28 October 2007

Christian Bible

Christian Bible

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The Christian Bible, also known as Holy Bible or Bible by Christians, refers to the canonical collections of religious writings or books of Christianity. Books included as canon in the Bible vary according to denomination. The Christian Bible is divided into two parts: the 39-46 Books of the Old Testament primarily sourced from the Tanakh (with some variations), and the 27 Books of the New Testament containing books originally written primarily in Greek.[1] Protestant versions of the Christian Bible omit the seven books not considered canonical by Protestants. Additional versions exist, such as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canons which contain books not found in the Tanakh but that are found in the Greek Septuagint, the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek.

Part of a series on
The Bible
Biblical canon

* Chapters and verses of the Bible
* Hebrew Bible
* Writings
* Prophets
* New Testament
* Old Testament
* Tanakh
* Pentateuch

Bible translations

* Wycliffe Bible Translators

Research

* Documentary hypothesis
* Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an
* Differences between the Bible and the Qur'an

Views

* Biblical inerrancy
* Criticism of the Bible



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Contents
[hide]

* 1 Old Testament
o 1.1 Differing Christian usages of the Old Testament
* 2 New Testament
o 2.1 Original language
o 2.2 Historic editions
* 3 Christian theology
* 4 Canonization of the Bible
o 4.1 Hebrew Bible
o 4.2 Old Testament and New Testament
o 4.3 Ethiopian Orthodox canon
* 5 Bible versions and translations
o 5.1 Differences in Bible translations
o 5.2 Inclusive language
o 5.3 Chapters and verses
* 6 Textual criticism
* 7 See also
o 7.1 Biblical analysis
o 7.2 Perspectives on the Bible
o 7.3 History and the Bible
o 7.4 Biblical scholarship and analysis
* 8 Notes
* 9 References
* 10 External links
o 10.1 Bible texts
+ 10.1.1 Hebrew
+ 10.1.2 Greek
+ 10.1.3 Latin
+ 10.1.4 English
+ 10.1.5 Others
o 10.2 Commentaries
o 10.3 Wikis

[edit] 1 Old Testament

Main article: Old Testament

The Christian Old Testament, while having most or all books in common with the Jewish Tanakh, varies from Judaism in the emphasis it places and the interpretations it gives them. The books are ordered differently.

[edit] 1.1 Differing Christian usages of the Old Testament

Main article: Biblical Canon

The Septuagint (Greek translation, from Alexandria in Egypt under the Ptolemies) was generally abandoned in favour of the Masoretic Text as the basis for translations of the Old Testament into Western languages from Martin Luther's Protestant Bible to the present day; the preceding Jerome's Vulgate was based on the Hebrew. In Eastern Christianity, translations based on the Septuagint still prevail. Some modern Western translations make use of the Septuagint to clarify passages in the Masoretic Text, where the Septuagint may preserve a variant reading of the Hebrew text. They also sometimes adopt variants that appear in texts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Books which are part of the Greek Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew (Rabbinic) Bible are often referred to as deuterocanonical books by Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e., deutero) canon. Most Protestants term these books as apocrypha. Evangelicals and those of the modern Protestant traditions do not accept the deuterocanonical books as canonical, although Protestant Bibles included them until around the 1820s. However, the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches include these books as part of their Old Testament. The Catholic Church recognizes seven such books (Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch), as well as some passages in Esther and Daniel. Various Orthodox churches include a few others, typically 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, 1 Esdras, Odes, Psalms of Solomon, and the Prayer of Manasseh. The Anglican Church uses the Apocryphal books liturgically but not to establish doctrine. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Anglican Church include these books, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh.

[edit] 2 New Testament

Main article: New Testament

The Bible as used by Christians includes the Rabbinic Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament, which relates the life and teachings of Jesus, the letters of the Apostle Paul and other disciples to the early church, and the Book of Revelation.

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books, of 4 different genre of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and the book of Revelation). Jesus is its central figure. The New Testament was written primarily in Koine Greek in the early Christian period. All Christian denominations recognize the New Testament (as stated below) as canonical scripture. These books can be grouped into:

The Gospels

* Synoptic Gospels
o Gospel According to Matthew
o Gospel According to Mark
o Gospel According to Luke
* Gospel According to John
* Acts of the Apostles

Pauline Epistles

* 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
* Pastoral Epistles
o First Epistle to Timothy
o Second Epistle to Timothy
o Epistle to Titus
* Epistle to Philemon
* Epistle to the Hebrews

General Epistles

* Epistle of James
* First Epistle of Peter
* Second Epistle of Peter
* First Epistle of John
* Second Epistle of John
* Third Epistle of John
* Epistle of Jude

Revelation

[edit] 2.1 Original language

See also: Greek primacy and Aramaic primacy

Probably, the books of the New Testament were written in Koine Greek, the language of the earliest extant manuscripts, even though some authors often included translations from Hebrew and Aramaic texts. Certainly the Pauline Epistles were written in Greek for Greek-speaking audiences. Some scholars believe that some books of the Greek New Testament (in particular, the Gospel of Matthew) are actually translations of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. Of these, a small number accept the Syriac Peshitta as representative of the original.

[edit] 2.2 Historic editions

See also: Biblical manuscript and Bible translations

The Codex Gigas from the 13th century, held at the Royal Library in Sweden.
The Codex Gigas from the 13th century, held at the Royal Library in Sweden.

When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions and additions.

The autographs, the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the versions that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type, the Byzantine text-type, and the Western text-type. Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts.

There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (including the Peshitta and the Diatessaron gospel harmony), in the Ethiopian language of Ge'ez, and in Latin (both the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate).

The earliest surviving complete manuscript of the entire Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, a Latin Vulgate edition produced in eighth century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow.

The earliest printed edition of the Greek New Testament appeared in 1516 from the Froben press, by Desiderius Erasmus, who reconstructed its Greek text from several recent manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type. He occasionally added a Greek translation of the Latin Vulgate for parts that did not exist in the Greek manuscripts. He produced four later editions of this text. Erasmus was Roman Catholic, but his preference for the Byzantine Greek manuscripts rather than the Latin Vulgate led some church authorities to view him with suspicion.

The first printed edition with critical apparatus (noting variant readings among the manuscripts) was produced by the printer Robert Estienne of Paris in 1550. The Greek text of this edition and of those of Erasmus became known as the Textus Receptus (Latin for "received text"), a name given to it in the Elzevier edition of 1633, which termed it as the text nunc ab omnibus receptum ("now received by all").

The churches of the Protestant Reformation translated the Greek of the Textus Receptus to produce vernacular Bibles, such as the German Luther Bible and the English King James Bible.

The discovery of older manuscripts, which belong to the Alexandrian text-type, including the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, led scholars to revise their view about the original Greek text. Attempts to reconstruct the original text are called critical editions. Karl Lachmann based his critical edition of 1831 on manuscripts dating from the 4th century and earlier, to demonstrate that the Textus Receptus must be corrected according to these earlier texts.

Later critical editions incorporate ongoing scholarly research, including discoveries of Greek papyrus fragments from near Alexandria, Egypt, that date in some cases within a few decades of the original New Testament writings.[2] Today, most critical editions of the Greek New Testament, such as UBS4 and NA27, consider the Alexandrian text-type corrected by papyrii, to be the Greek text that is closest to the original autographs. Their apparatus includes the result of votes among scholars, ranging from certain {A} to doubtful {E}, on which variants best preserve the original Greek text of the New Testament.

Most variants among the manuscripts are minor, such as alternate spelling, alternate word order, the presence or absence of an optional definite article ("the"), and so on. Occasionally, a major variant happens when a portion of a text was accidentally omitted (or perhaps even censored), or was added from a marginal gloss. Fortunately, major variants tend to be easier to correct.

Critical editions that rely primarily on the Alexandrian text-type inform nearly all modern translations (and revisions of older translations).

However for reasons of tradition, especially the doctrine of the inerrancy of the King James Bible, some modern scholars prefer to use the Textus Receptus for the Greek text, or use the Majority Text which is similar to it but is a critical edition that relies on earlier manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type. Among these scholars, some argue that the Byzantine tradition contains scribal additions, but these later interpolations preserve the orthodox interpretations of the biblical text—as part of the ongoing Christian experience—and in this sense are authoritative.

[edit] 3 Christian theology

While individual books within the Christian Bible present narratives set in certain historical periods, most Christian denominations teach that the Bible has an overarching message.

There are among Christians wide differences of opinion as to how particular incidents as described in the Bible are to be interpreted and as to what meaning should be attached to various prophecies. However, Christians in general are in agreement as to the Bible's basic message. A general outline, as described by C.S. Lewis, is as follows:[3]

1. At some point in the past, humanity learned to depart from God's will and began to sin.
2. Because no one is free from sin, people cannot deal with God directly, so God revealed Himself in ways people could understand.
3. God called Abraham and his progeny to be the means for saving all of humanity.
4. To this end, He gave the Law to Moses.
5. The resulting nation of Israel went through cycles of sin and repentance, yet the prophets show an increasing understanding of the Law as a moral, not just a ceremonial, force.
6. Jesus brought a perfect understanding of the Mosaic Law, that of love and salvation.
7. By His death and resurrection, all who believe are saved and reconciled to God.

Christians regard both the New and Old Testament as the undiluted Word of God, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans. Belief in sacred texts is attested to in Jewish antiquity,[4][5] and this belief can also be seen in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention Divine agency in relation to prophetic writings,[6] the most explicit being 2 Tm 3:16: "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." In their book A General Introduction to the Bible, Norman Geisler and William Nix wrote: "The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record."[7] Some biblical scholars,[8][9][10] particularly Evangelicals, 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.[11]

[edit] 4 Canonization of the Bible

Main article: Biblical Canon

The word "canon" means cane or reed. In early Christianity "canon" referred to a list of books approved for public reading. Books not on the list were referred to as "apocryphal" — meaning they were for private reading only. Under Latin usage from the fourth century on, canon came to represent a closed and authoritative list in the sense of rule or norm.[12]

[edit] 4.1 Hebrew Bible

The Old Testament refers to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures: the law, the prophets, and the writings. Luke 24:44 refers to the "law of Moses" (Pentateuch), the "prophets" which include certain historical books in addition to the books now called "prophets," and the psalms (the "writings" designated by its most prominent collection). The Hebrew Bible probably was canonized in three stages: the law canonized before the Exile, the prophets by the time of the Syrian persecution of the Jews, and the writings shortly after AD 70 (the fall of Jerusalem). About that time, early Christian writings began being accepted by Christians as "scripture." These events, taken together, may have caused the Jews to close their "canon." They listed their own recognized Scriptures and also excluded both Christian and Jewish writings considered by them to be "apocryphal." In this canon the thirty-nine books found in the Old Testament of today's Christian Bibles were grouped together as twenty-two books, equaling the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This canon of Jewish scripture is attested to by Philo, Josephus, the New Testament (Luke 11:51, Luke 24:44), and the Talmud.[12]

The New Testament writers assumed the inspiration of the Old Testament, probably earliest stated in 2 Timothy 3:16 which may be rendered "All Scripture is inspired of God" or "Every God-inspired Scripture is profitable for teaching." Both translations consider inspiration as a fact.[12]

[edit] 4.2 Old Testament and New Testament

The Old Testament canon entered into Christian use in the Greek Septuagint translations and original books and their differing lists of texts. In addition to the Septuagint, Christianity subsequently added various writings that became the New Testament. Somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity. In the fourth century a series of synods produced a list of texts equal to the 46-book canon of the Old testament and to the 27-book canon of the New Testament that would be subsequently used to today, most notably the Synod of Hippo in AD 393. Also c.400, Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible, 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, although there are examples of other canonical lists in use after this time.

During the Protestant Reformation, certain reformers proposed different canonical lists than what was currently in use. Though not without debate, the list of New Testament books remained the same; however, the Old Testament texts present in the Septuagint, but not included in the Jewish canon, fell out of favour. In time they were removed from most Protestant canons. Hence, in a Catholic context these texts are referred to as deuterocanonical books, whereas in a Protestant context they are referred to as Apocrypha, the label applied to all texts excluded from the biblical canon. Catholics and Protestants both describe certain other books, such as the ‘’Acts of Peter’’, as apocryphal.[citation needed]

Thus, the Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon—the number varies from that of the books in the Tanakh (though not in content) because of a different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as part of the canonical Old Testament. The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is only synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, not the Catholic, which contains the Hebrew Scriptures and additional texts. Both Catholics and Protestants have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.

[edit] 4.3 Ethiopian Orthodox canon

The Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is wider than for most other Christian groups. The Ethiopian "narrower" Old Testament Canon includes the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, in addition to Enoch, Jubilees, 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras, 3 books of Meqabyan (Maccabees), and Psalm 151. However, the three books of Meqabyan are similar to Maccabees in title only and quite different in content from those of the other Christian churches which include them. The order of the other books is somewhat different from other groups, as well. The church also has a "broader canon" that includes more books.

[edit] 5 Bible versions and translations

Further information: Bible translations

A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. This Bible was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery.
A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. This Bible was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery.

The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX). In addition they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez 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 translation 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.

Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 AD. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official Bible.

Bible translations for many languages have been made through the various influences of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, etc., especially since the Protestant Reformation. The Bible has seen a notably large number of English language translations.

The work of Bible translation continues, including by Christian organisations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission, and the Bible society. Of the world's 6,900 languages, 2,400 have some or all of the Bible translated, 1,600 (spoken by more than a billion people) have translation underway, and some 2,500 (spoken by 270 million people) are judged as needing translation to begin.[1]

[edit] 5.1 Differences in Bible translations
This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress.
This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress.

See also: Bible translations#Approaches

Since Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible, have idioms and concepts not easily translated, there is an ongoing critical tension about whether it is better to give a word for word translation or to give a translation that gives a parallel idiom in the target language. For instance, in the English language Catholic translation, the New American Bible, as well as the Protestant translations of the Christian Bible, translations like the King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the New American Standard Bible are seen as literal translations (or "word for word"), whereas translations like the New International Version and New Living Version attempt to give relevant parallel idioms. The Living Bible and The Message are two paraphrases of the Bible that try to convey the original meaning in contemporary language.

[edit] 5.2 Inclusive language

Traditionally, English masculine pronouns have been used interchangeably to refer to the male gender and to all people. For instance, "All men are mortal" is not intended to imply that males are mortal but females are immortal. English language readers and hearers have had to interpret masculine pronouns (and such words as "man" and "mankind") based on context. Further, both Hebrew and Greek, like some of the Latin-origin languages, use the male gender of nouns and pronouns to refer to groups that contain both sexes. This creates some difficulty in determining whether a noun or pronoun should be translated using terms that refer to men only, or generically to men and women inclusively. Context sometimes helps determine whether to decode them in a gender-insensitive or gender-specific way.

Contemporary language has changed in many cases to reflect criticism of the use of the masculine gender, which has been characterized as discriminatory. Current style guides, such as APA, MLA, NCTE, and others, have published statements encouraging, and in some cases requiring, the use of inclusive language, which avoids language this approach regards as sexist or class-distinctive.

Until recently, virtually all English translations of the Bible have used masculine nouns and pronouns both specifically (to refer to males) and generically (when the reference is not necessarily gender-specific). Recent examples of translations which incorporate gender-inclusive language include the New Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, and Today's New International Version.
Comparison of Traditional vs Gender-Inclusive Translations of Rom. 12:6-8 Original New International Version Today's New International Version
We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

[edit] 5.3 Chapters and verses

The Hebrew Masoretic Text contains verse endings as an important feature. According to the Talmudic tradition, the verse endings are of ancient origin. The Masoretic textual tradition also contains section endings called parashiyot, which are indicated by a space within a line (a "closed" section") or a new line beginning (an "open" section). The division of the text reflected in the parashiyot is usually thematic. The parashiyot are not numbered.

In early manuscripts (most importantly in Tiberian Masoretic manuscripts, such as the Aleppo codex) an "open" section may also be represented by a blank line, and a "closed" section by a new line that is slightly indented (the preceding line may also not be full). These latter conventions are no longer used in Torah scrolls and printed Hebrew Bibles. In this system the one rule differentiating "open" and "closed" sections is that "open" sections must always begin at the beginning of a new line, while "closed" sections never start at the beginning of a new line.

Another related feature of the Masoretic text is the division of the sedarim. This division is not thematic but is almost entirely based upon the quantity of text.

The Byzantines also introduced a chapter division of sorts, called Kephalaia. It is not identical to the present chapters.

The current division of the Bible into chapters and the verse numbers within the chapters has no basis in any ancient textual tradition. Rather, they are medieval Christian inventions. They were later adopted by many Jews as well, as technical references within the Hebrew text. Such technical references became crucial to medieval rabbis in the historical context of forced debates with Christian clergy (who used the chapter and verse numbers), especially in late medieval Spain.[13] Chapter divisions were first used by Jews in a 1330 manuscript and for a printed edition in 1516. However, for the past generation, most Jewish editions of the complete Hebrew Bible have made a systematic effort to relegate chapter and verse numbers to the margins of the text.

The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has often elicited severe criticism from traditionalists and modern scholars alike. Critics charge that the text is often divided into chapters in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points, and that it encourages citing passages out of context, in effect turning the Bible into a kind of textual quarry for clerical citations. Nevertheless, the chapter divisions and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study.

Stephen Langton is reputed to have been the first to put the chapter divisions into a Vulgate edition of the Bible, in 1205. They were then inserted into Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the fifteenth century. Robert Estienne (Robert Stephanus) was the first to number the verses within each chapter, with his verse numbers entering printed editions in 1551 (New Testament) and 1571 (Hebrew Bible).[14][15]

[edit] 6 Textual criticism

Main articles: Biblical criticism and Criticism of the Bible

The traditional view of the Mosaic authorship of the Torah came under sporadic criticism from medieval scholars including Isaac ibn Yashush, Abraham ibn Ezra, Bonfils of Damascus and bishop Tostatus of Avila, who pointed to passages such as the description of the death of Moses in Deuteronomy as evidence that some portions, at least, could not have been written by Moses.

In the 17th century Thomas Hobbes collected the current evidence and became the first scholar to conclude outright that Moses could not have written the bulk of the Torah. Shortly afterwards the philosopher Baruch Spinoza published a unified critical analysis, demonstrating 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…." Despite determined opposition from the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, the views of Hobbes and Spinoza gained increasing acceptance amongst scholars.

[edit] 7 See also
Christian Bible Portal
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[edit] 7.1 Biblical analysis

* Bible chronology
* Bible citation
* Bible prophecy
* Bible translations
* Biblical canon
* Bibliomancy is the use of random readings from a book for divination. In Jewish and Christian cultures, the Bible is often used.
* Books of the Bible
* Lost books of the Bible
* New Testament view on Jesus' life
* Parsha
* Ritual Decalogue
* Study Bible

[edit] 7.2 Perspectives on the Bible

* Calvin's view of Scripture
* Islamic view of the Bible
* Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an

[edit] 7.3 History and the Bible

* The Bible and history
* History of the English Bible
* English Translations of the Bible

[edit] 7.4 Biblical scholarship and analysis

* Bible Translations
* Biblical archaeology
* Dating the Bible
* Bible conspiracy theory
* Biblical literalism
* Biblical inerrancy
* Internal consistency and the Bible
* Bible scientific foreknowledge
* Criticism of the Bible
* Animals in the Bible
* Alcohol in the Bible
* Bibliolatry
* Old Testament: Timeline

[edit] 8 Notes

1. ^ http://www.pcusa.org/101/101-bible.htm
2. ^ Metzger, Bruce R. Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography (Oxford University Press, 1981) cf. Papyrus 52
3. ^ A Summary of the Bible by Lewis, CS: Believer's Web.
4. ^ Philo of Alexandria, De vita Moysis 3.23.
5. ^ Josephus, Contra Apion 1.8.
6. ^ "Basis for belief of Inspiration". Biblegateway.
7. ^ Norman L. Geisler, William E. Nix (1986). A General Introduction to the Bible. Moody Publishers, 86. ISBN 0-8024-2916-5.
8. ^ for example, seeLeroy Zuck, Roy B. Zuck (1991). Basic Bible Interpretation. Chariot Victor Pub, 68. ISBN 0-89693-819-0.
9. ^ Roy B. Zuck, Donald Campbell (2002). Basic Bible Interpretation. Victor. ISBN 0-7814-3877-2.
10. ^ Norman L. Geisler (1979, 1980). Inerrancy. The Zondervan Corporation, 294. ISBN 0-310-39281-0.
11. ^ International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (1978). "The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" (pdf). International Council on Biblical Inerrancy.
12. ^ a b c Stagg, Frank. New Testament Theology. Nashville: Broadman, 1962. ISBN 0805416137
13. ^ see Spanish Inquisition
14. ^ Chapters and Verses.
15. ^ The Examiner.

[edit] 9 References

* Anderson, Bernhard W. Understanding the Old Testament. ISBN 0-13-948399-3.
* Head, Tom. The Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible. Indianapolis, IN: Que Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-7897-3419-2.
* Lindsell, Harold. The Battle for the Bible. Zondervan Publishing House, 1978. ISBN 0-310-27681-0.
* Lienhard, Joseph T. The Bible, The Church, and Authority. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995.
* Miller, John W. The Origins of the Bible: Rethinking Canon History Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8091-3522-1.
* Riches, John. The Bible: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-285343-0

[edit] 10 External links
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[edit] 10.1 Bible texts

[edit] 10.1.1 Hebrew

* Hebrew-English Bible (JPS 1917 translation; includes Hebrew audio)
* XML Hebrew-English (KJV) Bible
* Old Testament in Hebrew

[edit] 10.1.2 Greek

* Greek Bible with Lexicon Proprium seu Concordances

[edit] 10.1.3 Latin

* Latin Vulgate—Latin Vulgate with parallel Douay-Rheims and King James English translations
* SacredBible.org—Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible
* Jerome's Latin Vulgate (405 A.D.)

[edit] 10.1.4 English

* United Bible Societies
* Complete text of the original 1611 King James Version, with Apocrypha.
* AudioBible—Audio version of the King James Version.
* Complete MP3 Audio Bible—Downloadable KJV and WEB Audio Bibles
* Blue Letter Bible
* E-sword—Downloadable Bible in many different versions, for MS Windows.
* American Standard Version.
* English Standard Version from Good News/Crossway (the publisher).
* King James Version with dictionary.
* King James Version.
* The World English Bible Special html copy/paste version.
* New Living Translation
* New Revised Standard Version.
* New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
* World English Bible.
* LDS King James Version with online audio, extensive commentary and easy cross-references. Also available for free in print.
* King James Version built using AJAX technologies, with Strongs and Greek Morphological Codes by Robinson.
* King James Version PDF
* Douay-Rheims Bible—A nicely formatted and searchable Douay-Rheims Bible

[edit] 10.1.5 Others

* Portuguese various translations
* (Hungarian, other languages)
* The Bible by things
* The Hypertext Bible with side-by-side translations in English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew at the Internet Sacred Text Archive
* Bible Gateway at GospelCom.net text search in any one of many translations/languages, or lookup complete passages in up to five different translations/languages at once. Select from among NIV, NASB, MSG, AMP, NLT, KJV, ESV, CEV, NKJV, ASV, NLV, NIrV and many others.
* Bible Read-Through—read through the Bible aid that has a standard one year read through as well as the ability to design your own read through.
* TheFreeBible.com provides free Bible software downloads
* Interlinear (word-by-word) translation of the Christian Bible from the original Hebrew and Koine Greek
* Over 40 versions of the Bible
* Eastern and Western Armenian Bible
* Online Bible (King James Version & Old Testament)
* Spanish Bible PDT version
* Complete Sayings of Christ (long download)
* Crosswalk.com Parallel Bible to see two versions side by side, any of NAS, ASV, ESV, NKJV, KJV, NLT, NRS, GNT, WEB, MSG, NIV, NIrV and many others.
* Blue Letter Bible provides resources on a verse by verse basis, such as commentaries, definitions, concordance with Hebrew/Greek, related information and parallel bible on the one selected verse in KJV, NKJV, NLT, NIV, ESV, NASB, RSV, ASV and others.
* American Bible Society to search NASB, KJV, CEV, ASV and others.
* International Bible Society for NIV, TNIV, and NIrV versions, plus links to other versions in other languages
* University of Virginia Library for word proximity searches on the KJV bible.
* Many translations in English, verse by verse
* The Bible Collection Collection of Sacred Books for Different Religions
* Gender-neutral Bible translations.
* The Bible in a telephone, smartphone, communicator (MDA) or in PDA.
* Bible.com Portal

[edit] 10.2 Commentaries

See Biblical exegesis

[edit] 10.3 Wikis

* Bible versions and commentary
* Bible Study Wiki
* BibleWiki
* Wikible
* A Hebrew and English encyclopedia of everybody in the Jewish Bible.

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This page was last modified 16:07:27, 2007-10-26. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.)
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.

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