The Holy Bible
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 religions. The Bible is an anthology—a compilation of texts of a variety of forms—originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophesies, among other genres. 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 in the Bible generally consider it 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 to antiquity. 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), while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later. The Dead Sea scrolls are approximately dated to 250 BCE–100 CE and 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. The Masoretic Text, in Hebrew and Aramaic, is considered the authoritative text by Rabbinic Judaism; the Septuagint, a Koine Greek translation from the third and second centuries BCE, 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. The gospels, Pauline epistles and other texts coalesced into the “New Testament”. In the 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. The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by that of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church canon, and the 66-book canon of most Protestant denominations, to the 81 books of 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 publication of all time. It has had a profound direct influence on Western culture and history. 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 Old Testament The New Testament