The Translations of the Old Testament Canon

"Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God."  Romans 10:17

The remarkable Holy Scriptures of Judaism: written by the sacred writers who were legends in their own time and for generations beyond; inspired by Almighty God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, in whose hand is our very life's breath; culminating with the unfolding of Jesus the Christ from its sacred pages by which He was concealed and then revealed.

The Protestant Old Testament is identical to the Holy Scriptures of Judaism.  It consists of the 39 protocanonical books.  The Catholic Old Testament includes seven additional books as well as additions to Esther and Daniel.  Catholics call them the deuterocanonical  books or second canon.  Protestants call them the apocrypha, meaning of doubtful authenticity or authorship.  However, Protestants recognize the historical value of some of the apocryphal books because they fill the 420 year gap between the prophet Malachi and the Gospel of Matthew.

The two most noteworthy translations of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism are the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate.

When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, he built the city of Alexandria to showcase the superiority of the Greek culture.  The Diaspora was encouraged to settle there and Alexandria became a haven for Hellenists—Jews who adopted the Greek culture.

By the time Ptolemy II took the throne, the Jews in Alexandria spoke Greek rather than Hebrew.  Because there was a need for a Greek translation of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, Ptolemy II commissioned 70 Palestinian Jews to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the third century BC.  In recognition of their work, the translation was dubbed the Septuagint (from the Latin, septuaginta, meaning seventy).

Fast forward to the fourth century AD and the Golden Age of the Church Fathers.  A scholar named Jerome was one of the most able Fathers of the early Christian Church.  A superb translator and commentator, he was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.  He was a contemporary of Augustine, an extraordinary theologian, perhaps second only to the Apostle Paul.  Augustine praised Jerome’s talents by remarking that, “what Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal man has ever known.”

Jerome's greatest accomplishment was a Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate.  The New Testament was his revision of the Old Latin versions which were translated from the Greek.  About 390 AD, he began his work on the Old Testament.  However, he went beyond the Greek from the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and created a new Latin version translated from the original Hebrew.  It was completed about 405 AD.

The Douay Bible is the English translation of Jerome's Latin Vulgate.  The New Testament was published in 1582; the Old Testament was published in two volumes, the first in 1609 and the second in 1610.  It was the only official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church until well into the Twentieth century.

The King James Bible was published in 1611.  It was authorized by King James I of England.  At least twenty-five gifted translators were involved in its creation.  Its translation was based on  the Masoretic Text, abbreviated MT.

The MT is the official Hebrew version of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism.  It was copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 8^th and 11^th centuries AD.  Codex Leningrad is the oldest copy of  the MT.  It is dated to 1000 AD.

The King James Bible along with the New King James version are probably the most widely used Bibles in the English-speaking, Protestant world.

"All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness."  2 Timothy 3:16    

How Was The New Testament Canon Created?

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

The creation of the New Testament canon was a slow process largely completed by 175 AD.  Admission of a book to the canon was based on three criteria:  Was it written by an Apostle or a person who was a close associate of the Apostles; Did the words of the book have the power of edification when read before a congregation; Was the book in agreement with the established doctrines of faith?

"The historical verification of apostolic authorship or influence and the universal consciousness of the church, guided by the Holy Spirit, resulted in the final decision concerning what books should be considered canonical and worthy of inclusion in what we know as the New Testament."

The Epistles of the Apostle Paul were the first books collected for the canon. They were gathered together by the elders of the Ephesian church.

Paul's Epistles were followed by a collection of the Gospels sometime after 100 AD:

Matthew was a tax collector at Capernaum when Jesus called him to become a disciple and later an Apostle.  Hence, he was an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel.

Mark was a convert of the Apostle Peter and a companion of the Apostle Paul.  His mother Mary had a house in Jerusalem that was a gathering place for Christians.  Mark finally settled in Rome where he documented the memories of the Apostle Peter.  Both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome. 

Luke was a physician who never actually saw Jesus.  A pagan by birth, he was an early convert who became a companion and co-worker of the Apostle Paul.  He wrote his Gospel for Theophilus who was a cultured Greek.  Therefore, Luke carefully examined the evidence and assigned  precise dates to the events which occurred in his Gospel.

John was at first a disciple of John the Baptist.  He was the Apostle most loved by Jesus and an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel.  John also wrote three Epistles and then the book of Revelation while exiled on the barren Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea.  After the death of the Roman emperor Domitian, John was allowed to return to Ephesus where he died at an advanced age.

In 180 AD, the so-called Muratorian Canon contained 22 New Testament books.

About 324 AD, Eusebius the Father of Church History determined that at least 20 books were worthy of inclusion in the New Testament canon.  The books of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were still under consideration because of authorship uncertainty.

Finally, in 367 AD, Athanasius the bishop of Alexandria listed as canonical the same 27 New Testament books that we have today.  That same Athanasius was the champion of the orthodox view when it was challenged about 325 AD.  He believed that Christ was coeternal, coequal, and consubstantial with God the Father, a belief for which he was exiled five times when he was a young man.

While some have thought the New Testament canon was a product of the Roman Catholic church, that was not the case.  About 170 AD, the church was calling itself the "catholic" or universal church.  The term was coined by Ignatius, an early church father who was arrested because of his Christian testimony and sent to Rome where he was killed by beasts in the imperial games.

According to historians, the Old Catholic Imperial church existed between 100 and 590 AD.  As that period ended, the Old Catholic Imperial church virtually became the Roman Catholic church.                         

Inspiration Incompatible With Error

Can faith in the Holy Scriptures be restored in the third millennium since the beginning of the Christian era?  Is it possible to re-establish the belief that the 39 traditional books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament are inerrant in their original manuscripts as left by the hagiographers?

There are two schools of thought: those who believe the Bible is the word of God and those who believe the Bible contains the word of God.  The former believe that the sacred writers were inspired by Almighty God and that divine inspiration is incompatible with error.

Augustine was a Church Father who was revered by Catholics and Protestants alike.  If he came across an apparent discrepancy in Scripture, he didn't attribute it to the sacred writers.  Instead, he concluded that it was a copying error, a translation error, or that he himself had failed to understand the passage in question.

Augustine as quoted by Leo XIII:  "On my own part I confess to your charity that it is only to those books of Scripture which are now called canonical that I have learned to pay such honor and reverence as to believe most firmly that none of their writers has fallen into any error.  And if in these books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth, I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty, or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand." 

The Great Tribulation

"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

"For there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until this time, nor ever shall.

"And the man of lawlessness will be revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

"And all who dwell on earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

"How long shall it be until the end of these wonders? It shall be for a time, times, and half a time.

"And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that maketh desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days.

"How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1,335 days!"


The seventy weeks in Daniel’s Messianic prophecy are often interpreted as seven year cycles which were fashioned by God and recorded by Moses in the Books of Exodus and Leviticus.

Chapter 9 of the Book of Daniel tells us that after sixty-nine weeks, Messiah will be slain and the people of the prince shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Those prophecies were fulfilled in 30 AD when Christ was crucified and in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple.

Week seventy will come during the reign of the “abomination of desolation” spoken of by Daniel the prophet and re-introduced by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew.

The “abomination that maketh desolate,” also called the antichrist or the beast, will capture the popular imagination and inspire allegiance and devotion. He will strike up a covenant with rabbinical Judaism allowing them to perform animal sacrifices and grain offerings in Jerusalem’s Third Temple. Notably, for that agreement to be realized, Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque would have to be eliminated and the Third Temple erected on Mount Moriah in their stead.

However, in the middle of the seventieth week, the beast will break the covenant and prohibit the Jews from making sacrifices and oblations to their God. It is then that he will sit in Jerusalem’s Third Temple declaring himself to be God. This will mark the beginning of the Great Tribulation, a time of unprecedented suffering, the likes of which has not occurred since the beginning of time, nor ever shall.

Daniel measures the length of the Great Tribulation as “a time, times, and half a time.” That’s the equivalent of 1260 days or 42 months according to the Book of Revelation. Hence, the Great Tribulation will span the last three and a half years of Daniel’s seventieth week or “a year, two years, and half a year” in prophetic parlance.

Many believe that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur 30 days after the Great Tribulation. Forty-five days later, Christ will establish His Millennial Kingdom. (1260 + 30 = 1290; 1290 + 45 = 1335)

Will believers suffer through the holocaust known as the Great Tribulation? Many think not. The following passages are examples of scriptural evidence supporting a rapture of the saints prior to the Great Tribulation:


“Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I will also keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth.”

“And there will be a time of distress such as has never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.”  (That is the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain; Revelation 13:8.)

The Heritage of Hope

The Hopeless Heritage: Everything happens by chance.  The Big Bang was a random occurrence that created the universe.  There is no reason behind life. We live, we die, we decompose; end of story. Graveyard dust is our biological heritage and there is nothing more.

The Heritage of Hope: Jesus Christ came down from heaven and by the power of the Holy Spirit was born of the Virgin Mary which was foretold by Isaiah the prophet some seven centuries earlier.  “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” 

On Passover Friday, April 7, 30 AD, Jesus was crucified for our sins.  He rose from the dead on the third day, the first fruits of the resurrection.  After forty days, He ascended into heaven where He is seated at the right hand of God the Father.

Great is the reward in heaven for those who are saved by grace and justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Now grace is defined as favour and more specifically, unmerited favour.  Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, being convinced of things not seen.  

While believers are justified by their faith, unbelievers will be judged according to their deeds.  Because all men are sinners and Christ’s crucifixion is the only sacrifice that atones for sinful deeds, how shall unbelievers escape if they ignore so great a salvation?

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

“And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.  And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

The Full Armor of God

And there was a war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon.  And the dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.  And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Now a man with an unclean spirit met Jesus; and he had not put on any clothing for a long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs.  And seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him, and said in a loud voice, “What do I have to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  I beg You, do not torment me.”

For He had been commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man.  For it had seized him many times; and he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard; and yet he would burst the fetters and be driven by the demon into the desert.

And Jesus asked him, “What is your Name?”

And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him.  And they were begging Him not to command them to depart into the abyss.

Now there was a herd of swine feeding there on the mountain; and the demons urged Him to permit them to enter the swine.  And He gave them permission.  And the demons came out of the man and entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, the powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness on high.

And the Father will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of the truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.

Therefore, put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And you will overcome the powers of darkness because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.  Indeed, if God is for us, who can be against us!