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Bible

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A Latin Bible handwritten in 1407 AD.
A Latin Bible handwritten in 1407 AD.

The Bible is a collection of short books recording the history of the world, the Jewish people, the life of Jesus, and the early Christian Church. It is unique in that it contains 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament written by 40 different authors over 1500 years. [1] No other book in history is as popular, or as revered, nor as diverse in context as the lives of those who wrote it.

Creationists hold a number of views regarding the reliability of the Bible, ranging from strict inerrancy to substantive accuracy. However, all creationists agree that the Bible is history, not mythology or allegory, because the text itself is so obviously historical in style and content unless otherwise implied within the text through a historical-grammatical exegesis.

Due to its being prized as the coveted word of God, the Bible has been better preserved, and translated into more languages, than any other book in history. Original manuscripts can be found in the oldest written languages on Earth, and it also contains one of the longest running genealogical sequence known to exist, spanning approximately 4000 years. There is simply no other book in existence that offers a better chronological record of the early history of the Earth.

Contents

Name

The word "Bible" had its origins in an ancient Phoenician seaport called Byblos, which was so-named as a result of the trade and manufacture of writing material based on the papyrus or byblos reed, used extensively in antiquity for making scrolls and books. The Greek word biblos was based upon this, and it came to be the word for book (a small book was termed biblion), and by the 2nd century, A.D. Greek Christians had called the Scriptures ta Biblia (τα βιβλία the books), which was transferred to Latin by dropping the ta; the word made its way to Old French where the plural was dropped in favor of the singular, hence becoming the English word Bible.[2][3][4]

Books of the Bible

The Old Testament

11th century manuscript of the Hebrew Bible with Targum.
11th century manuscript of the Hebrew Bible with Targum.

The Old Testament, also called the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, consists of thirty-nine books. The books themselves were originally written in Hebrew, and later on in the Aramaic language of Palestine; the Greek language version written after the conquest of Alexander the Great is known as the Septuagint. Melito, a bishop of Sardis in Lydia (in what is now Turkey), is said to have coined the phrase Old Testament about A.D. 170. The Old Testament is divided in three parts (hence, "Tanakh") within the Jewish community: the Torah ("Law"), or Pentateuch, known as the five books of Moses; Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and Ketuvim ("Writings,” or Hagiographa). Here the arrangement of the books differs somewhat from the Old Testament as used by Christians, however the actual writing of each book remains the same.

Torah

The Five books of Moses, in their Hebrew and English names:

  • Bereisheet ("in the beginning"), or Genesis
  • Shemot (“names”), or Exodus
  • Vayikra (“and God called”), or Leviticus
  • Bemidbar (“in the Wilderness”), or Numbers
  • Devarim (“words”), or Deuteronomy

The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide the account of the Creation, the history of God's early relationship with humanity, and the Deluge of Noah. The remaining thirty-nine chapters detail the account of God's covenant with the early Hebrew nation, led by the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (or Israel), and one of Jacob's children, Joseph. It tells the beginnings of God's chosen people, of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remainder of the Torah, beginning with Exodus, tells the story of the great Hebrew leader Moses, and of the Hebrews through their sojourn and slavery in Egypt, their escape from bondage, and their wanderings in the desert until they finally enter the Promised Land.

Nevi'im

The Nevi'im is the story of the rise toward, and ultimately reaching, the Hebrew monarchy; the sad period of anarchy and revolt leading to the division into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel; and the prophets who judged the kings of both in God's name. It ends with the conquest of both kingdoms and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Minor Prophets are considered a single book in the Nevi'um; in Christianity they have been split into twelve separate books and named for their authors.

Ketuvim

The Ketuvim, or "Writings," contain lyrical poetry, philosophical reflections on life, and the writings of the prophets and other Jewish leaders during the exile in Babylon.

David is named as the author of many of the Psalms; Solomon is believed to have written Song of Songs in his youth, the Proverbs in his prime, and Ecclesiastes during his old age. The prophet Jeremiah is thought to have written the aptly-named Lamentations at the beginning of the exile in Babylon. The Book of Ruth is the only biblical book that centers entirely on a non-Jew, a Moabite who married a Jew and became an ancestor of both David and Jesus Christ. Esther is unique as it is the only book in the Bible not to mention God. Moses is considered to be the author of Job.

The New Testament

The New Testament is a collection of twenty-seven books and letters, written by the early Christian community, and written primarily in Greek. The emphasis of the New Testament is the life, teachings, and gift of salvation from the central figure of the whole work, Jesus of Nazareth. These books are grouped into the following:

The Gospels

The Gospels contain the history of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles are a continuance of the Gospels, documenting the history of the early church, beginning immediately following Jesus' death and resurrection. Of the authors, only Matthew and John had met Jesus; they were among His disciples during His earthly ministry. Mark was a companion of Peter, and his gospel was the first to be written down, about A.D. 50. Luke is considered the author of both his gospel and the Acts.

Pauline Epistles

These are letters written to various early Christian communities by the Apostle Paul.

Paul has been attributed by many as the author of Epistle to the Hebrews due to internal evidence within the work, but several others, such as Barnabas, Luke, and Apollos are also claimed to be the author. The controversy, however, does not affect the genuiness of the epistle.[5]

General Epistles

Revelation

The Book of Revelation, also called The Apocalypse, is the last work in the New Testament as well as the whole Bible, written close to A.D. 100 by the Apostle John during his exile on the Greek island of Patmos. Revelation is concerned with the condition of the Seven Churches of Asia before going deeply into a description of the last days prior to the beginning of the Millennial Age.

History of the Bible

Main Article: History of the Bible

The History of the Bible concerns this ancient collection of writings, comprised of 66 separate books, written over approximately 1,600 years, by at least 40 distinct authors. The Old Testament contains 39 books written from approximately 1500 to 400 BC, and the New Testament contains 27 books written from approximately 40 to 90 AD. The Jewish Bible (Tanakh) is the same as the Christian Old Testament, except for its book arrangement. The original Old Testament was written mainly in Hebrew, with some Aramaic, while the original New Testament was written in common Greek.[6]

The history of the "Bible" begins with the Jewish Scriptures. The oldest books of the Bible are certainly the five books of the Torah and Job. In I_Kings 6:1 , Solomon is stated to have begun building the Temple in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come up out of the land of Egypt. It had been established by scholars and historians that Solomon had begun building the Temple in the fourth year of his reign; this is variously thought to have taken place in 961 BC or 1015 BC, making the date of the Exodus under Moses to have been 1446 BC or 1491 BC. During the following forty years Moses wrote the Torah and Job, completing them before his death at Mt. Nebo about 1406 BC or 1451 BC. According to Biblical scholar and historian Robert D. Wilson the Torah as it stands dates from the time of Moses, the five books constitute one continuous work, and was written by a single individual, Moses himself.[7]

The remaining books of the Old Testament were written at various times since the death of Moses, with Malachi, the last Old Testament book, being written about 455 BC. During this period each of the books was written and re-written on parchment or papyrus, with the editors taking great care in their work; a single Biblical book hand-written today can take weeks to complete. The older scrolls were disposed of by burial or systematic destruction when worn from normal usage; as a result, the oldest surviving examples of Biblical manuscripts are those which have been carefully preserved either by direct actions of people (such as monasteries), or by removal from forces of decay. Currently, the oldest surviving manuscripts are those found within the caves of Qumran in 1948 and known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating between 250 BC to AD 70; the complete Isaiah scroll of this collection dates to 150 BC

Around 200 BC the Septuagint, a Greek-language version of the Old Testament, was completed. This was due to the Hellenization of large areas of the Middle East after the conquest of Alexander the Great, making Greek the de-facto language for everyday communications and business. The Septuagint marks the first time in history that the Bible was translated into a foreign language.


The following table lists the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are linked to the searchable index at BibleGateway.com

Table of Books

Old Testament

New Testament


Browse


Bible Versions

References

  1. ↑ Slick, Matthew J. "The Bible." Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, 1995. Accessed January 8, 2008.
  2. ↑ Unger, Merril F. Unger's Bible Handbook, Moody Press, Chicago, IL, 1967, p. 143. See also Unger's Bible Dictionary, Moody Press, Chicago, IL, 1966.
  3. ↑ Moulton, James H., and others. A Grammar of New Testament Greek (two volumes), edited by Wilbert Francis Howard, T&T Clark Publishers, Harrisburg, PA (1985); originally published 1920, Edinburgh, Scotland.
  4. ↑ Blass, Frederich, and others. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and other early Christian literature, translated by Robert W. Funk; University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (1961); German edition Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Griechisch Friedrich Rehkopf, editor, 14th edition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976.
  5. ↑ Unger, op. cit., p. 748
  6. ↑ History of the Bible by All About The Journey.
  7. ↑ Wilson, Robert D. A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, Sunday School Times, Inc, Philadelphia, PA, 1926, p. 11.

External links

Bible societies

Online Bible Texts

Hebrew

Latin

English

Turkish

Others

Commentaries and analysis

Wikis


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