People are amazing. A key quality of people is our ability to communicate. We are total communication machines. We use the term “body language.” One’s posture, facial expression, look of the eye, vocal tone can instantly convey joy, disappointment, anger, contentment, hate, love… It may reinforce the spoken word or may expose alternate intent.
Sound is a key channel of communication. Singing, groaning, grunting, even whistling, how we bang around or do things quietly convey one’s state of mind. Some of our finest communication is via words – spoken and written language. Spoken language is fast, convenient, finely nuanced. It also tends to be transient. It may be forgotten. It may be recalled somewhat differently than the original. It may be deliberately rephrased for various reasons. Many cultures carefully convey their history and values to their children through oral tradition. But even with the utmost care oral tradition colors over time.
So, God decided to write it all down.
The Bible is hated and feared. It is loved and treasured. By some people it is written off as a collection of legends, folklore – certainly not worthy of life guiding consideration. Yet many people discover within its pages value to die for. Estimates for the number of Bibles printed between 1815 and 2007 ranges from 2.5 billion to 6+ billion and keeps going up by 100 million a year (https://thebibleanswer.org/bibles-sold-each-year). And now with on-line and download access a meaningful count is getting fuzzy. At least one book of the Bible is available in over 2100 languages! No other book can come close. Works of Aristotle, Plato and Euclid are still available. Their thoughts and observations have been and to some degree continue to be influential. But there is something in the Bible that meets some basic human thirst for many people.
History is record of the interactions of people. Some of the record is about specific people whose influence affected many people. Some biographies become remembered just because their life so resonates with ours, so illustrates retribution or restoration they are noteworthy. Some people had great influence at a moment in history. Some cultures and nations found cooperative associations. Others were quite acrimonious. A large part of the Bible is historical and biographical record. THE key feature of all that work and record is the central place of God.
But God wanted us to remember our history as Christians, so He wrote it down, using scribes, prophets, whatever, so we would learn and remember. He leaves nothing to chance that might effect our salvation.