Jonathan Joaquim, age 10, of West Warwick, R.I., for his question:
WHEN WAS THE BIBLE WRITTEN?
The Bible shows a wide degree of diversity in literary form, religious and cultural ideas and moral values. It records the development of man's ideas of the character and will of a supreme being, and the gradual unfolding of the supreme being's purpose for the redemption of man.
Bible comes from the Greek phrase meaning "the books." It contains the sacred books of the Hebrew and Christian religions. Christians revere both the old and New Testaments while Jews regard only the Old Testament as having religious authority.
In the Old Testament one finds a collection of poetry and prose. One will find history, law, legends, ballads, sermons, moral philosophy, proverbs and psalms.
The New Testament's theme is the beginning and the first years of the religious movement called Christianity. It arose within Judaism and then became separate from it. It contains less varied material. Included are four biographies of Jesus, one book of early history of the church, 21 letters and one book of visions and prophecy. All are focused on the Christian enterprise in its early, formative years. When was the Bible written? The oldest dated Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament is the Codex Petropolitanus, 916 A.D., though there are other undated fragments which are without doubt much older.
The New Testament was written in Greek with the oldest manuscript coming from the fourth century. There exist many early manuscripts of portions of the old and New Testaments, some taking the form of rolls or scrolls, others from codices.
In the Middle Ages there were many versions of parts of the Bible in the vernacular. The absence of printing and the small number who could read limited the demand and the use.
Translations of the Bible into modern languages also came during the Middle Ages. A Slavonian dialect Bible was produced around the 10th century, with a Spanish version in the 12th. There was a complete Italian translation in the 13th century, with a Scandinavian edition in the 15th century.
A first complete Bible in Old English was the translation of Wycliffe's in 1380. The first in modern English was that of Tyndale who, working from the Hebrew and Greek texts, produced a New Testament in 1525, and then the first half of the old Testament for which he was burned at the stake in 1536. There followed many other translations through the years with the Roman Catholic Douay Version, from the Latin Vulgate, producing the New Testament (Rheims bible) in 1582 and the Old Testament in 1609. The King James Authorized Version of 1611 remains one of the most familiar translations.