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The bible

For other uses, see Bible (disambiguation).

The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, "the books") is a canonical collection of texts considered sacred in Judaism as well as in Christianity. The term Bible is shared between the two religions, although the contents of each of their collections of canonical texts is not the same. Different religious groups include different books within their canons, in different orders, and sometimes divide or combine books, or incorporate additional material into canonical books.


Christian Bibles range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church canon. The first part of Christian Bibles is the Old Testament, which contains, at minimum, the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible divided into thirty-nine books and ordered differently than the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic Church and Eastern Christian churches also hold certain deuterocanonical books and passages to be part of the Old Testament canon. The second part is the New Testament, containing twenty-seven books: the four Canonical gospels, Acts of the Apostles, twenty-one Epistles or letters, and the Book of Revelation.

By the 2nd century BCE Jewish groups had called the Bible books "holy," and Christians now commonly call the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible "The Holy Bible" (τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια, tà biblía tà ágia) or "the Holy Scriptures" (η Αγία Γραφή, e Agía Graphḗ). Many Christians consider the whole canonical text of the Bible to be divinely inspired. The oldest surviving complete Christian Bibles are Greek manuscripts from the 4th century. The oldest Tanakh manuscript in Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the 10th century CE,[1] but an early 4th-century Septuagint translation is found in the Codex Vaticanus. The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne[2] and is now usually cited by book, chapter, and verse.

The Bible is widely considered to be the best selling book of all time,[3] has estimated annual sales of 100 million copies,[4][5] and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West where it was the first mass-printed book.




The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος bublos, "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia (lit. "little papyrus books")[9] was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books (the Septuagint).[10][11] Christian use of the term can be traced to ca. 223 CE.[6] The biblical scholar F.F. Bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew, delivered between 386 and 388) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.[12]

Hebrew Bible


The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century CE,[13] and the Aleppo Codex (once the oldest complete copy of the Masoretic Text, but now missing its Torah section) dates from the 10th century.



Main article: Torah

The Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the "Five Books of Moses" or the Pentateuch, meaning "five scroll-cases".[14] The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts.

The Torah comprises the following five books:




Main article: Nevi'im


The Nevi'im tell the story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, ancient Israel and Judah, focusing on conflicts between the Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the LORD God"[20] and believers in foreign gods,[21][22] and the criticism of unethical and unjust behavior of Israelite elites and rulers;[23][24][25] in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians followed by the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Former Prophets




The book consists of three parts:

  • the history of the conquest of the land (1–12).
  • the farewell addresses of Joshua, with an account of his death (23, 24).


  • the introduction (1:1–3:10 and 3:12) giving a summary of the book of Joshua
  • the main text (3:11–16:31), discussing the five Great Judges, Abimelech, and providing glosses for a few minor Judges






Latter Prophets

The Latter Prophets are divided into two groups, the "major" prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets, collected into a single book.



Chapter 6 describes Isaiah's call to be a prophet of God. Chapters 35–39 provide material about King Hezekiah. Chapters 24–34, while too complex to characterize easily, are primarily concerned with prophecies of a messiah, the Lord's "chosen one", a person anointed or given power by God, and of the messiah's kingdom, where justice and righteousness will reign. This section is seen by Jews as describing an king, a descendant of their great king, David, who will make Judah a great kingdom and Jerusalem a truly holy city.

The prophecy continues with what can be characterized as a "book of comfort"[26] which begins in chapter 40 and completes the writing. In the first eight chapters of this book of comfort, Isaiah prophesies the deliverance of the Jews from the hands of the Babylonians and restoration of Israel as a unified nation in the land promised to them by God. Isaiah reaffirms that the Jews are indeed the chosen people of God in chapter 44 and that Jehovah is the only God for the Jews as he will show his power over the gods of Babylon in due time in chapter 46. In chapter 45:1 the Persian ruler Cyrus is named as the messiah who will overthrow the Babylonians and allow the return of Israel to their original land. The remaining chapters of the book contain prophecies of the future glory of Zion under the rule of a righteous servant (52 and 54). Chapter 53 contains a poetic prophecy about this servant which is generally considered by Christians to refer to Jesus, although Jews generally interpret it as a reference to God's people. Although there is still the mention of judgment of false worshippers and idolaters (65 & 66), the book ends with a message of hope of a righteous ruler who extends salvation to his righteous subjects living in the Lord's kingdom on earth.



  • the introduction, ch. 1
  • two sections picturing the hopes of better times, (1.) ch. 30, 31; (2.) ch. 32, 33; to which is added an historical appendix in three sections, (1.) ch. 34:1–7; (2.) ch. 34:8–22; (3.) ch. 35
  1. the conclusion, in two sections, (1.) ch. 36; (2.) ch. 45.

In Egypt, after an interval, Jeremiah is supposed to have added three sections, viz., ch. 37–39; 40–43; and 44. The principal messianic prophecies are found in 23:1–8; 31:31–40; and 33:14–26.




  • the Judgment on Israel – Ezekiel makes a series of denunciations against his fellow Judeans ( 22:8)
  • prophecies against various neighboring nations, the 29–32)
  • prophecies delivered after the destruction of Jerusalem by 40–48).
Twelve Minor Prophets

The Twelve, Trei Asar (תרי עשר), also called the Twelve Minor Prophets


Main article: Ketuvim


The poetic books

In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stitches in the verses, which are a function of their poetry. Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth").


The five scrolls (Hamesh Megillot)


Other books


  • The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them.

Order of the books


The Three Poetic Books (Sifrei Emet)

The Five Megillot (Hamesh Megillot)

Other books

The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b-15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles.[29]




Evidence suggests, however, that the people of Israel were adding what would become the Ketuvim to their holy literature shortly after the canonization of the prophets. As early as 132 BCE references suggest that the Ketuvim was starting to take shape, although it lacked a formal title.[32] References in the four Gospels as well as other books of the New Testament that many of these texts were both commonly known and counted as having some degree of religious authority early in the 1st century CE.


Original languages

The Tanakh was mainly written in


Main article: Septuagint

The Septuagint, or LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures and some related texts into Koine Greek, begun in the late 3rd century BCE and completed by 132 BCE,[36][37][38] initially in Alexandria, but in time elsewhere as well.[39] It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised.[40]

As the work of translation progressed the canon of the Greek Bible expanded. The Torah always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon but the collection of prophetic writings, based on the Nevi'im, had various hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books were included in the Septuagint, among these are the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. The Septuagint version of some Biblical books, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon.[41] Some of these apocryphal books (e.g. the Wisdom of Solomon, and the second book of Maccabees) were not translated, but composed directly in Greek.

Since Late Antiquity, once attributed to a hypothetical late 1st-century Council of Jamnia, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this. First, some mistranslations were claimed. Second, the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis.[42] Third, the rabbis wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity.[38][43] Finally, the rabbis claimed for the Hebrew language a divine authority, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek - even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given the same holy language status as Hebrew).[44]


Incorporations from Theodotion


The canonical Ezra-Nehemiah is known in the Septuagint as "Esdras B", and 1 Esdras is "Esdras A". 1 Esdras is a very similar text to the books of Ezra-Nehemiah, and the two are widely thought by scholars to be derived from the same original text. It has been proposed, and is thought highly likely by scholars, that "Esdras B" – the canonical Ezra-Nehemiah – is Theodotion's version of this material, and "Esdras A" is the version which was previously in the Septuagint on its own.[47]

Final form



The Orthodox
Old Testament [39][49][50]
English name
Γένεσις Génesis Genesis
Ἔξοδος Éxodos Exodus
Λευϊτικόν Leuitikón Leviticus
Ἀριθμοί Arithmoí Numbers
Δευτερονόμιον Deuteronómion Deuteronomy
Ἰησοῦς Nαυῆ Iêsous Nauê Joshua
Κριταί Kritaí Judges
Ῥούθ Roúth Ruth
Βασιλειῶν Αʹ[51] I Reigns I Samuel
Βασιλειῶν Βʹ II Reigns II Samuel
Βασιλειῶν Γʹ III Reigns I Kings
Βασιλειῶν Δʹ IV Reigns II Kings
Παραλειπομένων Αʹ I Paralipomenon[52] I Chronicles
Παραλειπομένων Βʹ II Paralipomenon II Chronicles
Ἔσδρας Αʹ I Esdras 1 Esdras;
Ἔσδρας Βʹ II Esdras Ezra-Nehemiah
Τωβίτ[53] Tobit Tobit or Tobias
Ἰουδίθ Ioudith Judith
Ἐσθήρ Esther Esther with additions
Μακκαβαίων Αʹ I Makkabees 1 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Βʹ II Makkabees 2 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Γʹ III Makkabees 3 Maccabees
Ψαλμοί Psalms Psalms
Ψαλμός ΡΝΑʹ Psalm 151 Psalm 151
Προσευχὴ Μανάσση Prayer of Manasseh Prayer of Manasseh
Ἰώβ Iōb Job
Παροιμίαι Proverbs Proverbs
Ἐκκλησιαστής Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes
Ἆσμα Ἀσμάτων Song of Songs Song of Solomon or Canticles
Σοφία Σαλoμῶντος Wisdom of Solomon Wisdom
Ψαλμοί Σαλoμῶντος Psalms of Solomon Psalms of Solomon[54]
Δώδεκα The Twelve Minor Prophets
Ὡσηέ Αʹ I. Osëe Hosea
Ἀμώς Βʹ II. Ämōs Amos
Μιχαίας Γʹ III. Michaias Micah
Ἰωήλ Δʹ IV. Ioel Joel
Ὀβδίου Εʹ[55] V. Obdias Obadiah
Ἰωνᾶς Ϛ' VI. Ionas Jonah
Ναούμ Ζʹ VII. Naoum Nahum
Ἀμβακούμ Ηʹ VIII. Ambakum Habakkuk
Σοφονίας Θʹ IX. Sophonias Zephaniah
Ἀγγαῖος Ιʹ X. Ängaios Haggai
Ζαχαρίας ΙΑʹ XI. Zacharias Zachariah
Ἄγγελος ΙΒʹ XII. Messenger Malachi
Ἠσαΐας Hesaias Isaiah
Ἱερεμίας Hieremias Jeremiah
Βαρούχ Baruch Baruch
Θρῆνοι Lamentations Lamentations
Ἐπιστολή Ιερεμίου Epistle of Jeremiah Letter of Jeremiah
Ἰεζεκιήλ Iezekiêl Ezekiel
Δανιήλ Daniêl Daniel with additions
Μακκαβαίων Δ' Παράρτημα IV Makkabees 4 Maccabees[56]

Christian Bibles


Significant versions of the English Christian Bible include the Douay-Rheims Bible, the Revised Standard Version, the Authorized King James Version, the American Standard Version, the English Standard Version, the New King James Version, and the New International Version.

Old Testament

Main article: Old Testament

The books which make up the Christian Old Testament differ between the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestants churches, with the Protestant movement accepting only those books contained in the Hebrew Bible, while Catholics and Orthodox have wider canons. 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 Roman Catholic Church recognizes:[62]


Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches include:



The Syriac Orthodox tradition includes:

The Ethiopian Biblical canon includes:

and some other books.


Pseudepigraphal texts

Main article: Pseudepigrapha


Book of Enoch

Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch (such as 1 Enoch). The books named "Enoch": 2 Enoch, surviving only in Old Slavonic (Eng. trans. by R. H. Charles 1896) and 3 Enoch (surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th to 6th century CE). These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. They are not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest or significance, but they generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical or non-inspired. However, the Enoch books are treated as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.


Denominational views of Pseudepigrapha


Role of Old Testament in Christian theology

Further information: Sola scriptura and Christian theology

The Old Testament has always been central to the life of the Christian church. Bible scholar N.T. Wright says "Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures."[65] He adds that the earliest Christians also searched those same Hebrew scriptures in their effort to understand the earthly life of Jesus. They regarded the ancient Israelites' scriptures as having reached a climactic fulfillment in Jesus himself, generating the "new covenant" prophesied by Jeremiah.[66]

New Testament

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books[67] 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 presupposes the inspiration of the Old Testament[68] (2 Timothy 3:16). Nearly all Christians recognize the New Testament as canonical scripture. These books can be grouped into:


Original language

The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek,[69][70] which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean[71][72][73][74] from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600).

Historic editions

The autographs, that is the original Greek writings and manuscripts written by the original authors of the New Testament, have not survived.[75] But historically copies exist of those original autographs, transmitted and preserved in a number of manuscript traditions. When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they sometimes 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. Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions and additions.[76]


Development of the Christian canons


During the Protestant Reformation, certain reformers proposed different canonical lists to those 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 the Apocrypha, which means "hidden", the label applied to all texts excluded from the biblical canon but 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 of books (though not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books (51 books with some books combined into 46 books) as the canonical Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognise 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 in addition to the Catholic canon. Some include 2 Esdras. The Anglican Church also recognises a longer canon. The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books, while Catholics and Orthodox include additional texts that have not survived in Hebrew. Both Catholics and Protestants (as well as Greek Orthodox) have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.[78]


Ethiopian Orthodox canon

Main article: Ethiopian Biblical canon


Divine inspiration


Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh, states that the Old Testament "was not written by one man, nor did it drop down from heaven as assumed by fundamentalists. It is not a magical book, but a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing.”[82]

Belief in sacred texts is attested to in Jewish antiquity,[83][84] and this belief can also be seen in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention divine agency in relation to its writings.[85] 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."[86] Most evangelical biblical scholars[87][88][89] 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.[90] Among adherents of Biblical literalism, a minority, such as the King-James-Only Movement, extend the claim of inerrancy only to a particular translation.

Versions and translations




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 Roman Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Rite.


Bible translations, worldwide (as of 2011)[91]
Number Statistic
6,800 Approximate number of languages spoken in the world today
1,500 Number of translations into new languages currently in progress
1,223 Number of languages with a translation of the New Testament
471 Number of languages with a translation of the Bible (Protestant Canon)


John Riches provides the following analysis of the Bible:


Other religions

Main article: Islamic view of the Christian Bible


Members of other religions may also seek inspiration from the Bible. For example Rastafaris view the Bible as essential to their religion[93] and Unitarian Universalists view it as "one of many important religious texts".[94]

Biblical studies


Higher criticism

Main articles: Higher criticism and Lower criticism

In the 17th century Thomas Hobbes collected the current evidence 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, arguing 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 . . ."[96][97] Despite determined opposition from Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, the views of Hobbes and Spinoza gained increasing acceptance amongst scholars.

Archaeological and historical research


The historicity of the biblical account of the history of ancient Israel and Judah of the 10th to 7th-centuries BCE is disputed in scholarship. The biblical account of the 8th to 7th centuries BCE is widely, but not universally, accepted as historical, while the verdict on the earliest period of the United Monarchy (10th-century BCE) and the historicity of David is unclear. Archaeological evidence providing information on this period, such as the Tel Dan Stele, can potentially be decisive. The biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, and the migration to the Promised Land and the period of Judges are not considered historical in scholarship.[98][99] Regarding the New Testament, the setting being the Roman Empire in the 1st century CE, the historical context is well established. There has been some debate on the historicity of Jesus, but the mainstream opinion is that Jesus was one of several known historical itinerant preachers in 1st-century Roman Judea, teaching in the context of the religious upheavals and sectarianism of Second Temple Judaism.


In modern times, the view that the Bible should be accepted as historically accurate and as a reliable guide to morality has been questioned by many mainstream academics in the field of biblical criticism. Most Christian groups claim that the Bible is inspired by God, and some oppose interpretations of the Bible that are not traditional or "plain reading". Some groups within the most conservative Protestant circles believe that the Authorized King James Version is the only accurate English translation of the Bible, and accept it as infallible. They are generally referred to as "King James Only". Many within Christian fundamentalism – as well as much of Orthodox Judaism—strongly support the idea that the Bible is a historically accurate record of actual events and a primary source of moral guidance.


See also


References and further reading

  • Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to the Bible. New York, NY: Avenel Books, 1981. ISBN 0-517-34582-X.
  • Berlin, Adele, Marc Zvi Brettler and Michael Fishbane. ISBN 0-19-529751-2.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • Hoffman, Joel M. ISBN 0-8147-3690-4
  • Lienhard, Joseph T. The Bible, The Church, and Authority. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995.
  • Miller, John W. The Origins of the Bible: Rethinking Canon History Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8091-3522-1.
  • Riches, John. The Bible: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-285343-0
  • Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, s.vv. "Book of Ezekiel," p. 580 and "prophecy," p. 1410. Chicago: Moody Bible Press, 1986.

