The Bible As We Know It Today

This is a short explanation of how we got the Bible as we know it today.

Why Martin Luther changed our Bible:

Our Bible, meaning the Christian Bible compiled around 300 AD, was a process. It was a debated process that came about through various Church fathers bringing together the groups of writings that were read from, more or less, when communities of Christian’s would gather.

The question was not, is this book inspired. Instead the question the Church fathers asked was, is this book either authoratative or widely accepted and read.

The first New Testament books to be widely accepted were the writings of the Apostle Paul along with the 4 gospels.

The Old Testament books were not debated because they were already the Bible they were using, of course. However, their Bible included atleast 7 other Old Testament books like Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, and others. These 7 books were removed by Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation.

Meaning that not until the 1600’s, meaning 1600 years after the origin of Christianity, and meaning 1600 years of Christian’s coming and going, did our Bible become the Bible we now know. Got it?

Now, Martin Luther changed the Bible more than that!

Martin Luther knew the history of the New Testament books also. And due to what he knew, he also rejected the inspiration of certain New Testament books. And what he did with these other books is move them to an appendix. He “moved” Jude, 2 Peter, and Revelation to the back of the Bible.

Martin Luther knew his history and knew that those specific books were highly debated and disagreed upon by the original church fathers who formed our Bible. History has much to say about the division within the original churches over Jude, 2 Peter, and Revelation.

But WHY did Martin Luther claim that those books were not inspired by God?

Because all three books use extra-biblical writings within them. Meaning that highly questionable material is found mixed in with those books. Plus, the authorship of 2 Peter does not appear to be the same as that of 1 Peter, according to the early church fathers. But because 2 Peter was read and mentions the Apostle Paul, they decided to put it in the Bible.

But there was not a book more debated and divided over than Revelation. In fact, Revelation almost wasn’t included in our Bible. It was the last one included and the least accepted by the early church. Plus, its authorship has been highly debated over the centuries.

Our Bible did not drop out of heaven in its present form.

In my years of honest prayer and research, I have found that Jude, 2 Peter, and Revelation are unreliable. But I’m not saying they don’t contain statements of truth or faith. I’m just saying the authors and the content were highly influenced by Jewish traditions and myths.

I wrote this because I needed to show some individuals that I was not basing my beliefs about the Bible on just feelings or opinions.

Beyond this information, I have spent hundreds of hours dealing with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the extra-biblical literature discovered there including 1 Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, and other Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Jewish writings that were well known during the time of Jesus and the writings of the New Testament.

Note: I did not cover every debated New Testament book or every book that Martin Luther rejected. My purpose was to explain why he rejected Jude, 2 Peter, and Revelation in particular.