This study is a slightly different study.  I got a request from a church member asking for this study.  Rather than diving deep into one specific book of the Bible, we are going to dive into the history of how the Bible came into being.  There are several questions we're going to answer through this study.

1)  How did the books of the Bible come to be recognized as Holy Scirpture?  (Why did the hundreds of other ancient texts not get included into the book we cal the Bible?)

2)  Who decided what the arrangement of the Canon should be? (How did the books get put into the order we find them in today?)

3)  What were the criteria that influenced these decisions?

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Before we can even answer these questions, we need to know why the answers to these questions matter.  What is so important about the Bible, as compared with other ancient literature or other religious texts that we need to go to the trouble to research these issues?  As it turns out, the Bible claims to be the authoritative Word of the only God.  If the same God who created the universe AND gives life to all AND proved His unlimited love for us by sending His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross to pay for our sins so that we culd be saved, then this book, is something that we need to know is true and authentic and originated from God.

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After we explore how the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, came into being, we'll discuss the translations and the principles used to make them.  While we will be looking at the Bible, we will mainly be looking into history to answer all these questions about the Bible, which is the most widely read book in history.

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