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God inspired some 40 men to write the Bible.
But have you ever wondered,
‘What did they write it on?’
After all, the oldest portions of the Bible
were written more than 1,000 years
before the invention of what we know today
as paper.
The earliest Bible manuscripts
were written on a material called papyrus.
Papyrus is a plant
that grows in shallow water
with stalks that can reach almost 4.6 meters,
or about 15 feet, high.
Over 4,000 years ago,
the Egyptians invented ways to turn papyrus
into a smooth, strong writing material
similar to paper.
Even with modern tools,
you can see it was a lot of work.
Thin slices of the plant’s core
had to be soaked and flattened,
arranged in layers,
and then beaten and pressed
to bind the layers together.
When the sheets were dry,
they were polished with a piece of ivory,
a smooth shell, or even a stone.
The result
was a relatively smooth surface for writing.
To make a scroll,
individual sheets of papyrus
were pasted together along the edges
to make a roll that might be more
than 6 meters, or about 20 feet, in length.
But around the second century C.E.,
copyists began favoring a new technology
that made papyrus documents
much easier to use:
the codex.
With the codex,
the papyrus pages were folded,
sewn, and bound together
to form something similar to a modern book.
Think of all the hours required
to produce these materials to write on.
But without modern pens and pencils,
what did ancient people use to write with?
The pens they used were often made
from pieces of hard reed like this
that was carefully cut
to produce a pointed slit.
In Bible times, one common type of ink
that would be used with these reed pens
was made by combining black soot
with a rubbery gum
that helped it stick to the page.
Then, water was added to the mixture.
Whether in the form of a scroll or a codex,
the problem with papyrus
was that it decomposed easily.
Amazingly, there are many fragments
of Bible manuscripts on papyrus
that have survived down to our day.
What you see here
are reproductions of fragments
that are more than 2,000 years old.
In time, Bible manuscripts began to be copied
onto more durable materials.
By about the fourth century,
the most common of those was parchment.
It was normally made from the hides of sheep,
calves, or goats.
The process begins by soaking
the hide in water and lime,
then removing the hair and excess flesh.
After that, the skin is stretched on a frame
and scraped with a knife
to remove any residues like fat.
The next step is to dry the skin
under increased tension,
which causes it to become stiff and flat.
Finally, it’s dusted with chalk
and sanded smooth with pumice
to create an even writing surface.
As you can see,
making even one sheet of parchment
requires a tremendous amount of work.
But today there are many Bible manuscripts
that were written on parchment,
such as these two original manuscripts here.
Another famous manuscript
is the Codex Amiatinus,
located in Italy,
which is over 1,300 years old.
In fact, it’s the oldest complete Latin Bible
bound in a single volume ever found.
Some historians feel that it required
the hides of over 400 animals to produce.
This replica is big,
but the original is even larger.
It weighs 34 kilograms,
or about 75 pounds.
Think of all of the work
that went into producing just that one Bible.
Well, all of these materials
are perishable and deteriorate with time.
But to preserve his Word,
Jehovah God saw to it that the Bible
was meticulously copied and recopied
over the centuries,
so that today we have not just a few
but thousands of manuscripts
of various parts of the Bible.
So the next time you look up a Bible verse
by tapping on a link,
think about what it took
to put those words in writing
and how amazing it is that Jehovah’s Word,
recorded using these ancient,
fragile materials,
is still with us today.

How God’s Word Was Written Down