Where did the word Bible came from?

Answer 1

Early writing was done on stone (heavy, difficult to write on, impossible to erase) and baked clay (all of the previous, plus breakable).

The Egyptians discovered that you could make a pulp out of the husk of the papyrus reed, and beat it together into a sort of sheet which you could then write on. Papyrus was light, cheap, portable, easy to recycle (and when necessary, to destroy). Papyrus gives us the word paper - and paper was essential for writing to become the universal medium it is today.

The major city in the production and distribution of papyrus for paper became the Phoenician port of Gebla. Gebla became so closely identified with the production and supply of paper that it was eventually re-named Byblos (byblon being the Greek name for papyrus).

Early books were prepared in scroll form, but when the new technology of pressing sheets of paper into small squares and binding them together as pages arrived the new item took its name from the port where most of them were being made. Byblos was where they were made, so they were called bybloi.

Before too long it became clear that there were many bybloi but there was one which was more popular and more important than any of the others. The story of the life of Jesus was calle THE BOOK (ho biblos):- which is why it is called The Bible even today.