Christians never had a single moment where “the Bible was put together” all at once; it came together in stages over many centuries.

Quick timeline

  1. Individual books written (about 1400 BC – 100 AD)
    • Old Testament books were written over roughly a thousand years before Jesus, from early law and histories to prophets and wisdom books.
 * New Testament books (Gospels, Acts, letters, Revelation) were written in the first century, roughly between about 50 and 100 AD.
  1. Jewish Scriptures recognized before Jesus (by 1st century AD)
    • By Jesus’ time, most of what Christians call the Old Testament was already revered and widely used in Jewish worship and teaching, especially the Law and the Prophets.
  1. Early Christians using collections (2nd–3rd centuries)
    • Churches quickly gathered collections of Paul’s letters and the four Gospels, but there was still some debate about a few books (like Revelation, Hebrews, and some short letters).
 * Other writings were used devotionally but did not end up in the Bible (for example, some early church texts that were later judged non‑apostolic).
  1. Major codices and “one-volume” Bibles (4th–5th centuries)
    • The move from scrolls to bound books (codices) let Christians copy large portions of Scripture together in one volume.
 * Important early “almost complete” Christian Bibles, like Codex Vaticanus (4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (5th century), show that by then there was a pretty stable set of books recognized as Scripture.
  1. Church councils and canon lists (4th–5th centuries)
    • Regional councils (like Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 and 419) and key bishops listed the books to be read as Scripture in church, matching what most Christians now call the New Testament, alongside the established Old Testament.
 * These councils did not “invent” the Bible from nothing; they confirmed books that were already widely used and regarded as authoritative.
  1. Latin Vulgate and long-term standard (around 400 AD onward)
    • Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation (completed around 400 AD) gathered the recognized books of both Testaments into a single Latin Bible that became standard for Western Christianity for about a thousand years.

So, “when was the Bible put together”?

  • If you mean “when were the books written?” : roughly 1500–1400 BC to around 100 AD.
  • If you mean “when did Christians have something like our one-volume Bible?” : by the 4th–5th centuries AD , with big codices like Vaticanus and Alexandrinus and official lists from church councils.
  • If you mean “when was a widely used standard Bible translation made?” : Jerome’s Vulgate around 400 AD is a key milestone.

Forum-style angle and current discussion

Online forums today often phrase it like, “Did Constantine create the Bible?” or “Was the Bible decided at Nicaea?” The consensus of historians is:

  • Constantine supported Christianity and ordered copies of Scripture, but he did not personally pick or invent the books.
  • The canon formed through long use, debate, and agreement across different churches, not a single emperor’s decree.

In modern discussions, “when was the Bible put together” is really about this slow, messy, historical process rather than a single date.

TL;DR: The Bible wasn’t “put together” on one day; its books were written between about 1500–1400 BC and 100 AD, gradually recognized as Scripture, and mostly settled into the familiar form we know by the 4th–5th centuries AD.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.