AP/RLST 3424 3.00

History of the Bible

Most people take the existence of the modern English Bible for granted—they assume it sprang fully-formed from the hands of the ancient writers or even directly from God. But the Bible has been three millennia in the making. This course traces the development of the Bible beginning with discussions in the first to third centuries on canon formation, through the myriad translations made from antiquity to today, to modern scholars’ attempts to reconstruct the original form of the biblical texts. We will look also at the form various Bibles have taken—from the original scrolls and codices, to elaborately decorated manuscripts, to modern books—as well as the historical events that precipitated the creation of several key editions, and the impact these editions have made over time. Particular attention will be paid to the techniques of text criticism—i.e., the painstaking efforts to sift through the variety of readings in ancient manuscripts to recover the biblical writers’ original words.

RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Christianity

Course Category: Religion, Literature, and the Arts