Book Reviewed: The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture by Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter

The birth of New Testament This is a book of scholarship that examines the development of Bible into a sacred text over many centuries from early “oral traditions,” scrolls, and fragments. The authors conclude that there was never a single fixed Bible for the first three hundred years of the millennia, but advanced into one holy book from several collections of evolving texts. This is not new to academia since many biblical scholars strongly agree with this conclusion based on their own research. It was a historical process shaped by emerging communities, intervention of church leadership, debates among diverse believers, changing religious identities, and political climate favorable to the ministry of Jesus Christ. The hub of the author’s observations is that there was no fixed canon in early Judaism or early Christianity, and different Jewish and Christian groups preserved different versions and different collections of texts. The Old Testament and New Testament did not evolve independently. The Jewish canon stabilized earlier, around the 2nd century CE, while the Christian canon remained fluid for longer. The two faith systems developed in dialogue and even competition, influencing each other. Some texts are composite or edited over time with pseudonymous (written in another’s name). It is worth considering this work with the books of Bart D. Ehrman, and Richard Elliott Friedman who respectively examine the development of early Christianity and its texts, and how Torah (Hebrew Bible) was composed from multiple sources. This is a fascinating work that integrates archaeology, textual criticism, and history. Strongly recommended to readers interested in the history of early Christian texts and its development into one comprehensive Bible.