Lesson 1: How Did We Get The Bible?

The Bible: God’s Words

Turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3:16. Who can read it for us?

• What do you think that means, God-breathed (NIV)?

(The Greek word used here only occurs this one time in the scriptures. It is a compound word, God and breath, that means inspired.)

It’s important that we remember when we’re discussing the Bible, that it is God’s Words, not the words of man. For example, consider the people who wrote the Gospels—Matthew did not just sit down and write an account of the life and teachings of Jesus on his own. God, through the Holy Spirit, guided the process. That is one of the reasons why, for instance, that even though he probably never even met Luke, their accounts are so similar.

The Bible: Man’s Influence

That’s not to say that God just put all the people who contributed to the Scriptures in a trance and made their hands move. One of the unique features of the Bible is that regular people authored it.

Unlike many Holy Books, such as the Muslim's Koran or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' Book of Mormon, multiple people wrote the Bible; in fact, approximately 40 different people wrote it