Lauren Ducommun

Over the past few years, I’ve been searching for an accessible book that talks about how we got the Bible that I can read with my kids. Most books that I’ve found focus on inspiration of Scripture or evidence for the Gospels–or are scholarly works that I have a hard time reading. I also had two major questions to address: How accurate were the scribes? And how did we get the canon of Scripture? I wanted my kids to learn and be able to clearly communicate how and why Scripture was written down and how humans determined which books of Scripture are inspired by God. Scribes & Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible by John D. Meade and Peter J. Gurry is the first book I have come across that tackles these questions from a Protestant perspective and communicates valuable information about how we received the Bible we have today without using academic jargon. This is an easy-to-read book I would gladly assign in high school and share with friends who would like to know how we got the Bible.

Scribes & Scriptures tackles three main topics: how the Bible was written and copied, how the canon of the Bible was decided, and how the Bible was translated. Within these three parts, many more questions are addressed, from “How were the Scribes able to write?” to “Have human hands corrupted the Bible?”

Interspersed between rich historical accounts of how Ancient Near Eastern scribes were trained or why there are so many Bible translations today are graphics, maps, and photos of archaeological items. These add depth to the story of how the Bible came to be and to the evidence we have for it.

This book is fascinating and creates a deeper appreciation and love for the word of God. Meade and Gurry remind us that even though “many human fingerprints” have been involved in the process, we can still trust the Bible as God’s inerrant word today. If you are looking for a solid and informative book that provides a summary of how we have the Bible we have today, then I highly recommend Scribes & Scripture.

I received this book from Crossway in exchange for an honest review.

Scribes & Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible
by John D. Meade and Peter J. Gurry
Crossway, 2022
272 pages