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The Bible is a collection of
religious text
Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs, ritual practices, moral commandments and ...
s that are central to Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
and Judaism
Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions
The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...
such as Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
. The Bible is an anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...
(a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally written in Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
, Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
, and Koine Greek
Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...
. The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon
A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible.
The English word ''canon'' comes from the Ancient Greek, Greek , meaning 'ruler, rule' or 'measu ...
. Believers generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies.
The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
in Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and the Pentateuch (meaning 'five books') in Greek. The second-oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im
The (; ) is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''), lying between the () and (). The Nevi'im are divided into two groups. The Former Prophets ( ) consists of the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings ...
). The third collection, the Ketuvim
The (; ) is the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible, after the ("instruction") and the "Prophets". In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually titled "Writings" or "Hagiographa".
In the Ketuvim, 1–2 Books ...
, contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. ''Tanakh
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''
The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women, sex, children, marriage,Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, neighbours, friends, the nature of authority and the sharing of power, animals, trees and nature, money and economics, work, relationships, sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others. Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: "The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism,
Ketuvim (in "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Holy Spirit in Judaism, Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy.
In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content". 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"). Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books.
The books of Book of Esther, Esther, Book of Daniel, Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah, Ezra-Nehemiah and Books of Chronicles, Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares. They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons.
* Their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion).
* The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them.
* Two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in the Tanakh with significant portions in
A Christian Bible is a set of books divided into the Old and New Testament that a Christian denomination has, at some point in their past or present, regarded as divinely inspired scripture by the Holy Spirit in Christianity, Holy Spirit. The Early Christianity, Early Church primarily used the Septuagint, as it was written in Greek, the common tongue of the day, or they used the Targums among
The
Biblical texts have always required interpretation, and this has given rise to multiple views and approaches according to the interplay between various religions and the book.
The primary source of Jewish commentary and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible is the Talmud. The Talmud, (which means study and learning), is a summary of ancient oral law and commentary on it. It is the primary source of Jewish Law. Adin Steinsaltz writes that "if the Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism, then the Talmud is the central pillar". Seen as the backbone of Jewish creativity, it is "a conglomerate of law, legend and philosophy, a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, anecdotes and humor" all aimed toward the purpose of studying biblical Torah.
Christians often treat the Bible as a single book, and while Barton says they are "some of the most profound texts humanity has ever produced", liberals and moderates see it as a collection of books that are not perfect. Conservative and fundamentalist Christians see the Bible differently and interpret it differently. Christianity interprets the Bible differently than Judaism does with Islam providing yet another view. How inspiration works and what kind of authority it means the Bible has are different for different traditions.
The Second Epistle to Timothy claims, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (). Various related but distinguishable views on divine inspiration include:
* the view of the Bible as the inspired word of God: the belief that God, through the Holy Spirit in Christianity, Holy Spirit, intervened and influenced the words, message, and collation of the Bible
* the view that the Bible is also Biblical infallibility, infallible, and incapable of error in matters of faith and practice, but not necessarily in historic or scientific matters
* the view that the Bible represents the biblical inerrancy, inerrant word of God, without error in any aspect, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans
Within these broad beliefs many schools of hermeneutics operate. "Bible scholars claim that discussions about the Bible must be put into its context within church history and then into the context of contemporary culture." Christian fundamentalism, Fundamentalist Christians are associated with the doctrine of biblical literalism, where the Bible is not only inerrant, but the meaning of the text is clear to the average reader.
History of ancient Israel and Judah, Jewish antiquity attests to belief in sacred texts,Josephus, ''Contra Apion'' 1.8. and a similar belief emerges in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention divine agency in relation to its writings. In their book ''A General Introduction to the Bible'', Norman Geisler and William Nix write: "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." Most evangelical biblical scholars 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. Among adherents of biblical literalism, a minority, such as followers of the King-James-Only Movement, extend the claim of inerrancy only to a particular version.
The original texts of the Tanakh were almost entirely written in Hebrew with about one per cent in Aramaic. The earliest translation of any Bible text is the Septuagint which translated the Hebrew into Greek. As the first translation of any biblical literature, the translation that became the Septuagint was an unparalleled event in the ancient world. This translation was made possible by a common Mediterranean culture where Semitism had been foundational to Greek culture. In the Talmud, Greek is the only language officially allowed for translation. The Targum Onkelos is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible believed to have been written in the second century CE. These texts attracted the work of various scholars, but a standardized text was not available before the 9th century.
There were different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew. These were copied and edited in three different locations producing slightly varying results. Masoretic scholars in Tiberias in ancient Palestine copied the ancient texts in Tiberian Hebrew. A copy was recovered from the "Cave of Elijah" (the synagogue of Aleppo in the Judean desert) and is therefore referred to as the Aleppo Codex which dates to around 920. This codex, which is over a thousand years old, was originally the oldest codex of the complete Tiberian Hebrew Bible. Babylonian masoretes had also copied the early texts, and the Tiberian and Babylonian were later combined, using the Aleppo Codex and additional writings, to form the Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, Ben-Asher Masoretic Text, masoretic tradition which is the standardized Hebrew Bible of today. The Aleppo Codex is no longer the oldest complete manuscript because, during riots in 1947, the Aleppo Codex was removed from its location, and about 40% of it was subsequently lost. It must now rely on additional manuscripts, and as a result, the Aleppo Codex contains the most comprehensive collection of variant readings. The oldest complete version of the Masoretic tradition is the Leningrad Codex from 1008. It is the source for all modern Jewish and Christian translations.
Levidas writes that, "The Koine Greek New Testament is a non-translated work; most scholars agree on thisdespite disagreement on the possibility that some passages may have appeared initially in Aramaic... It is written in the Koine Greek of the first century [CE]". Early Christians translated the New Testament into Old Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages. 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.
Pope Damasus I (366–383) commissioned Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Vulgate, Latin Vulgate Bible, in the 4th century CE (although Jerome expressed in his prologues to most deuterocanonical books that they were non-canonical). In 1546, at the
Biblical archaeology is a subsection of 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. There are a wide range of interpretations in the field of biblical archaeology. One broad division includes biblical maximalism, which generally takes the view that most of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible is based on history although it is presented through the religious viewpoint of its time. According to historian Lester L. Grabbe, there are "few, if any" maximalists in mainstream scholarship. It is considered to be the extreme opposite of biblical minimalism which considers the Bible to be a purely post-exilic (5th century BCE and later) composition. According to Mary-Joan Leith, professor of religious studies, many minimalists have ignored evidence for the antiquity of the Hebrew language in the Bible, and few take archaeological evidence into consideration. Most biblical scholars and archaeologists fall somewhere on a spectrum between these two.
The biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, the migration to the Promised Land, and the period of Biblical judges, Judges are sources of heated ongoing debate. There is an absence of evidence for the presence of Israel in Egypt from any Egyptian source, historical or archaeological. Yet, as William Dever points out, these biblical traditions were written long after the events they describe, and they are based in sources now lost and older oral traditions.
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient non–biblical texts, and archaeology support the Babylonian captivity beginning around 586 BCE. Excavations in southern Judah show a pattern of destruction consistent with the Neo-Assyrian devastation of Judah at the end of the eighth century BCE and 2 Kings 18:13. In 1993, at Tel Dan, archaeologist Avraham Biran unearthed a fragmentary Aramaic inscription, the Tel Dan stele, dated to the late ninth or early eighth century that mentions a "king of Israel" as well as a "house of David" (bet David). This shows David could not be a late sixth-century invention, and implies that Judah's kings traced their lineage back to someone named David. However, there is no current archaeological evidence for the existence of King David and Solomon or the First Temple as far back as the tenth century BCE where the Bible places them.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, surveys demonstrated that Acts of the Apostles (Acts) scholarship was divided into two traditions, "a conservative (largely British) tradition which had great confidence in the historicity of Acts and a less conservative (largely German) tradition which had very little confidence in the historicity of Acts". Subsequent surveys show that little has changed. Author Thomas E. Phillips writes that "In this two-century-long debate over the historicity of Acts and its underlying traditions, only one assumption seemed to be shared by all: Acts was intended to be read as history". This too is now being debated by scholars as: what genre does Acts actually belong to? There is a growing consensus, however, that the question of genre is unsolvable and would not, in any case, solve the issue of historicity: "Is Acts history or fiction? In the eyes of most scholars, it is historybut not the kind of history that precludes fiction." says Phillips.
File:Bible chartraine - BNF Lat116 f193.jpg, Bible from 1150, from Scriptorium de Chartres, Christ with angels
File:Blanche of Castile and King Louis IX of France.jpg, Blanche of Castile and Louis IX of France Bible, 13th century
File:Maciejowski Bible Leaf 37 3.jpg, Maciejowski Bible, Leaf 37, the 3rd image, Abner (in the centre in green) sends Michal back to David.
File:Jephthah's daughter laments - Maciejowski Bible.JPG, Jephthah's daughter laments – Maciejowski Bible (France, )
File:Whore-babylon-luther-bible-1534.jpg, Coloured version of the Whore of Babylon illustration from Martin Luther's 1534 translation of the Bible
File:Malnazar - Bible - Google Art Project.jpg, An Armenian Bible, 17th century, Illuminated manuscript, illuminated by Malnazar
File:Foster Bible Pictures 0031-1.jpg, Fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, Foster Bible, 19th century
File:Kennicott Bible 305r.l.jpg, Jonah being swallowed by the fish, Kennicott Bible, 1476
File:Bibel Kloster Paleokastritsa.jpg, An old Bible from a Greece, Greek monastery
File:Imperial Bible.jpg, The Imperial Bible, or Vienna Coronation Gospels from Wien, Austria,
File:Kennicott Bible.jpg, The Kennicott Bible in 1476
File:A religious Baroque Bible - 7558.jpg, A Baroque Bible
File:Lincoln inaugural bible.jpg, The Lincoln Bible, Bible used by Abraham Lincoln for his oath of office during his Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, first inaugural in 1861
File:Holy Bible The Improved Domestic Bible London Schuyler Smith & Co 1880 Maps.jpg, American Civil War-era illustrated Bible
File:Bible and Key Divination.jpg, A miniature Bible
File:Bibel-1.jpg, An 1866 Victorian era, Victorian Bible
File:Bizzell Bible Collection.jpg, Shelves of the Bizzell Bible Collection at Bizzell Memorial Library
File:Leonardo da Vinci - Annunciazione (dettaglio).jpg, Da Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci's ''Annunciation (Leonardo), Annunciation'' (–1475), showing the Virgin Mary reading the Bible
"The ''Bible'' collected news and commentary"
''The New York Times''.
"The ''Bible'' collected news and commentary"
''The Guardian''.
The British Library: Discovering Sacred Texts – Christianity
The National Library of Israel – Over 15,000 scanned manuscripts of the Old Testament
Trinity College Digital Collections
images of complete manuscript of the Book of Kells.
Check out different versions of the Christian Bible
{{Authority control Bible, Judeo-Christian topics
. ''
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...
is the medieval version of the Tanakh—written in Hebrew and Aramaic—that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism
Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...
. The Septuagint
The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
is a Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BCE; it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible.
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism
Second Temple Judaism is the Judaism, Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), destruction of Jerusalem in ...
, using the Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament
The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
. The early Church
Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and bey ...
continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
s, which are narratives about the life and teachings of Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
, along with the Pauline epistles
The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...
, and other texts quickly coalesced into the New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
. The oldest parts of the Bible may be as early as BCE, while the New Testament had mostly formed by 4th century CE.
With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Christian Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. The Bible has had a profound influence both on Western culture
Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, Western society, or simply the West, refers to the Cultural heritage, internally diverse culture of the Western world. The term "Western" encompas ...
and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism
Modern Biblical criticism (as opposed to pre-Modern criticism) is the use of critical analysis to understand and explain the Bible without appealing to the supernatural. During the eighteenth century, when it began as ''historical-biblical c ...
has also indirectly impacted culture and history. Some view biblical texts as morally problematic, historically inaccurate, or corrupted by time; others find it a useful historical source for certain peoples and events or a source of ethical teachings. The Bible is currently translated or is being translated into about half of the world's languages.
Etymology
The term ''Bible'' can refer to theHebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
, or the Christian Bible, which in addition to the Old Testament contains the . '' Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
.
The English word ''Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
'' is derived from , meaning 'the books' (singular ).
The word itself had the literal meaning of 'scroll
A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing.
Structure
A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...
' and came to be used as the ordinary word for ''book''. It is the diminutive of ''byblos'', 'Egyptian papyrus', possibly so called from the name of the Phoenicia
Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...
n seaport Byblos
Byblos ( ; ), also known as Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl (, Lebanese Arabic, locally ), is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000BC and continuously inhabited ...
(also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...
was exported to Greece.
The Greek ''ta biblia'' was "an expression Hellenistic Jews
Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture and religion. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Helleni ...
used to describe their sacred books". The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (; ; – 14 September 407) was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and p ...
appears to be the first writer (in his ''Homilies on Matthew'', delivered between 386 and 388 CE) to use the Greek phrase ''ta biblia'' ('the books') to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.
Latin ''biblia sacra'' 'holy books' translates Greek (''tà biblía tà hágia'', 'the holy books'). Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...
is short for ''biblia sacra'' 'holy book'. It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (, gen. ) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.
Development and history
The Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of books whose complex development is not completely understood. The oldest books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars of the twenty-first century are only in the beginning stages of exploring "the interface between writing, performance, memorization, and the aural dimension" of the texts. Current indications are that writing and orality were not separate as much as ancient writing was learned in communal oral performance. The Bible was written and compiled by many people, who many scholars say are mostly unknown, from a variety of disparate cultures and backgrounds. British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote: The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand onpapyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...
scrolls. No originals have survived. The age of the original composition of the texts is, therefore, difficult to determine and heavily debated. Using a combined linguistic and historiographical approach, Hendel and Joosten date the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 and the Samson story of Judges 16 and 1 Samuel) to having been composed in the premonarchial early Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
(). The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...
, discovered in the caves of Qumran
Qumran (; ; ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjac ...
in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are the oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' paleo-Hebrew The Paleo-Hebrew script (), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, including pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew, from southern Canaan, also known as the biblical kingdoms o ...
, a kind of . '' paleo-Hebrew The Paleo-Hebrew script (), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, including pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew, from southern Canaan, also known as the biblical kingdoms o ...
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period. The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE. From the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid reading. By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs. Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others. Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script, updating archaic forms, and making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care.
Considered to be scriptures (sacred
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects ( ...
, authoritative religious texts), the books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canon
A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible.
The English word ''canon'' comes from the Ancient Greek, Greek , meaning 'ruler, rule' or 'measu ...
s (official collections of scriptures). The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
(meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon
There is no scholarly consensus as to when the canon of the Hebrew Bible (or ''Tanakh'') was fixed. Rabbinic Judaism recognizes the twenty-four books of the Masoretic Text (five books of the Torah, eight books of the Nevi'im, and eleven books o ...
by the fifth century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called the Nevi'im
The (; ) is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''), lying between the () and (). The Nevi'im are divided into two groups. The Former Prophets ( ) consists of the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings ...
("prophets"), was canonized in the third century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim
The (; ) is the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible, after the ("instruction") and the "Prophets". In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually titled "Writings" or "Hagiographa".
In the Ketuvim, 1–2 Books ...
("writings"), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the second century BCE and the second century CE. These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...
, with some parts in Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
, which together form the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' abbreviation An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening (linguistics), shortening, contraction (grammar), contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened for ...
of "Torah", "Nevi'im", and "Ketuvim").
. '' abbreviation An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening (linguistics), shortening, contraction (grammar), contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened for ...
Hebrew Bible
There are three major historical versions of theHebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
, the . '' Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...
, and the Samaritan Pentateuch
The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: , ), is the Religious text, sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existe ...
(which contains only the first five books). They are related but do not share the same paths of development. The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures and some related texts into Koine Greek and is believed to have been carried out by approximately seventy or seventy-two scribes and elders who were Hellenic Jews, begun in Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
in the late third century BCE and completed by 132 BCE. Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (, ''Ptolemaîos Philádelphos'', "Ptolemy, sibling-lover"; 309 – 28 January 246 BC) was the pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 284 to 246 BC. He was the son of Ptolemy I, the Macedonian Greek general of Alexander the G ...
, King of Egypt, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora. Existing complete copies of the Septuagint date from the third to the fifth centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the second century BCE. Revision of its text began as far back as the first century BCE. Fragments of the Septuagint were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; portions of its text are also found on existing papyrus from Egypt dating to the second and first centuries BCE and to the first century CE.
The Masoretes
The Masoretes (, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe- scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in the Jewish centers of the Levant (e.g., Tiberias and Jerusalem) an ...
began developing what would become the authoritative Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...
near the end of the Talmudic period (–), but the actual date is difficult to determine. In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and . '' Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...
accentuation
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
known as the ''mas'sora'' (from which we derive the term "masoretic"). These early Masoretic scholars were based primarily in the Galilean cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem and in Babylonia (modern Iraq). Those living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee (–950) made scribal copies of the Hebrew Bible texts without a standard text, such as the Babylonian tradition had, to work from. The canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (called Tiberian Hebrew) that they developed, and many of the notes they made, therefore, differed from the Babylonian. These differences were resolved into a standard text called the Masoretic text in the ninth century. The oldest complete copy still in existence is the Leningrad Codex
The Leningrad Codex ( [Leningrad Book]; ) is the oldest known complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colophon (publishing), colophon, it was made in Cairo in AD ...
dating to c. 1000 CE.
The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
maintained by the Samaritan
Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...
community since antiquity, which European scholars rediscovered in the 17th century; its oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE. Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration
Inspiration, inspire, INSPIRE, or inspired commonly refers to:
* Artistic inspiration, sudden creativity in artistic production
* Biblical inspiration, a Christian doctrine on the origin of the Bible
* Inhalation, breathing in
Inspiration and rel ...
in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh. A Samaritan Book of Joshua
The ''Book of Joshua'', sometimes called the ''Samaritan Chronicle'', is a Samaritan chronicle so called because the greater part of it is devoted to the history of Joshua. It is extant in two divergent recensions, one in Samaritan Hebrew and t ...
partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua
The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. It tells of the ...
exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle.
The first codex
The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
form of the Hebrew Bible was produced in the seventh century. The codex is the forerunner of the modern book. Popularized by early Christians, it was made by folding a single sheet of papyrus in half, forming "pages". Assembling multiples of these folded pages together created a "book" that was more easily accessible and more portable than scrolls. In 1488, the first complete printed press version of the Hebrew Bible was produced.
New Testament
During the rise ofChristianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
in the first century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians eventually called these new scriptures the "New Testament" and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament". The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. Most early Christian copyists were not trained scribes. Many copies of the gospels and Paul's letters were made by individual Christians over a relatively short period of time, very soon after the originals were written. There is evidence in the Synoptic Gospels, in the writings of the early Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical peri ...
, from Marcion
Marcion of Sinope (; ; ) was a theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the "vengeful" God ( Demiurge) who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apost ...
, and in the Didache
The ''Didache'' (; ), also known as ''The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations'' (), is a brief anonymous early Christian treatise ( ancient church order) written in Koine Greek, dated by modern scholars to the first or (l ...
that Christian documents were in circulation before the end of the first century. Paul's letters were circulated during his lifetime, and his death is thought to have occurred before 68 during Nero's reign. Early Christians transported these writings around the Empire, translating them into Old Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, and other languages.
New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman
Bart Denton Ehrman (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books ...
explains how these multiple texts later became grouped by scholars into categories:During the early centuries of the church, Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it is no surprise that different localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say, the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they were for the most part "in-house" documents, copied from one another; they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics, which were not the same as those found in a place like Alexandria, Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize that the scribes in Alexandria – which was a major intellectual center in the ancient world – were particularly scrupulous, even in these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form of the text of the early Christian writings was preserved, decade after decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes.These differing histories produced what modern scholars refer to as recognizable "text types". The four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian,
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
, Caesarean
Caesarean section, also known as C-section, cesarean, or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen. It is often performed because vaginal delivery would ...
, and Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
.
The list of books included in the Catholic Bible
The term ''Catholic Bible'' can be understood in two ways. More generally, it can refer to a Christian Bible that includes the whole 73-book canon recognized by the Catholic Church, including some of the deuterocanonical books (and parts of book ...
was established as canon by the Council of Rome
The Council of Rome was a synod which took place in Rome in AD 382, under the leadership of Pope Damasus I, the then-bishop of Rome. The only surviving conciliar pronouncement may be the that contains a canon of Scripture, which supposedly was is ...
in 382, followed by those of Hippo
The hippopotamus (''Hippopotamus amphibius;'' ; : hippopotamuses), often shortened to hippo (: hippos), further qualified as the common hippopotamus, Nile hippopotamus and river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic Mammal, mammal native to su ...
in 393 and Carthage
Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...
in 397. Between 385 and 405 CE, the early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...
(the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate
The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...
. Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical council
An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote are ...
s to standardize their biblical canon. The Council of Trent
The Council of Trent (), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most ...
(1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...
, authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of the Bible. A number of biblical canons have since evolved. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
canon and the 66-book canon of most Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
denominations to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...
canon, among others. Judaism has long accepted a single authoritative text, whereas Christianity has never had an official version, instead having many different manuscript traditions.
Variants
All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those who copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts. A variant is any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains, "Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS anuscriptsattest to it." Hebrew scholarEmanuel Tov
Emanuel Tov (; born Menno Toff, 15 September 1941) is a Dutch–Israeli biblical scholar and linguist, emeritus J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible Studies in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been intimately invo ...
says the term is not evaluative; it is a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated.
Medieval handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were considered extremely precise: the most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts. Even so, Hebrew Bible scholar David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts still contain some variants. The majority of all variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional. In the Hebrew text, "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include the substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional.
Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons. Old Testament scholar Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the ''Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia,'' leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The fourth edition of the United Bible Society's ''Greek New Testament'' notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text.
Content and themes
Themes
The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women, sex, children, marriage,Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, neighbours, friends, the nature of authority and the sharing of power, animals, trees and nature, money and economics, work, relationships, sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others. Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: "The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, s well as
S, or s, is the nineteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and other latin alphabets worldwide. Its name in English is ''ess'' (pronounced ), plural ''esses''.
...
axiological and aesthetic assumptions about the nature of value and beauty. These are all implicit in the texts."
However, discerning the themes of some biblical texts can be problematic. Much of the Bible is in narrative form and in general, biblical narrative refrains from any kind of direct instruction, and in some texts the author's intent is not easy to decipher. It is left to the reader to determine good and bad, right and wrong, and the path to understanding and practice is rarely straightforward. God is sometimes portrayed as having a role in the plot, but more often there is little about God's reaction to events, and no mention at all of approval or disapproval of what the characters have done or failed to do. The writer makes no comment, and the reader is left to infer what they will. Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Shatz explain that the Bible "often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without explanation or apology".
The Hebrew Bible contains assumptions about the nature of knowledge, belief, truth, interpretation, understanding and cognitive processes. Ethicist Michael V. Fox
Michael V. Fox (1940–2025) was an American-Israeli biblical scholar. He was the Halls-Bascom Professor Emeritus in the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Fox was described as a "highly re ...
writes that the primary axiom of the book of Proverbs is that "the exercise of the human mind is the necessary and sufficient condition of right and successful behavior in all reaches of life". The Bible teaches the nature of valid arguments, the nature and power of language, and its relation to reality. According to Alan Mittleman, professor of Jewish philosophy, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character.
In the biblical metaphysic, humans have free will, but it is a relative and restricted freedom. Beach says that Christian ''voluntarism'' points to the ''will'' as the core of the self, and that within human nature, "the core of who we are is defined by what we love". Natural law is in the Wisdom literature, the Prophets, Romans 1, Acts 17, and the book of Amos (Amos 1:3–2:5), where nations other than Israel are held accountable for their ethical decisions even though they do not know the Hebrew god. Political theorist Michael Walzer
Michael Laban Walzer (born March 3, 1935) is an American Political theory, political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of the left-win ...
finds politics in the Hebrew Bible in covenant, law, and prophecy, which constitute an early form of ''almost'' democratic political ethics. Key elements in biblical criminal justice begin with the belief in God as the source of justice and the judge of all, including those administering justice on earth.
Carmy and Shatz say the Bible "depicts the character of God, presents an account of creation, posits a metaphysics of divine providence and divine intervention, suggests a basis for morality, discusses many features of human nature, and frequently poses the notorious conundrum of how God can allow evil."
Hebrew Bible
The authoritative Hebrew Bible is taken from the masoretic text (called theLeningrad Codex
The Leningrad Codex ( [Leningrad Book]; ) is the oldest known complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colophon (publishing), colophon, it was made in Cairo in AD ...
) which dates from 1008. The Hebrew Bible can therefore sometimes be referred to as the Masoretic Text.
The Hebrew Bible is also known by the name Tanakh (Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
: ). This reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
("Teaching"), Nevi'im
The (; ) is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''), lying between the () and (). The Nevi'im are divided into two groups. The Former Prophets ( ) consists of the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings ...
("Prophets") and Ketuvim
The (; ) is the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible, after the ("instruction") and the "Prophets". In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually titled "Writings" or "Hagiographa".
In the Ketuvim, 1–2 Books ...
("Writings") by using the first letters of each word. It is not until the Babylonian Talmud () that a listing of the contents of these three divisions of scripture are found.
The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...
, with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28) written in Biblical Aramaic
Biblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic that is used in the books of Daniel and Ezra in the Hebrew Bible. It should not be confused with the Targums — Aramaic paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Hebrew scriptures.
History
During ...
, a language which had become the ''lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
'' for much of the Semitic world.
Torah
The Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the "Five Books ofMoses
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...
" or the Pentateuch
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...
, meaning "five scroll-cases". Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself. Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility that Moses first assembled the separate sources. There are a variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed, but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...
(probably 450–350 BCE), or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
(333–164 BCE).
The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books:
* Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Religion
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...
, ''Bereshith'' (בראשית)
* Exodus
Exodus or the Exodus may refer to:
Religion
* Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible
* The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan
Historical events
* Ex ...
, ''Shemot'' (שמות)
* Leviticus, ''Vayikra'' (ויקרא)
* Numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
, ''Bamidbar'' (במדבר)
* Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy (; ) is the fifth book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called () which makes it the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament.
Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to ...
, ''Devarim'' (דברים)
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
Covenant may refer to:
Religion
* Covenant (religion), a formal alliance or agreement made by God with a religious community or with humanity in general
** Covenant (biblical), in the Hebrew Bible
** Covenant in Mormonism, a sacred agreement b ...
with the biblical patriarchs
The patriarchs ( '' ʾAvot'', "fathers") of the Bible, when narrowly defined, are Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac's son Jacob, also named Israel, the ancestor of the Israelites. These three figures are referred to collectively as "the patria ...
Abraham
Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...
, Isaac
Isaac ( ; ; ; ; ; ) is one of the three patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. Isaac first appears in the Torah, in wh ...
and Jacob
Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...
(also called Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
) and Jacob's children, the "Children of Israel
Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age.
Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanite populations and other peoples.Mark Smit ...
", especially Joseph
Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...
. 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
CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...
, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt.
The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...
, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai, also known as Jabal Musa (), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is one of several locations claimed to be the Mount Sinai (Bible), biblical Mount Sinai, the place where, according to the sacred scriptures of the thre ...
and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses.
The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law. Tradition states that there are 613 commandments
According to Jewish tradition, the Torah contains 613 commandments ().
Although the number 613 is mentioned in the Talmud, its real significance increased in later medieval rabbinic literature, including many works listing or arranged by the . Th ...
(''taryag mitzvot'').
Nevi'im
Nevi'im (, "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups, the Former Prophets ( , the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets ( , the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and theTwelve Minor Prophets
The Twelve Minor Prophets (, ''Shneim Asar''; , ''Trei Asar'', "Twelve"; , "the Twelve Prophets"; , "the Twelve Prophets"), or the Book of the Twelve, is a collection of twelve prophetic works traditionally attributed to individual prophets, like ...
).
The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, focusing on conflicts between the Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the God" (Yahweh) and believers in foreign gods, and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers; in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Solomon's Temple, Temple in Jerusalem.
= Former Prophets
= The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land, and end with the release from imprisonment of the last Kings of Judah, king of Judah. Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover: * Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan (in theBook of Joshua
The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. It tells of the ...
),
* the struggle of the people to possess the land (in the Book of Judges),
* the people's request to God to give them a king so that they can occupy the land in the face of their enemies (in the Books of Samuel)
* the possession of the land under the divinely appointed kings of the Davidic line, House of David, ending in conquest and foreign exile (Books of Kings)
= Latter Prophets
= The Latter Prophets are Book of Isaiah, Isaiah, Book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah, Book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel and theTwelve Minor Prophets
The Twelve Minor Prophets (, ''Shneim Asar''; , ''Trei Asar'', "Twelve"; , "the Twelve Prophets"; , "the Twelve Prophets"), or the Book of the Twelve, is a collection of twelve prophetic works traditionally attributed to individual prophets, like ...
, counted as a single book.
* Book of Hosea, Hosea, ''Hoshea'' (הושע) denounces the worship of gods other than ''Yahweh'' (God), comparing Israel to a woman being unfaithful to her husband.
* Book of Joel, Joel, ''Yo'el'' (יואל) includes a lament and a promise from God.
* Book of Amos, Amos, ''Amos'' (עמוס) speaks of social justice, providing a basis for natural law by applying it to unbelievers and believers alike.
* Book of Obadiah, Obadiah, ''Ovadya'' (עבדיה) addresses the judgment of Edom and restoration of Israel.
* Book of Jonah, Jonah, ''Yona'' (יונה) tells of a reluctant redemption of Ninevah.
* Book of Micah, Micah, ''Mikha'' (מיכה) reproaches unjust leaders, defends the rights of the poor, and looks forward to world peace.
* Book of Nahum, Nahum, ''Nakhum'' (נחום) speaks of the destruction of Nineveh.
* Book of Habakkuk, Habakkuk, ''Havakuk'' (חבקוק) upholds trust in God over Babylon.
* Book of Zephaniah, Zephaniah, ''Tzefanya'' (צפניה) pronounces coming of judgment, survival and triumph of remnant.
* Book of Haggai, Haggai, ''Khagay'' (חגי) rebuild Second Temple.
* Book of Zechariah, Zechariah, ''Zekharya'' (זכריה) God blesses those who repent and are pure.
* Book of Malachi, Malachi, ''Malakhi'' (מלאכי) corrects lax religious and social behaviour.
Ketuvim
Ketuvim (in "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Holy Spirit in Judaism, Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy.
In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content". 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"). Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books.
= The five scrolls
= The five relatively short books of Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Book of Esther are collectively known as the ''Hamesh Megillot''. These are the latest books collected and designated as authoritative in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the second century CE.= Other books
=
The books of Book of Esther, Esther, Book of Daniel, Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah, Ezra-Nehemiah and Books of Chronicles, Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares. They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons.
* Their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion).
* The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them.
* Two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in the Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
.
= Book order
= The following list presents the books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most current printed editions. * ''Tehillim'' (Psalms) תְהִלִּים is an anthology of individual Hebrew religious hymns. * ''Mishlei'' (Book of Proverbs) מִשְלֵי is a "collection of collections" on values, moral behaviour, the meaning of life and right conduct, and its basis in faith. * ''Iyov'' (Book of Job) אִיּוֹב is about faith, without understanding or justifying suffering. * ''Shir ha-Shirim'' (Song of Songs) or (Song of Solomon) שִׁיר הַשִׁירִים (Passover) is poetry about love and sex. * ''Ruth'' (Book of Ruth) רוּת (Shavuot) tells of the Moabite woman Ruth, who decides to follow the God of the Israelites, and remains loyal to her mother-in-law, who is then rewarded. * ''Eikha'' (Book of Lamentations, Lamentations) איכה (Ninth of Av) [Also called ''Kinnot'' in Hebrew.] is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. * ''Qoheleth'' (Ecclesiastes) קהלת (Sukkot) contains wisdom sayings disagreed over by scholars. Is it positive and life-affirming, or deeply pessimistic? * ''Ester'' (Book of Esther) אֶסְתֵר (Purim) tells of a Hebrew woman in Persia who becomes queen and thwarts a genocide of her people. * ''Dani’el'' (Book of Daniel) דָּנִיֵּאל combines prophecy and eschatology (end times) in story of God saving Daniel just as He will save Israel. * ''‘Ezra'' (Book of Ezra–Book of Nehemiah) עזרא tells of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. * ''Divrei ha-Yamim'' (Books of Chronicles, Chronicles) דברי הימים contains genealogy. The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Talmud, 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. One of the large scale differences between the Babylonian and the Tiberian biblical traditions is the order of the books. Isaiah is placed after Ezekiel in the Babylonian, while Chronicles opens the Ketuvim in the Tiberian, and closes it in the Babylonian. The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as canonical. While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as early as the fifth century BCE and the Former and Latter Prophets were canonized by the second century BCE, the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the second century CE. 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. ''Against Apion'', the writing of Flavius Josephus, Josephus in 95 CE, treated the text of the Hebrew Bible as a closed canon to which "... no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable..." For an extended period after 95CE, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny.Septuagint
The Septuagint ("the Translation of the Seventy", also called "the LXX"), is a Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible begun in the late third century BCE. As the work of translation progressed, the Septuagint expanded: the collection of prophetic writings had various hagiographa, hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books such as the Books of the Maccabees and the Sirach, Wisdom of Sirach were added. These are among the "apocryphal" books, (books whose authenticity is doubted). The inclusion of these texts, and the claim of some mistranslations, contributed to the Septuagint being seen as a "careless" translation and its eventual rejection as a valid Jewish scriptural text. The apocrypha are Jewish literature, mostly of the Second Temple period (c. 550 BCE – 70 CE); they originated in Israel, Syria, Egypt or Persia; were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and attempt to tell of biblical characters and themes. Their provenance is obscure. One older theory of where they came from asserted that an "Alexandrian" canon had been accepted among the Greek-speaking Jews living there, but that theory has since been abandoned. Indications are that they were not accepted when the rest of the Hebrew canon was. It is clear the Apocrypha were used in New Testament times, but "they are never quoted as Scripture." In modern Judaism, none of the apocryphal books are accepted as authentic and are therefore excluded from the canon. However, "the Ethiopian Jews, who are sometimes called Falashas, have an expanded canon, which includes some Apocryphal books". The rabbis also wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity. Finally, the rabbis claimed a divine authority for the Hebrew language, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek – even though these languages were the ''lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
'' of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given the status of a sacred language comparable to Hebrew).
Incorporations from Theodotion
The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version, , and the later Theodotion version from . Both Greek texts contain three additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children; the story of Susanna (Book of Daniel), Susannah and the Elders; and the story of Bel and the Dragon. Theodotion's translation was so widely copied in the Early Christian church that its version of the Book of Daniel virtually superseded the Septuagint's. The priest Jerome, in his preface to Daniel (407 CE), records the rejection of the Septuagint version of that book in Christian usage: "I ... wish to emphasize to the reader the fact that it was not according to the Septuagint version but according to the version of Theodotion himself that the churches publicly read Daniel." Jerome's preface also mentions that the ''Hexapla'' had notations in it, indicating several major differences in content between the Theodotion Daniel and the earlier versions in Greek and Hebrew. Theodotion's Daniel is closer to the surviving Hebrew Masoretic Text version, the text which is the basis for most modern translations. Theodotion's Daniel is also the one embodied in the authorized edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587.Final form
Textual critics are now debating how to reconcile the earlier view of the Septuagint as 'careless' with content from the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, scrolls discovered at Wadi Murabba'at, Nahal Hever, and those discovered at Masada. These scrolls are 1000–1300 years older than the Leningrad text, dated to 1008 CE, which forms the basis of the Masoretic text. The scrolls have confirmed much of the Masoretic text, but they have also differed from it, and many of those differences agree with the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch or the Greek Old Testament instead. Copies of some texts later declared apocryphal are also among the Qumran texts. Ancient manuscripts of the book of Sirach, the "Psalms of Joshua", Tobit, and the Epistle of Jeremiah are now known to have existed in a Hebrew version. The Septuagint version of some biblical books, such as the Book of Daniel and Book of Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon. In the Septuagint, Jeremiah is shorter than in the Masoretic text, but a shortened Hebrew Jeremiah has been found at Qumran in cave 4. The scrolls of Isaiah, Exodus, Jeremiah, Daniel and Samuel exhibit striking and important textual variants from the Masoretic text. The Septuagint is now seen as a careful translation of a different Hebrew form or recension (revised addition of the text) of certain books, but debate on how best to characterize these varied texts is ongoing.Pseudepigraphal books
Pseudepigrapha are works whose authorship is wrongly attributed. A written work can be pseudepigraphical and not be a forgery, as forgeries are intentionally deceptive. With pseudepigrapha, authorship has been mistransmitted for any one of a number of reasons. For example, the Gospel of Barnabas claims to be written by Barnabas the companion of the Apostle Paul, but both its manuscripts date from the Middle Ages. Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works are not the same. Apocrypha includes all the writings claiming to be sacred that are outside the canon because they are not accepted as authentically being what they claim to be. Pseudepigrapha is a literary category of all writings whether they are canonical or apocryphal. They may or may not be authentic in every sense except a misunderstood authorship. The term "pseudepigrapha" is commonly used to describe numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. (It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is questioned.) The Old Testament pseudepigraphal works include the following: * 3 Maccabees * 4 Maccabees * Assumption of Moses * Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) * Slavonic Second Book of Enoch, Book of Enoch (2 Enoch) * Hebrew 3 Enoch, Book of Enoch (3 Enoch) (also known as "The Revelation of Metatron" or "The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest") * Book of Jubilees * Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) * Letter of Aristeas (Letter to Philocrates regarding the translating of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek) * Life of Adam and Eve * Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah * Psalms of Solomon * Sibylline Oracles * Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) * Testaments of the Twelve PatriarchsBook of Enoch
Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch such as 1 Enoch, Second Book of Enoch, 2 Enoch, which survives only in Old Church Slavonic, Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving inHebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
of the CE. These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch (Biblical figure), Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. The fragment of Enoch found among the Qumran scrolls attest to it being an ancient work. The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) are estimated to date from about 300 BCE, and the latest part (Book of Parables) was probably composed at the end of the first century BCE.
Enoch is not part of the biblical canon used by most 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. Part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Hebrews (parts of the New Testament), but Christian denominations generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical. The exceptions to this view are the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...
and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
The Ethiopian Bible is not based on the Greek Bible, and the Ethiopian Church has a slightly different understanding of canon than other Christian traditions. In Ethiopia, canon does not have the same degree of fixedness, (yet neither is it completely open). Enoch has long been seen there as inspired scripture, but being scriptural and being canon are not always seen the same. The official Ethiopian canon has 81 books, but that number is reached in different ways with various lists of different books, and the book of Enoch is sometimes included and sometimes not. Current evidence confirms Enoch as canonical in both Ethiopia and in Eritrea.
Christian Bible
A Christian Bible is a set of books divided into the Old and New Testament that a Christian denomination has, at some point in their past or present, regarded as divinely inspired scripture by the Holy Spirit in Christianity, Holy Spirit. The Early Christianity, Early Church primarily used the Septuagint, as it was written in Greek, the common tongue of the day, or they used the Targums among Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
speakers. Modern English translations of the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible are based on the Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...
. The Pauline epistles and the gospels were soon added, along with other writings, as the New Testament.
Old Testament
The Old Testament has been important to the life of the Christian church from its earliest days. Bible scholar N. T. Wright says "Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures." Wright adds that the earliest Christians searched those same Hebrew scriptures in their effort to understand the earthly life of Jesus. They regarded the "holy writings" of the Israelites as necessary and instructive for the Christian, as seen from Paul's words to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), as pointing to the Messiah, and as having reached a climactic fulfilment in Jesus generating the "new covenant" prophesied by Jeremiah. TheProtestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
Old Testament of the 21st century has a 39-book canon. The number of books (although not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division. 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.
However, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as its Old Testament (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one), and the Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize six additional books. These additions are also included in the Syriac versions of the Bible called the ''Peshitta'' and the Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon, Ethiopian Bible.
Because the canon of Scripture is distinct for Jews, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Western Protestants, the contents of each community's Apocrypha are unique, as is its usage of the term. For Jews, none of the apocryphal books are considered canonical. Catholics refer to this collection as "Deuterocanonical books" (second canon) and the Orthodox Church refers to them as "Anagignoskomena" (that which is read).
Books included in the Catholic, Orthodox, Greek, and Slavonic Bibles are: Book of Tobit, Tobit, Book of Judith, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), Book of Baruch, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (also called the Baruch Chapter 6), 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, the Additions to Esther, Greek Additions to Esther and the Additions to Daniel, Greek Additions to Daniel.
The Greek Orthodox Church, and the Slavonic churches (Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia) also add:
* 3 Maccabees
* 1 Esdras
* Prayer of Manasseh
* Psalm 151
2 Esdras (4 Esdras), which is not included in the Septuagint, does not exist in Greek, though it does exist in Latin. There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Orthodox Church, Georgian Church. It is in an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it is therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.
The Syriac Orthodox Church also includes:
* Psalms 152–155, Psalms 151–155
* The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, Apocalypse of Baruch
* 2 Baruch#The Letter of Baruch, The Letter of Baruch
The Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon, Ethiopian Old Testament Canon uses Book of Enoch, Enoch and Jubilees (that only survived in Ge'ez), Meqabyan, 1–3 Meqabyan, 1 Esdras, Greek Ezra, 2 Esdras, and Psalm 151.
The Revised Common Lectionary of the Lutheran Church, Moravian Church, Reformed Churches, Anglican Church and Methodist Church uses the apocryphal books liturgically, with alternative Old Testament readings available. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Lutheran Church and Anglican Church include the fourteen books of the Apocrypha, many of which are the deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix.
The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches use most of the books of the Septuagint, while Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
churches usually do not. After the Protestant Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...
, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional texts, which came to be called ''apocryphal''. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible, the basis for the Revised Standard Version.
New Testament
The New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
is the name given to the second portion of the Christian Bible. While some scholars assert that Aramaic was the original language of the New Testament, the majority view says it was written in the vernacular form of Koine Greek. Still, there is reason to assert that it is a heavily Semitized Greek: its syntax is like conversational Greek, but its style is largely Semitic. Koine Greek was the lingua franca, common language of the western Roman Empire from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BCE) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek () while Aramaic was the language of Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
, the Apostles and the ancient Near East. The term "New Testament" came into use in the second century during a controversy over whether the Hebrew Bible should be included with the Christian writings as sacred scripture.
It is generally accepted that the New Testament writers were Jews who took the inspiration of the Old Testament for granted. This is probably stated earliest in : "All scripture is given by inspiration of God". Scholarship on how and why ancient Jewish–Christians came to create and accept new texts as equal to the established Hebrew texts has taken three forms. First, priest and biblical scholar John Barton (theologian), John Barton writes that ancient Christians probably just continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what they believed were inspired, authoritative religious books. The second approach separates those various inspired writings based on a concept of "canon" which developed in the second century. The third involves formalizing canon. According to Barton, these differences are only differences in terminology; the ideas are reconciled if they are seen as three stages in the formation of the New Testament.
The first stage was completed remarkably early if one accepts 's view that "canon" and "scripture" are separate things, with "scripture" having been recognized by ancient Christians long before "canon" was. Barton says Theodor Zahn concluded "there was already a Christian canon by the end of the first century", but this is not the canon of later centuries. Accordingly, Sundberg asserts that in the first centuries, there was no criterion for inclusion in the "sacred writings" beyond inspiration, and that no one in the first century had the idea of a closed canon. The gospels were accepted by early believers as handed down from those Apostles who had known Jesus and been taught by him. Later biblical criticism has questioned the authorship and dating of the gospels.
At the end of the second century, it is widely recognized that a Christian canon similar to its modern version was asserted by the church fathers in response to the plethora of writings claiming inspiration that contradicted orthodoxy: (Heresy in Christianity, heresy). The third stage of development as the final canon occurred in the fourth century with a series of synods that produced a list of texts of the canon of the Old Testament and the New Testament that are still used today. Most notably the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE and that of ''c''. 400. Jerome Bible translations into Latin, produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (the Vulgate
The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...
), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. This process effectively set the New Testament canon.
New Testament books already had considerable authority in the late first and early second centuries. Even in its formative period, most of the books of the New Testament that were seen as scripture were already agreed upon. Linguistics scholar Stanley E. Porter says "evidence from the apocryphal non-Gospel literature is the same as that for the apocryphal Gospelsin other words, that the text of the Greek New Testament was relatively well established and fixed by the time of the second and third centuries". By the time the fourth century Fathers were approving the "canon", they were doing little more than codifying what was already universally accepted.
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 Apocalyptic literature, Apocalypse). These books can be grouped into:
The Gospel, Gospels are narratives of Jesus's last three years of life, his death and resurrection.
* Synoptic Gospels
** Gospel of Matthew
** Gospel of Mark
** Gospel of Luke
* Gospel of John
The Acts of the Apostles (genre), narrative literature provides an account and history of the very early Apostolic age.
* Acts of the Apostles
The Pauline epistles
The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...
are written to individual church groups to address problems, provide encouragement and give instruction.
* Epistle to the Romans
* First Epistle to the Corinthians
* Second Epistle to the Corinthians
* Epistle to the Galatians
* Epistle to the Ephesians
* Epistle to the Philippians
* Epistle to the Colossians
* First Epistle to the Thessalonians
* Second Epistle to the Thessalonians
The pastoral epistles discuss the pastoral oversight of churches, Christian living, doctrine and leadership.
* First Epistle to Timothy
* Second Epistle to Timothy
* Epistle to Titus
* Epistle to Philemon
* Epistle to the Hebrews
The Catholic epistles, also called the general epistles or lesser epistles.
* Epistle of James encourages a lifestyle consistent with faith.
* First Epistle of Peter addresses trial and suffering.
* Second Epistle of Peter more on suffering's purposes, Christology, ethics and eschatology.
* First Epistle of John covers how to discern true Christians: by their ethics, their proclamation of Jesus in the flesh, and by their love.
* Second Epistle of John warns against docetism.
* Third Epistle of John encourage, strengthen and warn.
* Epistle of Jude condemns opponents.
The apocalyptic literature (prophetical)
* Book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse, predicts end time events.
Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodox currently have the same 27-book New Testament Canon. They are ordered differently in the Slavonic translations of the Bible, Slavonic tradition, the Syriac versions of the Bible, Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition.
Canon variations
= Peshitta
= The Peshitta ( ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac Christianity, Syriac tradition. The consensus within biblical scholarship, although not universal, is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac language, Syriac from biblical Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century CE, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated from the Greek. This New Testament, originally excluding certain Antilegomena, disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Epistle of Jude, Jude, Book of Revelation, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (616 CE) of Thomas of Harqel.= Catholic Church canon
= The canon of the Catholic Church was affirmed by the Council of Rome (382), the Synod of Hippo (393), the Council of Carthage (397), the Council of Carthage (419), the Council of Florence (1431–1449) and finally, as an article of faith, by the Council of Trent (1545–1563) establishing the canon consisting of 46 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament for a total of 73 books in the Catholic Bible.= Ethiopian Orthodox canon
= The canon of theEthiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...
is wider than the canons used by most other Christian churches. There are 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible. In addition to the books found in the Septuagint
The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
accepted by other Orthodox Christians, the Ethiopian Old Testament Canon uses Book of Enoch, Enoch and Jubilees (ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge'ez language, Ge'ez, but are quoted in the New Testament), 1 Esdras, Greek Ezra and the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra, Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 books of Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter. The three books of Meqabyan are not to be confused with the books of Maccabees. The order of the books is somewhat different in that the Ethiopian Old Testament follows the Septuagint order for the Minor Prophets rather than the Jewish order.
New Testament Apocryphal books
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early professed Christians that give accounts of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus and his teachings, God in Christianity, the nature of God, or the teachings of his Apostles in the New Testament, Apostles and of their activities. Some of these writings were cited as Scripture by some early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus emerged limiting the New Testament to the Development of the New Testament canon, 27 books of the modern canon. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Western Protestant churches do not view the New Testament apocrypha as part of the inspired Bible. Although some Oriental Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox canons to some extent have. The Armenian Apostolic church at times has included the Third Epistle to the Corinthians, but does not always list it with the other 27 canonical New Testament books. The New Testament of the Coptic Bible, adopted by the Christianity in Egypt, Egyptian Church, includes the two Epistles of Clement.Textual history
The original autographs, that is, the original Greek writings and Biblical manuscript, manuscripts written by the original authors of the New Testament, have not survived. But, historically, ''copies'' of those original autographs exist and were transmitted and preserved in a number of Bible manuscript#Textual criticism, manuscript traditions. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type (generally biblical minimalism, minimalist), the Byzantine text-type (generally biblical maximalism, maximalist), and the Western text-type (occasionally wild). Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts. Very early on, Christianity replaced scrolls withcodex
The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
es, the forerunner of bound books, and by the 3rd century, collections of biblical books began being copied as a set.
Since all ancient texts were written by hand, often by copying from another handwritten text, they are not exactly alike in the manner of printed works. The differences between them are considered generally minor and are called Textual variants in the New Testament, textual variants. A variant is simply any variation between two texts. The majority of variants are accidental, but some are intentional. Intentional changes were made to improve grammar, to eliminate discrepancies, to make Liturgical changes such as the doxology of the Lord's prayer, to harmonize parallel passages or to combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one.
Influence
With a literary tradition spanning two millennia, the Bible is one of the most influential works ever written. From practices of personal hygiene to philosophy and ethics, the Bible has directly and indirectly influenced politics and law, war and peace, sexual morals, marriage and family life, letters and learning, the arts, economics, social justice, medical care and more. The Christian Bible is the world's most published book, with estimated total sales of over five billion copies. As such, the Bible has had a profound influence, especially in the Western world, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed in Europe using movable type. It has contributed to the formation of Western law, Western art, art, Western literature, literature, and education.Politics and law
The Bible has been used to support and oppose political power. It has inspired revolution and "a reversal of power" because God is so often portrayed as choosing what is "weak and humble...(the stammering Moses, the infant Samuel, Saul from an insignificant family, David confronting Goliath, etc.)....to confound the mighty". Biblical texts have been the catalyst for political concepts like democracy, religious toleration and Freedom of religion, religious freedom. These have, in turn, inspired movements ranging from abolitionism in the 18th and 19th century, to the civil rights movement, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and liberation theology in Latin America. The Bible has been the source of many peace movements and efforts at reconciliation around the world . The roots of many modern laws can be found in the Bible's teachings on due process, fairness in criminal procedures, and equity in the application of the law. Judges are told not to accept bribes (Deuteronomy 16:19), are required to be impartial to native and stranger alike (Leviticus 24:22; Deuteronomy 27:19), to the needy and the powerful alike (Leviticus 19:15), and to rich and poor alike (Deuteronomy 1:16, 17; Exodus 23:2–6). The right to a fair trial, and fair punishment, are also found in the Bible (Deuteronomy 19:15; Exodus 21:23–25). Those most vulnerable in a patriarchal societychildren, women, and strangersare singled out in the Bible for special protection (Psalm 72:2, 4). The Bible has been noted by scholars as a significant influence on the development of Nation, nationhood and nationalism, first among ancient Jews and later in Christian societies. For the ancient Jews, it served as "both a national history and a source of law", providing a framework that established shared ancestry, common history, legal codes, and cultural markers that defined Jewish collective identity. It has been suggested that the practice of regular public readings of biblical texts during the Second Temple period facilitated the transmission of these identity-forming narratives across the wider Jewish public. Several scholars argue that substantial portions of the Hebrew Bible—particularly the Deuteronomistic History and the Tetrateuch—were composed specifically to establish and reinforce a distinct Israelite Ethnicity, ethnic and national identity. Some scholars of nationalism, such as Adrian Hastings, contend that the model of ancient Israel presented in the Hebrew Bible provided the world with the original concept of nationhood, influencing the development of nationalism and European nation-states.Social responsibility
The philosophical foundation of human rights is in the Bible's teachings of natural law. The prophets of the Hebrew Bible repeatedly admonish the people to practice justice, charity, and social responsibility. H. A. Lockton writes that "The Poverty and Justice Bible (The Bible Society (UK), 2008) claims there are more than 2000 verses in the Bible dealing with the justice issues of rich-poor relations, exploitation and oppression". Judaism practised charity and healing the sick but tended to limit these practices to their own people. For Christians, the Old Testament statements are enhanced by multiple verses such as Matthew 10:8, Luke 10:9 and 9:2, and Acts 5:16 that say "heal the sick". Authors Vern and Bonnie Bullough write in ''The care of the sick: the emergence of modern nursing,'' that this is seen as an aspect of following Jesus's example, since so much of his public ministry focused on healing.Bullough, Vern L., and Bonnie Bullough. ''The care of the sick: The emergence of modern nursing''. Routledge, 2021. p. 28 In the process of following this command, monasticism in the third century transformed health care. This produced the first hospital for the poor in Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea in the fourth century. The monastic Health system, health care system was innovative in its methods, allowing the sick to remain within the monastery as a special class afforded special benefits; it Social stigma, destigmatized illness, legitimized the Deviance (sociology), deviance from the norm that sickness includes, and formed the basis for future modern concepts of public health care. The biblical practices of feeding and clothing the poor, visiting prisoners, supporting widows and orphan children have had sweeping impact. The Bible's emphasis on learning has had formidable influence on believers and western society. For centuries after the fall of the western Roman Empire, all schools in Europe were Bible-based church schools, and outside of monastic settlements, almost no one had the ability to read or write. These schools eventually led to the West's first universities (created by the church) in the Middle Ages which have spread around the world in the modern day.Geoffrey Blainey; ''A Short History of Christianity''; Penguin Viking; 2011 Protestant Reformers wanted all members of the church to be able to read the Bible, so compulsory education for both boys and girls was introduced. Translations of the Bible into local vernacular languages have supported the development of national literatures and the invention of alphabets. Biblical teachings on sexual morality changed the Roman empire, the millennium that followed, and have continued to influence society. Rome's concept of sexual morality was centered on social and political status, power, and social reproduction (the transmission of social inequality to the next generation). The biblical standard was a "radical notion of individual freedom centered around a libertarian paradigm of complete sexual agency". Classicist Kyle Harper describes the change biblical teaching evoked as "a revolution in the rules of behavior, but also in the very image of the human being".Literature and the arts
The Bible has directly and indirectly influenced literature: St Augustine's Confessions (St. Augustine), Confessions is widely considered the first autobiography in Western Literature. The ''Summa Theologica'', written 1265–1274, is "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature." These both influenced the writings of Dante's epic poetry and his ''Divine Comedy'', and in turn, Dante's creation and sacramental theology has contributed to influencing writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien and William Shakespeare. Many masterpieces of Western art were inspired by biblical themes: from Michelangelo's ''David (Michelangelo), David'' and ''Pietà'' sculptures, to Leonardo da Vinci's ''The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci), Last Supper'' and Raphael's various ''Madonna'' paintings. There are hundreds of examples. Eve, the temptress who disobeys God's commandment, is probably the most widely portrayed figure in art. The Renaissance preferred the sensuous female nude, while the "femme fatale" Delilah from the nineteenth century onward demonstrates how the Bible and art both shape and reflect views of women. The Bible has many rituals of purification which speak of clean and unclean in both literal and metaphorical terms. The biblical toilet etiquette encourages washing after all instances of defecation, hence the invention of the bidet.Criticism
Critics view certain biblical texts to be morally problematic. The Bible neither calls for nor condemns slavery outright, but there are verses that address dealing with it, and these verses have been used to support it, although the Bible has also been used to support abolitionism. Some have written that supersessionism begins in the book of Hebrews where others locate its beginnings in the culture of the fourth century Roman empire. The Bible has been used to support the death penalty, patriarchy, sexual intolerance, the violence of total war, and colonialism. In the Christian Bible, the violence of war is addressed four ways: pacifism, non-resistance; just war, and preventive war which is sometimes called crusade. In the Hebrew Bible, there is ''just war'' and ''preventive war'' which includes the Amalekites, Canaanites, Moabites, and the record in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and both books of Kings. John J. Collins, biblical scholar, writes that people throughout history have used these biblical texts to justify violence against their enemies. Anthropologist Leonard Glick, Leonard B. Glick offers the modern example of Jewish fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalists in Israel, such as Shlomo Aviner, a rabbi and prominent theorist of the Gush Emunim movement, who considers the Palestinians to be like biblical Canaanites, and therefore suggests that Israel "must be prepared to destroy" the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not leave the land. Historian Nur Masalha argues that genocide is inherent in these commandments, and that they have served as inspirational examples of divine support for slaughtering national opponents. However, the "applicability of the term [genocide] to earlier periods of Human history, history" is questioned by sociologists Frank Robert Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn. Since most societies of the past endured and practised genocide, it was accepted at that time as "being in the nature of life" because of the "coarseness and brutality" of life; the moral condemnation associated with terms like genocide are products of modern morality. The definition of what constitutes violence has broadened considerably over time. The Bible reflects how perceptions of violence changed for its authors. Feminist biblical scholar Phyllis Trible, in her book ''Texts of Terror'', tells four Bible stories of suffering in ancient Israel where women are the victims. Tribble describes the Bible as "a mirror" that reflects humans, and human life, in all its "holiness and horror". John Riches, professor of divinity and biblical criticism at the University of Glasgow, provides the following view of the diverse historical influences of the Bible:Interpretation and inspiration
Biblical texts have always required interpretation, and this has given rise to multiple views and approaches according to the interplay between various religions and the book.
The primary source of Jewish commentary and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible is the Talmud. The Talmud, (which means study and learning), is a summary of ancient oral law and commentary on it. It is the primary source of Jewish Law. Adin Steinsaltz writes that "if the Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism, then the Talmud is the central pillar". Seen as the backbone of Jewish creativity, it is "a conglomerate of law, legend and philosophy, a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, anecdotes and humor" all aimed toward the purpose of studying biblical Torah.
Christians often treat the Bible as a single book, and while Barton says they are "some of the most profound texts humanity has ever produced", liberals and moderates see it as a collection of books that are not perfect. Conservative and fundamentalist Christians see the Bible differently and interpret it differently. Christianity interprets the Bible differently than Judaism does with Islam providing yet another view. How inspiration works and what kind of authority it means the Bible has are different for different traditions.
The Second Epistle to Timothy claims, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (). Various related but distinguishable views on divine inspiration include:
* the view of the Bible as the inspired word of God: the belief that God, through the Holy Spirit in Christianity, Holy Spirit, intervened and influenced the words, message, and collation of the Bible
* the view that the Bible is also Biblical infallibility, infallible, and incapable of error in matters of faith and practice, but not necessarily in historic or scientific matters
* the view that the Bible represents the biblical inerrancy, inerrant word of God, without error in any aspect, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans
Within these broad beliefs many schools of hermeneutics operate. "Bible scholars claim that discussions about the Bible must be put into its context within church history and then into the context of contemporary culture." Christian fundamentalism, Fundamentalist Christians are associated with the doctrine of biblical literalism, where the Bible is not only inerrant, but the meaning of the text is clear to the average reader.
History of ancient Israel and Judah, Jewish antiquity attests to belief in sacred texts,Josephus, ''Contra Apion'' 1.8. and a similar belief emerges in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention divine agency in relation to its writings. In their book ''A General Introduction to the Bible'', Norman Geisler and William Nix write: "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." Most evangelical biblical scholars 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. Among adherents of biblical literalism, a minority, such as followers of the King-James-Only Movement, extend the claim of inerrancy only to a particular version.
Religious significance
Both Judaism and Christianity see the Bible as religiously and intellectually significant. It provides insight into its time and into the composition of the texts, and it represents an important step in the development of thought. It is used in communal worship, recited and memorized, provides personal guidance, a basis for counseling, church doctrine, religious culture (teaching, hymns and worship), and ethical standards.Banbaji, Amir. "Conflicted Anagoge: The Renewal of Jewish Textuality in Haskalah Rhetoric." Jewish Social Studies 26.2 (2021): 126–169. According to Barton:The Bible is centrally important to both Judaism and Christianity, but not as a holy text out of which entire religious systems can somehow be read. Its contents illuminate the origins of Christianity and Judaism, and provide spiritual classics on which both faiths can draw; but they do not constrain subsequent generations in the way that a written constitution would. They are simply not that kind of thing. They are a repository of writings, both shaping and shaped by the two religions..."As a result, there are teachings and creeds in Christianity and laws in Judaism that are seen by those religions as derived from the Bible which are not directly in the Bible. For the Hebrew Bible, canonization is reserved for written texts, while sacralization reaches far back into oral tradition. When sacred stories, such as those that form the narrative base of the first five books of the Bible, were performed, "not a syllable [could] be changed in order to ensure the magical power of the words to 'presentify' the divine". Inflexibility protected the texts from a changing world. When sacred oral texts began the move to written transmission, commentary began being worked in, but once the text was closed by canonization, commentary needed to remain outside. Commentary still had significance. Sacred written texts were thereafter accompanied by commentary, and such commentary was sometimes written and sometimes orally transmitted, as is the case in the Islamic Madrasa and the Jewish Yeshiva. Arguing that Torah has had a definitive role in developing Jewish identity from its earliest days, John J. Collins explains that regardless of genetics or land, it has long been true that one could become Jewish by observing the laws in the Torah, and that remains true in the modern day. The Christian religion and its sacred book are connected and influence one another, but the significance of the written text has varied throughout history. For Christianity, holiness did not reside in the written text, or in any particular language, it resided in the Christ the text witnessed to. Old Testament scholar David M. Carr writes that this gave early Christianity a more 'flexible' view of the written texts. Wilfred Cantwell Smith points out that "in the Islamic system, the Quran fulfills a function comparable to the role... played by the person of Jesus Christ, while a closer counterpart to Christian scriptures are the Islamic Hadith 'Traditions'." For centuries the written text had less significance than the will of the church as represented by the Pope, since the church saw the text as having been created by the church. One cause of the Reformation was the perceived need to reorient Christianity around its early text as authoritative. Some
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
churches still focus on the idea of ''sola scriptura'', which sees scripture as the only legitimate religious authority. Some denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only Biblical infallibility, infallible source of Christian teaching. Others, though, advance the concept of ''prima scriptura'' in contrast, meaning scripture primarily or scripture mainly.
In the 21st century, attitudes towards the significance of the Bible continue to differ. Roman Catholics, High Church Anglicanism, Anglicans, Methodism, Methodists and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of both the Bible and sacred tradition in combination. United Methodists see Scripture as the major factor in Christian doctrine, but they also emphasize the importance of tradition, experience, and reason. Lutherans teach that the Bible is the sole source for Christian doctrine. Islamic view of the Bible, Muslims view the Bible as an original revelation from God in Islam, God; but the Jews and the Christians corrupted it through falsification and alteration (''tahrif, Taḥrīf''), and therefore the Quran is revealed by God to the Prophets of Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Rastafari view the Bible as essential to their religion, while the Unitarian Universalism, Unitarian Universalists view it as "one of many important religious texts".
Versions and translations
The original texts of the Tanakh were almost entirely written in Hebrew with about one per cent in Aramaic. The earliest translation of any Bible text is the Septuagint which translated the Hebrew into Greek. As the first translation of any biblical literature, the translation that became the Septuagint was an unparalleled event in the ancient world. This translation was made possible by a common Mediterranean culture where Semitism had been foundational to Greek culture. In the Talmud, Greek is the only language officially allowed for translation. The Targum Onkelos is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible believed to have been written in the second century CE. These texts attracted the work of various scholars, but a standardized text was not available before the 9th century.
There were different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew. These were copied and edited in three different locations producing slightly varying results. Masoretic scholars in Tiberias in ancient Palestine copied the ancient texts in Tiberian Hebrew. A copy was recovered from the "Cave of Elijah" (the synagogue of Aleppo in the Judean desert) and is therefore referred to as the Aleppo Codex which dates to around 920. This codex, which is over a thousand years old, was originally the oldest codex of the complete Tiberian Hebrew Bible. Babylonian masoretes had also copied the early texts, and the Tiberian and Babylonian were later combined, using the Aleppo Codex and additional writings, to form the Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, Ben-Asher Masoretic Text, masoretic tradition which is the standardized Hebrew Bible of today. The Aleppo Codex is no longer the oldest complete manuscript because, during riots in 1947, the Aleppo Codex was removed from its location, and about 40% of it was subsequently lost. It must now rely on additional manuscripts, and as a result, the Aleppo Codex contains the most comprehensive collection of variant readings. The oldest complete version of the Masoretic tradition is the Leningrad Codex from 1008. It is the source for all modern Jewish and Christian translations.
Levidas writes that, "The Koine Greek New Testament is a non-translated work; most scholars agree on thisdespite disagreement on the possibility that some passages may have appeared initially in Aramaic... It is written in the Koine Greek of the first century [CE]". Early Christians translated the New Testament into Old Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages. 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.
Pope Damasus I (366–383) commissioned Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Vulgate, Latin Vulgate Bible, in the 4th century CE (although Jerome expressed in his prologues to most deuterocanonical books that they were non-canonical). In 1546, at the Council of Trent
The Council of Trent (), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most ...
, Jerome's Vulgate translation was declared by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Church. The Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament, and they had no need to translate the Greek New Testament. This contributed to the East-West Schism.
Many ancient translations coincide with the invention of the alphabet and the beginning of vernacular literature in those languages. According to British Academy professor N. Fernández Marcos, these early translations represent "pioneer works of enormous linguistic interest, as they represent the oldest documents we have for the study of these languages and literature".
Translations to English can be traced to the seventh century, Alfred the Great in the 9th century, the ''Toledo School of Translators'' in the 12th and 13th century, Roger Bacon (1220–1292), an English Franciscan friar of the 13th century, and multiple writers of the Renaissance. The Wycliffe's Bible, Wycliffite Bible, which is "one of the most significant in the development of a written standard", dates from the late Middle English period. Tyndale Bible, William Tyndale's translation of 1525 is seen by several scholars as having influenced the form of English Christian discourse as well as impacting the development of the English language itself. Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German in 1522, and both Testaments with Apocrypha in 1534, thereby contributing to the multiple wars of the Reformation, Age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Important biblical translations of this period include the Polish ''Jakub Wujek Bible'' (Biblia Jakuba Wujka) from 1535, and the English King James/Authorized Version (1604–1611). The King James Version was the most widespread English Bible of all time, but it has largely been superseded by modern translations.
Some New Testaments verses found to be later additions to the text are List of New Testament verses not included in modern English translations, not included in modern English translations, despite appearing in older English translations such as the King James Version.
Some denominations have List of religious texts#Christianity, additional canonical texts beyond the Bible, including the Standard Works of the Latter Day Saints movement and ''Divine Principle'' in the Unification Church.
Nearly all modern English translations of the Old Testament are based on a single manuscript, the Leningrad Codex
The Leningrad Codex ( [Leningrad Book]; ) is the oldest known complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colophon (publishing), colophon, it was made in Cairo in AD ...
, copied in 1008 or 1009. It is a complete example of the Masoretic Text, and its published edition is used by the majority of scholars. The Aleppo Codex is the basis of the Hebrew University Bible Project in Jerusalem.
Since the Reformation era, Bible translations have been made into the common vernacular of many languages. The Bible continues to be translated to new languages, largely by Christian organizations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission and Bible society, Bible societies. Lamin Sanneh writes that tracing the impact on the local cultures of translating the Bible into local vernacular language shows it has produced "the movements of indigenization and cultural liberation". "The translated scripture ... has become the benchmark of awakening and renewal".
Archaeological and historical research
Biblical archaeology is a subsection of 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. There are a wide range of interpretations in the field of biblical archaeology. One broad division includes biblical maximalism, which generally takes the view that most of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible is based on history although it is presented through the religious viewpoint of its time. According to historian Lester L. Grabbe, there are "few, if any" maximalists in mainstream scholarship. It is considered to be the extreme opposite of biblical minimalism which considers the Bible to be a purely post-exilic (5th century BCE and later) composition. According to Mary-Joan Leith, professor of religious studies, many minimalists have ignored evidence for the antiquity of the Hebrew language in the Bible, and few take archaeological evidence into consideration. Most biblical scholars and archaeologists fall somewhere on a spectrum between these two.
The biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, the migration to the Promised Land, and the period of Biblical judges, Judges are sources of heated ongoing debate. There is an absence of evidence for the presence of Israel in Egypt from any Egyptian source, historical or archaeological. Yet, as William Dever points out, these biblical traditions were written long after the events they describe, and they are based in sources now lost and older oral traditions.
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient non–biblical texts, and archaeology support the Babylonian captivity beginning around 586 BCE. Excavations in southern Judah show a pattern of destruction consistent with the Neo-Assyrian devastation of Judah at the end of the eighth century BCE and 2 Kings 18:13. In 1993, at Tel Dan, archaeologist Avraham Biran unearthed a fragmentary Aramaic inscription, the Tel Dan stele, dated to the late ninth or early eighth century that mentions a "king of Israel" as well as a "house of David" (bet David). This shows David could not be a late sixth-century invention, and implies that Judah's kings traced their lineage back to someone named David. However, there is no current archaeological evidence for the existence of King David and Solomon or the First Temple as far back as the tenth century BCE where the Bible places them.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, surveys demonstrated that Acts of the Apostles (Acts) scholarship was divided into two traditions, "a conservative (largely British) tradition which had great confidence in the historicity of Acts and a less conservative (largely German) tradition which had very little confidence in the historicity of Acts". Subsequent surveys show that little has changed. Author Thomas E. Phillips writes that "In this two-century-long debate over the historicity of Acts and its underlying traditions, only one assumption seemed to be shared by all: Acts was intended to be read as history". This too is now being debated by scholars as: what genre does Acts actually belong to? There is a growing consensus, however, that the question of genre is unsolvable and would not, in any case, solve the issue of historicity: "Is Acts history or fiction? In the eyes of most scholars, it is historybut not the kind of history that precludes fiction." says Phillips.
Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism refers to the analytical investigation of the Bible as a text, and addresses questions such as history, 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, nor is it criticism of possible translation errors. Biblical criticism made study of the Bible secularized, scholarly, and more democratic, while it also permanently altered the way people understood the Bible. The Bible is no longer thought of solely as a religious artefact, and its interpretation is no longer restricted to the community of believers. Michael Fishbane writes, "There are those who regard the desacralization of the Bible as the fortunate condition for" the development of the modern world. For many, biblical criticism "released a host of threats" to the Christian faith. For others biblical criticism "proved to be a failure, due principally to the assumption that diachronic, linear research could master any and all of the questions and problems attendant on interpretation". Still others believed that biblical criticism, "shorn of its unwarranted arrogance," could be a reliable source of interpretation. Michael Fishbane compares biblical criticism to Job (biblical figure), Job, a prophet who destroyed "self-serving visions for the sake of a more honest crossing from the divine ''textus'' to the human one". Or as Rogerson says: biblical criticism has been liberating for those who want their faith "intelligently grounded and intellectually honest".Bible museums
* The Dunham Bible Museum is located at Houston Baptist University in Houston, Texas. It is known for its collection of rare Bibles from around the world and for having many different Bibles of various languages. * The Museum of the Bible opened in Washington, D.C. in November 2017. The museum states that its intent is to "share the historical relevance and significance of the sacred scriptures in a nonsectarian way", but this has been questioned. * The Bible Museum in St Arnaud, Victoria in Australia opened in 2009. * There is a Bible Museum at ''Passion Play#United States, The Great Passion Play'' in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. * The Bible Museum on the Square in Collierville, Tennessee opened in 1997. * Biedenharn Museum and Gardens in Monroe, Louisiana includes a Bible Museum.Illustrations
The grandest medieval Bibles were illuminated manuscripts in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders (marginalia) and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Up to the 12th century, most manuscripts were produced in monasteries in order to add to the library or after receiving a Commission (art), commission from a wealthy patron. Larger monasteries often contained separate areas for the monks who specialized in the production of manuscripts called a scriptorium, where "separate little rooms were assigned to book copying; they were situated in such a way that each scribe had to himself a window open to the cloister walk." By the 14th century, the cloisters of monks writing in the scriptorium started to employ laybrothers from the urban scriptoria, especially in Paris, Rome and the Netherlands. Demand for manuscripts grew to an extent that the Monastic libraries were unable to meet with the demand, and began employing secular scribes and illuminators. These individuals often lived close to the monastery and, in certain instances, dressed as monks whenever they entered the monastery, but were allowed to leave at the end of the day. A notable example of an illuminated manuscript is the Book of Kells, produced circa the year 800 containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. The manuscript was "sent to the rubricator, who added (in red or other colours) the titles, headlines, the initials of chapters and sections, the notes and so on; and then – if the book was to be illustrated – it was sent to the illuminator." In the case of manuscripts that were sold commercially, the writing would "undoubtedly have been discussed initially between the patron and the scribe (or the scribe's agent,) but by the time that the written gathering were sent off to the illuminator there was no longer any scope for innovation."Gallery
See also
* List of religious texts#Christianity, Additional and alternative scriptures relating to Christianity * Bible box * Bible case * Bible paper * Biblical software * Christian theology * Code of Hammurabi * Family Bible (book) * International Bible Contest * Lectionary – schedule of ceremonial Bible readings which varies by denomination * List of major biblical figures * List of nations mentioned in the Bible * Theodicy and the Bible * Typology (theology)Notes
References
Footnotes
Works cited
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*"The ''Bible'' collected news and commentary"
''The New York Times''.
"The ''Bible'' collected news and commentary"
''The Guardian''.
The British Library: Discovering Sacred Texts – Christianity
The National Library of Israel – Over 15,000 scanned manuscripts of the Old Testament
Trinity College Digital Collections
images of complete manuscript of the Book of Kells.
Check out different versions of the Christian Bible
{{Authority control Bible, Judeo-Christian topics