The Guardians of the Bible Make no mistake , from a human standpoint the survival of the Bible was not a foregone conclusion. The communities that produced it suffered such difficult trials and bitter oppression that it's survival to our day is truly remarkable. In the years before Christ, the Jews who produced the Hebrew scriptures were a relatively small nation. They dwelt precariously amid powerful political States that were jostling with one another for supremacy. Israel had to fight for it's life against a succession of nations, such as the Edomites. During a period when the Hebrews were divided into two kingdoms, the cruel Assyrian Empire virtually wiped out the northern kingdom, while the Babylonians destroyed the southern kingdom, taking the people into exile from which only a remnant returned 70 years later.
Only the Bible survived More than 3,000 years ago, when the writing of the Bible got started, Isreal was just one small nation among many in the middle East. Jehovah was their God, while the surrounding nations had a be wildering variety of god's and goddess. During that period of time, the Israelites were not the only ones to produce religious literature. Other nations too produced written works that reflected their religion and their national values. For example, the Akkadian legend of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia and the Ras Shamra epics , written in Ugaritic , were doubtless very popular. The vast literature of that era also included works such as The Admonitions of Ipu-wer and The prophecy of Nefer-rohu in the Egyptian language , hymns to different divinities in Sumerian, and prophetic word in Akkadian. All these middle eastern works, how ever, met a common fate. They were forgotten , and even the languages they were written in became extinct. Only the first writtern books