The Bible as a Book (A Brief History of the Formation of the Bible)

In an article written for pbs.org, William Schniedewind, author of How the Bible Became a Book, provides an overview of how the modern Bible transitioned from an oral tradition to a textual document. He states that the turning the Bible into a book was a sign of the cultural growth and spread of literacy that took place between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C. Up to this time the ability to write (and read) was reserved largely for religious leaders. This reinforced the power religion held over the general populace. However, as the the Jewish culture became more educated, knowledge of the religious texts became more accessible to those who were not a part of religious leadership. Furthermore, the onset of Christianity solidified the need for written Biblical texts. Schniedewind writes, "Christianity, however, quickly adopted the codex—the precursor of the modern book. Codices, with bound leaves of pages, appeared in the first century A.D. and became common by the fourth century. The codex could encompass a much more extensive series of texts than a single scroll could contain. In bringing together a collection of scrolls, the codex also defined a set and order of books and made possible a more defined canon. It was with the technological invention of the codex that the "Bible" as a book, that is, the Bible as we know it, first got its physical form." Since the fundamental message of Christianity is taught to be for everyone, it makes sense that religious texts would be made accessible through writing so that it could be easily understood by everyone.

While Wikipedia is not always the best source of information, it does provide a decent overview of the canonization of the Bible as we know it today. It was a lengthy process of deciding what religious writings would be included, as it took several centuries before the modern Bible was established. Of course there still exists debate over this topic today, but this blog is not dedicated to that debate. What is important for the sake of this blog is that Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, included a list of 27 written works that would eventually become the New Testament in his Easter letter in 357 A.D. This list of books gradually became accepted and began appearing with the Old Testament as a collected work.

The Gutenberg Bible, printed in 1456, was the first Bible printed with moveable type. 

Obviously, this is a quick overview of how the Bible came to exist as a book, but hopefully you can see how it transitioned from an oral tradition to the book we know today.

Sources:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Christian_biblical_canon

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/origins-written-bible.html

Studying an unfurled biblical scroll

Early Biblical Codex