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Tracing the Bible's scriptural history

A pastor introduces a course in hopes of teaching his congregation how the book's massive undertaking occurred.

By JEAN JOHNSON
Published July 17, 2004

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SPRING HILL - When asked the question "Who wrote the Bible?" most people answer, "God."

The Rev. Ron Garrett, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, aims to take members of his congregation from the mundane to the monumental and discover by whom, why and when the Bible was written.

"The course will focus on the story of the Bible (including) the process by which the books of the Bible came together in the collection we now have," Garrett said. "How did the Bible come to be this precise collection of books that we see each time we open our Bible?" he asks.

Garrett, 62, plans to make participants aware of other books that circulated as Scripture or holy writings for a period of time.

Garrett first taught the class in the '70s, when he began with an interpreter's dictionary of the Bible.

"It took an enormous number of hours because there was no one place to go for the information," he said.

The Bible class is scheduled for five or six weeks and will focus on periods important in the formation of what we now call the Holy Bible: the canonization process, which was the first century of Christianity; later periods involved the discovery of the texts, development of new translations and Reformation.

Aware that some people believe God guided the hands of all who wrote the Scriptures, Garrett discusses that theory with participants. He will begin this portion of the course by pointing out that the 27 books then in existence were not accepted by everyone.

"Various people will give you various lists," said Garrett, pastor at Holy Cross for eight years.

Garrett hopes his students will become more enthusiastic as they begin to delve into the methods used in the translations of Scripture. By the second century, there were two conditions that had to be met in order for the process to occur.

The first was a guarantee that the manuscript would physically survive. This could be accomplished by writing on vellum or animal skins, which, obviously would last much longer than paper. The second guarantee was that the author almost had to claim anonymous authorship.

Since writing materials were precious and expensive, most authors, in an attempt to save space, wrote their manuscript with no punctuation: no capitals, no paragraphs and no spaces between letters. To understand how tedious and time consuming the task of getting one's work accepted into the Bible, Garrett will ask his students to decipher or translate a passage of the Bible with no spaces.

"It's not an easy task," said Garrett, who began the sessions on Wednesday. "We will deal with the problem of how manuscripts were put together and how they were changed to how they wanted them to read."

When Donna Gallo first heard about the Bible study, her first reaction was "Well, we got it from God."

But knowing Garrett, Gallo said, "there had to be more to it," and she wanted to participate.

"It's not like when he spoke to Moses and it's not as direct today, but God has his ways and everything happens for a reason. This could be one way of getting down to the grass roots of telling the good news and how it got started," Gallo said. "He's encouraging us to get back to the basics of why we're here."

Gallo, who is married and has three grown children, compared this study to the one held at Holy Cross after the screening of The Passion of the Christ several months ago. She believes the questions asked at that study course indicated the depths of understanding of the viewers.

"I hope people really turn out for this study," Gallo said.

Jack Hampus, a 25-year resident of Spring Hill, said he is looking forward to the study.

"It's important to study the Bible because there's so much to learn," he said.

Hampus credits his 97-year-old mother with bringing him back into the church after a long absence. He describes the Bible as deep, meaningful and exciting.

"The more we read about the Bible, the more we can help other people," he said. "That's to bring glory to the Lord, not only teaching it, but also learning it because our function is to evangelize. This is what the Lord said we are to do."

Garrett hopes that information about various versions of the Bible will be constructive and not "destroy someone's faith."

"God inspired people to write different versions," said Garrett, who will encourage participants to read the preface to their Bible, which consists of interesting information about its translation.

"When dealing with the story of the Bible," Garrett said, "it is about what most people believe in their minds that God directed someone's hand and it is divine intervention that we have what we do."

IF YOU GO

WHAT: The story of the Bible

WHEN: 7 p.m. each Wednesday through Aug. 18.

WHERE: Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 6193 Spring Hill Drive, Spring Hill

CALL: 683-9016, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

[Last modified July 17, 2004, 01:00:37]

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