Day 5: The Bible is a Miraculous Book: The “Paper” of the Bible

We have explored the spiritual facts behind the creation of God's word. Now, let's briefly survey the historical side of the story. 

How were the books of the Bible written? How were these writings preserved? How were the books of the Bible chosen? 

When we learn more about the process God used to give us his word, we'll see that its existence today is a miracle. And we'll find one more reason to meet God in its pages.

The most common "paper" of biblical times was the papyrus reed, a thin plant that grew to a height of fifteen feet along the Nile River in Egypt. This reed was cut into strips, which were interlaced and glued together, then these sheets were rolled into scrolls. 

Writing was usually done with brushes made from reeds, using a kind of carbon-liquid glue for ink. Papyrus was common and inexpensive, but it was also brittle and decayed quickly.

People sometimes wrote on clay tablets or baked pieces of pottery (called ostraicon) as well as rocks, wood, or metal. A sharp object served as a stylus or pen. When clay was used, it was inscribed and then baked to preserve the writing.

A more expensive and durable writing material was parchment. This was made from animal skins, usually sheep or goats. Parchment was perfected around 200 BC but was used mainly by the wealthy. Around AD 100, people began cutting scrolls of parchment or papyrus into sheets and stitching them together. This was called the "codex" (Latin for "block" or "book"), the ancestor of our book.

The original books of the Bible were apparently all written on papyrus. Since this material decayed quickly, none of these original writings exist today. 

However, the copies we possess are extremely trustworthy and have given us the words and message of the Bible with great accuracy, as we will see tomorrow. 

As the church grew more prosperous over the centuries, Christians could afford parchment on which to copy the biblical books. The parchments, in codex form, are the earliest copies of the complete New Testament we have today.

In one of those New Testament letters, Peter wrote that believers had been “born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). It is truly a miracle that God’s word still lives and abides in us today.