The word "Bible", according to Webster's dictionary, means "the sacred book of the Christian Church; the Old and New Testaments". It is a collection of sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity.
The origin of the word "Bible" is Greek (τὰ βιβλία ta biblia) and it means "the books". The Holy Bible no longer appears on the best selling book list, because it is the number one selling book in history, and has sold billions of copies.
The Bible is divided into two sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word "Testament" refers to a covenant - a covenant between God and Man.
There are a total of sixty-six books that complete the Holy Bible.
The Old Testament is the Hebrew scriptures (the Tanakh) containing thirty-nine books. There are five law books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), twelve historical books (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther), five poetry books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon), and seventeen prophetic books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi).
The New Testament is the Christian scriptures containing twenty-seven books. There are five historical books (Matthew, Mark, Luke John, and Acts), and the remaining twenty-two books are letters; of which thirteen are written by the Apostle Paul. The letters are Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.
The Roman Catholic Church recognises other scriptural writings: Tobit, Judith, 1 Macabees, 2 Macabees, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, Greek Additions to Esther, The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of The Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon - which do not appear in The Holy Bible. There are also other writings that are recognised by some orthodox churches that also do not appear in the Holy Bible.
The oldest Greek translations of both the Old and New Testaments date back to the fourth century. The oldest version of the Hebrew Bible (the Masoretic Text) - the official version of the Jewish Bible - dates back to the Middle Ages.
In 1604, the authorised King James Version was begun, in which we had the first English translation of the Holy Bible. Many are familiar with the 1611 version, which was an exact copy of the original King James Version. The Bible had been translated from Greek and Hebrew to English.
There are currently hundreds of translations of the Holy Bible and more than a thousand lingual translations of the New Testament that exists.
The Holy Bible tells a story of the beginnings of man and his relationship with God who created all things that are seen and unseen. It is a Book of Love, History, Forgiveness, and Reunion between God and Man.
No comments:
Post a Comment