bible_bible

The word “Bible” designates the Scriptures [Writings] of the Old and the New Testaments that are recognized as authoritative and used by the Christian churches as basis for its doctrine and instruction in the Christian faith. The word “Bible” comes from the Greek word biblia [“books”], the plural of biblos [“book”], which denoted the inner bark of papyrus reed from which ancient paper was made and upon which ancient books or scrolls were written. Daniel 9:2 refers to the Old Testament prophetic writings as “the books” [ta biblia in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that is called the Septuagint]. The development of the singular term “the Bible” from the plural has been viewed as providential, stressing the unity of the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 of the New Testament. The books of the Old Testament were originally written almost entirely in Hebrew, a Semitic dialect akin to Phoenician and Ugaritic. The only parts written in Aramaic, another Semitic language akin to Hebrew, were Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan. 2:4-7:28, and Jer. 10:11. The New Testament was written entirely in the common everyday Greek, called Koine, of the contemporary Graeco-Roman world.

Judaism recognizes only the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Other religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Islam, do not recognize the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, and have their own sacred writings. The Christian churches hold that there is only one Bible compared with other “sacred” writings, because (1) it is the revelation of God, (2) it is inspired, that is, “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16), in a different sense from all other literature, (3) it discloses God’s plan and purpose for time and eternity, and (4) it centers in the God who sent into the world His only Son, who was incarnate in the God-man Jesus Christ (John 1:1-14; Heb. 1:1-2). The Old Testament records the preparation for His coming and the New Testament records that coming and its meaning.

Since the end of the second Christian century the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” have been used distinguish between the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. In the middle of the second century A.D., the formal collection of the Christian writings was called the New Testament and it was placed alongside the Hebrew canonical books as of equal inspiration and authority. The Hebrew Scriptures were called the Old Testament. Tertullian, an early Latin Christian lawyer (about A.D. 200), was the first in writing to use the term Novum Testamenium for the collection of writing of the early apostles or their associates. The basis of this distinction between the Old and New Testament was the difference between the Old and New Covenant. The writings of Moses, the books of the law, was called “the book of the covenant [Hebrew, berith]” (2 Kings 23:2). The writings of the Old Testament were referred to by Jesus as “the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms” (Luke 24:44) and were referred to briefly as “the law and the prophets” (Matthew 5:17; 11:13; Acts 13:15) and even more briefly as “the law” for the whole of the Hebrew writings (John 10:34; 12:34; 15:25; 1 Cor. 14:21). The Apostle Paul refers to them as the old testament [Greek, diatheke], that is, the old covenant (2 Cor. 3:14). In the Greek New Testament the Greek word diatheke is used usually to designate the Hebrew concept of a covenant (Hebrew, berith), not as in classical Greek to refer to a will or testament, except in Heb. 9:16-17. The Old and New Testaments should really be designated as the Old and New Covenants, but this would not be entirely accurate. The book of Genesis records events that occurred before the establishment of the Old or Mosaic Covenant, whose giving is recorded in the book of Exodus, and most of the events recorded in the Gospels occurred under the Old Covenant before the New Covenant was established by the death of Christ (Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor, 11:23-25), that was accompanied by the tearing of the veil or curtain that separated the most holy place from the holy place in the temple (Matthew 27:51).

There are two ways to survey the Bible: (1) as history and (2) as literature. Since the Bible is a historical record of God’s revelation of Himself, the Bible may be surveyed by taking a historical approach that traces that history, relating the books of the Bible to that historical time line. Many Bible teachers take this approach and my wife, Edith Shelton, surveyed the Bible in that way. But since the Bible is a collection of writings, the Bible may also be surveyed by considering each of these writings as literature, and this is the approach that is used below, outlining each book and relating them to the historical time line. These two approaches are not mutually exclusive but are just two different but complimentary ways to survey the Bible.