Bible Exhibition in Ipswich

St Andrew’s church in Britannia Road, Ipswich, has been staging a Bible exhibition called “The Bible Alive – Yesterday and Today” to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible. It will continue until the 16th September.

The exhibition includes many interesting exhibits and displays, including ancient and unusual Bibles, in some cases going back to the early 17^th century. There is also considerable background information, providing valuable insights into how our Bibles came into being . Here is a sample:

Getting to know the Old Testament

The Old Testament section of the Bible was not in the first instance a document of Christian faith but of the faith of Israel. It is the Christian title applied to the Hebrew Scriptures of the Jewish people which Jesus would have been brought up to study.

The Hebrew Scriptures were gradually compiled over a period of many hundreds of years. In the earliest times, indeed for hundreds of years, there was no written history of the Hebrew people.

Storytellers would learn by heart and then retell the stories, songs, beliefs, traditions and history of their people. These were then handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation.

From around 1000 years before Christ scribes started to write down these traditions. They were written by hand on a roll of parchment or papyrus.

It's not easy to know exactly who wrote some books in the Old Testament. Early writers sometimes put the name of a great person on a roll or collection of rolls to honour him.

The original language of most of the Old Testament was Hebrew. Another language used in this period was Aramaic. This was the official language of the Persian Empire which became the common language of people in Jesus' day.

The Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants. Hebrew was written from right to left with no vowels; there was no division into chapters. The earliest existing manuscripts were written in this form.

A group of Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes devised a set of vowels to indicate how the words should be pronounced. Their copies of the Old Testament used this system.

By 200 years before Christ, Greek was the common language of the Roman Empire. Many Jews living in other countries, especially Egypt, didn't know Hebrew. So a group of scholars (traditionally seventy) translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This version is known as the Septuagint (Greek for seventy).

Until the invention of printing, the original manuscripts were carefully copied by hand by scribes. Today any manuscripts of the Old Testament still in existence are these early copies made by scribes.

Until the 20th century the oldest surviving copy of an early Hebrew manuscript dated from the 9th century. However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 earlier manuscripts were found which date back to 100 years before Christ.

How the NewTestament canon was formed {(Canon= measuring rod]

After Jesus died and rose again no documents were written about him for some time. The apostles could teach about Jesus from personal experience as they preached in the synagogues and to groups of new Christians.

As these new Christians formed churches which spread around the Mediterranean area St Paul and other apostles wrote letters [Epistles] to them. They wrote to teach and to encourage sound Christian belief and living.

In time as the church spread and the apostles with firsthand experience were growing old, written accounts were produced of Jesus' life and death. These were known as the Gospels [ Gospel = Good News]

Some other "Gospels" also circulated which contained more legendary stories. By the end of the second century Christians wanted to be sure which were the authoritative books accepted by the church. Whilst there was some dispute over a few books, most of the books of the New Testament were widely used throughout all the churches by then. A final complete list was accepted by the end of the fourth century.

How were the New Testament books chosen?

There were three guidelines

i] One of the apostles had to be the author [or someone working closely with the apostle]

ii] At least some of the leading churches [such as the church in Jerusalem] had to recognise the books

iii] The teaching in the books had to be sound Christian teaching

To sum up

The New Testament started from the spoken accounts of the apostles
New Testament books were written in Greek roughly between 50-100 ad
The Epistles [letters] were written first, most of them around SO-70 ad [one or two may have been written later]
The Gospels were written after the epistles. Mark's Gospel was probably the first written Gospel around 64 ad
Most of the New Testament books were widely used by the end of the second century
The Canon of New Testament Scripture was accepted by the end of the fourth century
Jerome's translation into Latin was written in the 4th century ad [known as the Vulgate]. The Vulgate was the only version of the Bible used in the west until the Middle Ages

The exhibition will run until Friday 16th September, with the following special events:

Tuesday 13th, 7-8pm:

Introduction to the Bible how to find your way round the Bible for the first time

Friday 16th, 6-8pm:

Open evening of the Resource Library with a range of Christian books and resources to borrow

Sunday 18th, 6·30-8pm:

Live reading of the Easter story from the Gospel accounts

Location:

At St Andrew’s Britannia Road IP4 5HF

4pm-8pm Monday - Friday

Free Entry Donations Welcome

For further information contact 01473 721695