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The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other faiths. It appears in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms, originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include theologically-focused narratives, hymns, prayers, proverbs, parables, didactic letters, commandments, poetry, and prophecies. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers generally consider the Bible to be a product of divine inspiration while understanding what that means in different ways.
The origins of the oldest writings of the Israelites are lost in antiquity. The Dead Sea scrolls are dated, approximately, from 250 BCE to 100 CE, and they are the oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length. Tanakh is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible composed of the first letters of the three parts of the Hebrew scriptures, the Torah ("Teaching"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets") and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Jewish Hebrew Bible canon was settled in its present form. Some scholars argue that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty (140–40 BCE),[1] while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later.[2] The Masoretic Text, in Hebrew and Aramaic, is considered the authoritative text by Rabbinic Judaism, but there is also the Septuagint, a Koine Greek translation from the third and second centuries BCE, which largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible.
Christianity began as an outgrowth of Judaism, using the Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament. The early Church continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books, and soon the gospels, Pauline epistles and other texts coalesced into the "New Testament". In its first three centuries AD, the concept of a closed canon emerged in response to heretical writings in the second century. A first list of canonical books appears in Athanasius' Easter letter from 367 AD.[3] The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as the biblical canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by that of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Christian biblical canons include the Catholic Church canon, the canon of most Protestant denominations, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon, among others.
With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the best-selling book of all time.[4][5] It has had a profound direct influence on Western culture and history.[6] The study of the Bible through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or being translated into about half of the world's languages.
The English word Bible is derived from Koinē Greek: τὰ βιβλία, romanized: ta biblia, meaning "the books" (singular βιβλίον, biblion).[7] The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.[8][9]
The term "Bible" can have several meanings:[10]
The Greek ta biblia (lit. "little papyrus books")[11] was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books".[12] The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew, delivered between 386 and 388) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.[13]
Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια (tà biblía tà hágia, "the holy books").[14] Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra "holy book". It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.[15]
Christians now commonly call the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible "the Holy Bible" (in Greek, τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια, tà biblía tà ágia) or "the Holy Scriptures" (ἡ Αγία Γραφή, e Agía Graphḗ).[16]
The Bible is not a single book but a collection of books, whose complex development is not completely understood. The books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation before being written down. The Bible was written and compiled by many people from a variety of disparate cultures some of whom are unknown.[17]
British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote:[18]
[T]he biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural, economic, and ecological – varied enormously. There are texts which reflect a nomadic existence, texts from people with an established monarchy and Temple cult, texts from exile, texts born out of fierce oppression by foreign rulers, courtly texts, texts from wandering charismatic preachers, texts from those who give themselves the airs of sophisticated Hellenistic writers. It is a time-span which encompasses the compositions of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Sophocles, Caesar, Cicero, and Catullus. It is a period which sees the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire (twelfth to seventh century) and of the Persian empire (sixth to fourth century), Alexander's campaigns (336–326), the rise of Rome and its domination of the Mediterranean (fourth century to the founding of the Principate, 27 BCE), the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and the extension of Roman rule to parts of Scotland (84 CE).
Considered to be scriptures (sacred, authoritative religious texts), the books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures). The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon by the 5th century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called the Nevi'im ("prophets"), was canonized in the 3rd century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim ("writings"), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with some parts in Aramaic, which together form the Hebrew Bible or "TaNaKh" (an abbreviation of "Torah", "Nevi'im", and "Ketuvim").[19] The transmission history of the Tanakh spans approximately 3000 years.[20]
Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria and elsewhere in the Jewish diaspora considered additional scriptures, composed between 200 BCE and 100 CE and not included in the Hebrew Bible, to be canon. These additional texts were included in a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Koine Greek (common Greek spoken by ordinary people) known as the Septuagint which began as a translation of the Torah made around 250 BCE and continued to develop for several centuries. The Septuagint contained all of the books now in the Hebrew Bible, reorganized and with some textual differences, with additional scriptures interspersed throughout.[21]
The Masoretes began developing the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism near the end of the Talmudic period (circa 300–500 CE), but the actual date is difficult to determine.[22][23][24] In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora (from which we derive the term masoretic).[25] In the seventh century, the first codex form was produced, and in 1488, the first complete printed press version of the Hebrew Bible was produced.[26]
During the rise of Christianity in the 1st century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek about the life and teachings of Jesus, who Christians believed was the messiah prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures. Two collections of these new scriptures, the Pauline epistles and the Gospels, were accepted as canon by the end of the 2nd century CE. A third collection, the catholic epistles, were canonized over the next few centuries. Christians called these new scriptures the "New Testament", and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament".[27]
Between 385 and 405 CE, the early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate, which included in its Old Testament the books that were in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible. The Vulgate introduced stability to the Bible, but also began the East-West Schism between Latin-speaking Western Christianity (led by the Catholic Church) and multi-lingual Eastern Christianity (led by the Eastern Orthodox Church). Christian denominations' biblical canons varied not only in the language of the books, but also in their selection, organization, and text.[28]
A number of biblical canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents from denomination to denomination.[29] Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon since the 4th century CE. The Council of Trent (1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation, authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of the Bible. The church deemed the additional books in its Old Testament that were interspersed among the Hebrew Bible books to be deuterocanonical (meaning part of a second or later canon). Protestant Bibles either separated these books into a separate section called the "Apocrypha" (meaning "hidden away") between the Old and New Testaments, or omitted them altogether. The 17th-century Protestant King James Version was the most ubiquitous English Bible of all time, but it has largely been superseded by modern translations.[30]
Perspectives on the Bible and its authority vary among world religions. The Rastafari view the Bible as essential to their religion,[31] while the Unitarian Universalists view it as "one of many important religious texts".[32] Muslims view the Bible as reflecting the true unfolding revelation from God but revelation which had been corrupted or distorted (in Arabic: tahrif); that necessitated correction by giving the Quran to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.[33]
The Bible is one of the world's most published books, with estimated total sales of over five billion copies.[5] As such, the Bible has had a profound influence on literature and history, especially in the Western world, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type.[6][34] According to the March 2007 edition of Time, the Bible "has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment, and culture than any book ever written. Its influence on world history is unparalleled, and shows no signs of abating."[6] 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:
It has inspired some of the great monuments of human thought, literature, and art; it has equally fuelled some of the worst excesses of human savagery, self-interest, and narrow-mindedness. It has inspired men and women to acts of great service and courage, to fight for liberation and human development; and it has provided the ideological fuel for societies which have enslaved their fellow human beings and reduced them to abject poverty. ... It has, perhaps above all, provided a source of religious and moral norms which have enabled communities to hold together, to care for, and to protect one another; yet precisely this strong sense of belonging has in turn fuelled ethnic, racial, and international tension and conflict.[35]
The books of the Bible were written and copied by hand, initially on papyrus scrolls.[36] No originals survive, and the oldest currently existing scrolls are those discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947. These scrolls date between 250 BCE and 100 CE and are the oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any considerable length.[37] The earliest manuscripts were probably written in paleo-Hebrew, a kind of cuneiform pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period.[38] The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE.[39] From the time of the Dead Sea scrolls, the Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid in reading.[40] By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs.[41] Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others.[42] Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script and updating archaic forms while also making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care.[43]
The textual history of New Testament texts is quite different.[44] The Hebrew Bible is three times the length of the New Testament and was composed over a long period of time, at least a thousand years, and possibly three thousand.[45] In contrast, copies of the gospels and Paul's letters were probably made very soon after the originals were written, some probably within fifty to one hundred years,[46] as there is evidence in the early church father's writings and the Didache that copies were in circulation before the end of the First century.[47] Most of these early copies were not made by trained scribes.[48] James R. Royce explains that "The story of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament is the story of progression from a relatively uncontrolled tradition to a rigorously controlled tradition ...".[49]
The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work, but this only increases the difficulties associated with its textual history.[50]: 117 [51] Only a half dozen papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament were known and edited before the twentieth century, but the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri in Egypt provided 54 of the current 127 NT papyri representing 124 manuscripts as well as 12 majuscules (a style of lettering).[52] Their dates run from the beginning of the second century (P 52) to the eighth century, constituting just over 2% of all Greek NT manuscripts, with sixty–two dating to the late third and early fourth centuries.[53] Chester Beatty and Bodmer added 8 more to the elite group of early papyri.[54] The book of Revelation has its own textual history and is found in only about 300 manuscripts.[55]
Existing New Testament manuscripts also include about 300 great uncial codices, which are vellum or parchment books written in block Greek letters, mostly dating between the 3rd and 9th centuries CE; and about 2,900 minuscules, written in a cursive style (using connected letters) that superseded uncials beginning in the 9th century. These manuscripts differ in varying degrees from one another and are grouped according to their similarities into textual families or lineages; the four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian, Western, Caesarean, and Byzantine.[56]
The Qumran scrolls attest to different biblical text types. In addition to the Qumran scrolls, there are three major manuscript witnesses (historical copies) of the Hebrew Bible: the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text, and the Samaritan Pentateuch. Existing complete copies of the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, date from the 3rd to the 5th centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the 2nd century BCE. The Masoretic Text is a standardized version of the Hebrew Bible that began to be developed in the 1st century CE and has been maintained by the Masoretes since the latter half of the first millennium CE. Its oldest complete copy in existence is the Leningrad Codex, dating to c. 1000 CE. The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah maintained by the Samaritan community since antiquity and rediscovered by European scholars in the 17th century; the oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE.[58]
All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those that copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts.[59] A variant is simply any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains that "Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS attest to it."[60] Hebrew scholar Emmanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is simply a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated.[61]
Differences in the Hebrew Bible include memory differences, lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, shifts in order, and some intentional changes for updating doctrine.[62] The majority of variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some were 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.[63][64] 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.[65]
Nearly all modern English translations of the Old Testament are based on a single manuscript, the Leningrad Codex also called the St. Petersburg Codex, 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. Copied about 925 CE, part of it was lost, so it must rely on additional manuscripts, and as a result, the Aleppo Codex contains the most comprehensive collection of variant readings.[66]
Tanakh |
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The name Tanakh (Hebrew: תנ"ך) reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings").[citation needed]
The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28)[67] written in Biblical Aramaic, a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world.[68]
The Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the "Five Books of Moses" or the Pentateuch, meaning "five scroll-cases".[69] Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself.[70][71] Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility of Moses being the one who first assembled the separate sources.[72][73] There are a variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed,[74] but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),[75][76] or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).[77]
The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books:
The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and Jacob's children, the "Children of Israel", especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt.
The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses.[78]
The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law. Tradition states that there are 613 commandments (taryag mitzvot).
Books of Nevi'im |
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Former Prophets |
Latter Prophets (major) |
Latter Prophets (Twelve minor) |
Hebrew Bible |
Nevi'im (Hebrew: נְבִיאִים, romanized: Nəḇî'îm, "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups, the Former Prophets (Nevi'im Rishonim נביאים ראשונים, the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets (Nevi'im Aharonim נביאים אחרונים, the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets).
The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the 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 LORD God"[79] (Yahweh) and believers in foreign gods,[80][81] and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers;[82][83][84] 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 Temple in Jerusalem.
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 king of Judah. Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover:
The Latter Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets, counted as a single book.
Books of the Ketuvim |
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Three poetic books |
Five Megillot (Scrolls) |
Other books |
Hebrew Bible |
Ketuvim or Kəṯûḇîm (in Biblical Hebrew: כְּתוּבִים "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy.[85]
In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stichs in the verses, which are a function of their poetry. Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth").
These three books are also the only ones in Tanakh with a special system of cantillation notes that are designed to emphasize parallel stichs within verses. However, the beginning and end of the book of Job are in the normal prose system.[citation needed]
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 2nd century CE.[86]
Besides the three books and the five scrolls, the remaining books in Ketuvim are Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah and Chronicles. Although there is no formal grouping for these books in the Jewish tradition, they nevertheless share a number of distinguishing characteristics:[citation needed]
The following list presents the books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most printed editions.
The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles.[87]
In Tiberian Masoretic codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Esther, Daniel, Ezra.[88]
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 5th century BCE and the Former and Latter Prophets were canonized by the 2nd century BCE, the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the 2nd century of the Common Era.[86]
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.[89] References in the four Gospels as well as other books of the New Testament indicate that many of these texts were both commonly known and counted as having some degree of religious authority early in the 1st century CE.[citation needed]
Many scholars believe that the limits of the Ketuvim as canonized scripture were determined by the Council of Jamnia c. 90 CE. Against Apion, the writing of 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..."[90] For a long time following this date[timeframe?] the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny.[91]
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible. It defines the books of the Jewish canon, and also the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and accentuation. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century CE,[92] and the Aleppo Codex (once the oldest complete copy of the Masoretic Text, but now missing its Torah section) dates from the 10th century. The term "Keter" (crown, from the Arabic, taj) originally referred to this particular manuscript. Over the years, the term Keter came to refer to any full text of the Hebrew Bible, or significant portion of it, bound as a codex (not a scroll) and including vowel points, cantillation marks, and Masoretic notes.
Medieval handwritten manuscripts were considered extremely precise, the most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts.[93] Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts contain both accidental and intentional types of variants, which are differences in the manuscripts: "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.[62]
Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon.[94] They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh.[95] A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle.[96]
The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures and some related texts into Koine Greek, begun in the late 3rd century BCE and completed by 132 BCE,[97][98][99] initially in Alexandria, but in time it was completed elsewhere as well.[100] It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised.[101]
As the work of translation progressed, the canon of the Septuagint expanded. The Torah always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon but the collection of prophetic writings, based on the Nevi'im, had various hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books were included in the Septuagint, among these are the Books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach. However, the book of Sirach is now known to have existed in a Hebrew version, since ancient Hebrew manuscripts of it were rediscovered in modern times. The Septuagint version of some biblical books, like the Book of Daniel and Book of Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon.[102]
Since Late antiquity, once attributed to a hypothetical late 1st-century Council of Jamnia, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this. First, some mistranslations were claimed. Second, the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis.[103] Third, the rabbis wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity.[99][104]
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 of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given a holy language status comparable to Hebrew).[105]
The Septuagint is the basis for the Old Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament.[106] The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches use most of the books of the Septuagint, while Protestant churches usually do not. After the Protestant Reformation, 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.[107]
The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version, c. 100 BCE, and the later Theodotion version from c. 2nd century CE. Both Greek texts contain three additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children; the story of 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. 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."[108] 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 authorised edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587.[109]
Some texts found in the Septuagint are not present in the Hebrew. These additional books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, and Psalm 151.
Some books that are set apart in the Masoretic Text are grouped together. For example, the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the Septuagint one book in four parts called Βασιλειῶν ("Of Reigns"). In the Septuagint, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and it is called Paralipomenon (Παραλειπομένων – things left out). The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.
The Orthodox Old Testament[100][110][a] |
Greek-based name |
Conventional English name |
Law | ||
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Γένεσις | Génesis | Genesis |
Ἔξοδος | Éxodos | Exodus |
Λευϊτικόν | Leuitikón | Leviticus |
Ἀριθμοί | Arithmoí | Numbers |
Δευτερονόμιον | Deuteronómion | Deuteronomy |
History | ||
Ἰησοῦς Nαυῆ | Iêsous Nauê | Joshua |
Κριταί | Kritaí | Judges |
Ῥούθ | Roúth | Ruth |
Βασιλειῶν Αʹ[b] | I Reigns | I Samuel |
Βασιλειῶν Βʹ | II Reigns | II Samuel |
Βασιλειῶν Γʹ | III Reigns | I Kings |
Βασιλειῶν Δʹ | IV Reigns | II Kings |
Παραλειπομένων Αʹ | I Paralipomenon[c] | I Chronicles |
Παραλειπομένων Βʹ | II Paralipomenon | II Chronicles |
Ἔσδρας Αʹ | I Esdras | 1 Esdras |
Ἔσδρας Βʹ | II Esdras | Ezra–Nehemiah |
Τωβίτ[d] | Tobit | Tobit or Tobias |
Ἰουδίθ | Ioudith | Judith |
Ἐσθήρ | Esther | Esther with additions |
Μακκαβαίων Αʹ | I Makkabaioi | 1 Maccabees |
Μακκαβαίων Βʹ | II Makkabaioi | 2 Maccabees |
Μακκαβαίων Γʹ | III Makkabaioi | 3 Maccabees |
Wisdom | ||
Ψαλμοί | Psalms | Psalms |
Ψαλμός ΡΝΑʹ | Psalm 151 | Psalm 151 |
Προσευχὴ Μανάσση | Prayer of Manasseh | Prayer of Manasseh |
Ἰώβ | Iōb | Job |
Παροιμίαι | Proverbs | Proverbs |
Ἐκκλησιαστής | Ekklesiastes | Ecclesiastes |
Ἆσμα Ἀσμάτων | Song of Songs | Song of Solomon or Canticles |
Σοφία Σαλoμῶντος | Wisdom of Solomon | Wisdom |
Σοφία Ἰησοῦ Σειράχ | Wisdom of Jesus the son of Seirach | Sirach or Ecclesiasticus |
Ψαλμοί Σαλoμῶντος | Psalms of Solomon | Psalms of Solomon[111] |
Prophets | ||
Δώδεκα | The Twelve | Minor Prophets |
Ὡσηέ Αʹ | I. Osëe | Hosea |
Ἀμώς Βʹ | II. Amōs | Amos |
Μιχαίας Γʹ | III. Michaias | Micah |
Ἰωήλ Δʹ | IV. Ioël | Joel |
Ὀβδίου Εʹ[e] | V. Obdias | Obadiah |
Ἰωνᾶς Ϛ' | VI. Ionas | Jonah |
Ναούμ Ζʹ | VII. Naoum | Nahum |
Ἀμβακούμ Ηʹ | VIII. Ambakum | Habakkuk |
Σοφονίας Θʹ | IX. Sophonias | Zephaniah |
Ἀγγαῖος Ιʹ | X. Angaios | Haggai |
Ζαχαρίας ΙΑʹ | XI. Zacharias | Zachariah |
Ἄγγελος ΙΒʹ | XII. Messenger | Malachi |
Ἠσαΐας | Hesaias | Isaiah |
Ἱερεμίας | Hieremias | Jeremiah |
Βαρούχ | Baruch | Baruch |
Θρῆνοι | Lamentations | Lamentations |
Ἐπιστολή Ιερεμίου | Epistle of Jeremiah | Letter of Jeremiah |
Ἰεζεκιήλ | Iezekiêl | Ezekiel |
Δανιήλ | Daniêl | Daniel with additions |
Appendix | ||
Μακκαβαίων Δ' Παράρτημα | IV Makkabees | 4 Maccabees[f] |
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 simply been mistransmitted for any one of a number of reasons.[112] Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works are also not the same. Apocrypha includes all the writings claiming to be sacred that are outside the canon, while pseudepigrapha is a literary category of all writings whether they are canonical or apocryphal.[112]: 4
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:[113]
Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch (such as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, surviving only in Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th to 6th century CE). These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. They are not part of the biblical canon used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest or significance. It has been observed that part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude (part of the New Testament) but Christian denominations generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical or non-inspired.[114] However, the Enoch books are treated as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.[citation needed]
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) probably was composed at the end of the 1st century BCE.[115]
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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.[116] The 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 speakers. Modern English translations of the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible are based on the Masoretic text.[66] The Pauline epistles and the gospels were soon added, along with other writings, as the New Testament.[117]
Some denominations have additional canonical texts beyond the Bible, including the Standard Works of the Latter Day Saints movement and Divine Principle in the Unification Church.
The Protestant Old Testament of today 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 – while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as the canonical Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 in addition to the Catholic canon. Some include 2 Esdras. The term "Hebrew scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books, while Catholics and Orthodox include additional texts that have not survived in Hebrew. Eighty book Protestant Bibles include 14 books called Apocrypha in between the Old Testament and the New Testament that are deemed useful for instruction but non-canonical.[118][119][120] Both Catholics and Protestants (as well as Greek Orthodox) have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.[121]
The Old Testament has always been central to the life of the Christian church. Bible scholar N.T. Wright says "Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures."[122] He adds that the earliest Christians also searched those same Hebrew scriptures in their effort to understand the earthly life of Jesus. They regarded the "holy writings" of the Israelites as necessary and instructive for the Christian, as seen from Paul's words to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), and as pointing to the Messiah, and as having reached a climactic fulfilment in Jesus himself, generating the "new covenant" prophesied by Jeremiah.[123]
Christian Bibles often include books from the Septuagint that are not found in the Hebrew Bible, although the view of these books and which books are included in these Bibles differs between different denominations. In general it can be said that Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches embrace part of these books as part of the biblical canon, while newer denominations with roots in the Reformation to varying degrees reject those as part of the canon.[citation needed]
In Eastern Christianity, translations based on the Septuagint still prevail. The Septuagint was generally abandoned in favour of the 10th-century Masoretic Text as the basis for translations of the Old Testament into Western languages.[citation needed]
Some modern Western translations since the 14th century make use of the Septuagint to clarify passages in the Masoretic Text, where the Septuagint may preserve a variant reading of the Hebrew text.[citation needed] They also sometimes adopt variants that appear in other texts, such as those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.[124][125]
A number of books which are part of the Peshitta or the Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew Bible (i.e., among the protocanonical books) are often referred to as deuterocanonical books by Roman Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e., deutero) canon, that canon as fixed definitively by the Council of Trent 1545–1563.[126][127] It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one) and 27 for the New.[128]
Eighty book Protestant Bibles have fourteen books that are found in the Septuagint and they are placed between the Old Testament and New Testament in a section called the Apocrypha.[120][118] Protestant traditions traditionally teach that these books are useful for instruction, but are non-canonical.[120][118] However, Eastern Orthodox Churches include these books as part of their Old Testament and the Roman Catholic Church includes most of them in their Old Testament with the exception of three books.[120][118]
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes:[129]
In addition to those, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches recognize the following:[citation needed]
Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches include:[citation needed]
There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church. It is an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it is therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.[citation needed]
The Syriac Orthodox Church includes:[citation needed]
The Ethiopian Orthodox biblical canon includes:[130]
and some other books.
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.[131] 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 New Testament is the name given to the second portion of the Christian Bible. The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek,[132][133] which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean[134][135][136][137] from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BCE) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600). 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.[138]: 7 [11]
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 2 Timothy 3:16, "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, John Barton writes that ancient Christians probably just continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what they believed were inspired, authoritative religious books.[138]: 2 The second approach separates those various inspired writings based on a concept of "canon" which developed in the second century.[138]: 3–8 The third involves formalizing canon.[138]: 8–11 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.[138]: 11, 14–19
The first stage was completed remarkably early if one accepts Albert C. Sundberg 's view that "canon" and "scripture" are separate things with 'scripture' having been recognized by ancient Christians long before 'canon' was.[138]: 9–11, 17–18 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.[138]: 3 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.[138]: 9–11 The gospels were accepted by early believers as handed down from those Apostles who had known Jesus and been taught by him.[139] Later biblical criticism has questioned the authorship and datings 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 in response to the plethora of writings claiming inspiration that contradicted orthodoxy: what they called heresy.[138]: 7 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 produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (the Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. With the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon.
The New Testament is a collection of 27 books[140] of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse). These books can be grouped into:
Narrative literature, account and history of the Apostolic age
Catholic epistles, also called the general epistles
The New Testament books are ordered differently in the Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant tradition, the Slavonic tradition, the Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition.
The Peshitta (Classical Syriac: ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ or ܦܫܝܼܛܬܵܐ pšīṭtā) is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition. The consensus within biblical scholarship, although not universal, is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from biblical Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated from the Greek.[141] This New Testament, originally excluding certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (616 AD) of Thomas of Harqel.[142][143][144]
The canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is wider than the canons used by most other Christian churches. There are 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.[130] In addition to the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, the Ethiopian Old Testament Canon uses Enoch and Jubilees (ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge'ez, but are quoted in the New Testament),[citation needed] Greek Ezra and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 books of Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter. The three books of Meqabyan are not to be confused with the books of Maccabees. The order of the other books is somewhat different from other groups', as well. The Old Testament follows the Septuagint order for the Minor Prophets rather than the Jewish order.[citation needed]
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.[145]
In the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes collected textual evidence that he asserted as proving Moses could not have been the author of the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch.[146] Shortly afterwards, the philosopher Baruch Spinoza published a unified critical analysis, arguing that the problematic passages were not isolated cases that could be explained away one by one, but pervasive throughout the five books, concluding that it was "clearer than the sun at noon that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses ..."[147]
Jean Astruc (1684–1766), a French physician, believed these critics were wrong. He believed that Moses had assembled the first book of the Pentateuch, the book of Genesis, using hereditary accounts passed down through the Hebrew people.[148] Biblical criticism began when Astruc borrowed methods of textual criticism which were already used to investigate Greek and Roman texts and applied them to the Bible in search of those original accounts.[149]
Astruc believed this approach did identify the separate sources that were edited together into the book of Genesis, and modern scholars still, generally, accept his conclusions. In Astruc's view, the existence of separate sources explained the inconsistent style and vocabulary of Genesis, discrepancies in the narrative, differing accounts and chronological difficulties, while still allowing for Mosaic authorship.[72][150]
Biblical criticism made study of the Bible secularized, scholarly and more democratic, while it also permanently altered the way people understood the Bible.[151]: 22 It is no longer thought of solely as a religious artifact, and its interpretation is no longer restricted to the community of believers.[152]: 129
"There are those who regard the desacralization of the Bible as the fortunate condition for the rise of new sensibilities and modes of imagination" that went into developing the modern world.[152]: 121 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".[153] Still others believed that biblical criticism, "shorn of its unwarranted arrogance," could be a reliable source of interpretation.[153] Michael Fishbane compares biblical criticism to Job, a prophet who destroyed "self-serving visions for the sake of a more honest crossing from the divine textus to the human one".[152]: 129 Or as Rogerson says: biblical criticism has been liberating for those who want their faith "intelligently grounded and intellectually honest".[154]: 298
In the twenty-first century, attitudes towards the Bible differ among Christian groups. Roman Catholics, High Church Anglicans, Methodists and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of both the Bible and sacred tradition,[155][156] while many Protestant churches focus on the idea of sola scriptura, or scripture alone. This concept rose to prominence during the Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only infallible source of Christian teaching. Others, though, advance the concept of prima scriptura in contrast, meaning scripture primarily or scripture mainly.[155]
The Second Epistle to Timothy says that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness". (2 Timothy 3:16)[157] Various related but distinguishable views on divine inspiration include:
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."[123] 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.[159]
Jewish antiquity attests to belief in sacred texts,[160][161] and a similar belief emerges in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention divine agency in relation to its writings.[162] 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."[163] Most evangelical biblical scholars[164][165][166] 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.[167] 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.[168]
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The original texts of the Tanakh were almost entirely written in Hebrew; about one per cent is written in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version there are words which are traditionally read differently from written, because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations.[citation needed]
The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint. In addition, they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.
The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible.
According to the Latin Decretum Gelasianum (also known as the Gelasian Decree), thought to be of a 6th-century document[169][170] of uncertain authorship and of pseudepigraphal papal authority (variously ascribed to Pope Gelasius I, Pope Damasus I, or Pope Hormisdas)[171][172][173] but reflecting the views of the Roman Church by that period,[174] the Council of Rome in 382 CE under Pope Damasus I (366–383) gives a complete list of the canonical books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament which is identical with the list given at the Council of Trent.[175] Damasus 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 Latin Vulgate Bible, in the 4th century CE (although Jerome expressed in his prologues to most deuterocanonical books that they were non-canonical).[176][177] In 1546, at the Council of Trent, Jerome's Vulgate translation was declared by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Church.
Since the Protestant Reformation, Bible translations for many languages have been made. The Bible continues to be translated to new languages, largely by Christian organizations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission and Bible societies. Lammin 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".[178] "The translated scripture ... has become the benchmark of awakening and renewal".[179]
Number | Statistic |
---|---|
7378 | Approximate number of languages spoken in the world today |
2217 | Number of translations into new languages in progress |
1196 | Number of languages with some translated Bible portions |
1582 | Number of languages with a translation of the New Testament |
717 | Number of languages with a full translation of the Bible (Protestant Canon) |
3495 | Total number of languages with some Bible translation |
Archaeology reflects that Bible texts are fully integrated with material culture at times, and fully out of sync at others.[181] 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.[182] There are a wide range of interpretations in the field of biblical archaeology.[183] 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.[184] 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.[185] 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.[186] Most biblical scholars and archaeologists fall somewhere on a spectrum between these two.[187][184]
The historicity of the biblical account of the history of ancient Israel and Judah of the 10th to 7th centuries BCE is disputed in scholarship. The biblical account of the 8th to 7th centuries BCE is widely, but not universally, accepted as historical. The biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, and the migration to the Promised Land and the period of Judges are generally not considered historical.[188][189] The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient non–biblical texts, and archaeology support the Babylonian captivity beginning around 586 BCE.[190] Excavations in southern Judah show a pattern of destruction consistent with the Neo-Assyrian devastation of Judah at the end of the eighth century and 2 Kgs 18:13.[191] 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.[192] However, there is no good archaeological evidence for the existence of Kings David and Solomon or the First Temple as far back as the tenth century BCE where the Bible places them.[193]
For the Israelites, the writing of history was not the modern equivalent of an archival reporting of facts, though they were capable of that. It was a complex cultural reconstruction. Historical details that were important to the author were included, modified, embellished, or even reworked, while those that did not fit with what the author wanted to say were often simply left out.[194] Joshua J. Bodine[who?] writes that, while historical skepticism is necessary, "it does not follow that Kings, Chronicles, or other texts are historically worthless".[194]
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.[195] 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".[196] This too is now being debated by scholars as: what genre does Acts actually belong to?[196] There is a growing consensus, however, that the question of genré 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 history—but not the kind of history that precludes fiction." says Phillips.[197]
The earliest material culture that is archaeologically recognizable as distinctly Christian is found in mortuary inscriptions, wall paintings and modest buildings used for worship. These date from the second and third centuries.[198] Distinct forms of Christian material culture that point to "theological reflection on Christ's victory over death" appear by the third century.[199] Explosive growth of material culture begins in the last quarter of the fourth century, and by the fifth century, ceramic pottery, bricks and tiles bearing crosses, the images of saints, other Christian symbols, and architecture that celebrated wealth and status and Christian ritual in the everyday life of ordinary believers are found from the British Isles to Persia (modern Iran).[200]
Imperial Bible, or Vienna Coronation Gospels from Wien (Austria), c 1500.
The Kennicott Bible, 1476
A Baroque Bible
The Bible used by Abraham Lincoln for his oath of office during his first inauguration in 1861
1866 Victorian Bible
Shelves of the Bizzell Bible Collection at Bizzell Memorial Library
Detail of Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation (c. 1472–1475) shows the Virgin Mary reading the Bible.
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 illustrations. Up to the 12th century, most manuscripts were produced in monasteries in order to add to the library or after receiving a 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."[212] 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.[213] 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.[214] 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.[215] 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."[212] 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."[216]
Coloured version of the Whore of Babylon illustration from Martin Luther's 1534 translation of the Bible
An Armenian Bible, 17th century, illuminated by Malnazar
Jonah being swallowed by the fish, Kennicott Bible, 1476
Simply put, the Bible is the most influential book of all-time... The Bible has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment, and culture than any book ever written. Its influence on world history is unparalleled, and shows no signs of abating. Even pop culture is deeply influenced by the Bible.
Even though they were not placed on the same level as the canonical books , still they were useful for instruction . ... These – and others that total fourteen or fifteen altogether – are the books known as the Apocrypha.
English Bibles were patterned after those of the Continental Reformers by having the Apocrypha set off from the rest of the OT. Coverdale (1535) called them "Apocrypha". All English Bibles prior to 1629 contained the Apocrypha. Matthew's Bible (1537), the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva Bible (1560), the Bishop's Bible (1568), and the King James Bible (1611) contained the Apocrypha. Soon after the publication of the KJV, however, the English Bibles began to drop the Apocrypha and eventually they disappeared entirely. The first English Bible to be printed in America (1782–83) lacked the Apocrypha. In 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society decided to no longer print them. Today the trend is in the opposite direction, and English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming more popular again.
Fourteen books and parts of books are considered Apocryphal by Protestants. Three of these are recognized by Roman Catholics also as Apocryphal.
But if anyone receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.
— Decretum de Canonicis Scripturis, Council of Trent, 8 April 1546
In all places where a reading from the deuterocanonical books (The Apocrypha) is listed, an alternate reading from the canonical Scriptures has also been provided.
Printed editions of the Peshitta frequently contain these books in order to fill the gaps. D. Harklean Version. The Harklean version is connected with the labors of Thomas of Harqel. When thousands were fleeing Khosrou's invading armies, ...
The United Methodists see Scripture as the primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine. They emphasize the importance of tradition, experience, and reason for Christian doctrine. Lutherans teach that the Bible is the sole source for Christian doctrine. The truths of Scripture do not need to be authenticated by tradition, human experience, or reason. Scripture is self authenticating and is true in and of itself.
historically Anglicans have adopted what could be called a prima Scriptura position.
Australia's only Bible Museum has temporarily closed and is preparing to relocate. Our exciting new location will be announced on this website.
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