Bible
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The Bible (from Ancient Greek τὰ βιβλία – the books) is a collection of texts written by different people. Certain texts were written by historians who tried to show what Ancient Israel was like. Other texts are poems about God and his work. Still others were used to make laws. All texts were written over a period of about 1200 years. Followers of Judaism and Christianity consider the Bible sacred but they do not all agree about what belongs in the Bible. A number of texts are both in the Hebrew Bible, used by Jews, and the Christian one.
There are many names for the Bible; some call it Holy Scripture, Holy Writ or the Good Book. The Bible was written long ago in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and finally Greek. Translations were made later into Latin and some other languages. Now there are translations in English and many other languages.
Some Bibles are interpretations of these old writings into modern English and because of this, they have errors and misunderstandings of the texts they seek to interpret. Only study of the ancient languages or careful use of dictionaries can overcome these errors for the Bible student. Some Bibles, such as the 1611 King James Translation (commonly known as the Authorized King James Version of the Bible), are directly translated into English from the original languages. The accuracy of literal translation without human interpretation was ensured by many different scholars congruently translating every word from the then considered original scripts. Indeed they were not so.
When talking about the Bible, a book is used to speak about a number of texts. All the texts that make a book are believed to belong together. Most of the time, people believe they were written or collected by the same person. Sometimes, all the texts of a book also have a common subject, for example how to punish someone who has done something against the law. The Bible contains different kinds of such books. Some are history, telling the stories of the Jews, Jesus, or Jesus' followers. Some are collections of wise sayings. Some are God's commands to His people, which He expects them to obey. Some are songs of praise to God. Some are books of prophecy, messages from God that He gave through chosen people called prophets.
What is considered part of the Bible changed with history. Different denominations include certain parts or leave out other parts. There is not one single edition of the Bible; both the content of the books and their order may change. The Hebrew Bible contains 39 books. Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.[1] The oldest surviving Christian Bible is the Codex Sinaiticus, a Greek manuscript from the fourth century AD.[2] The oldest complete Hebrew manuscripts date from the Middle Ages.[3]
As the Bible has been translated into modern languages, it is also possible that there are different translations of the same texts. The Bible is the best selling book of all time. 2.5 billion to more than 6 billion copies of the Bible have been sold to date.[4][5]
Today, a complete version of the Bible exists in 471 languages. Parts have been translated in 2225 languages.[6] Most Bibles can be found in the British Museum in London.
Contents |
[change] Old Testament
The Bible is a collection of books. The first part is called the Old Testament or Tanakh. It was mostly written in Hebrew; a few parts are written in Aramaic. This part of the Bible is considered to be holy by Jews as well as Christians.
There are a few parts of the Old Testament that can be proven by science. These parts are called Deuterocanonical by those Churches that accept them as part of the Bible, and Apocrypha by those that do not.
[change] New Testament
The second part is called the New Testament, which is written in Greek. The main part of this book is the story of the life of Jesus Christ. The four different versions of this story in the New Testament are called the Gospels. After the Gospels, there is also the story of what happened to the Church after Jesus's death . Part of this is told through letters by early Christian leaders, especially Saint Paul. One of the most quoted verses in the Bible is John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish [die] but have eternal life." NIV
[change] Views about the Bible
People have different ideas about the Bible. Christians believe it is God's Word to people. The Jews believe that only the Old Testament is from God. Protestants and Catholics believe that the Old and New Testaments are God's Word. Catholics also believe that the books called Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical are part of the Bible. Sometimes different denominations disagree over exactly what the Bible means.
According to Islam, much of the Bible is true, but the Koran is better. Atheists do not believe that God exists, so they do not believe that God could have sent people to the earth (called prophets) to write the Bible.
[change] Some people in the Bible
- Abraham
- King David
- God
- Isaac
- Jacob
- James
- Jesus Christ
- John
- Joseph
- Luke
- Mark
- The Virgin Mary
- Matthew
- Moses
- Noah
- Saint Peter
- Saint Paul
- Timothy
[change] References
- ↑ http://www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/canonical/books.html
- ↑ Codex Sinaiticus: http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/
- ↑ Philip R. Davies, "Memories of ancient Israel", p.7
- ↑ Ash, Russell (2001). Top 10 of Everything 2002. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0789480433, 9780789480439.
- ↑ Businessweek on The Bible: "The Bible (2.5 billion copies sold)" (18 July 2005)
- ↑ Wycliffe translators' hompage, (Sept 2009)
- Entre Galilée et l'Église : la Bible., Une mise au point. Étude. Joël COL. ISBN 2-9520299-0-3, AutoEdition Méguila, 2003.
[change] Other websites
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