|
|
Book Review for
How We Got the Bible
by Neil R. Lightfoot
This is probably one of the finest concise summaries ever written
about how the manuscripts of the Bible came into being, how they
were copied and preserved for accuracy, and where they are now
located in the world.
Lightfoot covers complex and technical areas with simplicity and
great clarity. But his stories are the highlight of the book. He tells
the reader how papyrus was made by a needle point separating
it into very thin, broad strips which were laid crosswise, pressed
together, and then dried in the sun. Rolled parchments of leather or
papyrus then gave way to codex where sheets were placed together,
folded in the middle and stitched, then opened in separate pages.
He describes how a complete copy of the Greek New Testament was
discovered in 1859 at St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai among
parchments ready to be burned! He praises the "great labor" of the
scribes who copied the texts, highlighting the Massoretes, Hebrew
scribes who guarded against copying errors with a procedure of
counting. They numbered every verse, word, and letter in each
book. They counted the number of times each letter was used in
each book. They noted verses that contained all the letters of the
alphabet, or a certain number of them. They calculated the middle
letter, the middle word, and the middle verse of The Pentateuch;
the middle verse of Psalms, the middle verse of the entire Hebrew
Bible, and so forth. With these safeguards, a scribe could check
the accuracy of his finished work.
The author says, "How the Bible has come down to us is a story
of
adventure and devotion. It is a story of toil and faith by those, who,
sometimes at great cost, passed down from generation to generation
the message of salvation. The Bible did not just happen nor has it
been preserved through the years by mere chance. Living in a day
when books are written and printed by the thousands, we are apt
to overlook the fascinating drama that lies behind our Bible."