This is an examination of the popular Christian biblical canon of scriptures, and the manuscripts thereof. This is not an interpretation of what the Bible means. I made it personal in Part 1 to give you some context of where I’m coming from. Part 2 details the development of the Old Testament. Here in Part 3, I will dive into the New Testament and provide my answer to the question, “What is the Bible?” My goal is the give you the tools through a field called “textual criticism” to answer that question for yourself. Hopefully the “Biblical canon manuscripts.xlsx” spreadsheet from Part 2 will help you with that answer. I’m packing a lot of nerdy terms into this post that are easily Googleable, or found on Wikipedia, but the synthesis of those terms and ideas is my own.
