history of the bible: Compilation [References]

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Jewish tradition: Rabbinic literature attributes the fixing of the Hebrew canon to "The Men of the Great Assembly" also known as The Great Synagogue at the end of the 5th Century BCE.

Hebrew Bible

That the Jews had an accepted set of books they viewed as sacred scripture by the 3rd century BCE supported by commentaries, such as the first century writer and philosopher Philo (a contemporary of Josephus) who referred to "the law of Moses" and "national scriptures" - The Works of Philo, p. 494

Josephus, who himself referred to "our sacred books. They indeed contain in them the history of five thousand years." Flavius Josephus of the Antiquities of the Jews - Preface

The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include fragments from every book of the Old Testament except for the Book of Esther, dated at approx 200 BCE, testify to the existence of such an catalog. - Israel Museum, Jerusalem
dss.collections.imj.org.il/project

The Christian Greek scripture writers (dated approx 40-90 CE) make frequent reference to these Jewish writings, often quoting the Greek Septuagint, the oldest fragment of which, Papyrus Fouad 266 is dated to the first century or 2nd century BCE. - Housed at Societé Royale de Papyrologie, Cairo, Egypt

Christian Greek

The evidence regarding the collections of Christian copies if found in the sheer volume of manuscripts available around the world. To date, over 5800 Greek New Testament fragments have been found. One of the most extensive collection is The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, which includes a manuscript of the epistles of Paul from sometime near 200 C.E., a manuscript of the four canonical Gospels and the book of Acts from 200-250 C.E. - Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland. The Bodmer collection includes copies of some of the canonical Gospels that may be as early as the late second century or early third century C.E., and the famous John Rylands Fragment(P52) dated at approx 125 CE, is holds a fragment of the Gospel of John that is widely thought to be the earliest Christian manuscript - The Rylands Library (Manchester)


Catalogs : List or catalogs of recognized books provide a historical record of how the bible developed. Below is a list of some of the earliest bible catalogues.




source: All Scripture Inspired of God, pub wbts 1963, study IV p. 303