Bible Course for the Laity - 2004, DVK, Bangalore

Full Reports on the Bible Course - 2004

Bro. George Thottiyil is a member of the Congregation of Missionaries of St Francis (CMSF). He is continuing his theological studies in Bangalore. Bro. George captivated his students with his humorous and open way of teaching. With fitting anecdotes and clear-cut narrations, he helped every student walk through the Bible formation process. At the end of the class, Bro. George presented a slide show of hundreds of pictures taken from the Holy Land.

Module-5 narrates the long process of the formation of the Bible. Some of the facts in this module have already been mentioned in previous modules; however, this module exclusively narrates the Bible formation process. (This module was discussed over two days; therefore, it is divided into two parts.)

5.1   How the Bible Originated

The Bible is the Word of God in comprehensible to human beings. God's communication to His children does not come directly from heaven. Instead, God's words pass to us through time, space, and culture. God becomes human - to make human beings understand His word in their own way.

Any history is a process, a course of events. God's intervention with humans (Israelis) through his creative words is no different -- it is formative process as well. God interacts with his creatures in simple and concrete ways, and this communication goes on for centuries, and even today.

Subsequent to this continuous communication of God with His children, His words were recounted by humans from generation to generation. Thus, the Bible was formed of a long process of God's people recounting His words over generations.

5.1.1 The three-fold process of Bible formation

Most of the Bible evolved out of a three-stage formation process, namely Oral Tradition, Written Tradition, and Edited Tradition.

1. Oral Tradition: (ca. 2000 BC - 90 AD) [ca = circa, Latin word meaning "around" or "about"] People recounted their experiences with God and passed these stories to their children and grand children, who in turn conveyed these to generations that followed. All these were by word of mouth because writing was difficult and not common.
2. Written Tradition: (ca. 950 BC - 90 AD) When crises surfaced and threatened the existence of faith and traditions of the chosen people, trained scribes (people who knew the art of writing) combined and wrote down the experiences with God and the stories of faith, with a view to preserving these for future.
3. Edited Tradition (Redaction): (ca. 586 BC - 90 AD) Over the course of time, the scribes and literary people collected various written literature, classified them into different categories, and edited them to apply to those people's time and context.

These three-fold process became enshrined when official bodies of faith (Jewish bodies and Christian bodies in separate circumstances) later declared these collected works as sacred, inspired scriptures, to be preserved unchanged for generations to come.

This is how the canon (approved books) of the sacred scriptures came to be. What is essential is to understand and recognize that the Bible is a record of stories of faith (experience with God). The same way as we narrate our own stories to our own younger generations, the ancient people conveyed their God-experiences in different forms for communicating them to the following generations.

5.1.2 Intricacy of the Bible

It is over centuries that the spoken word moved on to written forms and then to the editorial process. Not everything was uniformly done, over this long formation course. It is not easy to decipher these layers of traditions either. Rather, these three stages are interlaced, and often overlap. When the oral collections gave way to written material, there could have been some differences; there might have been exaggerations. By the time the edited form came to be, there might have been some differences in meaning itself. Yet, from the perspective of faith, the matters in the Bible exist for the purpose of religious and spiritual messages.

In this context is evident the importance of proper interpretation of the Bible. Literal accuracy is less necessary than the assurance that God's word is preserved in these sacred accounts. Several generations have found these sacred words life-giving, and that exactly is why we still read and follow the Bible today. The process of inspiration, adding more life and dynamism to God's word, even today continues through us, the followers of the Bible! Though the written form is fixed, the oral tradition and interpretations can go on and on, through each one of us!

The second part of Module-5 is on the continuing patterns of the Bible formation process.

Bible Course for the Laity

Bible Course Index   Module 1, Part 1   Module 1, Part 2   Module 2

Module 3, Part 1   Module 3, Part 2   Module 3, Part 3

Module 4, Part 1   Module 4, Part 2   Module 5, Part 1   Module 5, Part 2

Module 6, Part 1   Module 6, Part 2   Module 6, Part 3

Module 6, Part 4   Module 6, Part 5