As Wikipedia states, “The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptions[1] is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, it is widely considered to be the most influential and best-selling book of all time. It comes from the Greek word, “biblia”, meaning “the books”. Wikipedia definition for the Bible It contains 66 books, not including the Apocrypha and some other books written in the NT era like 1 Clemente [of Rome], and was written over the course of 1500 years by 40 different authors. It was first printed using a printing press around 1450 A.D. Codices describes the ancient manuscript pages of Scripture held together by stitching, the earliest form of book. The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and it was divided into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne and is now usually cited by book, chapter, and verse. For a list of of other NT writings see Early Christian Writings.

Tracing the evolution of the Bible is a daunting task but it comes down to this: we do not have scientific proof as to the validity of the contents of the bible that the change from the oral to the written was done correctly. We have strong scientific evidences of it. For example, the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed that the book of Isaiah among others has been faithfully reproduced in the Bible. Also, the comparison of the different historic copies that we have today do agree with some slight differences. Before the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest complete copy of the Old Testament in Hebrew was Codex Babylonicus Petropalitanus from a.d. 1008.

The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and it was divided into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne and is now usually cited by book, chapter, and verse.

Let it be stated at the outset that Catholics and Protestants disagree on what the books in the Bible are. The Catholics say the bible contains 73 books, while the Protestants say the Bible contains 66 books. The Protestant books in the bible are a subset of the Catholic ones with the Catholic ones adding 8 more books referred to as the “Apocrypha” or “Deuterocanon”.

The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, and it is known as the Codex Vaticanus. The oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century AD. The oldest copy of a complete Latin (Vulgate) Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, dating from the 8th century.

The history of the recorded New Testament: 80- A.D The New Testament writings started with the gospel of Mark around 80 A.D. after a short period of oral tradition

The history of the recorded Old Testament The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint; the Hebrew Bible is known in Judaism as the Tanakh.

  • 250–200 B.C. The Septuagint, a popular Greek translation of the Old Testament
  • 500-1000 A. D The Masoretic Text, authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible)

The Masoretic Text was used as the basis for translations of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles such as the King James Version and American Standard Version and (after 1943) for some versions of Catholic Bibles, replacing the Vulgate translation.

The Septuagint (aka LXX) is the Greek Old Testament and is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures from the original Hebrew. It is estimated that the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah or Pentateuch, were translated in the mid-3rd century BCE and the remaining texts were translated in the 2nd century BCE. Modern critical editions of the Septuagint are based on the Codices: Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus. The most widely accepted view today is that the Septuagint provides a reasonably accurate record of an early Hebrew textual variant that differed from the ancestor of the Masoretic text as well as those of the Latin Vulgate, where both of the latter seem to have a more similar textual heritage. This view is supported by comparisons with Biblical texts found at the Essene settlement at Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls).

Codex Vaticanus: The Codex Vaticanus (aka B) is regarded as the oldest extant manuscript of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament). It has been kept in the Vatican Library at least since the 15th century. It has been dated palaeographically to the 4th century. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The Codex’s relationship to the Latin Vulgate was unclear and scholars were initially unaware of the Codex’s value. This changed in the 19th century when transcriptions of the full codex were completed. It was at that point that scholars realised the text differed significantly from the Textus Receptus. Most current scholars consider the Codex Vaticanus to be one of the best Greek texts of the New Testament, with the Codex Sinaiticus as its only competitor. The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus.

Sinaiticus: Codex Sinaiticus is one of the four great codices, ancient, handwritten copies of the Greek Bible. The codex is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century. Scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of the New Testament, along with the Codex Vaticanus. Until Constantin von Tischendorf’s discovery of the Sinaiticus text, the Codex Vaticanus was unrivaled. The Codex Sinaiticus came to the attention of scholars in the 19th century and most of the manuscript is held today in the British Library in London. While large portions of the Old Testament are missing about half of the Greek Old Testament (or Septuagint) survived, along with a complete New Testament, the entire Deuterocanonical books, the Epistle of Barnabas and portions of The Shepherd of Hermas. For most of the New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus is in general agreement with Codex Vaticanus. It has been noted that the differences nonetheless are substantial:

  • Matt–656
  • Mark–567
  • Luke–791
  • John–1022
  • Total—3036

Alexandrinus: The Codex Alexandrinus (“A”) is a fifth-century manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Septuagint and the New Testament. Along with the Codex Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. It derives its name from Alexandria where it resided for a number of years before it was brought by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lucaris from Alexandria to Constantinople. Then it was given to Charles I of England in the 17th century. The codex contains a nearly complete copy of the LXX. It also contains all of the books of the New Testament.

Papyrus 75 is an early Greek New Testament papyrus of Alexandrian text-type. It is generally described as “the most significant” papyrus of the New Testament to be discovered so far. This evaluation of the manuscript is a result of the early date that has usually been assigned to it (circa 175–225 AD) and the fact that its text so closely resembles that of the fourth century Codex Vaticanus. It is very similar to P66, B, and 0162.

Masoretic Text: The Masoretic Text (aka MT) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Hebrew Bible (aka Tanakh) for Rabbinic Judaism. It is not the original text (Urtext) of the Hebrew Bible. It was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. The oldest extant manuscripts date from around the 9th century. The Aleppo Codex (once the oldest-known complete copy but now missing the Torah) dates from the 10th century. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the Masorah. The ancient Hebrew word mesorah broadly refers to the whole chain of Jewish tradition (see Oral law), which is claimed (by Orthodox Judaism) to be unchanged and infallible. Referring to the Masoretic Text, mesorah specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Hebrew Scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. Which of the three commonly known versions (Septuagint, Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch) is closest to the original text (Urtext) is not fully determined. The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown the Masoretic Text to be nearly identical in consonant text to some texts of the Tanakh dating from 200 BC but different from others. Though the consonants of the Masoretic Text differ little from the text generally accepted in the early 2nd century (and also differ little from some Qumran texts that are even older), it has many differences of both greater and lesser significance when compared to the manuscripts of the Septuagint. The Masoretic Text was used as the basis for translations of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles such as the King James Version and American Standard Version and (after 1943) for some versions of Catholic Bibles, replacing the Vulgate translation.

The New Testament: In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from oral traditions in the second half of the first century. There is about a 40 year period between the death of Jesus Christ and the first written gospel, the Gospel of Mark near the end of the first century. There is hardly anything known about this short, oral tradition period.

  • • 80- A.D The New Testament writings started with the gospel of Mark around 80 A.D. after a short period of oral tradition.

The original autographs, that is, the original Greek writings and manuscripts written by the original authors of the New Testament, have not survived. But historically copies exist of those original autographs, transmitted and preserved in a number of manuscript traditions. There have been some minor variations, additions or omissions, in some of the texts. When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they sometimes wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text – especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line – and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called:

  • the Alexandrian text-type (generally minimalist)
  • the Byzantine text-type (generally maximalist)
  • the Western text-type (occasionally wild).

Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts.

The Hebrew Bible and Jewish Orthodoxy The Jews distinguished between the Written Law (Torah) and the traditional or Unwritten Law. The Torah primarily consists of the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The Masoretic text (MT) is the basis for the Hewbrew Bible (Tanakh/Mikra), which is the textual source for the Christian Old Testament. The Unwritten Law was said to have been orally delivered by God to Moses, and by him orally transmitted to the Elders. On the Unwritten Law was founded the Talmud, a compilation of the historic rabbis “discussing” or “debating” what the Torah means, culminating into Jewish doctrines and religious law (halakha). Mark 7:13 may refer to the Talmud. The Talmud is further broken down into the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna (200 CE/AD) is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions, also known as the Oral Torah. The Gemara (500 CE/AD) is a supplement to the Mishna which clarifies the Mishna and often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible.

Breaking all this down further is the Midrash, a biblical exegesis or interpretation by ancient Judaic authorities, using a mode of interpretation or hermeneutics prominent in the Talmud. The Midrash is used to apply both written and oral Jewish teachings to current societal questions and issues. The Midrash formal refers to a specific compilation of these rabbinic writings composed between 400 and 1200 CE/AD. Basically the midrash has three technical meanings: 1) Judaic biblical interpretation; 2) the method used in interpreting; 3) a collection of such interpretations.

Jewish Orthodoxy refers to the traditional Jewish viewpoint of Jewish Scriptures (Torah), Jewish understanding of those Scriptures (Talmud including Mishna and Gemera) and the resulting religous laws (halakha). An orthodox Jew abides by the 613 mitzvot contained within the halakha.

There are 4 laws specific to Shabbat (the seventh day of the week, Saturday):

  • 87. To rest on the seventh day — Ex. 23:12
  • 88. Not to do prohibited labor on the seventh day — Standard: Ex. 20:11; Yemenite: Ex. 20:10
  • 89. The court must not inflict punishment on Shabbat — Ex. 35:3
  • 90. Not to walk outside the city boundary on Shabbat — Ex. 16:29
  • 91. To sanctify Shabbat with Kiddush and Havdalah — Standard: Ex. 20:9; Yemenite: Ex. 20:8

For the Shabbat, halakha has 39 prohibited categories of activities referred to as melakhah with the exception of urgent human or medical need that is life-threatening. The 39 categories of melakhah are:

plowing earth, sowing,  reaping. binding sheaves, threshing. winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing wool, beating wool, dyeing wool, spinning, weaving, making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying, untying, sewing stitches, tearing, trapping, slaughtering, flaying, tanning, scraping hide, marking hide, cutting hide to shape, writing two or more letters, erasing two or more letters, building, demolishing, extinguishing a fire, kindling a fire, putting the finishing touch on an object, and transporting an object (between private and public domains, or over 4 cubits within public domain).

The last category, transporting an object (between private and public domains, or over 4 cubits within public domain), is related to religous law,#90: “Not to walk outside the city boundary on Shabbat — Ex. 16:29”. The definition of this boundary is defined within what is called Eruv. Basically, this provides for expanding private domains with physical designated boundaries so that a violation into a public domain is avoided. Some interpretations of the Eruv allow for wearing items so as not to violate the command to not carry them. So keys to a car might be in a pocket instead of in one’s hand. This category is based on Exodus 16:29:

“See, for that the Lord hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.

John Gill’s Exposition Of The Bible says it pertains to an Israelite staying

“in his tent for that day, giving himself up to religious exercises, to pray and praise, instruct his family, and in all things serve the Lord he was directed to: … not go out beyond two thousand cubits, as the Targum of Jonathan, which is the space the Jews generally fix upon for a man to walk on a sabbath day, so far he might go and no further; and which perhaps is the same space as is called a sabbath day’s journey…”

A more generalized view of this command in the context of the Israelites during the wilderness wandering was to prohibit the Isralites from going out and gathering manna on the Sabbath, and to rest on this day from the routine work of supporting one’s family. This command didn’t prohibit the Israelites from gathering together on the Sabbath for purposes of teaching, worship, prayer, fellowship or spiritual edification or else YHVH’s command for the Israelites to gather together on the Sabbath for a “holy convocation” (Lev 23:2) would be contradictory. Were this command merely an injunction to not leave one’s dwelling place on the Sabbath, then Yeshua and the apostles visiting synagogues on the Sabbath would have been a violation of this Torah command. Isaiah 58:13 could be viewed as the corollary passage to Exodus 16:29. There YHVH instructs his people not to profane the Sabbath by doing their own pleasure, not doing their own ways, and not speaking their own words on this day. Instead, it is a holy day to YHVH and a day to focus on and honor him.