi.

There is a period of about 400 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament that is called the inter-testamental period. Most Protestants and Jews see it as rich in history but empty of inspired writing. During this time many books were written, but all books that call themselves religious are not necessarily equal. Such is the case with the group of books called "The Apocrypha" pronounced (a pock ra fa). The term apocrypha comes from a Greek word which means hidden or secret. Originally the word was used to suggest that these books contained hidden truth that only privileged people could know. Over the years some of these books were included into an ancient Egyptian Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint (pronounced sep too a gint) and eventually found their way into later versions of the Bible as we know it today.

As history the books and writings from this period have importance because they fill in the time gap between Malachi of the Old Testament and John the Baptist of the New Testament. However, their doctrinal content, as compared to the universally accepted books of the Bible has long been questioned. Originally it was the Roman Catholic scholar, Jerome (died 420 A.D.), who challenged the use of these books for church doctrine and made up the title "Apocrypha" to describe these types of writings.

Later,in the 1500's, the founder of the Lutheran Church, Martin Luther, also doubted the content of the apocryphal books and had them placed in a group at the end of the German Old Testament. He objected to the teachings that were not in harmony with the Bible. In the Apocrypha can be found the idea of purgatory and the supposed benefit of prayers for the dead (2 Maccabees 12:43-45). Also Dr. Luther took exception to the teachings promoting the merit of good works for salvation. (Tobit 12:9; Ecclesiasticus 3:33; 2 Esdras 8:33; etcetera).

In 1546 the Roman Catholic church at the Council of Trent, officially overruled the earlier objections of their own scholar, Jerome, and declared the Apocrypha part of their Holy Scriptures. The official Roman Catholic Bible, the Douay-Rheims (1609) includes the Apocrypha scattered throughout.

Today, Protestants choose not to accept the books of the Apocrypha as inspired. The printing of the Apocrypha as part of the Bible was discontinued in 1827 by the British and Foreign Bible Society and later on by the American Bible Society. However, it can be found as supplemental material in The New English Bible published in 1970.

The New Testament is a collection of books about the life and times of Jesus and the events that happened to His early followers. The time of the writing of the New Testament books dates from after the crucifixion of Jesus to around the end of the first century, perhaps 45 to 95 A.D. The first four books are called the Gospels. The four authors take entirely different approaches in telling their story but share much overlapping information. The book written by Matthew begins with something very important to the Jews, that is establishing that Jesus, the Messiah, had the proper family blood line through the tribe of Judah. The book of Mark begins his Gospel when Jesus is already a grown man and just beginning His public ministry. Doctor Luke, a physician, writes with the careful detail of a man whose occupation trained him to be a careful observer. The doctor opens with the angel Gabriel visiting the yet-to-be father of John the Baptist. The Gospel of John takes us far back in time and informs us that the Word (Jesus Christ) was with God in the beginning.

The book, Acts of the Apostles, also written by Dr. Luke, records the events in the daily lives of the Apostles after Jesus rose from the dead. His account of the history of the early Christian church ends in about 60 A.D. with Paul's imprisonment in Rome. Most of the rest of the New Testament books are letters from the early church leaders to various congregations and groups. Please make a mental note, we only have half of the story when we read these letters. In a way, it is like reading some else's mail. The exact meaning of some of the comments still escapes us today. These letters show that the early church congregations had many problems which prompted much Christian counseling and some stern correction. For instance, to the Corinthian church members, St. Paul wrote, "It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you..." 1 Corinthians 5:1 Another time Paul writes to Timothy advising, "Let no man despise thy youth..." 1 Timothy 4:12

The bulk of the letters of the New Testament are letters of advice to specific churches or groups of people. While the letters were not written directly to us, we can and do apply the principles to life today. Good advice is timeless. The New Testament closes with the Book of Revelation, a book of prophecy, thought to have been written by John, the author of the Gospel of John.

The answer is simple. People read them, passed them around and accepted them as inspired. The world has always had books that claimed to be holy, but few have survived the test of time. After a book became accepted and used by God's people it was eventually added to the collection that we call the Holy Bible. Scholars made lists and church councils met to decide on how the list should be made up, but the guiding principles were plain. Did the book agree with the rest of the holy books?

The Jewish Bible has 24 books, most of the Protestant Bibles have 66 and the Catholic Bible includes 73 books. There seems to be a disagreement, but it is really a difference of definition. Of course, the Jews do not accept the New Testament because they do not believe Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah. The Protestants and Catholics only have differences over part the Old Testament. The difference is over the canon or the list of the books of the Holy Scriptures accepted.

It is said that at the end of the first century, the Jewish rabbis in the councils of Jamnia (90 and 118 A.D) agreed on which of the Hebrew books they felt measured up to be considered authoritative. In reality, they were only confirming what had already been accepted by public opinion of the faithful. We do know that after the councils of Jamnia the questions of which books should be officially included in the Old Testament were no longer considered to be of any consequence. Four criteria were thought to be considered in their deliberations about books to include: (1) the book must come within the period to be considered inspired since prophetic inspiration was thought to have started with Moses and ended with Ezra; (2) what was presented in the books must be in harmony with the Law (the first five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy); (3) the language of the original book should be Hebrew; (4) and generally written within the geographical limits of Palestine. On this basis the books of the Old Testament were chosen for the Palestinian Canon of Scriptures.

In the Christian church during its early years, twenty-seven more books were counted as measuring up to the canon or standard. They also had four basic tests they used to determine whether to include a writing. The criteria were: (1) the book should be written by an apostle or by a person with such a close relationship with the early church leaders that the book would be of an apostolic caliber: (2) the book was to give clear evidence that it was divinely inspired; (3) the book was to be universally accepted by the church; (4) the contents of the book were to be in harmony with other scripture and of a high spiritual nature. The Third Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. seems to have agreed that the 27 books of the New Testament we have today measured up for use in the Church. "It is a remarkable fact that no early Church Council selected the books that should constitute the New Testament Canon. The books that we now have crushed out all rivals, not by any adventitious authority, but by their own weight and worth," so says Henry Thiessen Ph.D in his book Introduction to the New Testament.

The Apostle Peter said, "For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:21 NKJV (New King James Version). The Bible writers had an overseer---the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit "carried along" the writers so that they had an accurate recall of events they witnessed and recorded. This is called thought inspiration. The Bible writers were not mere robots writing down the words as if taking dictation. The idea of dictation (verbal inspiration) falls apart as soon as the Bible is translated from one language to another. Exact copying from one language to another is impossible. We can only translate the thoughts from one language to another, not exact words.

There is yet another reason why you can trust the Bible's accuracy, it was the devotion of the Hebrew copyists. Accuracy in communicating in ancient times was also not an easy task. The writer's life in Jesus's time was a genuine ordeal without computers, laser printers, fax and copy machines. Early manuscripts were written out entirely in longhand with a crude ink pen on rough paper roll. The Bible tells that the Apostle Paul often dictated his thoughts to a male secretary, called a scribe, who would write them on a scroll which could be as long as 35 feet. Romans 16:22 reads, "I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord." Of course Paul's purpose was that his thoughts should be shared in a number of churches and therefore copies would have to be made.

People wishing to have copies made would take the original to a scriptorium. This equivalent of a modern day publishing house employed professional copyists called scribes. For quick jobs where many copies were needed, a foreman would stand before a number of scribes and read the manuscript out loud. This was the fastest, but least accurate method of copying---kind of a Hebrew speedy print shop. For more serious matters, such as the sacred Word of God, one single scribe would copy from the original manuscript word for word. This process would be repeated time and time again, from the original manuscript, to insure that the copy was as accurate as humanly possible. After completion, the copy would be carefully checked by a proofreader, perhaps even by the author himself. The original copy was called the autograph; today, no autographs of the Holy Scriptures are known.

The Jewish copyists of ancient times followed the strictest rules. Making of copies by dictation was not allowed. Up until 70 A.D. they used a master copy of the Old Testament that was kept in the Temple. Later on, the copyists called the Massorettes, were so careful to avoid an error that they counted the number of words and even the number of letters in an entire book. Thus they determined what would be the middle word, letter or verse and used it as a reference point. If the count was incorrect, the whole manuscript was destroyed...not corrected! It is said that it took a scribe one whole year to make a copy of the Bible.

A testimony to the accuracy and the dedication of the people who hand-copied the Holy Scriptures over the years is one that was confirmed with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948. These very ancient scrolls were discovered by three herdsmen who were tending their sheep near a place in Israel called Wadi Qumran. They discovered the scrolls after one playfully tossed a rock into an opening in a nearby cliff. The young man called Mamud the Wolf heard the stone strike something that sounded like pottery. They lowered him into the opening and he discovered what would become one of the greatest archeological discoveries of all time. Hidden in the cave were ancient earthen jars which contained manuscripts and copies of the Bible. Eventually eleven caves were explored which yielded some 600 old manuscripts, 200 of which are Bible related. Of the 50,000 to 60,000 fragments discovered, manuscript fragments of every book of the Old Testament except Esther have been found in the caves.

The importance of this discovery is that some of the materials date back as far as 250 B.C. In comparing the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls to the Old Testament as we know it, we find our present Old Testament Scriptures to have only a few minor differences. Indeed, you can trust the accuracy of the Bible because God has inspired men of all ages to carefully preserve the Holy Scriptures.

The acceptance of the Holy Bible by people all around the planet, its long long history and its powerful positive effect on people's lives causes millions to humbly conclude that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

1. How much of the Bible is Inspired? II Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." (This passage is part of a note from the Apostle Paul to a young pastor named Timothy).

2. Why were the things Jesus did written down? John 20:30,31, "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: But these were written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."

3. Jesus spoke highly of the Scriptures (the Old Testament). John 5:39, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

4. Why were both good and bad people's examples recorded? 1 Corinthians 10:6 NIV "Now these things occurred as example, to keep us from setting out hearts on evil things as they did."

In order to live a truly meaningful life, you must have guidance from an outside source. You cannot do it on your own. Remember how hard it can be to travel, even when you have a road map? We all need to ask advice from someone who has wisdom and experience that exceeds our own. The world's finest life guiding directions are found in the Bible and come complete with a listing of detours and dead end streets. The Holy Bible is a collection of thousands of years of wisdom inspired by God. You begin your journey by asking God for directions. By accepting His Holy Bible as your source of instruction, wisdom and guidance you will find yourself on the highway to having a wonderful life.

Will you accept God's Holy Word as your guide book today?

Click here to go to Lesson #2 "The Most Important Miracle of All Time"

Apostle---one of the original followers that were personally taught by Jesus.
Disciple---a follower of the teachings of Jesus.
Doctrine---the beliefs taught by a religion. In Matthew 7:28,9 we read, "And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority..."
Gospel---an English translation of a Greek word that means good tidings. Also the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles is called the gospel.
Lutheran---a member of the church founded in the early 1500's by Dr. Martin Luther, a German, Roman Catholic priest.
Messiah---any expected liberator of a country or people. In Matthew 1:21 we read, "And she [Mary] shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."
New King James Version (NKJV)---an updated version of the King James Version of the Bible using more modern language.
Protestant---a person who protests. Any Christian not belonging to the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Eastern Church.
Purgatory---In the Roman Catholic teachings, a place of temporary punishment that people undergo before going to heaven.
Testament---The Old and the New Testaments contain the terms of the agreement between God and man on how man can be saved.