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1. 1. The sacred book of Christianity, a collection of ancient writings including the books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
   2. The Hebrew Scriptures, the sacred book of Judaism.
   3. A particular copy of a Bible: the old family Bible.
   4. A book or collection of writings constituting the sacred text of a religion.
2. often bible A book considered authoritative in its field: the bible of French cooking.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin biblia, from Greek, pl. of biblion, book, from Bublos, Byblos.]

Books of the Bible

Books of the Hebrew Scriptures appear as listed in the translation by the Jewish Publication Society of America. Books of the Christian Bible appear as listed in the Jerusalem Bible, a 1966 translation of the 1956 French Roman Catholic version. The Old Testament books shown in italic are considered apocryphal in many Christian churches, but they are accepted as canonical in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Armenian and the Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox Church. The Christian Old Testament parallels the Hebrew Scriptures with the exception of these books.

Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.