Bible

Dictionary: Bi·ble (bī'bəl) pronunciation

Bible

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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.
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.]

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Bible

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Sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The Jewish scriptures consist of the Torah (or Pentateuch), the Neviim ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"), which together constitute what Christians call the Old Testament. The Pentateuch and Joshua relate how Israel became a nation and came to possess the Promised Land. The Prophets describe the establishment and development of the monarchy and relate the prophets' messages. The Writings include poetry, speculation on good and evil, and history. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bible includes additional Jewish writings called the Apocrypha. The New Testament consists of early Christian literature. The Gospels tell of the life, person, and teachings of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles relates the earliest history of Christianity. The Epistles (Letters) are correspondence of early church leaders (chiefly St. Paul) and address the needs of early congregations. Revelation is the only canonical representative of a large genre of early Christian apocalyptic literature. See also biblical source, biblical translation.

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British History: Bible

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Bible The Bible is a library of different literary types rather than a single book (Greek biblia—books (plural)). The larger part, the Old Testament (OT), is a collection of Jewish sacred writings, originally in Hebrew and consisting of teaching (or Law—Torah), history, prophecy, and poetry. The New Testament (NT), originally in Greek, also includes diverse literary forms—letters of Paul and other apostles, historical narrative (Acts), apocalyptic writing (Revelation), and four Gospels which are not history but arrangements of remembered acts and sayings of Jesus.

The first English translations were spasmodic—paraphrases attributed to Cædmon (c.680), Bede's translation of part of John's Gospel (673-735), and Middle English metrical versions. The first full versions were 14th-cent. NT translations from the Vulgate, made under lollard influence. Illicit MS translations continued to appear, until a powerful impetus was provided by the printing of the Vulgate (1456), the Hebrew text (1488), and Erasmus' Greek NT (1516), which inspired Tyndale to make the first English NT translation from the original Greek (1526) and of the Pentateuch from the original Hebrew (1529-30). Coverdale, whose first complete English Bible (1535) was partly based on Tyndale, superintended publication of the Great Bible (1539-40). A new version (1557), issued in Geneva—the first with verse-divisions—formed the basis of the so-called Geneva Bible, dedicated to Elizabeth (1560). Parker, however, authorized yet another, this time more Latinate, revision of the Great Bible, the Bishops' Bible (1568). Meanwhile exiled English catholics in Rheims translated their own NT from the Vulgate (1582), followed by the OT at Douai (1609-10). At the Hampton Court conference (1604) James I commissioned a panel to produce the King James (or so-called Authorized) Version of 1611, a comprehensive revision of previous translations. Its superb quality enabled it to supplant all previous versions, and for 250 years it was the only one used. Though new scholarship led to a conservative Revised Version (1881-5), translations proliferated in the 20th cent.: James Moffatt (1922, 1924), Ronald Knox (1945, 1949), followed by the Revised Standard Version (1952), the New English Bible (1961, 1970), Jerusalem Bible (1966), and others.

French Literature Companion: Bible

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Although there have been far fewer translations of the Bible into French than into English, and although there has never been one with the compelling power of the Authorized Version, the Bible has pervaded French writing from its beginnings to the present day. Biblical language appears in the 9th-c. Séquence de Sainte Eulalie, in 10th- and 11th-c. hagiography, in the Chanson de Roland, and in 12th-c. bestiaries and theatrical writing. The Bible was well known both through the Historia scholastica of Comestor (1170), a mixture of Bible-history, legend, and other material, and also, to clerics at least, in the Latin Vulgate. Priests, monks, and nuns approached it through the daily readings in the Latin breviary, and lay people listened to biblical readings in the liturgy, especially the Psalms and the Gospels, as well as in sermons. The illustrated Biblia pauperum and church art (carvings, glass, frescos) made it even more accessible.

French versions began to appear around 1100, with the first Psautier français and other isolated books in verse or prose translation [see Bibles, Medieval]. By the mid-13th c. there was an edition of the whole Bible, translated by different hands (Bible de St Louis, c.1250, ‘Bible du XIIIe siècle’ (B.XIII), c.1280); noteworthy also is the Bible historiale of Guyart des Moulins (late 13th c.), an expanded adaptation of Comestor, and later revisions by Raoul de Presles (c.1380) and especially by Jean de Rély (1487), the latter often reprinted.

It is significant that the Bible was the first book to be printed, by Gutenberg, around 1450. The invention of printing both facilitated the diffusion of editions in the original languages, in texts established according to humanist critical principles, and encouraged the faithful translation of these texts into the vernacular, for more popular use. As discrepancies between the new editions, such as Erasmus's, and St Jerome's Vulgate became evident, religious controversy increased, and censorship followed [see Reformation]. New editions and translations were soon associated with the movement for reform. The Evangelical writer Lefèvre d'Étaples edited a Greek Testament (1518) and translated the Bible (NT, 1523; OT, 1528) from the Vulgate, basing himself on Rély's version and with some reference to the Greek. His translation was put on the Index in 1546.

The first Protestant translation was the work of Pierre Olivétan (1535), relying on Lefèvre for the NT; it was revised by Calvin and Robert Estienne, and Bèze's later revision became the official Genevan translation. The Psalms particularly appealed to the imagination of the reformers: Clément Marot produced verse translations of 49 psalms (1533-43) and Bèze completed the Psalter between 1551 and 1562. Other poets composed metrical paraphrases in French or Latin (e.g. Buchanan). The Marot-Bèze version was the most popular, becoming the anthem, rallying cry, or song of the Protestant martyrs. Estienne concentrated his energies on editions of the Bible in the original languages, taking some account of Parisian manuscripts. His work was put on the Index in 1546. (It was Estienne who introduced the division into verses, from 1551.) There was one other original Protestant translation, by Sébastien Châteillon (Basle, 1555) but it was not acceptable to Geneva. The Lyon printer Jean de Tournes found a compromise by which he saved himself from condemnation, publishing the Genevan text, but with Catholic prefatory matter. An approved Catholic Bible in French (Louvain, 1550) owes much to Lefèvre and perhaps even to Olivétan. The only Catholic Bible published in France during these years was by Pierre Benoist of the Paris faculty of theology (1566); it was heavily influenced by the Genevan version and was condemned in 1567.

In the 17th c. there were several new French translations: Samuel des Marets (Amsterdam, 1669, Protestant); abbé de Marolles (1644 onwards, Catholic, though the project was stopped by Chancellor Séguier in 1671). Isaac Le Maître de Sacy of Port-Royal completed the translation of the NT from the Vulgate in 1657 and began work on the OT in the Bastille ten years later. The NT was published in 1667 (called the ‘Mons’ NT but, in reality, Amsterdam, Elzevir), and the OT between 1672 and 1696. This harmonious, classical Port-Royal version, revised by Arnauld and Nicole, proved popular. A more scholarly version of the NT (Trévoux, 1702) was that by Richard Simon, the founder of modern biblical criticism.

In the 18th c. there were two revisions of the Geneva Bible, by David Martin and J. F. Ostervald; they were followed in 1880 by Louis Segond's revision, the most commonly used Protestant Bible until quite recently. The standard Catholic Bible during the first half of the 20th c. was that by Pierre Crampon (Tournai, 1894-1904) based on the original Hebrew and Greek texts. The Bible de Jérusalem (1947-55), also translated from the originals, is a collective work directed by the Dominicans at the École Biblique in Jerusalem; it has proved generally acceptable to Catholic and Protestant alike and has itself been translated into other languages. Less well-known is La Bible: traduction œcuménique, published by the Société Biblique Française (NT, 1972; OT, 1975; one volume, 1985); this work looks forward to an even more ecumenical venture which would also be acceptable to Jewish readers. Although this aim has not yet been achieved, the translation by André Chouraqui, (1947-9) captures the quality of the Hebrew and Greek poetry, and the flavour of the Semitic world (though with much contrivance); different editions correspond to the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant canons. Finally, it should be said that, in spite of this wealth of translations which reflect the style and the preoccupations of different ages, the version which has most influenced French literature until the present day is still St Jerome's Latin Vulgate.

[Peter Sharratt]

Bibliography

The Cambridge History of the Bible: vol. II, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (1969)
vol. III, ed. S. L. Greenslade (1963) (two articles by R. A. Sayce)
La Bible de tous les temps, ed. C. Mondésert, 8 vols. (1984)
Les Bibles en français, ed. P.-M. Bogaert (1991)

US History Encyclopedia: Bible

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No book has influenced American history and culture more than the Bible. For legions of American Protestants, who inherited the Reformation's slogan of "Scripture alone," the English Bible functioned not only as a working text but as the icon of a word-centered piety that supposedly transcended superstition and built religion on solid empirical foundations. To the extent that Protestants once dominated American religious culture, this veneration of vernacular Scripture influenced other groups, including Roman Catholics and Jews, who published their own biblical translations partly as a statement of their American identity. Indeed, for Americans of many denominations, the Bible was long the wellspring of national mythology, although the prevailing biblical stories and imagery changed with time and circumstance.

Colonial America

The Puritan colonies of seventeenth-century New England were arguably the most biblically saturated culture America has ever known. America in Puritan eyes was the New Israel, although this Old Testament image always coexisted with the New Testament image of the primitive, gathered church, uncorrupted by the accretions of "invented" human traditions. Puritan emphasis on Scripture as the antidote to Catholic "superstition" led to much higher rates of literacy in the New England colonies than in any other part of British America or most of England. Probate records reveal that Puritan families who could afford only a few books invariably owned a copy of the Scriptures, either the Geneva Bible (a copiously annotated version begun during the reign of Mary Tudor and published in 1560, or the King James, or Authorized, Bible (a new translation published in 1611 that preserved the verse-numbering system introduced by the Geneva version but eliminated the heavily Calvinist doctrinal glosses).

Even outside of New England, the Bible's influence in the American colonies was considerable. Biblical passages against adultery, blasphemy, sodomy, witchcraft, and other practices influenced legal codes across the American colonies. European settlers also tended to draw on the Bible in the encounter with the Native Americans, whom they variously interpreted as existing in a state of Edenic innocence or as resembling the Canaanites who had to be driven out of the Promised Land.

New Nation

The first complete Bible printed in America originated in the English encounter with Native Americans. John Eliot's Indian Bible (1663), a translation into the Massachusett language, was one of a number of non-English Bibles published during the colonial period, including several editions of Luther's German translation, printed in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in the 1740s. The English Bible was not printed in America until 1777, when the war with England, which curtailed international trade and halted importation of British Bibles, prompted Robert Aitken of Philadelphia to print an American edition of the King James New Testament.

The Bible market in the early republic would soon include other English versions as well. After Aitken published the entire King James Bible in 1782, the Irish Catholic printer Mathew Carey printed the Catholic Douay Bible in Philadelphia in 1790. Most Protestant Bibles lacked the Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical books, which Catholics regarded as authoritative, and Carey's edition filled this void. The Protestant King James Version, however, continued to be required reading in many public schools, leading to periodic conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, especially during the 1840s when large numbers of Catholic immigrants arrived in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and other cities. Riots in Philadelphia in 1844 over which Bible to use in the public schools left thirteen people dead and whole blocks of Irish homes in ruins.

Yet the presence of Catholics, and Catholic Bibles, did not deter antebellum American Protestants, who entertained sweeping visions of a Protestant America founded on the rock of Holy Writ. The American Bible Society, founded in 1816 by the consolidation of over one hundred local societies, distributed millions of Bibles in successive campaigns to put a copy of the King James Bible in every American home. Scores of other antebellum reform societies invoked the Scriptures to combat perceived ills such as intemperance and Sabbath breaking. Meanwhile, the Bible was a touchstone for a variety of antebellum religious prophets, from Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith, who penned The Book of Mormon (1830) in the familiar idiom of the King James Version, to the lay preacher William Miller, who calculated from biblical evidence that the Second Coming of Christ would occur in 1843.

The Civil War

Perhaps nowhere did the Bible loom larger in the nineteenth century than in the debate over slavery, which revealed as never before the difficulties of forging a universally acceptable civil religion based on Scripture. As President Abraham Lincoln said of North and South in his second inaugural address, "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other." For its opponents, slavery called into question the old Puritan identification of America as the New Israel. America instead appeared as Egypt, the land of bondage, which could only be escaped by crossing the "Red Sea of war," as the prominent Brooklyn preacher,

Henry Ward Beecher, put it in a famous 1861 sermon. African American Christians used the biblical Exodus motif extensively in preaching, political oratory, and spirituals, even as Southern white supporters of slavery appealed to the "curse of Ham" (Genesis 9:25) as a divine warrant for keeping dark-skinned peoples in perpetual servitude. The New Testament also admitted of conflicting interpretations on the slavery question. Slavery's opponents frequently invoked Paul's declaration that "there is neither bond nor free … for ye are all one in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 3:28), while slavery's supporters cited Paul's admonition to servants to "obey in all things your masters" (Colossians 3:22).

The exegetical impasse over slavery contributed indirectly to future ideological divisions among American Protestants. On the one hand, it hastened the advent of modern Protestant liberalism, which tended to relativize biblical texts that were not amenable to a progressive ethic. This liberal theology, in turn, provoked a reaction within Protestant denominations from conservative parties determined to uphold the authority of Scripture as a timeless moral and doctrinal standard.

The Bible and Modern Scholarship

The greatest challenge to traditional biblical authority, however, would come from American colleges and theological seminaries, where a generation of antebellum scholars had pioneered critical biblical studies in America. These antebellum scholars included the Unitarians Andrews Norton and George Rapall Noyes and the Congregationalists Edward Robinson and Moses Stuart. After the Civil War, as American scholars looked to the German model of the research university, American biblical studies developed rapidly on two fronts, known popularly as higher and lower criticism.

Higher or historical critics tended to question the accuracy of biblical history as well as traditional assumptions about biblical authorship (for example, that Moses wrote the Pentateuch). Among the most celebrated higher critics was Charles Augustus Briggs, who was suspended from the Presbyterian Church in 1893 but retained on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, which severed its Presbyterian ties because of the affair. Historical criticism also influenced the female authors of The Woman's Bible (1895–1898), an early feminist Bible commentary whose chief contributor, the woman suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, argued that the Scriptures "bear the impress of fallible man." Meanwhile, opponents of higher criticism, including the Princeton Seminary professors Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, were constructing elaborate defenses of biblical infallibility and inerrancy, arguing that apparent historical, geographic, or scientific errors in Scripture stemmed from incomplete knowledge or misunderstandings on the part of interpreters.

Lower or textual critics were concerned with the most accurate reconstruction of the biblical text from the immense array of surviving manuscript variants. Their work assisted Bible translators, who drew on new manuscript discoveries to improve the English text of Scripture. The Revised Version (1881–1885), a British American translation and the first major new English Bible since 1611, was a transatlantic publishing sensation that provoked criticism from Americans still committed to the cherished language of the King James Bible. Opposition to modern translations reached a climax with the Revised Standard Version (1952), which many fundamentalist Protestants vilified as a symbol of the liberal church establishment. By the latter half of the twentieth century, however, the American publishing market was awash in Bibles of every denominational and ideological stripe, even as polls showed relatively low levels of biblical literacy among Americans. The Catholic New American Bible (1970), the evangelical Protestant New International Version (1978), and the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh (1985) were among dozens of translations and annotated editions in print.

The Bible's continuing influence in twentieth-century American culture was particularly evident in American politics. In crafting his philosophy of nonviolent resistance during the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. drew on themes of social justice in the Hebrew prophets as well as Jesus' radical demands for love in the Sermon on the Mount. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963 outlawed Bible reading in the opening exercises of public schools. This was one of a series of legal cases that helped galvanize political conservatives, who accused liberals of seeking to dethrone Scripture as the standard of American morality. By the 1980s, a powerful new religious right, led by Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, and other advocates of biblical norms in public and private morality, helped Ronald Reagan win two terms as president. The Bible remained a presence in politics at the turn of the twenty-first century, particularly in battles over gay and lesbian rights, with conservatives citing Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:24-32 to condemn homosexuality, and liberals echoing biblical refrains about justice and the equality of all persons in Christ.

Bibliography

Armory, Hugh, and David D. Hall, eds. A History of the Book in America. Volume 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Barlow, Philip L. Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Brown, Jerry Wayne. The Rise of Biblical Criticism in America, 1800–1870: The New England Scholars. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1969.

Fogarty, Gerald P. American Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A History from the Early Republic to Vatican II. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.

Gaustad, Edwin S., and Walter Harrelson, eds. The Bible in American Culture. 6 vols. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982–1985.

Gutjahr, Paul C. An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Hatch, Nathan O., and Mark A. Noll, eds. The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Noll, Mark A. Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholar-ship, and the Bible in America. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986.

———. "The Bible and Slavery." In Religion and the American Civil War. Edited by Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Thuesen, Peter J. In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Wimbush, Vincent L., ed. African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures. New York: Continuum, 2000.

Wosh, Peter J. Spreading the Word: The Bible Business in Nineteenth-Century America. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994.

—Peter J. Thuesen

Columbia Encyclopedia: Bible

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Bible [Gr.,=the books], term used since the 4th cent. to denote the Christian Scriptures and later, by extension, those of various religious traditions. This article discusses the nature of religious scripture generally and the Christian Scriptures specifically, as well as the history of the translation of the Bible into English. For the composition and the canon of the Hebrew and Christian Bible, see Old Testament; New Testament; Apocrypha; Pseudepigrapha.

The Nature of Scripture

The sacred writings of the religions of the world exhibit a variety of genres—prayers, visions, ritual, moral codes, myths, historical narratives, legends, and revelatory discourses. Such works have tended to be transmitted orally at first and committed to writing at a later date. This is true of much of the content of the Christian Bible as well as of the Hindu Vedas and the Jewish Mishnah.

The sacred character of such writings is accorded them by communities that have come to value the traditions they embody. Scripture is also perceived in some sense as heavenly in origin—the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon are good examples of this. Religious communities value highly those who interpret their scriptures at both the scholarly and popular levels. Translation of scripture into the vernacular, though resisted in some religious traditions, is a common phenomenon. However, the original Arabic of the Qur'an is regarded as the actual words of God, and therefore as sacrosanct, and is printed alongside its translation. Translations can assume the status of inspired text, as did the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures (the Septuagint) in Hellenistic Jewish and Christian communities. The process of canonizing scripture has been an extended one in many religious traditions, e.g., the Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist faiths. Other traditions authorized their respective bodies of scripture early, e.g., the Sikhs, Muslims, and Manichaeans. Inspiration is an adjunct of the idea of the divine authority of scripture.

The role of scripture in the life of the community involves its public recitation or reading at worship, its veneration as a cult object, and its citation in public prayer and in prescribing appropriate rituals. In the private devotional life of the faithful, scripture is the focus of meditation. The use of scripture to function as a charm to ward off evil or to induce healing is also common. Scripture is also the inspiration for cultural expression in art, music, and literature.

The Bible as Christian Scripture

The traditional Christian view of the Bible is that it was written under the guidance of God and that it therefore conveys truth, either literally or figuratively. In recent times the view of many Christians has been influenced by the pronouncements of critics (see higher criticism); this has produced a counteraction in the form of fundamentalism, whose chief emphasis has been on the literal inerrancy of the Bible. The interpretation of the Bible is one of the traditional points of difference between Protestants, who believe that the Scriptures speak for themselves, and Roman Catholics, who hold that the church has ultimate authority in the interpretation of the Scriptures.

English Translations of the Christian Bible

John Wyclif was one of the first to project the publication and distribution of the Bible in the vernacular among the English people, and two translations go by his name. In the 15th cent. the Lollards did much to extend the use of the Wyclifite translation. The next name in the history of the English Bible is that of William Tyndale, whose translation was not from the Latin Vulgate, like Wyclif's, but from the Hebrew and Greek. Its quality is attested by its use as a basis of the Authorized Version. Tyndale's New Testament (1525–26) was the first English translation to be printed. Contemporary with Tyndale was Miles Coverdale. The second version of Coverdale and the translation of Thomas Matthew closely followed Tyndale. In 1539 the English crown issued its first official version, in the name of Henry VIII. This, the Great Bible, was done principally by Coverdale. The Geneva Bible, or Breeches Bible, was a revision of the Great Bible, financed and annotated by the Calvinists of Geneva. The Bishops' Bible (1568) was a recasting of Tyndale.

The greatest of all English translations was the Authorized Version (AV), or King James Version (KJV), of 1611, made by a committee of churchmen led by Lancelot Andrewes and composed of many of the finest scholars in England. The beautiful English of this version has had great influence and is generally ranked in English literature with the work of Shakespeare. The phraseology of much of it is that of Tyndale. The Douay, or Rheims-Douay, Version was published by Roman Catholic scholars at Reims (New Testament, 1582) and Douai, France (Old Testament, 1610); it was extensively revised by Richard Challoner. In the 19th cent. the project of revising the Authorized Version from the original tongues was undertaken by the Church of England with the cooperation of nonconformist churches. The results of this revision were the English Revised Version and the American Revised Version (pub. 1880–90).

Many scholars, either cooperatively or independently, have translated the Bible into English. In other literatures, also, the translation of the Bible has had a formative effect on the literary language, notably in the case of Martin Luther's German translation. Occasionally translation of the Bible has been the first or the only notable work in a language, e.g., the translation by Ulfilas into Gothic.

In the 20th cent., American biblical scholars combined to produce the Revised Standard Version (RSV), published in 1952 and immediately adopted by many churches. A completely new translation, the work of a joint committee of representatives of all Protestant denominations in Great Britain, aided by Roman Catholic consultants, was begun in 1946. The New Testament was first published in 1961, and the entire Bible, called The New English Bible, appeared in 1970. New Roman Catholic translations were also undertaken, the Westminster Version in England, and a complete revision of the Rheims-Douay edition sponsored by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in the United States. The latter, after undergoing several major revisions and retranslations, was finally published as the New American Bible (1970). In addition, an English translation of the French Catholic Bible de Jerusalem (1961) appeared as the Jerusalem Bible (1966). A revision of the RSV was published in 1989 as the New Revised Standard Version.

Bibliography

See The Cambridge History of the Bible (3 vol., 1963–70); F. F. Bruce and E. G. Rupp, ed., Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition (1968); F. M. Denny and R. L. Taylor, The Holy Bible in Comparative Perspective (1985); H. M. Orlinsky and R. M. Bratcher, A History of Bible Translation and the North American Contribution (1991); J. Miles, God: A Biography (1995); J. L. Kugel, The Bible as It Was (1997); R. E. Friedman, The Hidden Book of the Bible (1998); C. Murphy, The Word According to Eve (1998); D. H. Akensen, Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds (1999); A. Nicolson, God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (2003).

History 1450-1789: Bible

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This entry includes two subentries:

Interpretation

Translations and Editions

Bible Dictionary: Bible

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The book sacred to Christians, which they consider to be the inspired word of God. The Bible includes the Old Testament, which contains the sacred books of the Jews, and the New Testament, which begins with the birth of Jesus.

Thirty-nine books of the Old Testament are accepted as part of the Bible by Christians and Jews alike. Some Christians consider several books of the Old Testament, such as Judith, I and II Maccabees, and Ecclesiasticus, to be part of the Bible also, whereas other Christians, and Jews, call these the Old Testament Apocrypha. Christians are united in their acceptance of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament; Jews do not consider the writings of the New Testament inspired. The Bible is also called “the Book” (bible means “book”).

By extension, any book considered an infallible or very reliable guide to some activity may be called a “bible.”

Veterinary Dictionary: bible

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Meatworkers’ name for omasum.

Word Tutor: bible

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IN BRIEF: The Old Testament and New Testament of Christian religion.

The Bible is a book of faith. — Daniel Webster

Tutor's tip: The "Bible" is the Old and New Testaments, but many people use other books as their "bible."

Quotes By: Bible

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Quotes:

"A fool think he needs no advice, but a wise man listens to others."

"Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety."

"The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul. [Proverbs 13:19]"

"And desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. [Ecclesiastes 12:5]"

"The desire of our soul is to they name, and to the remembrance of thee. [Isaiah]"

"The desire of the lazy kill him; for his hands refuse to labor. [Proverbs 21:25]"

See more famous quotes by Bible

Wikipedia: Bible

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For other uses, see Bible (disambiguation).

Part of a series on
The Bible

Biblical canon and books

Tanakh: Torah · Nevi'im · Ketuvim
Old Testament · New Testament ·
Hebrew Bible
Deuterocanon · Antilegomena
Chapters & verses
Apocrypha: Jewish · OT · NT

Development and authorship

Jewish Canon
Old Testament canon
New Testament canon
Mosaic authorship
Pauline epistles
Johannine works

Translations and manuscripts

Septuagint
Samaritan Pentateuch
Dead Sea scrolls
Targums · Peshitta
Vetus Latina · Vulgate
Masoretic text
Gothic Bible · Luther Bible
English Bibles

Biblical studies

Dating the Bible
Biblical criticism
Higher criticism
Textual criticism
Novum Testamentum Graece
NT textual categories
Documentary hypothesis
Synoptic problem
Historicity (People)
Internal Consistency
Archeology
Artifacts
Science and the Bible

Interpretation

Hermeneutics · Pesher
Midrash · Pardes
Allegorical
Literalism
Prophecy

Views

Inerrancy
Infallibility
Criticism
Islamic
Qur'anic
Gnostic
Judaism and Christianity
Biblical law

Bible portal

The Bible is Part of Category:Judaism (see The Hebrew Bible below) Part of a series on Christianity (see The New Testament below)

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity.^[1]

Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew or Jewish Bible.^[2] It comprises three parts: the Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Pentateuch or "Five Books of Moses"), the Prophets, and the Writings. It was primarily written in Hebrew with some small portions in Aramaic.^{[citation needed]} In Christian religions, the Tanakh is known as the Old Testament.

Christians, including Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox, all have the same 27 books in the New Testament (originally written in Greek)^{[citation needed]} and the same 39 books in the Old Testament. The only difference are the apocrypha, a collection of writings that originated during the intertestamental period (400 BC - 27 AD). The Greek Orthodox Bible contains 27 apocryphal books, while the Roman Catholic Bible contains only 23 of them.^[3] Eastern Orthodox Churches use all of the books that were incorporated into the Septuagint, to which they add the earliest Greek translation of the Deuterocanonicals.

1 Etymology
2 Jewish canon
3 Christian canons of the Bible
4 Canonization
5 Bible versions and translations
6 Biblical criticism
7 Archaeological and historical research
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References and further reading
11 External links

Etymology

An American family Bible dating to 1859 A.D.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible^[4] is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin, as used in the phrase biblia sacra ("holy book"—"In the Latin of the Middle Ages, the neuter plural for Biblia (gen. bibliorum) gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae, in which singular form the word has passed into the languages of the Western world.")^[5] This stemmed from the Greek term τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια (ta biblia ta hagia), "the holy books", which derived from βιβλίον (biblion),^[6] "paper" or "scroll," the ordinary word for "book", which was originally a diminutive of βύβλος (byblos, "Egyptian papyrus"), possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.

Biblical scholar Mark Hamilton states that the Greek phrase Ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books several centuries before the time of Jesus,"^[7] and would have referred to the Septuagint.^[8] The Online Etymology Dictionary states, "The Christian scripture was referred to in Greek as Ta Biblia as early as c.223."^[4]

Jewish canon

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v • d • e

Main article: Tanakh

The Tanakh (Hebrew: תנ"ך) consists of 24 books. Tanakh is an acronym for the three parts of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah ("Teaching/Law" also known as the Pentateuch), Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and Ketuvim ("Writings," or Hagiographa), and is used commonly by Jews but unfamiliar to many English speakers and others (Alexander 1999, p. 17). (See Table of books of Judeo-Christian Scripture).

Torah

Main article: Torah

The Torah, or "Instruction," is also known as the "Five Books" of Moses, thus Chumash from Hebrew meaning "fivesome," and Pentateuch from Greek meaning "five scroll-cases."

The Torah comprises the following five books:

1. Genesis, Ge—Bereshit (בראשית)
2. Exodus, Ex—Shemot (שמות)
3. Leviticus, Le—Vayikra (ויקרא)
4. Numbers, Nu—Bamidbar (במדבר)
5. Deuteronomy, Dt—Devarim (דברים)

The Hebrew book titles come from the first words in the respective texts. The Hebrew title for Numbers, however, comes from the fifth word of that text.

The Torah focuses on three moments in the changing relationship between God and people. The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world, and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel), and Jacob's children (the "Children of Israel"), especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. His story coincides with the story of the liberation of the Children of Israel from slavery in Ancient Egypt, to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai, and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation would be ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses.

The Torah contains the commandments, of God, revealed at Mount Sinai (although there is some debate amongst Jewish scholars, if this was written down completely in one moment, or if it was spread out during the 40 years in the wandering in the desert). These commandments provide the basis for Halakha (Jewish religious law). Tradition states that the number of these is equal to 613 Mitzvot or 613 commandments. There is some dispute as to how to divide these up (mainly between the Ramban and Rambam).

The Torah is divided into fifty-four portions which are read in turn in Jewish liturgy, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, each Sabbath. The cycle ends and recommences at the end of Sukkot, which is called Simchat Torah.

Nevi'im

Main article: Nevi'im

The Nevi'im, or "Prophets," tell the story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy, its division into two kingdoms, and the prophets who, in God's name, warned the kings and the Children of Israel about the punishment of God. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians and the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Portions of the prophetic books are read by Jews on the Sabbath (Shabbat). The Book of Jonah is read on Yom Kippur.

According to Jewish tradition, Nevi'im is divided into eight books. Contemporary translations subdivide these into seventeen books.

The Nevi'im comprise the following eight books:

6. Joshua, Js—Yehoshua (יהושע)
7. Judges, Jg—Shoftim (שופטים)
8. Samuel, includes First and Second, 1Sa–2Sa—Shemuel (שמואל)
9. Kings, includes First and Second, 1Ki–2Ki—Melakhim (מלכים)
10. Isaiah, Is—Yeshayahu (ישעיהו)
11. Jeremiah, Je—Yirmiyahu (ירמיהו)
12. Ezekiel, Ez—Yekhezkel (יחזקאל)
13. Twelve, includes all Minor Prophets—Tre Asar (תרי עשר)
- a. Hosea, Ho—Hoshea (הושע)
- b. Joel, Jl—Yoel (יואל)
- c. Amos, Am—Amos (עמוס)
- d. Obadiah, Ob—Ovadyah (עבדיה)
- e. Jonah, Jh—Yonah (יונה)
- f. Micah, Mi—Mikhah (מיכה)
- g. Nahum, Na—Nahum (נחום)
- h. Habakkuk, Hb—Havakuk (חבקוק)
- i. Zephaniah, Zp—Tsefanya (צפניה)
- j. Haggai, Hg—Khagay (חגי)
- k. Zechariah, Zc—Zekharyah (זכריה)
- l. Malachi, Ml—Malakhi (מלאכי)

Ketuvim

Main article: Ketuvim

The Ketuvim, or "Writings" or "Scriptures," may have been written during or after the Babylonian Exile but no one can be sure. According to Rabbinic tradition, many of the psalms in the book of Psalms are attributed to David; King Solomon is believed to have written Song of Songs in his youth, Proverbs at the prime of his life, and Ecclesiastes at old age; and the prophet Jeremiah is thought to have written Lamentations. The Book of Ruth is the only biblical book that centers entirely on a non-Jew. The book of Ruth tells the story of a non-Jew (specifically, a Moabite) who married a Jew and, upon his death, followed in the ways of the Jews; according to the Bible, she was the great-grandmother of King David. Five of the books, called "The Five Scrolls" (Megilot), are read on Jewish holidays: Song of Songs on Passover; the Book of Ruth on Shavuot; Lamentations on the Ninth of Av; Ecclesiastes on Sukkot; and the Book of Esther on Purim. Collectively, the Ketuvim contain lyrical poetry, philosophical reflections on life, and the stories of the prophets and other Jewish leaders during the Babylonian exile. It ends with the Persian decree allowing Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple.

The Ketuvim comprise the following eleven books:

14. Psalms, Ps—Tehillim (תהלים)
15. Proverbs, Pr—Mishlei (משלי)
16. Job, Jb—Iyyov (איוב)
17. Song of Songs, So—Shir ha-Shirim (שיר השירים)
18. Ruth, Ru—Rut (רות)
19. Lamentations, La—Eikhah (איכה), also called Kinot (קינות)
20. Ecclesiastes, Ec—Kohelet (קהלת)
21. Esther, Es—Ester (אסתר)
22. Daniel, Dn—Daniel (דניאל)
23. Ezra, Ea, includes Nehemiah, Ne—Ezra (עזרא), includes Nehemiah (נחמיה)
24. Chronicles, includes First and Second, 1Ch–2Ch—Divrei ha-Yamim (דברי הימים), also called Divrei (דברי)

Hebrew Bible translations and editions

Main article: Bible translations

The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra) in Biblical Aramaic.^[9]

The Oral Torah

According to some Jews during the Hellenistic period, such as the Sadducees only a minimal oral tradition of interpreting the words of the Torah existed, which did not extend into extended biblical interpretation. According to the Pharisees, however, God revealed both a Written Torah and an Oral Torah to Moses, the Oral Torah consisting of both stories and legal traditions. In Rabbinic Judaism, the Oral Torah is essential for understanding the Written Torah literally (as it includes neither vowels nor punctuation) and exegetically. The Oral Torah has different facets, principally Halacha (laws), the Aggadah (stories), and the Kabbalah (esoteric knowledge). Major portions of the Oral Law have been committed to writing, notably the Mishnah; the Tosefta; Midrash, such as Midrash Rabbah, the Sifre, the Sifra, and the Mechilta; and both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds as well.

Orthodox Judaism continues to accept the Oral Torah in its totality. Masorti and Conservative Judaism state that the Oral Tradition is to some degree divinely inspired, but disregard its legal elements in varying degrees. Reform Judaism also gives some credence to the Talmud containing the legal elements of the Oral Torah, but, as with the written Torah, asserts that both were inspired by, but not dictated by, God. Reconstructionist Judaism denies any connection of the Torah, Written or Oral, with God.

The article Jewish commentaries on the Bible discusses the Jewish understanding of the Bible, including bible commentaries from the ancient Targums to classical Rabbinic literature, the midrash literature, the classical medieval commentators, and modern day Jewish bible commentaries.

Christian canons of the Bible

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The Christian Bible consists of the Hebrew scriptures, which have been called the Old Testament, and some later writings known as the New Testament. Some groups within Christianity include additional books as part of one or both of these "Testaments" of their sacred writings—most prominent among which are the biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.

Different versions of the English Christian Bible include the KJV, the NKJV, the NIV, and the TNIV. To see a complete list, see List of English Bible translations.

In Judaism, the term Christian Bible is commonly used to identify only those books like the New Testament which have been added by Christians to the Masoretic Text, and excludes any reference to an Old Testament.^[10]

Old Testament

Main article: Old Testament

The Old Testament is the collection of books written prior to the life of Jesus but accepted by Christians as scripture. Broadly speaking, it is the same as the Hebrew Bible, however it divides and orders them differently, and varies from Judaism in interpretation and emphasis (see for example Isaiah 7:14). Several Christian denominations also incorporate additional books into their canons of the Old Testament. A few groups consider particular translations to be divinely inspired, notably the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Peshitta, and the English King James Version.

Apocryphal or deuterocanonical books

The Septuagint (Greek translation, from Alexandria in Egypt under the Ptolemies) was generally abandoned in favour of the Masoretic text as the basis for translations of the Old Testament into Western languages from St. Jerome's Bible (the Vulgate) to the present day. In Eastern Christianity, translations based on the Septuagint still prevail. Some modern Western translations make use of the Septuagint to clarify passages in the Masoretic text, where the Septuagint may preserve a variant reading of the Hebrew text. They also sometimes adopt variants that appear in other texts e.g. those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A number of books which are part of the Peshitta or Greek Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew (Rabbinic) Bible are often referred to as deuterocanonical books by Roman Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e. deutero) canon. Most Protestants term these books as apocrypha. Evangelicals and those of the Modern Protestant traditions do not accept the deuterocanonical books as canonical, although Protestant Bibles included them in Apocrypha sections until around the 1820s. However, the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches include these books as part of their Old Testament.

The Roman Catholic Church recognizes the following books:

In addition to those, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches recognize the following:

3 Maccabees
1 Esdras i.e. Greek Ezra paraphrase
Prayer of Manasseh
Psalm 151 as part of the Psalter

Some other Eastern Orthodox Churches include a few others, typically:

2 Esdras i.e. Latin Esdras in the Russian and Georgian Bibles
Odes

The Syriac Orthodox Church also has:

The Apocalypse of Baruch 2 Baruch
The Letter of Baruch

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church also has some others such as:

The Anglican Church uses some of the Apocryphal books liturgically, but not to establish doctrine. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Anglican Church include the Deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix.

There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church, but was included by St. Jerome in an appendix to the Vulgate, and is an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.

New Testament

Main article: New Testament

The Bible as used by the majority of Christians includes the Rabbinic Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament, which relates the life and teachings of Jesus, the letters of the Apostle Paul and other disciples to the early church and the Book of Revelation.

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books, of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse). Jesus is its central figure. The New Testament was written primarily in Koine Greek in the early Christian period, though a minority argue for Aramaic primacy. Nearly all Christians recognize the New Testament (as stated below) as canonical scripture. These books can be grouped into:

The Gospels

Synoptic Gospels
- Gospel According to Matthew, Mt
- Gospel According to Mark, Mk
- Gospel According to Luke, Lk
Gospel According to John, Jn
Acts of the Apostles, Ac (continues Luke)

Pauline Epistles

Epistle to the Romans, Ro
First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1Co

Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2Co
Epistle to the Galatians, Ga
Epistle to the Ephesians, Ep
Epistle to the Philippians, Pp
Epistle to the Colossians, Cl
First Epistle to the Thessalonians, 1Th
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, 2Th
Pastoral Epistles
- First Epistle to Timothy, 1Ti
- Second Epistle to Timothy, 2Ti
- Epistle to Titus, Tt

Epistle to Philemon, Pm
Epistle to the Hebrews, He

General Epistles, also called Jewish Epistles

The order of these books varies according to Church tradition. The New Testament books are ordered differently in the Catholic/Protestant tradition, the Lutheran tradition, the Slavonic tradition, the Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition.

Original language

The books of the New Testament were written in Koine Greek, the language of the earliest extant manuscripts, even though some authors often included translations from Hebrew and Aramaic texts. Certainly the Pauline Epistles were written in Greek for Greek-speaking audiences. See Greek primacy. Some scholars believe that some books of the Greek New Testament (in particular, the Gospel of Matthew) are actually translations of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. Of these, a small number accept the Syriac Peshitta as representative of the original. See Aramaic primacy.

Historic editions

The Codex Gigas from the 13th century, held at the Royal Library in Sweden.

When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. See textual criticism. Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions and additions.

The autographs, the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the versions that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type (generally minimalist), the Byzantine text-type (generally maximalist), and the Western text-type (occasionally wild). Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts.

Christian theology

Main article: Christian theology

While individual books within the Christian Bible present narratives set in certain historical periods, most Christian denominations teach that the Bible itself has an overarching message.

There are among Christians wide differences of opinion as to how particular incidents as described in the Bible are to be interpreted and as to what meaning should be attached to various prophecies. However, Christians in general are in agreement as to the Bible's basic message. A general outline, as described by C. S. Lewis, is as follows:^[11]

At some point in the past, humanity chose to depart from God's will and began to sin.
Because no one is free from sin, people cannot deal with God directly, so God revealed Himself in ways people could understand.
God called Abraham and his progeny to be the means for saving all of humanity.
To this end, He gave the Law to Moses.
The resulting nation of Israel went through cycles of sin and repentance, yet the prophets show an increasing understanding of the Law as a moral, not just a ceremonial, force.
Jesus brought a perfect understanding of the Mosaic Law, that of love and salvation.
By His death and resurrection, all who believe are saved and reconciled to God.

Many Christians, Muslims, and Jews regard the Bible as inspired by God yet written by a variety of imperfect men over thousands of years. Many others, who identify themselves as Bible-believing Christians, regard both the New and Old Testament as the undiluted Word of God, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans. Still others hold the Biblical infallibility perspective, that the Bible is free from error in spiritual but not scientific matters.

Belief in sacred texts is attested to in Jewish antiquity,^[12]^[13] and this belief can also be seen in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention Divine agency in relation to prophetic writings,^[14] the most explicit being 2 Tm 3:16: "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."

In their book A General Introduction to the Bible, Norman Geisler and William Nix wrote: "The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record."^[15] Most evangelical biblical scholars^[16]^[17]^[18] associate inspiration with only the original text; for example some American Protestants adhere to the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which asserted that inspiration applied only to the autographic text of Scripture.^[19] However, some adherents to the King James Only view attribute inerrancy to a particular translation.

Canonization

Main articles: Biblical Canon and Dating the Bible

The word "canon" etymologically means cane or reed. In early Christianity "canon" referred to a list of books approved for public reading. Books not on the list were referred to as "apocryphal" — meaning they were for private reading only. Under Latin usage from the fourth century on, canon came to stand for a closed and authoritative list in the sense of rule or norm.^[20]

Hebrew Bible

Main article: Development of the Jewish Bible canon

The New Testament refers to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures: the law, the prophets, and the writings. Luke 24:44 refers to the "law of Moses" (Pentateuch), the "prophets" which include certain historical books in addition to the books now called "prophets," and the psalms (the "writings" designated by its most prominent collection). The Hebrew Bible probably was canonized in these three stages: the law canonized before the Exile, the prophets by the time of the Syrian persecution of the Jews, and the writings shortly after AD 70 (the fall of Jerusalem). About that time, early Christian writings began being accepted by Christians as "scripture." These events, taken together, may have caused the Jews to close their "canon." They listed their own recognized Scriptures and also excluded both Christian and Jewish writings considered by them to be "apocryphal." In this canon the thirty-nine books found in the Old Testament of today's Christian Bibles were grouped together as twenty-two books, equaling the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This canon of Jewish scripture is attested to by Philo, Josephus, the New Testament (Luke 11:51, Luke 24:44), and the Talmud.^[20]

The New Testament writers assumed the inspiration of the Old Testament, probably earliest stated in 2 Timothy 3:16 which may be rendered "All Scripture is inspired of God" or "Every God-inspired Scripture is profitable for teaching." Both translations consider inspiration as a fact.^[20]

Old and New Testaments

Main articles: Development of the Old Testament canon and Development of the New Testament canon

The Old Testament canon entered into Christian use in the Greek Septuagint translations and original books, and their differing lists of texts. In addition to the Septuagint, Christianity subsequently added various writings that would become the New Testament. Somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity. In the fourth century a series of synods produced a list of texts equal to the 39-to-46-book canon of the Old Testament and to the 27-book canon of the New Testament that would be subsequently used to today, most notably the Synod of Hippo in AD 393. Also c. 400, Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (see Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. With the benefit of hindsight it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon, although there are examples of other canonical lists in use after this time. A definitive list did not come from an Ecumenical Council until the Council of Trent (1545–63).^[21]

During the Protestant Reformation, certain reformers proposed different canonical lists than what was currently in use. Though not without debate, see Antilegomena, the list of New Testament books would come to remain the same; however, the Old Testament texts present in the Septuagint, but not included in the Jewish canon, fell out of favor. In time they would come to be removed from most Protestant canons. Hence, in a Catholic context these texts are referred to as deuterocanonical books, whereas in a Protestant context they are referred to as Apocrypha, the label applied to all texts excluded from the biblical canon which were in the Septuagint. It should also be noted, that Catholics and Protestants both describe certain other books, such as the Acts of Peter, as apocryphal.

Thus, the Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon—the number varies from that of the books in the Tanakh (though not in content) because of a different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as part of the canonical Old Testament. The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is only synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, not the Catholic, which contains the Hebrew Scriptures and additional texts. Both Catholics and Protestants have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.

Qumran Bible

The Bible used at Qumran excluded Esther but included Tobit. Otherwise, it seems to have been basically the same as the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, albeit with many textual variants.

Ethiopian Orthodox canon

The Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is wider than for most other Christian groups. The Ethiopian Old Testament Canon includes the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, in addition to Enoch and Jubilees which are ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge'ez but are quoted in the New Testament, also Greek Ezra First and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 books of Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter. The three books of Meqabyan are not be confused with the books of Maccabees. The order of the other books is somewhat different from other groups', as well. The Old Testament follows the Septuagint order for the Minor Prophets rather than the Jewish order.

Marcionite Bible

Marcion, an early Christian heretic, and his followers, had a Bible that excluded the Old Testament. It consisted of an edited Gospel of Luke (excluding what Marcion considered Jewish additions), and the Epistles of Paul (excluding Titus, the two epistles to Timothy, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and passages rejected as Jewish additions).^[22]

Bible versions and translations

Further information: Bible translations

A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. This Bible was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery.

Bible versions are discussed below, while Bible translations can be found on a separate page.

The original texts of the Tanakh were in Hebrew, although some portions were in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version by itself, there are words which are traditionally read differently from written (sometimes one word is written and another is read), because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations.

The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX). In addition they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.

The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible.

Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in AD 382. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and in 1546 at the Council of Trent was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin rite.

Bible translations for many languages have been made through the various influences of Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestant, etc especially since the Protestant Reformation. The Bible has seen a notably large number of English language translations.

As of March 2008, translations of the full Bible are available for 438 languages, translations of one of the two testaments in 1,168 additional languages, and portions of the text exist in 848 additional languages. This means that partial or full translations of the Bible exist in a total of 2,454 languages. ^[23]

The work of Bible translation continues, including by Christian organisations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators (wycliffe.net), New Tribes Missions (ntm.org) and the Bible Societies (biblesociety.org). Of the world's 6,900 languages, 2,400 have some or all of the Bible, 1,600 (spoken by more than a billion people) have translation underway, and some 2,500 (spoken by 270 million people) are judged as needing translation to begin.^[24]

Biblical criticism

Main articles: Biblical criticism and criticism of the Bible

Biblical criticism refers to the investigation of the Bible as a text, and addresses questions such as authorship, dates of composition, and authorial intention. It is not the same as criticism of the Bible, which is an assertion against the Bible being a source of information or ethical guidance.

Higher criticism

Main articles: Higher criticism and Lower criticism

The traditional view of the Mosaic authorship of the Torah came under sporadic criticism from medieval scholars including Isaac ibn Yashush, Abraham ibn Ezra, Bonfils of Damascus and bishop Tostatus of Avila, who pointed to passages such as the description of the death of Moses in Deuteronomy as evidence that some portions, at least, could not have been written by Moses. In the 17th century Thomas Hobbes collected the current evidence and became the first scholar to conclude outright that Moses could not have written the bulk of the Torah. Shortly afterwards the philosopher Baruch Spinoza published a unified critical analysis, demonstrating that the problematic passages were not isolated cases that could be explained away one by one, but pervasive throughout the five books, concluding that it was "clearer than the sun at noon that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses…." Despite determined opposition from the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, the views of Hobbes and Spinoza gained increasing acceptance amongst scholars.

Documentary hypothesis

Main article: Documentary hypothesis

Scholars intrigued by the hypothesis that Moses had not written the Pentateuch considered other authors. Independent but nearly simultaneous proposals by H. B. Witter, Jean Astruc, and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn separated the Pentateuch into two original documentary components, both dating from after the time of Moses. Others hypothesized the presence of two additional sources. The four documents were given working titles: J (or Yahwist), E (Elohist), P (Priestly), and D (Deuteronomist), each was discernible by its own characteristic language, and each, when read in isolation, presented a unified, coherent narrative.

Subsequent scholars, notably Eduard Reuss, Karl Heinrich Graf and Wilhelm Vatke, turned their attention to the order in which the documents had been composed (which they deduced from internal clues) and placed them in the context of a theory of the development of ancient Israelite religion, suggesting that much of the Laws and the narrative of the Pentateuch were unknown to the Israelites in the time of Moses. These were synthesized by Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), who suggested a historical framework for the composition of the documents and their redaction (combination) into the final document known as the Pentateuch. This hypothesis was challenged by William Henry Green in his The Mosaic Origins of the Pentateuchal Codes (available online). Nonetheless, according to contemporary Torah scholar Richard Elliott Friedman, Wellhausen's model of the documentary hypothesis continues to dominate the field of biblical scholarship: "To this day, if you want to disagree, you disagree with Wellhausen. If you want to pose a new model, you compare its merits with those of Wellhausen's model."^[25]

The documentary hypothesis is important in the field of biblical studies not only because it claims that the Torah was written by different people at different times—generally long after the events it describes—^[26] but it also proposed what was at the time a radically new way of reading the Bible. Many proponents of the documentary hypothesis view the Bible more as a body of literature than a work of history, believing that the historical value of the text lies not in its account of the events that it describes, but in what critics can infer about the times in which the authors lived (as critics may read Hamlet to learn about seventeenth-century England, but will not read it to learn about seventh-century Denmark).

Modern developments

The critical analysis of authorship now encompasses every book of the Bible. In some cases the traditional view on authorship has been overturned; in others, additional support, at least in part has been found.

The development of the hypothesis has not stopped with Wellhausen. Wellhausen's hypothesis, for example, proposed that the four documents were composed in the order J-E-D-P, with P, containing the bulk of the Jewish law, dating from the post-Exilic Second Temple period (i.e., after 515 BC);^[27] but the contemporary view is that P is earlier than D, and that all four books date from the First Temple period (i.e., prior to 587 BC).^[28] The documentary hypothesis has more recently been refined by later scholars such as Martin Noth (who in 1943 provided evidence that Deuteronomy plus the following six books make a unified history from the hand of a single editor), Harold Bloom, Frank Moore Cross and Richard Elliot Friedman.

The documentary hypothesis, at least in the four-document version advanced by Wellhausen, has been controversial since its formulation. The direction of this criticism is to question the existence of separate, identifiable documents, positing instead that the biblical text is made up of almost innumerable strands so interwoven as to be hardly untangleable—the J document, in particular, has been subjected to such intense dissection that it seems in danger of disappearing.

Although biblical archaeology has confirmed the existence of many people, places, and events mentioned in the Bible, many critical scholars have argued that the Bible be read not as an accurate historical document, but rather as a work of literature and theology that often draws on historical events—as well as upon non-Hebrew mythology—as primary source material (see The Bible and history). For these scholars, the Bible reveals much about the lives and times of its authors and compilers. The relevance of these ideas to contemporary religious life is left to clerics and adherents of contemporary religions to decide.

Archaeological and historical research

Main article: Biblical archaeology school

Main article: The Bible and history

Biblical archaeology is the archaeology that relates to, and sheds light upon, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. It is used to help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times. It is also used to help clarify the consistency between historical evidence and scripture.

There are a wide range of interpretations of the existing Biblical archaeology. One broad division includes Biblical maximalism that generally take the view that most of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is essentially based on history although presented through the religious viewpoint of its time. It is considered the opposite of Biblical Minimalism which is strictly secular and does not allow any consideration of the Bible as documentary evidence or as a framework of history.

One example of the dispute involves Biblical accounts of Israelite bondage in Egypt, wandering in the desert, and conquest the Land of Israel in a military campaign, the accounts of the land being passed on to the 12 tribes of Israel, and David's and Solomon's conquests, and other key elements described in the Biblical narratives as occurring in the 10th century BC or before. So far, there is a lack of archaeological evidence to independently support this, which has led some archaeologists, such as Israel Finkelstein, Neil Silberman,^[29] and William Dever^[30] to believe that these events never happened, and that the ancestors of the Hebrews and the Jews are either nomads who have become sedentary, or people from the plains of Canaan, who fled to the highlands to escape the control of the cities. Others disagree sharply.^[31]

Another example involves the story of Noah's Ark. Biblical literalists support a theory of a worldwide flood as described in the story and are looking for archaeological evidence in the region of the mountains of Ararat in north-east Turkey where Genesis says Noah's Ark came to rest. Mainstream scientists (and many Christians and Jews) discount a literal interpretation of the Ark story, on the basis of geology and other sciences.^[32]

According to recent theories, linguistic as well as archaeological, the global structure of the texts in the Hebrew Bible were compiled during the reign of King Josiah in the 7th century BC. Even though the components are derived from more ancient writings, the final form of the books is believed to have been set somewhere between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD.

Notes

^ http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Bible Dictionary.com
^ See: McDonald and Sanders's The Canon Debate, 2002.
^ List of books in the Christian Bible, Roman Catholic Bible, Greek Orthodox Bible." http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-orthodox-catholic-christian-bible-books.htm
^ ^a ^b Harper, Douglas. "bible". Online Etymology Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bible.
^ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02543a.htm The Catholic Encyclopedia.
^ Biblion, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus.
^ "From Hebrew Bible to Christian Bible" by Mark Hamilton on PBS's site From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians.
^ Dictionary.com etymology of the word "Bible".
^ "Bible Study, Bible Facts" (HTML). http://www.csbbc.net/bible.html. Retrieved on 2007-11-05.
^ Accuracy of Torah Text.
^ A Summary of the Bible by Lewis, CS: Believer's Web.
^ Philo of Alexandria, De vita Moysis 3.23.
^ Josephus, Contra Apion 1.8.
^ "Basis for belief of Inspiration". Biblegateway. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Sam%2023:2,2%20Tim%203:16,Luke%201:70,Heb%203:7,10:15-16,1%20Peter%201:11,Mark%2012:36,2%20Peter%201:20-21,Acts%201:16,Acts%203:18,Acts%2028:25;&version=50;.
^ Norman L. Geisler, William E. Nix (1986). A General Introduction to the Bible. Moody Publishers. p. 86. ISBN 0-8024-2916-5.
^ for example, seeLeroy Zuck, Roy B. Zuck (1991). Basic Bible Interpretation. Chariot Victor Pub. p. 68. ISBN 0-89693-819-0.
^ Roy B. Zuck, Donald Campbell (2002). Basic Bible Interpretation. Victor. ISBN 0-7814-3877-2.
^ Norman L. Geisler (1979, 1980). Inerrancy. The Zondervan Corporation. p. 294. ISBN 0-310-39281-0.
^ International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) (pdf). The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. http://www.churchcouncil.org/ccpdfdocs/01_Biblical_Inerrancy_A&D.pdf.
^ ^a ^b ^c Stagg, Frank. New Testament Theology. Nashville: Broadman, 1962. ISBN 0-8054-1613-7.
^ Catholic Encyclopedia: Canon of the New Testament: "The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council."
^ Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews, ISBN 978-0-385-50270-2 (2008), pp. 67-68, 391.
^ United Bible Society (2008), Statistical Summary of languages with the Scriptures, http://www.ubs-translations.org/about_us/#c165, retrieved on 2008-03-22
^ http://www.vision2025.org www.vision2025.org
^ Richard Elliott Friedman, "Who Wrote the Bible?," HarperSanFrancisco, 1997 (2nd edition).
^ Joel Rosenberg, 1984 "The Bible: Biblical Narrative" in Barry Holtz, ed Back to the Sources New York: Summit Books p. 36; Nahum Sarna, 1986 Understanding Genesis New York:Schocken Books pp. xxi-xxiii.
^ Wellhausen adopted the idea of a post-Exilic date for P from Eduard Reuss.
^ Although the bulk of all four documents date from before 587 BC, the strand of D known as Dtr2 dates from the following Exilic period.
^ Finkelstein, Israel; Neil Silberman. The Bible Unearthed.
^ Dever, William. Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come from?.
^ Kurinsky, Samuel (August 2008). "Nomadic Jews, Never". Hebrew History Foundation. http://www.hebrewhistory.info/factpapers/fp014_nomadic.htm.
^ Did Noah really build an ark?, BBC.

References and further reading

Anderson, Bernhard W. Understanding the Old Testament. ISBN 0-13-948399-3.
Berlin, Adele, Marc Zvi Brettler and Michael Fishbane. The Jewish Study Bible. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-529751-2.
Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to the Bible. New York, NY: Avenel Books, 1981. ISBN 0-517-34582-X.
Dever, William G. (2007), "Losing Faith: Who Did and Who Didn’t, How Scholarship Affects Scholars", Biblical Archaeology Review 33 (2): 54, <http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/other/5106losingfaith.pdf>
Dever, William G. Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did they Come from? Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003. ISBN 0-8028-0975-8.
Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. ISBN 0-06-073817-0.
Finkelstein, Israel & Neil Asher Silberman (2001), The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-7432-2338-1, <http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=Finkelstein+Bible+Unearthed+Exodus+unoccupied&btnG=Search+Books>.
Finkelstein, Israel & Neil Asher Silberman (August 2002), "Review: "The Bible Unearthed": A Rejoinder", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 327: 63–73, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1357859?seq=1>
Geisler, Norman (editor). Inerrancy. Sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Zondervan Publishing House, 1980, ISBN 0-310-39281-0.
Head, Tom. The Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible. Indianapolis, IN: Que Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-7897-3419-2
Herzog, Ze'ev (October 29, 1999), Deconstructing the walls of Jericho, Ha'aretz, <http://mideastfacts.org/facts/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=34>
Hoffman, Joel M. In the Beginning. New York University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8147-3690-4
Lindsell, Harold. The Battle for the Bible. Zondervan Publishing House, 1978. ISBN 0-310-27681-0
Lienhard, Joseph T. The Bible, The Church, and Authority. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995.
Masalha, Nur, The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine-Israel. London, Zed Books, 2007.
Miller, John W. The Origins of the Bible: Rethinking Canon History Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8091-3522-1.
McDonald, Lee M. and Sanders, James A., eds. The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers (January 1, 2002). 662p. ISBN 1565635175 ISBN 978-1565635173
Riches, John. The Bible: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-285343-0
Siku. The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation. Galilee Trade (January 15, 2008). 224p. ISBN 0385524315 ISBN 978-0385524315
Taylor, Hawley O. "Mathematics and Prophecy." Modern Science and Christian Faith. Wheaton: Van Kampen, 1948, pp. 175–83.
The Brick Testament http://www.thebricktestament.com/
Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, s.vv. "Book of Ezekiel," p. 580 and "prophecy," p. 1410. Chicago: Moody Bible Press, 1986.

External links

Books of the Bible

Major Divisions

Old Testament (Hebrew Protocanon)	Genesis · Exodus · Leviticus · Numbers · Deuteronomy · Joshua · Judges · Ruth · 1-2 Samuel · 1-2 Kings · 1-2 Chronicles · Ezra · Nehemiah · Esther · Job · Psalms · Proverbs · Ecclesiastes · Song · Isaiah · Jeremiah · Lamentations · Ezekiel · Daniel · Hosea · Joel · Amos · Obadiah · Jonah · Micah · Nahum · Habakkuk · Zephaniah · Haggai · Zechariah · Malachi

Deuterocanon & Apocrypha	Catholic, Orthodox: Baruch & Letter of Jeremiah · Additions to Daniel (Susanna, Song of the Three Children, Bel & the Dragon) · Additions to Esther · Judith · 1 Maccabees · 2 Maccabees · Sirach · Tobit · Wisdom · Orthodox: Prayer of Manasseh · 1 Esdras · 2 Esdras · Orthodox: 3 Maccabees · 4 Maccabees · Odes · Psalm 151 · Syriac Peshitta only: 2 Baruch · Psalms 152–155 · Ethiopian Orthodox only: 4 Baruch · Enoch · Jubilees · 1-3 Meqabyan

New Testament	Matthew • Mark • Luke • John • Acts • Romans • 1 Corinthians • 2 Corinthians • Galatians • Ephesians • Philippians • Colossians • 1 Thessalonians • 2 Thessalonians • 1 Timothy • 2 Timothy • Titus • Philemon • Hebrews • James • 1 Peter • 2 Peter • 1 John • 2 John • 3 John • Jude • Revelation

Canon

Development: Old Testament · New Testament · Christian Canon
Others: Deuterocanon · Apocrypha: Biblical · New Testament · Christian canons

More divisions

Chapters and verses · Pentateuch · History · Wisdom · Major & Minor prophets · Gospels (synoptic) · Epistles (Pauline, Johannine, pastoral, general) · Apocalyptic literature

Translations

Vulgate · Luther · Wyclif · Tyndale · KJV · Modern English Bibles · Debate · Dynamic v. Formal · JPS · RSV · NASB · Amp · NAB · NEB · TLB · GNB · NIV · NJB · NRSV · REB · NLT · ESV · Msg

Manuscripts

Septuagint · Samaritan Pentateuch · Dead Sea scrolls · Targum · Diatessaron · Muratorian fragment · Peshitta · Vetus Latina · Masoretic Text · New Testament manuscripts

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Bible

Contents

Etymology

Jewish canon

Torah

Nevi'im

Ketuvim

Hebrew Bible translations and editions

The Oral Torah

Christian canons of the Bible

Old Testament

Apocryphal or deuterocanonical books

New Testament

Original language

Historic editions

Christian theology

Canonization

Hebrew Bible

Old and New Testaments

Qumran Bible

Ethiopian Orthodox canon

Marcionite Bible

Bible versions and translations

Biblical criticism

Higher criticism

Documentary hypothesis

Modern developments

Archaeological and historical research

See also

Biblical scholarship and analysis

Perspectives on the Bible

Interpretation

History and the Bible

Biblical topics

Bible societies

Commentaries

Religious texts

Notes

References and further reading

External links