THE
BIBLE ISA
CATHOLIC
BOOK
JIMMYAKIN
© 2019 Jimmy Akin
All rights reserved. Except for quotations, no part of this book may be reproduced
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To the memory of my grandmother,
Rosalie Octava Beard Burns,
who gave me my rst Bible.
CONTENTS
THEBIBLE THEWORDOFGOD ANDYOU ................
.
THEWORDOFGODBEFORETHEBIBLE................
.
THEWORDOFGODINCARNATE .............................. 
.
THEWRITINGOFTHENEWTESTAMENT .............. 
.
AFTERTHENEWTESTAMENT .......................... 
Appendix I: Bible Timeline ............................... 
Appendix II: Glossary..................................... 
Endnotes .................................................. 
About the Author .......................................... 
7
The Bible, the Word of God,
and You
The Bible can be intimidating. It’s a big, thick book—much
longer than most books people read. It’s also ancient. The
most recent part of it was penned almost 2,000 years ago.
That means it’s not written in a modern style. It can seem
strange and unfamiliar to a contemporary person. Even
more intimidating is that it shows us our sins and makes
demands on our lives.
No wonder some people hesitate to take the plunge and
start reading the Bible!
But each of the things that can make it intimidating is
actually a benet:
• Because the Bible is so large, it contains a great deal of
valuable information. If it were short, it wouldn’t tell us
nearly as much.
• The fact that it was written so long ago testies to its
timeless message. Its teachings aren’t tied to just one time
or culture. They have endured, and by reading Scripture
we experience the joy of discovering the story of God’s
dealings with mankind.
• Finally, it’s important that it reveals our sins to us. We
need wake-up calls that shake us out of our feeble attempts
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
8
to rationalize what we’re doing wrong. And Scripture is
quick to assure of us God’s love for us. “For God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes
in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
The Bible is an inestimable gift from God. It’s his word
in written form—something each of us should cherish and
study regularly.
Some groups of Christians try to claim the Bible for
themselves. They make it sound like the Catholic Church
is opposed to Scripture. Some even claim that the Church
“hates” the Bible.
But as we’ll see, all Christians owe an enormous debt to
the Catholic Church, for it was through the Church that
the Bible was given to the world. Jesus himself founded the
Catholic Church. He appointed its rst leaders, and they
were the ones who—under the inspiration of the Holy Spir-
it—wrote the books of the New Testament, which com-
pleted and became the capstone of all the scriptures that had
come before.
The Holy Spirit then guided the Catholic Church to dis-
cern which books belonged in the Bible and which did not.
This involved the crucial process of sorting the true scrip-
tures from all of the false ones that existed.
The Catholic Church laboriously copied the scriptures in
the age before the printing press, when every book—includ-
ing lengthy ones like the Bible—had to be written by hand.
It thus preserved these books through the centuries, unlike
so many ancient works that have now been lost.
The Catholic Church is why we have the Bible today, and
everyone should be grateful for the gift that, by the grace of
God, it has given to the world.
The Bible is a Catholic book!
11
1
The Word of God
Before the Bible
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD
How the world began is a question people everywhere ask.
It’s a human universal.
Pagan cultures thought the world was made by their
gods and goddesses. Some myths claimed that the gods
reproduced sexually to make the elements of the world.
Others held that there was a erce battle among the gods,
and the world was formed from the corpses of the losers.
Mankind was then created as a slave race to relieve the gods
of drudgery.
The book of Genesis set the record straight: The world
was not produced by a multitude of nite gods. It was the
creation of a single, great God—one supreme and supremely
good Being who is behind everything.
Because of his innite, unlimited power, he didn’t need
to use anything to make the world, as the pagans thought.
He didn’t need to mate with a goddess. He didn’t need to
battle other gods and make the world from their corpses.
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
12
He simply spoke, and the elements of the world sprang into
existence: “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was
light” (Gen. 1:3).
God made a good world, and to crown his creation, he
made man—not to relieve him of drudgery but to serve as
his representative, ruling over creation:
God created man in his own image, in the image of God
he created him; male and female he created them. And
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful
and multiply, and ll the earth and subdue it; and have
dominion over the sh of the sea and over the birds of
the air and over every living thing that moves upon the
earth.” And God saw everything that he had made, and
behold, it was very good (Gen. 1:27–28, 31).
Through the ages, God continued to speak. Even when
man fell into sin, he sent the prophets to correct him and
call him back to communion with his Creator. Eventually,
he sent his Son, Jesus, to redeem mankind and to proclaim
his denitive word to us:
In many and various ways God spoke of old to our Fa-
thers by the prophets; but in these Last Days he has
spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir
of all things, through whom also he created the world
(Heb. 1:1–2).
The Gospel of John reveals more about God’s Son and
how the world was made:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
13
with God;
all things were made through him, and
without him was not anything made that was made
( John 1:1–3).
This reveals that Jesus—God’s Son—was the Word he
spoke when he created the world and everything in it.
When God said, “Let there be light,” it was through Jesus
that this happened.
Because Jesus was there in the beginning—one of the
uncreated, divine Persons of the Trinity—he is the original
and supreme Word of God. All of God’s other words are
shadows of him.
This is important to remember, because some today use
the phrase “word of God” as if it just meant “the Bible.” Al-
though the Bible is important, the word of God is not con-
ned to or only found in it. First and foremost, Jesus Christ
himself is the Word of God, and there are other expressions
of it, only some of which are found in Scripture.
THE SPIRIT OF GOD
The Father and the Son are two of the divine Persons of the
Holy Trinity, but what about the third—the Holy Spirit?
Theologians tell us that every time God performs an ac-
tion in the world, all three Persons play a role. For example,
to save mankind, God the Father sent the Son to redeem us,
and he and the Son together send the Holy Spirit to draw
us back to him and bring his grace into our lives. Conse-
quently, it’s no surprise that we nd the Spirit of God also
took part in the creation of the world:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
14
upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was mov-
ing over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:1–2).
In the biblical languages, the word for spirit is the same as
the word for breath, so Scripture indicates that God created
by both his word and his spirit, or breath:
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all
their host by the breath of his mouth (Ps. 33:6).
Although the doctrine of the Trinity would not be fully
revealed until the New Testament age, this passage shows how
both the Son (the Word) and the Spirit were active in creation.
The image the passage uses is based on the fact that,
when we speak, it is our breath that carries our words. In
speech, our breath and our words are intertwined. They
always go together, and so it is with God. When God sent
prophets, it was the Holy Spirit who gave them God’s word.
The prophet Zechariah records how God’s people refused
to listen to the message that the Holy Spirit gave through
the prophets:
They made their hearts like adamant lest they should hear
the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by
his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, great
wrath came from the Lord of hosts (Zech. 7:12).
The Holy Spirit continued to be active in the New Testa-
ment era, even after Jesus’ ministry. At the Last Supper, Jesus
told his disciples:
I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear
them now.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
15
you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own
authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he
will declare to you the things that are to come.
He will
glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to
you (John 16:12–14).
One of the ways the Holy Spirit communicates God’s
word to us is in writing. The Latin word for writing is scrip-
tura, and so the writings that the Holy Spirit produced are
known as Scripture. St. Peter says:
First of all, you must understand this, that no prophecy
of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
be-
cause no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man,
but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (2
Pet. 1:20–21).
St. Peter indicates that, although the human author was
responsible on one level for writing a book of Scripture, on
a more fundamental level it was the Holy Spirit working
through them. The name for the process by which the Holy
Spirit did this is inspiration. This word comes from Latin
roots that mean “to breathe into” (in + spirare).
To say that a book of Scripture is inspired is to say that
God has breathed the words it contains. This is the way the
New Testament describes inspiration in Greek: it is God-
(theos) breathed (pneustos). Thus St. Paul says:
All Scripture is inspired by God [theopneustos] and prof-
itable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for
training in righteousness, that the man of God may
be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim.
3:16 –17).
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
16
To say that Scripture is inspired or God-breathed does not
mean that the biblical authors were mere secretaries, writing
down what they heard God dictate by an inner voice. The
Holy Spirit worked through them in an organic way, using
their minds, talents, and life experiences. When St. Paul says, “I
myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of
the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom. 11:1), he is speaking of himself as
a human being, and he is serving as a true author. The Second
Vatican Council explained the process of inspiration this way:
To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men
who, all the while he employed them in this task, made
full use of their powers and faculties so that, though he
acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that
they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written,
and no more (Dei Verbum 11).
Today, we are fortunate to have Scripture, an inspired
collection of writings that convey God’s word to us. How-
ever, it’s important to remember that this has not always
been the case. In fact, for most of human history, God’s
people didn’t have Scripture.
THE AGE OF THE SPOKEN WORD
Speech is a human universal, but writing is not. There was
an age before writing had been invented.
Although we don’t know the exact date that writing be-
gan, we do have a pretty good idea of how it developed
because archaeologists have discovered a trove of ancient
drawings, artifacts, and inscriptions that reveal its history.
The earliest human signs were a kind of protowriting that
consisted of pictures and markings that carried only a basic
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
17
meaning. We often can’t tell what that meaning was, but
sometimes we can. For example, we have cave paintings that
clearly represent horses, stars, people, and spears. We also have
artifacts with notches or knots that were used to count items.
Recreation of a cave painting from the Ardéche valley in France,
35,000–30,000 B.C.
The signs used in protowriting convey only a limited
amount of information. They can’t represent everything
that we can communicate in speech. For this reason, speech
was the primary means humans had to communicate with
each other. It was the age of the spoken word—the rst
phase of human history.
God made himself known to man in this period. Genesis
shows God giving the commission to have dominion over the
earth and to rule and care for it on his behalf. It records him set-
tling Adam in the garden of Eden, giving him the command-
ment regarding what he could eat, allowing him to name the
animals, and being both just and merciful with him when he
fell into sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) explains:
God, who creates and conserves all things by his word,
provides men with constant evidence of himself in
created realities. And furthermore, wishing to open up
the way to heavenly salvation, he manifested himself to
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
18
our rst parents from the beginning. He invited them
to intimate communion with himself and clothed them
with resplendent grace and justice.
This revelation was not broken o by our rst parents’
sin. After the fall, God buoyed them up with the hope
of salvation, by promising redemption; and he has never
ceased to show his solicitude for the human race. For he
wishes to give eternal life to all those who seek salvation
by patience in well-doing (54–55).
All this took place at the dawn of human history. God
thus came to man and made his word known even before
the development of writing.
THE AGE OF THE WRITTEN WORD
The archaeological record reveals when writing began. It
didn’t happen everywhere all at once, and forms of proto-
writing continued to be used in many places. But in two lo-
cations—Mesopotamia and Egypt—the rst systems of true
writing appeared.
Around 3300 B.C., the Mesopotamians began to write on
clay tablets using pictograms, or picture writing, and over
the next few centuries these became progressively more so-
phisticated. By around 2600 B.C., they had developed into
cuneiform, a system of wedge-shaped marks pressed into
clay. These included symbols that represented the syllables
of their languages, so anything you could say out loud you
could now preserve in writing.
By 3100 B.C., the Egyptians had begun developing their
own writing system, which eventually resulted in the hi-
eroglyphs for which Egypt is famous. Before these were
deciphered in the nineteenth century, it was thought they
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
19
were pictograms, but it turned out they were a sophisticated
system that incorporated an alphabet, so anything you could
say could be written down in full.
Writing didn’t catch on everywhere. It took centuries for
that to happen, and dierent peoples adopted it at widely
dierent times. The earliest Chinese writing didn’t begin
until around 1300 B.C., the Mayans began to write around
300 B.C., and the Cherokee tribe in North America didn’t
have writing until 200 years ago!
Hieroglyphs (above) & Cuneiform (below)
What about the Hebrews? The earliest alphabet used by
the Hebrews is known as the Proto-Sinaitic script. It is used
in inscriptions found in the Sinai Peninsula, between Egypt
and Israel. These inscriptions date to around 1600 B.C. Al-
though scholars agree that this script was used to write a
language that belonged to the same family as Hebrew, it isn’t
clear that Hebrew itself was being spoken at the time. Lan-
guages develop over centuries through a long, slow process,
and we don’t have clear evidence that Hebrew was being
spoken until about 1000 B.C.
Just because writing existed didn’t mean everyone under-
stood it. Very few people at that time were capable of reading—
often only government ocials and priests could read. In fact,
hieroglyphs have the name they do because they were used
by the Egyptian priests, and so they counted as sacred (Greek,
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
20
hieros) carvings (gluphai). Even those who could read usu-
ally didn’t write. That was a task performed by professional
scribes. If a king or a priest—or anyone else—wanted some-
thing written down, he would have a scribe do it for him.
Proto-Sinaitic inscription
Though writing had been invented, most people were
still, eectively, living in the age of the spoken word. The
early events of Genesis all took place before writing was
invented, and even though it was in use by the time of Abra-
ham, he and the other patriarchs were operating in an al-
most exclusively oral environment.
In the Bible, the rst mention of anyone writing some-
thing down doesn’t occur until after the Exodus was under-
way. When God wanted a particular event remembered, he
said, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the
ears of Joshua” (Exod. 17:14). It made sense for the Hebrews
to use writing at this time because Moses grew up among
people who could write. He had been raised in Pharaoh’s
household (Exod. 2:1–10), and Pharaoh was the ruler and
chief priest of Egypt.
But how do we know about the things that preceded the
Hebrews’ use of writing?
TRADITION!
Any time information is passed from one person to anoth-
er, it is an example of tradition. The word tradition comes
from the Latin root tradere, which means “to hand over” or
“to pass on.”
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
21
Because our culture is highly literate, we focus on in-
formation being passed down in written form—in written
tradition—and so we often overlook the way information
is passed down in oral cultures, which is by oral tradition.
But that was the way most people got their information
in the ancient world, and it worked well. From one genera-
tion to another, people would orally pass on the information
that was needed—about their history, their land, their skills.
The method worked well enough that writing didn’t have
to be invented for thousands of years, and it’s why writing
didn’t catch on everywhere all at once. Peoples living near
literate cultures could go hundreds of years without devel-
oping a literature of their own.
One reason oral tradition worked so well is that there
were ways of transmitting it in a controlled, accurate fashion.
Not just anyone could be a tradent—an authorized bearer of
tradition. To qualify, a person had to have a good memory,
good communication skills, and specialized knowledge of
the subject on which he was an authority.
Tradents memorized information by putting it in a mem-
orable form, like when a modern speaker learns the outline
of his talk before he gives it in public. Often, ancient tra-
dents would structure information using meter, rhyme, and
melody, so that the lore they had to impart took the form of
poetry or song. Famous examples include the ancient Greek
rhapsodes, who memorized and then performed lengthy
works like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
One way of structuring information was what scholars
call a chiasm. This is a way of ordering information around
key words or themes in a kind of inverted structure, like
the steps of a pyramid. A simple example of a chiasm is Je-
sus’ saying, “The last will be rst, and the rst last” (Matt.
20:16). This saying has the following structure:
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
22
A: The last
B: will be rst
B’: and the rst
A’: last
Chiasms are useful memory tools, because if you can re-
member the rst half of the structure, you know what the
second half will be. The example above is short, but ancient
authors—including Homer—used longer, more complex
ones to organize large amounts of information.
These techniques were used among the Hebrews. The
book of Genesis is built around a series of chiasms,
1
and
scholars have generally concluded that the oldest portions of
the Old Testament are found in certain poems or songs, such
as the Blessing of Jacob (Gen. 49), the Song of the Sea (Exod.
15), the Blessing of Moses (Deut. 33), and the Song of Debo-
rah ( Judg. 5). These are often held to represent ancient oral
traditions that were eventually incorporated into Scripture.
The important thing is that before he began to inspire
Scripture, God used and guided the traditions of his people
through the long ages before the rst biblical author began
to write.
THE FIRST BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE WRITTEN
Eventually, God inspired the rst biblical author. Precisely
who this was is debated.
The books of the Old Testament generally don’t say when
they were written. Sometimes the authors will date specic
things. For example, Isaiah tells us that the vision found in
chapter six of his book was something he saw “in the year
that King Uzziah died” (i.e., 740 B.C.), but that doesn’t tell
us when the whole book was issued.
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
23
The biblical authors were communicating a timeless mes-
sage that was meant to last forever, but modern writers have
been very curious about the exact times the individual au-
thors wrote.
Because it deals with the creation of the world, the book
of Genesis discusses the earliest events, but that doesn’t mean
it was written rst. Genesis belongs to a set of ve books,
which also includes Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deu-
teronomy. Together, they are referred to as the Pentateuch
(Greek, pentateukhos, or “ve books”). Because they are
written to form a set, scholars have generally held that they,
or most of them, were published at about the same time.
Historically, the common view was that Moses wrote
them, which would place them either in the 1400s B.C. or
the 1200s B.C., depending on when one dates the Exodus.
But there are reasons to question this view.
Although Moses is the key gure in these books, and
they do record traditions that go back to him, they never
claim—as a whole—to be written by him. They also con-
tain an account of his death (Deut. 34), and the nal form
of these books clearly came after Israel had a monarchy, for
Genesis looks back on events “before any king reigned over
the Israelites” (Gen. 36:31).
A theory known as the Documentary Hypothesis became
popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Accord-
ing to this theory, the Pentateuch is based on four docu-
ments (the Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomis-
tic sources) that were written between the tenth and sixth
centuries B.C. and later combined and published, perhaps
around the fth century B.C. In the last few decades, the
Documentary Hypothesis has come under increasing criti-
cism from both conservative and liberal scholars, and at
present there is no consensus.
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
24
If the books of the Pentateuch weren’t the rst ones writ-
ten, which book might have been? Some have pointed to
the book of Job, whose central gure appears to live in the
age of the patriarchs, before Israel became a nation. But even
today we write books about revered gures from the past, so
this doesn’t tell us when Job was composed.
Some of the early biblical authors were prophets. Figures
such as Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah all wrote in the
eighth century B.C.
The Church doesn’t have a position on precisely when in-
dividual books of Scripture were written or how they were
composed. It leaves these matters to scholars. From a per-
spective of faith, the important thing is that God began to
give his inspired word to man. The precise dates on which
he did so are secondary.
THE CANON BEGINS TO FORM
Scholars frequently discuss a concept known as the canon of
Scripture. This is based on the Greek word kanôn, which
means a rule or measuring rod. It came to mean an authori-
tative standard, and so the canon of Scripture is the collec-
tion of writings that are divinely authoritative.
The Pentateuch was the rst authoritative collection of
books. These books tell how the people of Israel came to
be, as well as God’s law for Israel, so they became the core
books of Scripture for his people and thus the rst part of
the biblical canon.
The importance of these books is indicated by their
name in Hebrew. They are called the Torah —a word
meaning “instruction.” They contain the fundamental in-
structions God gave Israel. Later, when the Old Testament
was translated into Greek, they became known as the Law
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
25
(Greek, nomos), which is why they’re referred to as the Law
of Moses.
They became an authoritative collection early. This is
shown by the fact that the Samaritans have their own Penta-
teuch. The Samaritans are descended from the ten northern
tribes of Israel. They seceded and formed their own nation
around 930 B.C., resulting in the northern kingdom of Israel
and the southern kingdom of Judah. They were conquered
by the Assyrians around 723 B.C., and many were deported,
but there is still a community of Samaritans in Israel. They
worship Yahweh, the God of Israel, though they do so on
Mt. Gerizim, in their own territory, rather than in Jerusalem.
They have a version of the Torah, known as the Samari-
tan Pentateuch, that includes the same books as the Jewish
one and diers only in minor details. This indicates that
it has an early date and was considered authoritative—ca-
nonical—from early times. It’s also signicant because the
Samaritans accept as canonical only the ve books of Moses.
They don’t accept the other books of the Old Testament,
which suggests that the Pentateuch was the rst group to
be canonized and that the canon gradually expanded after
this time.
NEW BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE COMPOSED
The ten centuries leading up to the time of Christ were an
active period. It was when the Old Testament took shape.
The Pentateuch ends with the death of Moses, and the
story of what happened next is continued in a series of his-
torical books. The rst, Joshua, tells of the conquest of the
promised land. The book of Judges then records how God
repeatedly delivered his people from oppression through a
series of divinely chosen military leaders. Ruth focuses on
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
26
the life of a woman who was an ancestor of Israel’s most
famous king, David.
Israel’s history continues in 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2
Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. Each of these was originally
a single book, but they are divided in two in modern Bibles.
The books of Samuel tell the story of the last of Israel’s judg-
es, how the monarchy was established under King Saul, and
how it was passed to King David.
The books of Kings cover the nal stage of David’s life
and how Solomon succeeded him. Following Solomon’s
time, the nation split in two, with the ten northern tribes
seceding and forming the kingdom of Israel, leaving the
southern tribes as the kingdom of Judah. The story of these
two kingdoms is then related, until Israel is conquered and
deported by the Assyrian empire around 723 B.C. and Ju-
dah is conquered and deported by the Babylonian empire
around 587 B.C., beginning the Babylonian Exile.
The books of Chronicles cover the same period as the
books of Samuel and Kings, but they focus on the southern
kingdom and provide a supplemental theological perspec-
tive on the events.
Ezra and Nehemiah, which were originally one book,
cover events after the Babylonian Exile. They deal with the
people’s return to the land of Judah and the rebuilding of
the temple.
Esther also deals with the Babylonian Exile, and it is often
grouped with the historical books. However, according to
Pope St. John Paul II, this book has “the character of al-
legorical and moral narrative rather than history properly
so-ca lled ”.
2
God also began to inspire what are known as wisdom
books. They are devoted to philosophical reection and
the worship of God. The book of Job is a meditation on
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
27
human suering, while Ecclesiastes is devoted to the quest
for meaning in life. The Song of Solomon celebrates the
love of man and woman, and Proverbs oers practical advice
for daily living. By far the longest wisdom book is Psalms,
which is a collection of hymns.
The nal type of book God inspired in the Old Testament
period is prophetic. Several of these books are signicantly
longer than the others, so they are known as the major proph-
ets. They consist of Isaiah, Jeremiah (together with the short
book of Lamentations), Ezekiel, and Daniel. These prophets
all relate to the Babylonian Exile in one way or another.
By contrast, the minor prophets are generally shorter. There
are twelve such books, and they were originally collected
in a single volume called the Twelve. However, in Christian
Bibles they are listed separately. The minor prophets lived
between the 800s and 400s B.C., meaning they covered the
period both before and after the Babylonian Exile.
THE LAST OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS
The books we’ve covered so far are considered canonical by all
Christians. They are often called protocanonical books because
they were the rst (Greek, prôtos) to achieve universal agree-
ment about their status as Scripture. Other books, which took
longer to be established, are called deuterocanonical books, be-
cause agreement on their status came second (Greek, deuteros).
In the Protestant community, it is common to hear people
say that after Malachi—the last minor prophet—there were
“four hundred silent years” in which God inspired no Scrip-
ture. However, this is not true. The inspiration of Scripture
continued right up until the New Testament.
Two books written in this period are Tobit, which
tells the story of God’s mercy on a righteous man and his
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
28
family; and Judith, which describes how God used a righ-
teous woman to deliver his people. Although sometimes
grouped with the historical books, according to St. John
Paul II, they, like Esther, “have the character of allegori-
cal and moral narrative rather than history properly so-
cal led.”
3
Two books that are historical are 1 and 2 Maccabees.
These chronicle how, after the Babylonian Exile, a priestly
family known as the Maccabees threw o the yoke of pagan
oppression. The basic story is told in 1 Maccabees, and 2
Maccabees provides a supplemental perspective, just as the
books of Chronicles do for those of Samuel and Kings.
God also inspired wisdom literature in this period, result-
ing in the books of Sirach and Wisdom. The rst is similar
to Proverbs, whereas the second was written to help Jews
respond to Greeks ideas. Wisdom is likely the last book of
the Old Testament period, being written in the rst century
B.C. or the early rst century A.D.
Baruch is a prophetic work attributed to Jeremiah’s secre-
tary of the same name and set during the Babylonian Exile
(Bar. 1:1–4). The sixth and nal chapter of the book—called
the letter of Jeremiah—takes the form of a letter written by
the prophet to the exiles in Babylon.
God sometimes inspired books that contained material
he had already placed in other books. These could be con-
densed versions of the original. The most famous is Deuter-
onomy, which condenses and revises the laws given earlier
in the Pentateuch. Thus its name, Deuteronomy, means “sec-
ond law.” Chronicles and 2 Maccabees also condense and
supplement material found in other books.
Sometimes God expanded on a previous work. This hap-
pened with Jeremiah. There was an original, shorter edition
that was burned by King Jehoiakim, but God inspired a new
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
29
edition that contained the original material as well as much
new material (Jer. 36).
God did something similar in the deuterocanonical period.
He inspired expanded editions of Daniel and Esther. The rst
includes three additional sections. One (“The Song of the
Three Young Men”) is a hymn sung by Daniel’s companions.
The other two (“Susannah” and “Bel and the Dragon”) dis-
play Daniel’s wisdom and show how God delivered him. In
addition, the expanded edition of Esther includes sections that
bring out more clearly the role of God. (The Hebrew edition,
strikingly, doesn’t contain explicit references to God.)
OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS
The books of the Bible weren’t the only ones written in ancient
Israel. There were many others. Some are even considered ca-
nonical in Eastern non-Catholic churches. These include:
• The Prayer of Manasseh, a prayer of repentance attributed
to one of Judah’s kings;
• 1 Esdras, which recounts the return of Jews following the
Babylonian Exile;
• 3 Maccabees, which deals with the situation of Jews in Egypt;
• Psalm 151, a psalm found in some versions of the Greek
Old Testament.
Other inuential works were also written during this time.
They include:
• 1 Enoch, a series of visions and narratives connected to
the biblical patriarch Enoch; this work was inuential
enough to be quoted in the New Testament (Jude 14–15);
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
30
• Jubilees, a retelling of Genesis and part of Exodus;
• The Apocalypse of Zephaniah, which presents non-canonical
visions of heaven and hell;
• The Psalms of Solomon, a collection of hymns.
The fact that these books weren’t included in the Bible,
despite their popularity in ancient times, shows the impor-
tant role the Catholic Church would play in showing us
which books belong in the canon of Scripture.
OLD TESTAMENT SOURCES
Tradition was an essential means for passing down informa-
tion, especially in books like Genesis, which deals with the
period before Israel was a kingdom.
It continued to be important as history progressed. Israel
remained a largely oral culture, and tradition was the nor-
mal way information passed from person to person. Many of
the Old Testament prophets did not even write books.
We know, for example, that in the time of Elijah, the
800s B.C., there were at least 100 prophets of the Lord (1
Kings 18:4), but we have no record of them writing books.
Thus, they are what are known as oral prophets.
Elijah himself was an oral prophet. There is no indication
he ever wrote a book, but he is considered the most promi-
nent Old Testament prophet, and during the ministry of
Jesus he appeared on the Mount of Transguration, where
Moses and Elijah represented the law and the prophets and
how they testify to Jesus (Luke 9:30–31; cf. 24:27).
Other oral prophets include Elisha (1 Kings 19:16),
Micaiah (2 Kings 22:13), Hanani (2 Chron. 16:7), and
Jahaziel (2 Chron. 20:14). Some oral prophets were women.
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
31
These included Moses’ sister, Miriam (Exod. 15:20),
Deborah (Judg. 4:4), and Huldah (2 Kings 22:14).
The existence of oral prophets illustrates how God con-
tinued to give his word in oral form and not exclusively
in Scripture. On the other hand, some prophets did write
books, though they are not part of the Bible.
Samuel wrote a book on the rights and duties of a king
(1 Sam. 10:25). He also wrote one, apparently of a historical
nature, known as the Chronicles of Samuel the Seer (1 Chron.
29:29). Others who did this include Gad and Nathan (1
Chron. 29:29), Nathan (2 Chron. 9:29), and Shemaiah and
Iddo (2 Chron. 12:15). These records presumably includ-
ed information about the events of their times, as well as
prophecies they received. Some wrote books that may have
been more directly prophetic—that is, just the revelations
they received. These include the prophets Ahijah the Shi-
lonite and Iddo the Seer (2 Chron. 9:29).
Surprisingly, even some prophets who did write books of
the Bible also wrote other works. Isaiah wrote a history of
King Uzziah (2 Chron. 26:22), and Jeremiah wrote a second
book of lamentations dealing with the death of Josiah (2
Chron. 35:25).
Besides books written by prophets, we know of other
works, such as the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. 21:14)
and the Book of Jashar (Josh. 10:12). Once the monarchy be-
gan, court records were kept, and Scripture mentions the
Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (1 Kings 14:19), the Chronicles of
the Kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29), the Chronicles of King David
(1 Chron. 27:24), and the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41).
These books are sometimes directly quoted in the Old
Testament. Sometimes they are used as sources without be-
ing quoted. And sometimes the biblical writer refers the
reader to them for further information. This means they
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
32
were important, but the fact that they aren’t in the Bible
shows God didn’t ultimately want them in the canon.
While the court records weren’t divinely inspired, the
ancient Hebrews would have seen the books by prophets—
especially ones containing divine revelations—as containing
the word of God. This serves as a caution against identifying
the canon of Scripture too closely with God’s word. God
gave his word to men in many ways, and he chose only some
of it to be included in the Bible.
CHANGING LANGUAGES
Abraham, as a man from “Ur of the Chaldeans” (Gen.
11:28), would have spoken one of the Mesopotamian lan-
guages common in that region, such as Akkadian.
However, when he moved to the promised land, his
household needed to learn the language of the Canaanites.
Abraham’s descendants thus began to speak “the language of
Canaan” (Isa. 19:18), and today we refer to the dialect they
eventually developed as Hebrew.
In Egypt, Israelites including Moses would have learned
Egyptian. They may have continued to use an early dialect
of Hebrew in their own circles, but they certainly used it
once they returned to the promised land. By about 1000
B.C., they were denitely speaking Hebrew.
A writing system for Hebrew developed that was based on
the Proto-Sinaitic script. This alphabet also was used by the
Phoenicians, who had an extensive trading network. Through
them, it spread to the Greeks and Latins. Surprising as it may
seem, our English alphabet is based on the same one as Hebrew.
One reason our alphabet looks so dierent is that the di-
rection of writing ipped. Hebrew is written right to left,
while English is left to right. This means some letters are
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
33
reversed. The Hebrew equivalents of r and q are inverted,
making them hard to recognize.
“R “Q”
Modern Hebrew letters Resh and Qoph (“R” and “Q”)
Hebrew also didn’t originally have vowels, only conso-
nants. The Greeks introduced new letters for vowel sounds,
but in Hebrew a system of small marks known as vowel points
were introduced. These are dots or other small marks writ-
ten above, below, or inside the consonants.
First lines of Genesis in Hebrew
Most Old Testament books were written in Hebrew, but
not all. In 587 B.C., the Babylonian king Nebuchadnez-
zar conquered Jerusalem and deported many, beginning the
Babylonian Exile. As with previous migrations, this caused
a language change. Since the international language in the
Middle East was Aramaic, the Hebrews began learning it.
Hebrew and Aramaic are related and have many words in
common. In both languages, for example, the word for king
is melek. This made Aramaic easier for Hebrews to learn. But
there also are dierences. The Hebrew word for son is ben,
but the Aramaic equivalent is bar. That’s why in the New
Testament St. Peter’s birth name is Simon bar-Jona rather
than Simon ben-Jona.
Hebrew and Aramaic aren’t mutually intelligible. In 701
B.C., during the reign of King Hezekiah, the Assyrians
threatened to conquer Jerusalem, and their envoy shouted
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
34
the threats in Hebrew to the soldiers on Jerusalem’s walls.
Hezekiah’s ambassadors asked the Assyrians to speak in the
international language of Aramaic, lest the Hebrew troops be
demoralized, but they refused to do so (2 Kings 18:26–27).
By Jesus’ day, Aramaic had become the normal language
that Jews in Palestine spoke, and this transition had several
eects. One is that Aramaic started to be used in Scripture.
Signicant portions of Ezra and Daniel were written in Ara-
maic (i.e., Ezra 4:8–6:8; 7:12–26; Dan. 2:4–7:28), and Tobit
appears to have been written in Aramaic.
Hebrew continued to be used by some, and some later
Old Testament books, such as Judith, Sirach, and Baruch,
were written in Hebrew. However, Aramaic became more
and more the normal spoken language.
Because ordinary people no longer knew Hebrew, they
needed the scriptures translated for them. This resulted in
Aramaic translations of the Old Testament known as the
targums. These originated in the synagogues, where a lector
would rst read biblical passages in Hebrew and then trans-
late them into Aramaic.
Another language change began in the 330s B.C., with Al-
exander the Great. His troops spoke dierent dialects of Greek,
and these blended together to form a dialect known as koinê or
“common” Greek. It’s dierent from the classical Greek used
by Homer and Plato. Later scholars were puzzled as to why the
New Testament doesn’t use classical Greek, and some specu-
lated it used a special dialect that God created—a Holy Ghost
Greek—but modern archaeological discoveries show it’s writ-
ten in koinê, the common form of Greek in the rst century.
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. ἡ
δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, καὶ σκότος
First lines of Genesis in Greek
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
35
Alexander’s conquests made Greek a new international
language, particularly in the West. It was even widely used
in Rome, where the local language was Latin. Greek was
so widespread that the New Testament authors wrote in it
rather than other languages.
During his career, Alexander founded several cities, in-
cluding Alexandria, Egypt. Its inhabitants spoke Greek rath-
er than Egyptian, and after about 300 B.C. a major Jewish
colony was established there. Many Jews also were living
elsewhere outside the Holy Land—a phenomenon known
as the Dispersion of the Jewish people among the nations (see
Jas. 1:1). Most learned Greek in addition to whatever other
languages they knew.
Consequently, a few Old Testament books were written
in Greek. These include Wisdom, which was likely written
at Alexandria, and 2 Maccabees.
The other Old Testament books also needed to be trans-
lated for Jews who didn’t speak Hebrew or Aramaic. This
led to a Greek translation known as the Septuagint. Its name
comes from the Latin word for seventy (septuaginta), and
scholars often use the Latin numeral seventy—LXX—as an
abbreviation for it.
This is because, according to an ancient document
known as the Letter of Aristeas, the translation was
begun by a team of seventy-two Jewish scholars. The
letter states that Pharaoh Ptolemy II (r. 285–245 B.C.)
ordered a Greek translation of the Jewish law books—the
Torah—for the Library of Alexandria. This became the
core of the Septuagint, and later the other Old Testament
books also were translated or composed in Greek. Today
scholars think the Letter of Aristeas isn’t entirely accurate,
but it’s likely the Septuagint was begun by the Greek-
speaking Jewish colony at Alexandria, possibly during the
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
36
reign of Ptolemy II and in connection with the Library
of Alexandria.
JEWISH SECTS
By the end of the Old Testament era, a number of move-
ments had developed in the Jewish community.
One was the Sadducees. This relatively small group
was very inuential and had support from wealthy, upper-
class Jews. Sadducees didn’t believe in an afterlife or angels.
According to Luke, “the Sadducees say that there is no res-
urrection, nor angel, nor spirit” (Acts 23:8). They stressed
free will and denied fate or predestination. Finally, the Sad-
ducees rejected the oral traditions honored by the Pharisees.
The second group was the Pharisees. They gained
prominence around 120 B.C., and they were more numerous
than the Sadducees. The Jewish historian Josephus reports
that around 2 B.C. there were 6,000 Pharisees.
4
They
were popular with the ordinary people and believed in the
immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead,
as well as rewards and punishments in the afterlife. The
Pharisees believed in both free will and predestination and
sought to harmonize them. They maintained an extensive
body of oral traditions, which they held to have been passed
down from ancient times.
A third group not mentioned in the New Testament
was the Essenes. They were separatists who had a dispute
with the high priests after around 170 B.C. They objected
to someone whom they referred to as “the Wicked Priest,”
and they believed he and his followers polluted the tem-
ple. They refused to participate in temple worship and ex-
pected the temple to be destroyed and replaced. Josephus
says there were about 4,000 Essenes.
5
Most scholars believe
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
37
they had a community near the Dead Sea and wrote the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Essenes believed in the afterlife and bodily resur-
rection as well as angels. They also believed in a strict form
of predestination and practiced asceticism with some re-
maining celibate. They were hostile toward outsiders and
believed all other Jews were disobeying God. They thought
they were living in Last Days and that soon they would ght
and win a war between the “sons of light” (i.e., the Essenes
themselves) and the “sons of darkness.”
Another war-oriented group was the Zealots. Josephus de-
scribes them as the fourth major group of Jews in his day.
They violently opposed the Romans, who conquered the
Holy Land in 63 B.C. and installed Herod the Great as a client
king. The Zealots passionately wanted to overthrow Roman
rule, and they played a key role in starting the Great Jewish
Revolt in A.D. 66, which led to the destruction of the temple.
There were smaller sects also. The Jewish philosopher
Philo mentions an ascetic group known as the Therapeutae,
who practiced healing. However, most Jews weren’t mem-
bers of one of these elite groups; they were ordinary, un-
educated peasants who were known as the people of the land
(Hebrew, am ha-aretz).
The only group that was strong enough to survive after
the Great Jewish Revolt was the Pharisees, and their move-
ment developed into modern rabbinic Judaism.
HOW THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON DEVELOPED
By the rst century A.D., the books of the Old Testament
had been written, but how did the canon form? Why were
some like Ezekiel and Esther included while others like 1
Enoch and Jubilees were not?
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
38
Some claim the decisions were made by a gathering of 120
Jewish sages known as the Great Assembly, which was founded
after the Babylonian Exile by Ezra around 444 B.C.
In the A.D. 200s, rabbinical sages attributed all kinds of
decisions to the Great Assembly, including the Old Testa-
ment canon. However, we have no contemporary records of
the Great Assembly and no documents it issued. The earliest
claims are around 600 years later, and modern scholars doubt
it did the things claimed or that it even existed. It looks like
the rabbis—the intellectual descendants of the Pharisees—
attributed their own views to the legendary body to give
them antiquity.
Another view holds that the priests made the decisions
and kept an archive of the sacred books in the temple. Any-
thing in this collection was canonical; anything that wasn’t
was not.
This view is mere speculation and is not backed up by
the evidence. We know the Torah was kept at the temple
(2 Kings 22:8–20), but we don’t have a record of an ocial
archive of the scriptures there. It would be surprising if there
was, for the prophets were very critical of how the temple
was run. Also, the Sadducees appear to have rejected many
books of Scripture, and they were closely associated with
the temple.
A third view holds that there were two canons in circula-
tion—the Palestinian canon and the Alexandrian canon. The rst
contained the protocanonical Old Testament books written
in Hebrew (with some Aramaic passages). It was used in Pal-
estine and represented the pure Old Testament. Outside Pal-
estine, where Greek was common, the broader, Alexandria-
based Septuagint collection was used. Advocates of this theory
sometimes claim that the Palestinian canon was nalized
around A.D. 90 at a meeting known as the Council of Jamnia.
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
39
This view was common in the nineteenth century, but
twentieth-century scholarship destroyed it. There was
disagreement even in Palestine regarding which books were
considered to be Scripture, and some didn’t consider the
canon closed.
All Jews—and even the Samaritans—accepted the Pen-
tateuch. These ve books were foundational for the Jewish
faith, and they were considered by far the most important
books. Even those who accepted other works as Scripture
considered these preeminent.
The Samaritans accepted only the Pentateuch as Scrip-
ture, and we have no evidence they ever accepted other
books as such. It thus appears they had a closed and very
limited canon. The same may be true of the Sadducees. The
Church Fathers state that the Sadducees accepted only the
Pentateuch.
6
As Luke notes (Acts 23:8), they didn’t accept the resur-
rection of the dead, which is unambiguously attested in
passages outside the Pentateuch, like Daniel 12:1–2 (cf.
Isa. 26:19; Ezek. 37:1–14). It’s hard to see how they would
have included these books in their canon if they disbe-
lieved in the resurrection. Also, when the Sadducees chal-
lenge Jesus about the resurrection (Matt. 22:23–33), he
cites the Pentateuch (Exod. 3:6) instead of the more obvi-
ous passages outside it—likely because they didn’t accept
the other books.
The Sadducees thus appear not to have accepted all of the
books of the Hebrew Old Testament and may have had a
canon limited to the Pentateuch.
This wasn’t the case for the Pharisees. They accepted
additional books that corresponded roughly to the proto-
canonical books found in Jewish Bibles today. However, the
boundaries of this collection were still somewhat fuzzy.
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
40
Those who say the Council of Jamnia closed their canon
around A.D. 90 admit it wasn’t closed before this time—and
that’s true—but it wasn’t xed until later.
There was no “council” at Jamnia. Councils are tempo-
rary gatherings that meet for a time and then disband. They
are a Christian rather than a Jewish institution. What actu-
ally happened was that during the Jewish War of the A.D.
60s, a sage named Johanan ben Zakkai obtained permission
from Roman authorities to establish a rabbinical school in
Jamnia (also known as Jabneh or Yavneh). After the war, the
Jewish ruling council relocated there.
We don’t have records saying the sages of Jamnia attempted
to close the canon. In fact, rabbinic writings such as the Mish-
nah and the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds reveal there
was a diversity of opinion among the sages about certain books.
Some rabbis opposed the scriptural status of six books—Ruth,
Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Ezekiel.
By contrast, some quoted Sirach as a book of Scripture, though
it was eventually excluded.
7
This uncertainty continued for
several hundred years into the Christian era, and the Jewish
canon wasn’t closed until the third or fourth century.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed the Ess-
enes had an even larger collection of scriptures. They appear
to have included all of the protocanonicals except Esther.
The likely reason is that the Jewish liturgical calendar was
extremely important to them, and Esther conicted with
their understanding of the calendar. Hebrew and Aramaic
copies of books like Sirach and Tobit also were discovered
among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The sect had a large library of other materials, and many
probably weren’t regarded as Scripture. However, several
factors—such as whether they were quoted as Scripture, had
commentaries based on them, or were treated as prophetic
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
41
texts—have led scholars to argue that some of them were.
These include 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and a document known as
the Temple Scroll.
The Septuagint tradition, which included not only the
protocanonicals but also seven additional books: Tobit, Ju-
dith, 1–2 Maccabees, Baruch, Sirach, and Wisdom as well as
expanded editions of Daniel and Esther, this tradition also
had fuzzy boundaries. Some editions of the Septuagint in-
cluded additional books such as 1–2 Esdras, 3–4 Maccabees,
and the Prayer of Manasseh.
There were thus at least ve major canonical traditions in
the rst century:
• The Samaritan tradition
• The Sadducee tradition
• The Pharisee tradition
• The Essene tradition
• The Septuagint tradition
None except the Samaritan tradition, and possibly the Sad-
ducee tradition, represented a closed, xed list of Scripture.
Instead, they were open and had fuzzy boundaries, and this
fuzziness would persist for centuries into the Christian age.
Finally, there were books in circulation that were present-
ed as divine revelation, though we can’t show that they were
part of one of these established canonical traditions. They
include works like the Apocalypse of Zephaniah. Some mod-
ern authors dismiss them as if nobody in the ancient world
regarded them as Scripture, but this doesn’t t the evidence.
That these books survived indicates they were popular. If
they hadn’t been, not enough copies would have been made
for them to survive. An individual copy had only a small
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
42
chance of surviving the ages, so there must have been many
copies in circulation. But if a popular book presented itself
as prophecy—like the Apocalypse of Zephaniah—this is strong
evidence at least some ancient Jews considered it Scripture.
400 SILENT YEARS?
Many in the Protestant community discount books not
found in their version of the Old Testament on the grounds
that there were “400 silent years” between Malachi and the
ministry of Jesus.
This claim is bolstered by the assertion that there were
no prophets in this period. The implication is that without
the divine inspiration given to prophets books of Scripture
couldn’t be written.
There are several problems with this assertion. One is that
it isn’t clear that all the books in the Protestant Old Testa-
ment were written before 400 B.C. Even among conserva-
tive Protestant scholars, a signicant body of opinion holds
that some were written much closer to the time of Christ.
Another problem is that an author doesn’t have to be a
prophet to write Scripture. While all of the biblical authors
were divinely inspired, this didn’t mean that they functioned
in society as prophets. Psalms and Proverbs attribute many
passages to David and Solomon, but they were kings, not
prophets. The truth is, we don’t know who wrote many Old
Testament books, including all the historical ones ( Joshua
to 2 Chronicles), and it’s just supposition to claim that they
were written by prophets. We also have no evidence that
New Testament authors like Mark and Luke ever received
prophetic revelations.
But even if we were to grant that one had to be a
prophet to author Scripture, we don’t have evidence that
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
43
the gift of prophecy was absent in this period. Sometimes
advocates of the “four hundred silent years” appeal to
passages like 1 Maccabees 4:46 and 9:27 to support the
claim that there were no prophets in this era, but these
passages don’t show this.
The rst describes how, around 164 B.C., Judah Macca-
bee and his men debated what to do about an altar the Gen-
tiles had deled. They tore it down and stored “the stones
in a convenient place on the temple hill until there should
come a prophet to tell what to do with them.” The second
refers to a few years later, when “there was great distress
in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets
ceased to appear among them.”
These passages indicate that in the 160s B.C. there were
no prophets functioning, but that doesn’t mean that God
never gave prophecies between Malachi and John the Baptist
or that Jews of the period didn’t expect new prophets. First
Maccabees 4:46 shows they did when it says that they set
aside the altar stones until “there should come a prophet to
tell them what to do with them.” Similarly, 1 Maccabees
14:41 states that in 140 B.C. Simon Maccabee was made rul-
er of the people “until a trustworthy prophet should arise,”
again indicating an expectation of further prophets, includ-
ing the possibility of one arriving in the reign of Simon
Maccabee.
The absence of prophets in the time of the Maccabees
was a temporary event, and it wasn’t unprecedented. There
were similar lulls in prophetic activity in other periods. First
Samuel 3:1 reveals that when the prophet Samuel was a boy
“the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no
frequent vision.” Yet later in his life, when Samuel anointed
Saul as king, there was a band of prophets that met Saul on
the road, and he himself was overcome by the Spirit and
THE BIBLE IS A CATHOLIC BOOK
44
began to prophesy. Thus, it became a proverb, “Is Saul also
among the prophets?” (see 1 Sam. 10:9–12).
Another prophetic lull is mentioned during the Babylo-
nian Exile. Psalm 74, which records the destruction of the
temple (vv. 4–7), says, “We do not see our signs; there is
no longer any prophet” (v. 9). Similarly, Lamentations 2:9
describes events following the destruction of the temple by
saying Zion’s “prophets obtain no vision from the Lord.”
Yet, neither passage indicates that the age of Old Testament
prophecy was closed, for prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and Daniel were active during the Exile. Neither do these
prophetic lulls indicate Scripture couldn’t be written, for
both passages are part of Scripture!
Even in a prophetic lull, God could give revelation, as in the
case of the previous two passages. Similarly, in the time of the
Maccabees, Judah Maccabee himself received a revelation (2
Macc. 15:11–16), though he didn’t function as a formal prophet.
The Jewish historian Josephus reports that the Macca-
bean high priest John Hyrcanus, who ruled between 134
and 104 B.C., had “the gift of prophecy. For so closely was
he in touch with the deity that he was never ignorant of the
future; thus, he foresaw and predicted that his two elder sons
would not remain at the head of aairs.”
8
In the New Testament, we learn that the holy priest Simeon
had received a revelation from the Holy Spirit “that he should
not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26),
and we meet the “prophetess Anna, the daughter of Phanuel,
of the tribe of Asher,” who decades before the ministry of John
the Baptist prophesied concerning Jesus “to all who were look-
ing for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:36, 38).
The readiness of people to accept John the Baptist and
Jesus as a prophet (Matt. 21:11, 26; Mark 11:32; Luke 20:6;
24:19) also testies to belief in ongoing prophecy.
THE WORD OF GOD BEFORE THE BIBLE
45
According to Jesus’ contemporary, the Jewish philoso-
pher Philo (ca. 20 B.C.–ca. A.D. 50), “the sacred scriptures
testify in the case of every good man, that he is a prophet;
for a prophet says nothing of his own, but everything which
he says is strange and prompted by someone else”—i.e.,
God—and that “the wise man alone . . . is a sounding in-
strument of God’s voice, being struck and moved to sound
in an invisible manner by him.”
9
He also reported that he
himself “was accustomed frequently to be seized with a cer-
tain divine inspiration”
10
and to have “suddenly become
full, ideas being, in an invisible manner, showered upon me,
and implanted in me from on high.”
11
After the ministry of Jesus, other Jewish prophets contin-
ued to appear, including the peasant Jesus, son of Ananus,
who began in A.D. 62 to prophesy the destruction of Jeru-
salem and its temple.
12
Even false prophets such as Bar-Jesus
(Acts 13:6) depended on belief in ongoing prophecy.
The evidence indicates that there was no belief at the
time that prophecy had ceased. Instead, the attitude of the
time was that “in every generation she [wisdom] passes into
holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets”
(Wis. 7:27).
47
2
The Word of God Incarnate
THE WORD BECOMES FLESH
The next phase of God’s plan began with a series of personal
revelations.
The rst occurred when the angel Gabriel appeared to
the elderly priest Zechariah and told him that—despite his
advanced age and his wife’s barrenness—they would have
a son who would have a prophetic ministry leading many
to repent. Zecharaiah didn’t believe the message and de-
manded proof (“How shall I know this?”). Gabriel replied
that he would be mute until the child was born, which is
what happened (Luke 1:5–23).
The second revelation occurred when Gabriel again ap-
peared, this time to the Virgin Mary, and announced she
would bear “the Son of the Most High.” Mary believed the
prophecy but asked how it would be fullled. Since she was
betrothed to and thus legally married to Joseph at the time, her
question suggests she wasn’t planning on a normal marriage
and intended to remain a virgin. Gabriel replied that the Holy
Spirit would bring about the conception without a human fa-
ther, thus revealing the child as the Son of God (Luke 1:26–35).
Catholics and other Christians revere the Bible, but
certain Catholic beliefs are often called “unbiblical.”
Learn the scriptural basis for Catholic beliefs, discuss
common objections, and learn the Church’s response.
catholic.com/bible-navigator
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Catholic Answers is in the business of saving souls.
We need your help to do that, because we’re an
independent, nonprot organization. We don’t ask for or
receive nancial support from any diocese.
Instead, Catholic Answers is supported by the generosity
of individual Catholics who understand the value of the
work we do explaining and defending the Faith.
Your donations make our soul-saving work possible.
Won’t you join us? For your convenience, there are
several ways to make your tax-deductible donation.
You can:
Visit give.catholic.com/donate
Call 888-291-8000
Mail Send checks to:
Catholic Answers
2020 Gillespie Way
El Cajon, CA 92020
Catholic Answers is a 501(c)3 nonprot organization.
Catholic Answers Live is America’s most popular
Catholic radio program
Catholic Answers Press publishes faith-
building books, booklets, magazines, and audio
resources
Catholic Answers Studios creates television
programs, DVDs, and online videos
Catholic Answers is an independent, nonprot
organization supported by your donations.
Visit us online and learn how we can help you.
Your journey starts at:
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Our website, Catholic.com hosts hundreds of
thousands of online resources, free to use
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conferences, and pilgrimages
What Is Catholic Answers?
Catholic Answers is a media ministry that serves Christ
by explaining and defending the Catholic faith:
• We help Catholics grow in their faith
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