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There is much more to history than what we are presented with in school. This idea is a constant the more I read and investigate historical topics I love and am curious about.

One of these topics is the history of Christianity. Growing up in a non-denominational background, I've always been curious about how we got our beliefs, and how those beliefs persisted across centuries and millennia. The classic way to answer this is to read the Christian Bible, and then follow through the history of the Church from the first century onward. The Bible, divided into two segments, includes many genres, including narrative history, ancient poetry, prophetic books, and even apocalyptic visions. The diversity within it compels a reader to understand the cultural Hebrew (which we now call Jewish) roots of Christianity within the what we call the Old Testament, before embarking on a journey into the faith's main tenets in the Person and gospel of Christ in the New Testament.

Of course, as given above, history as taught is not often history as it's being discovered. Timothy Michael Law's book, When God Spoke Greek, is an exploration into the foundations of Christian Scripture, and the rather Greek influence on the Bible, rather than the primarily Hebrew emphasis I was taught. This book reveals the seminal culture surrounding the origins of Christianity, and brings new light not just to understanding what is in our Bibles, but how we should understand what Scripture actually is.

As in previous book reviews, rather than simply summarizing the book (which I will do more-so in this review than previous, due to its content), I'll be exploring the ideas behind it, and why I think they're important.

The Surrounding History

Before we talk about how the Bible came to be, however, we need to discuss the events surrounding its canon, as the book also does.

The first relevant event happened around the 6th century BC, when the Kingdom of Judah (which is where, eventually, the Jews we know today came from) was conquered by the Babylonians and their famous king, Nebuchadnezzar. Many of the Jewish people who were left were taken to Babylon, and subsequently became part of its citizenry, as well as (eventually) its upper-class nobility. During this period, it is probable that a large portion of the Old Testament in the Bible was written down and compiled in order to preserve the heritage of the people.

These Jewish exiles returned to their homeland and began its reconstruction around 539 BC, a time referred to as the Second Temple period. During this Second Temple period, another disaster befell the Jewish people: a conqueror known as Alexander the Great came through the Levant and completely changed the face of the world as we know it.

Now, Alexander the Great did not devastate the Jewish people like the Babylonians did. Instead, his modus operandi was to introduce and infused Greek culture into the peoples he conquered. Thus, in a process we now call Hellenization, the Jewish culture became inexorably mixed with Greek. When Alexander died, The Levant was rent in two, between Ptolemy and Seleucus, two of his generals, and the two sides, along with their descendants, would largely fight amongst themselves until they were disintegrated or subjugated by other polities, including the Roman Empire.

The Translation of the Jewish Scriptures

During this period where the known western world was hellenized, there was a desire to have the Jewish Scriptures translated to Greek. As Timothy Michael Law points out, there could have been a variety of motivations to do so. The classical reason is that, due to the dispersion of Jewish people in the Hellenized Levant, a lot of Jews now spoke Greek, and not Hebrew. Thus, giving these Jews a translation would help them to not lose their heritage.

But, as Law explains, there may have been another reason. As Greek culture became dominant, its proponents boasted of their literary and poetic traditions, like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Jewish scholars also believed in the superiority of their traditions, and wanted to translate their literary works in order to prove so. Thus, part of the reason for the translations may have had to do with clashing cultures competing for superiority.

Whatever the case, the result was a form of the Jewish Scriptures we now call the Septuagint—a translation of Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. While initially based only around the first five books of the Bible, what Jews call the Torah, the task of translation soon began to incorporate their other works, too. Then, as the Jews in Palestine began to resent their Greek overlords, they began to write in Greek, producing a number of works that are often included in the Septuagint, though not based in the ancient Hebrew language. Eventually, Jewish Palestine overthrew the Greeks and established their own dynasty. However, this polity became embroiled in its own civil war, and it was during these throes that the Roman Empire came and established its dominance in the region.

What Is Scripture?

The chaotic upheaval, with constant and intense wars and civil strife, was reflected in the fracturing of Jewish culture. Many sects and groups within it began to appear, some supporting a completely independent Jewish nation, others supporting various powers, and still others desiring to get away from it all. By the time we get to the birth and life of Jesus Christ, several factions were vying for the top place in influencing Jewish culture, including the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and even esoteric Enochian Jews, though we don't really know very much about the latter two.

This fragmentary nature of Jewish culture is also reflected in their understanding of what Scripture contained. Rather than a unified agreement, which is what many are taught, there were as many ideas about what was “canon” in Scripture as there were factions, and even more, perhaps. The Sadducees believed that only the Torah, the first five books of the Bible attributed to Moses, were Scripture. The Pharisees argued for a broader canon, which may have included much of what is in the Jewish canon today. The Essenes, it seems, had an even broader idea of what Scripture consisted of, including many books not in any of our Bibles today. When Christians began writing (Christianity began as a Jewish sect), we understand that various Church fathers had different ideas of what was considered canon as well, as different localities had different rules.

What is more fascinating, however, is not just that these different sects had different lists for Scripture. It is the discovery that, within these very communities, the very idea of Scripture seems to be much more malleable than what we think of today. We know this primarily due to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a treasure trove of religious manuscripts that were found in the Judean Qumran Caves in 1940's.

The Flexibility of Scripture

Before I begin talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls, we'll need to understand something that most people who begin their study of the Bible aren't aware of. While most English Bibles these days base their Old Testament translations from the same Hebrew version as Jewish people currently use for their Scriptures, this Hebrew tradition is not necessarily the same as that which first century Jews used, let alone before. Instead, it is a text that we call the Masoretic text, which is based on a compiled text in the 7th century CE.

Part of the reason why we know this is also due to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Among amazing finds such as the Great Isaiah Scroll, we also found fragments of the Septuagint sitting next to a multitude of older Hebrew manuscripts (in addition to some others). Some of the fragments reflect our current Masoretic Hebrew texts (the one from the 7th century), some are closer to the Septuagint, others seem to be an amalgamation of the two, and sometimes there were ones that were not that close at all. Previous to this find, many thought the Greek Septuagint we had was based on the Masoretic. But now, scholars have come to realize that it is probably based on a tradition older than our current Hebrew Masoretic.

It's important to pause here and note that the differences between these manuscripts weren't so vast that we have absolutely no confidence in an accurate transmission of the texts from their point of origin. Instead, while the vast majority within these texts agree with each other in both material and meaning, there are enough variations between them to show us that, rather than strict uniformity, there was a welcome plethora of textual variation within the community.

In other words, we not only have fragments of variations, but due to the way these fragments are preserved, we can understand that the community that hid these manuscripts at Qumran was perfectly fine with the conflicting variations sitting side by side. While many modern day religious believers have a strict, rigid idea of what Scripture should be like, it seems like the ancients had a different perspective.

After all, while there were different factions within Judaism in first century Palestine, all of these factions were still unified in their Jewish identity, which was not just a racial identity, but a social and religious one as well. In their disagreements, they still believed they were a single people, or family. In fact, even today, if you were to read the Mishnah or Talmud, which are Rabbinical commentaries on Scripture, you would find it filled with contradictory arguments, apologetics, and polemics. The ancients, it seems, had no problems with a multiplicity of meaning within variant sacred texts.

Christianity: Greek or Hebrew?

What about the Christian New Testament? For this, we're going to have to get a little more nerdy.

Because of the widespread nature of hellenic culture, the majority of writings in the New Testament are also in Greek. What is more, when New Testament authors quote or refer to the Old Testament, they are more often than not directly quoting the Septuagint, rather than translating Hebrew into Greek themselves.

How do we know this? When we look up the passages they reference, there are stark differences between what New Testament authors quote and the traditional text we have in the Masoretic Hebrew. Instead, they are often much closer to the Greek Septuagint.

Here's an example, which Law uses in the book:

First, it's important to point out that, though there are differences, as mentioned above, the Masoretic and Septuagint passages say largely the same thing. While they can't be exactly the same (after all, the Septuagint is a translation of Hebrew), the general meaning is basically intact.

Notice the similarity between the New Testament quote and the Septuagint version of the passage it is referencing. While the passage being quoted is obviously rearranged, in particular is the strong emphasis on “because of you”, which adds a definitive accusation (some would say clarity) as to who was responsible for the blaspheming of God. Thus, it is pretty clear which version is being quoted.

In similar ways, the rest of the New Testament actually quotes more from the Greek Septuagint version than our current Masoretic Hebrew. There are some that say that 80% of the quotations can be attributed more to the Greek than the Hebrew. Law disputes this, believing that it is a bit impossible to determine the full amount, due to variation.

In addition to quoting from either one or the other, there are also examples where the authors' quotations are closer to the Masoretic than Septuagint, and there are even ones that seem quite ambiguous which tradition they seem to be following.

Here's an example (which Law also uses):

Again, obviously, the two versions of the passage being quoted are largely about the same thing — that the Spirit of God was upon someone to bring people from misery into joy and blessing.

But notice how, here, the way a quotation was taken and used is much more nuanced than the previous one. In Blue are the similarities the New Testament quote has with the Septuagint, while in Green is the similarity between the New Testament quote and the Masoretic. In Red are the parts of the passage that Luke left out completely, but exist in both the Masoretic and Septuagint.

For some more comparisons, check out this playlist on Youtube, which goes over many more than even Law's book was able to.

So it seems, as in this example, the New Testament authors didn't only use a single translation, but took from different sources depending on the point they were making, and at times combined them (something that Law affirms).

For some, this idea seems scandalous. How could one say that the authors modified sacred inspiration to fit a point being made? But again, we must understand that these ancient communities and authors evidentially had a different idea of what sacred Scripture and sacred inspiration were. They were unconcerned with a plurality of versions, but rather seemed to embrace variation, considering all of it a part of sacred inspiration.

Final Thoughts

I hope this has been an interesting dive into the history of Christian Scripture. It's an area that has much more explorative depths than anything I could give in this book review/topical exploration. For more in depth information on this topic, I would highly recommend picking up this book by Timothy Michael Law. While Law is a scholar, the book is very easy to digest, and isn't too long. I myself actually listened to the book on Audible, and was plenty able to keep up. It's definitely something that will expand, and perhaps even challenge, your ideas of what Scripture is!

Images taken from Wikipedia, Pixabay, and here.