How did we get the Bible?

The truths of Christian revelation were made known to the apostles either by Christ himself or by the Holy Spirit. They constitute what is called the Deposit of Faith, to which nothing has been added since the apostolic age. Some of the truths were committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and have been handed down to us in the books of the New Testament. Written originally to individual Churches or persons, to meet particular necessities, and accommodated as they all were to particular and existing circumstances, these books were gradually received by the universal Church as inspired, and with the sacred books of the Jews constitute the Bible.

In one respect, therefore, the Bible is a twofold literature, made up of two distinct collections which correspond with two successive and unequal periods of time in the history of humankind. The older of these collections, mostly written in Hebrew, corresponds with the many centuries during which the Jewish people enjoyed a national existence, and forms the Hebrew, or Old Testament, literature; the more recent collection, begun not long after Our Lord's ascension, and made up of Greek writings, is the Early Christian, or New Testament, literature.

Yet, in another and deeper respect, the Biblical literature is pre-eminently one. Its two sets of writings are most closely connected with regard to doctrines revealed, facts recorded, customs described, and even expressions used. Above all, both collections have one and the same religious purpose, one and the same inspired character. They form the two parts of a great organic whole the centre of which is the person and mission of Christ. The same Spirit exercised his mysterious hidden influence on the writings of both Testaments, and made of the works of those who lived before Our Lord an active and steady preparation for the New Testament dispensation which he was to introduce, and of the works of those who wrote after him a real continuation and striking fulfilment of the old Covenant.

The Bible, as the inspired record of revelation, contains the word of God; that is, it contains those revealed truths which the Holy Spirit wishes to be transmitted in writing. However, all revealed truths are not contained in the Bible; neither is every truth in the Bible revealed, if by revelation is meant the manifestation of hidden truths which could not otherwise be known. Much of Sacred Scripture came to its writers through the channels of ordinary knowledge, but its sacred character and Divine authority are not limited to those parts which contain revelation strictly so termed. The Bible not only contains the word of God; it is the word of God. The primary author is the Holy Spirit, or, as it is commonly expressed, the human authors wrote under the influence of Divine inspiration.