How we got the Bible

There never was an official or conscious "collecting" of material for the Bible by the church.  The Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures commonly called the Law and the Prophets, was the Bible in use when Jesus was born.  The first Christian believers read and quoted the Old Testament Scriptures just as Jesus Himself often did.

The New Testament Scriptures were written and circulated among the believers, from believer to believer, from the very earliest days of the church.  Some scholars have dated Matthew's Gospel to the very decade that Jesus died on the cross.

Keep in mind that things were very different in those days. No one went to a store and bought a Christian Bible or a book of Christian Scripture. For most of the early years, Christians were an illegal minority, hunted down and imprisoned or even killed for their faith in Jesus. 

The letters from the apostles, the gospel accounts, and the Revelation that make up the New Testament Scriptures were all written by hand, and then copied by hand and carried from believer to believer.  To have such a document in one's possession could mean imprisonment or death. 

By 100 AD (about 70 years after the resurrection) all 27 books of the New Testament were in wide circulation among believers, and the churches universally accepted most of the books. In those early days, as in our own days, it was the Spirit of God in the believers that bore witness to His Word. 

In the church councils of the 4th century, the leaders of many of the Christian fellowships sent representatives to deal with certain issues facing the believers in those days. During that time they recognized certain core beliefs that the churches held in common. They repudiated false teachings (heresies) that troubled some of the churches. And they recognized certain writings by the apostles (or by those who wrote under the authority of apostles, such as Mark, who recorded the recollections of Peter), and determined what the churches already believed to be truly inspired of God.

In addition to Holy Scripture, other writings in circulation were also noted as being worthy religious material (much like today's Christian believers admire and enjoy Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" but would not call it Scripture). Not all the churches agreed on which of these other writings were worthy and which were not.  Nevertheless, some of them remained in circulation.

Much later, in the Reformation, the Bible was examined again and the extra materials, since they had never been considered Scripture by either the Jews or Christians, were simply dropped from Protestant editions of the Bible. After all, the whole issue of the Reformation was the Authority of Scripture over that of men — even over the most respected Christian leaders. And so it made sense that Protestants would drop everything from the Bibles they published that is not inspired Scripture.

However, many publishers still publish editions of the Bible that also include the deuterocanonical materials. I have several of these editions in my own collection of Bibles. But Roman Catholics and Protestants officially agree on what is inspired Scripture. They merely feel differently as to the value of some of the extra stuff, just as churches have always done.

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Who wrote the Bible?

The Hebrew, or Old Testament Scriptures, were written by prophets of God.  In some cases, their assistants or priests contributed.  One clear example of this is Baruch who wrote for Jeremiah.

Then Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words of the LORD that he had spoken to him.  (Jeremiah 36:4)

The word that the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah...      (Jer. 45:1)

Moses is credited with writing the first 5 books of the Old Testament, commonly called the Law of Moses.  Other Old Testament writers include Joshua, Samuel, King David, the prophet Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and so on.  Many of the books are named for their authors.

The New Testament was written to show how Jesus Christ fulfilled the promises and expectations of the Law and the Prophets.  The 12 apostles were chosen by Jesus to be eyewitnesses of His work and message, and of His resurrection.  They were to share His message with the whole world.

After Judas betrayed Jesus, the 11 remaining chose another to replace him. They chose from among the other men who had also gone about with the original 12. The Gospels show that there may have been quite a few men & women who traveled about with Jesus and the apostles.

Later, Jesus Himself called Paul, who had not been with Him during His earthly ministry, but who was a clear and persistent witness to Jesus' life and work after the resurrection. Paul turned out to be the one who went mostly to the Gentiles — to all the rest of the world, whereas the other apostles ministered mainly to Jewish people, even when they traveled away from Jerusalem.

What we have today as Scripture was written either by those who were called by the Lord Himself, or by those who worked with them, recording what they wanted to share with others.  We have writings by John, Matthew, James who was the brother of the Lord Jesus, Jude and Paul.  We know that Luke traveled a lot with Paul, and that he also spent time with other apostles and believers, writing down the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' ministry. And Mark was discipled by Peter, and his Gospel tract includes many inside observations that only Peter (as opposed to Matthew) might have made.

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