“Windows To Spirituality”
The Bible
The primary sacred text of Christianity is the Bible. Its name is derived from the Latin word biblia, which simply means “books.” The Christian Bible is made of two parts: the Old Testament, which is almost identical to the Jewish Bible; and the New Testament, a collection of Christian writings that includes biographies of Jesus Christ and the apostles, like the Apostle Paul, letters to new churches, and an apocalyptic work.
The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by about 40 authors, in three different languages, on three different continents, over approximately 1600 years. The Bible appears in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they are collectively revelations of God.
A Christian Bible is a set of books that a Christian denomination regards as divinely inspired and thus constituting scripture. Although the Early Church primarily used the Septuagint or the Targums among Aramaic speakers, the apostles did not leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead the canon of the New Testament developed over time. Groups within Christianity include differing books as part of their sacred writings, most prominent among which are the biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.
The Holy Bible
Scholarly Interpretation Of Gospel-elements Scholars have given various interpretations of the elements of the Gospel-stories. In this article, we examine the Scholarly Interpretation of Gospel-elements. Chronology Main article: Chronology of Jesus The approximate chronology of Jesus can be estimated from non-Christian sources, and confirmed by correlating them with New Testament accounts. The baptism...
Gospel Of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas (the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is an extra-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate that the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a...
Gospel Of Barnabas The Gospel of Barnabas is a book depicting the life of Jesus, which claims to be by the biblical Barnabas who in this work is one of the twelve apostles. Two manuscripts are known to have existed, both dated to the late 16th or early 17th centuries, with one written in Italian and...
Book Of Leviticus The Book of Leviticus (Leuïtikón, וַיִּקְרָא, Vayyīqrāʾ, “And He called”) is the third book of the Torah (the Pentateuch) and of the Old Testament, also known as the Third Book of Moses. Scholars generally agree that it developed over a long period of time, reaching its present form during the Persian Period between 538–332 BC....
Book Of Numbers The Book of Numbers (from Greek Ἀριθμοί, Arithmoi; Hebrew: בְּמִדְבַּר, Bəmīḏbar, “In the desert [of]”), also known as the Fourth Book of Moses, is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and complex history; its final form is possibly due to a Priestly redaction...
Book Of Exodus The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Bible. It narrates the story of the Exodus, in which the Israelites leave slavery in Biblical Egypt through the strength of Yahweh, who has chosen them as his people. The Israelites then journey with the prophet Moses to Mount Sinai, where Yahweh promises them the land of Canaan (the “Promised...
Book Of Deuteronomy The Book of Deuteronomy (“second law”) is the fifth book of the Torah, where it is called Devarim (דְּבָרִים), “the words [of Moses]”, and the fifth book of the Christian Old Testament, where it is also known as the Fifth Book of Moses. Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or...
Catholic Epistles The catholic epistles (general epistles) are seven epistles of the New Testament. Listed in order of their appearance in the New Testament. Catholic Epistle, the name given to the Epistle of St. James, to that of St. Jude, to two Epistles of St. Peter and the first three of St. John,...
Textual Criticism Of The New Testament Textual criticism of the New Testament is the identification of textual variants, or different versions of the New Testament, whose goals include identification of transcription errors, analysis of versions, and attempts to reconstruct the original text. Its main focus is studying the textual variants in the New Testament. The...
Biblical Authority In Christianity, the term biblical authority refers to two complementary ideas: the extent to which one can regard the commandments and doctrines within the Old and New Testament scriptures as authoritative over humans’ belief and conduct the extent to which Biblical propositions are accurate in matters of history and science The case for biblical authority stems from...
The Jefferson Bible The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, commonly referred to as the Jefferson Bible, is one of two religious works constructed by Thomas Jefferson. The first, The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, was completed in 1804, but no copies exist today. The second, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,...
Luther Bible The Luther Bible (Lutherbibel) is a German language Bible translation from Hebrew and ancient Greek by Martin Luther. The New Testament was first published in September 1522 and the complete Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha, in 1534. Luther continued to make improvements to the text until 1545. It was the first full translation of the Bible...
Supplementary Hypothesis In biblical studies, the supplementary hypothesis proposes that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) was derived from a series of direct additions to an existing corpus of work. It serves as a revision to the earlier documentary hypothesis, which proposed that independent and complete narratives were later combined by redactors...
Book Of Daniel The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BCE biblical apocalypse with an ostensible 6th century BCE setting, combining a prophecy of history with an eschatology (a portrayal of end times) both cosmic in scope and political in focus. It gives “an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon”, and its message...
Geneva Bible The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th-century English Protestantism and was used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). It was one of the Bibles taken to...
Names And Titles Of God In The New Testament This article covers the Names And Titles of God in The New Testament. In contrast to the variety of absolute or personal names of God in the Old Testament, the New Testament uses only two, according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. With regard...
Peshitta The Peshitta (pšīṭtā) is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syro Malankara Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syro Malabar Catholic Church. The consensus within biblical scholarship, although not universal, is that the Old Testament of...
What Is An Epistle? An epistle (epistolē, “letter”) is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians are usually referred to as epistles. Those...
Bible Translations Bible translations have a rich and varied history of more than a millennium. The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. As of September 2020 the full Bible has been translated into 700 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,548 languages and Bible portions or stories...
Biblical Studies Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Tanakh and the New Testament). For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from archaeology, ancient history, cultural anthropology, textual criticism, literary criticism, historical backgrounds, mythology, and comparative religion. Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses...
