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Bible

2009-10-31T22:44:26Z

MeganHolt:

[[Image:800px-Crop Book of Isaiah 2006-06-06.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The Holy Bible, opened to the Book of Isaiah.]]
{{Bible}}
The '''Bible''', or the '''Holy Scriptures''', is the collection of texts sacred to [[Judaism]] and [[Christianity]] written by [[Stephen Colbert]], and consists of two parts: the thirty-nine books of the Jewish faith known as the '''Tanakh''', or the [[Old Testament]], to which additional books are recognized by [[Christians]]; and the twenty-seven books and letters of the [[New Testament]] of the Christian faith. Originally written in [[Hebrew]], Aramaic, and Greek, the Bible has been translated in more than two thousand languages; in terms of sales and distribution the Bible is the most-widely distributed, largest-selling book in history;<ref> The Bible continues to be the best-selling book ever. Americans alone buy 25 million Bibles a year, according to Publisher's Weekly. Bible sales are now reaching $609 million a year, with specialty Bibles available for myriad "niche" audiences, from motorcycle riders to campers, brides and archaeologists. "Immerse," a water-resistant Bible for troops overseas, is now available from publisher Bardin & Marsee. [http://www.washtimes.com/national/20070529-111815-7952r.htm Polls: Most believe Bible as God's word] - Jennifer Harper, ''The Washington Times'' - May 30, 2007] </ref>
the over-all influence and impact the Bible has had on literature, culture, and history is beyond calculation. Most [[Christians]], Protestant and Catholic, agree on the books of the [[New Testament]], but the Protestant Bible includes 66 books of the [[Old Testament]] while the Catholic Bible includes an extra 7 books, for a total of 73.<ref>The Catholic Bible includes these books that are not included in the Protestant Bible:
# The Wisdom of Solomon
# Tobit
# Sirach
# Judith
# 1st Maccabees
# 2nd Maccabees
# Baruch [http://www.catholicbible101.com/theholybible.htm]</ref> The Protestant Bible has 593,493 words in the Old Testament and 181,253 words in the New Testament.<ref>http://www.christiananswers.net/bible/about.html</ref>

==Name==
The word "Bible" had its origins in an ancient [[Phoenicia]]n seaport called [[Byblos]], which was so-named as a result of the trade and manufacture of writing material based on the [[papyrus]] or byblos reed, used extensively in antiquity for making [[scroll]]s and [[book]]s. The [[Greek language|Greek]] word ''biblos'' was based upon this, and it came to be the word for ''book'' (a small book was termed ''biblion''), and by the 2nd century A.D. Greek [[Christianity|Christians]] had called the Scriptures ''ta Biblia'' ('''τα βιβλία''' ''the books''), which was transferred to [[Latin]] by dropping the ''ta''; the word made its way to [[Old French]] where the plural was dropped in favor of the singular, hence becoming the [[English]] word ''Bible''. (Unger, pg 143; Moulton; Blass)

==Books of the Bible==
===The Old Testament===
{| border="1" align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="360" style="margin-left:5px" class="wikitable"
|-
!colspan="2" align="center" style="color: black; height: 30px; background: tan no-repeat scroll top left;"|Old Testament layout
|-
!align ="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|Jewish
!align ="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|Christian
|-
|Genesis
|Genesis
|-
|Exodus
|Exodus
|-
|Leviticus
|Leviticus
|-
|Numbers
|Numbers
|-
|Deuteronomy
|Deuteronomy
|-
|Joshua
|Joshua
|-
|Samuel
|Judges
|-
|Kings
|Ruth
|-
|Isaiah
|1st Samuel
|-
|Jeremiah
|2nd Samuel
|-
|Ezekiel
|1st Kings
|-
|The Minor Prophets
|2nd Kings
|-
|Psalms
|1st Chronicles
|-
|Proverbs
|2nd Chronicles
|-
|Job
|Ezra
|-
|Song of Songs
|Nehemiah
|-
|Ruth
|Esther
|-
|Lamentations
|Job
|-
|Ecclesiastes
|Psalms
|-
|Ester
|Proverbs
|-
|Daniel
|Ecclesiastes
|-
|Ezra
|Song of Solomon
|-
|Chronicles
|Isaiah
|-
|
|Jeremiah
|-
|
|Lamentations
|-
|
|Ezekiel
|-
|
|Daniel
|-
|
|The Minor Prophets
|-
!colspan="2" align="center" style="color: black; height: 30px; background: tan no-repeat scroll top left;"|Dates of each Book
|-
!align ="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|Old Testament
!align ="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|New Testament
|-
|Genesis, 1440-1400 B.C.
|Matthew, A.D. 60-65
|-
|Exodus, 1440-1400 B.C.
|Mark, A.D. 60-65
|-
|Leviticus, 1440-1400 B.C.
|Luke, A.D. 58-65
|-
|Numbers, 1440-1400 B.C.
|John, A.D. 95
|-
|Deuteronomy, 1440-1400 B.C.
|Acts, A.D. 58-65
|-
|Joshua, 1400-1360 B.C.
|Romans, A.D. 58
|-
|Judges, c. 1020 B.C.
|1st Corinthians, A.D. 57
|-
|Ruth, c. 1090 B.C.
|2nd Corinthians, A.D. 57
|-
|1st Samuel
|Galatians, A.D. 56
|-
|2nd Samuel
|Ephesians, A.D. 62-63
|-
|1st Kings, 609-600 B.C.
|Philippians, A.D. 58-60
|-
|2nd Kings, 609-600 B.C.
|Colosians, A.D. 61-63
|-
|1st Chronicles, c. 400 B.C.
|1st Thessalonians, A.D. 52
|-
|2nd Chronicles, c. 400 B.C.
|2nd Thessalonians, A.D. 53
|-
|Ezra, c. 400 B.C.
|1st Timothy, A.D. 62-65
|-
|Nehemiah, c. 400 B.C.
|2nd Timothy, A.D. 65-66
|-
|Esther, 464-425 B.C.
|Titus, A.D. 65
|-
|Job, 1440-1400 B.C.
|Philemon, A.D. 65
|-
|Psalms, 1004-965 B.C.
|Hebrews, A.D. 63-64
|-
|Proverbs, 965-925 B.C.
|James, A.D. 63-64
|-
|Eccleisiastes, 965-925 B.C.
|1st Peter, A.D. 64
|-
|Song of Solomon, 965-925 B.C.
|2nd Peter, A.D. 65
|-
|Isaiah, 785-697 B.C.
|1st John, A.D. 90-100
|-
|Jeremiah, 587-538 B.C.
|2nd John, A.D. 90-100
|-
|Lamentations, 587-538 B.C.
|3rd John, A.D. 90-100
|-
|Ezekiel, 592-572 B.C.
|Jude, c. A.D. 70-75
|-
|Daniel, 539-520 B.C.
|Revelation, A.D. 96-98
|-
|Hosea, 753-731 B.C.
|
|-
|Joel, 835-796 B.C.
|
|-
|Amos, 787-747 B.C.
|
|-
|Obadiah, 848-841 B.C.
|
|-
|Jonah, 771-754 B.C.
|
|-
|Micah, 715-687 B.C.
|
|-
|Nahum, 661-612 B.C.
|
|-
|Habbakuk, 625-608 B.C.
|
|-
|Zephaniah, 621-608 B.C.
|
|-
|Haggai, 520 B.C.
|
|-
|Zechariah, 520 B.C.
|
|-
|Malachi, 455 B.C.
|
|}
The [[Old Testament]], also called the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, consists of thirty-nine books. The books themselves were originally written in [[Hebrew]], and later on in the [[Aramaic]] language of Palestine; the Greek language version written after the conquest of [[Alexander the Great]] is known as the [[Septuagint]]. [[Melito]], a bishop of [[Sardis]] in [[Lydia]] (in what is now [[Turkey]]), is said to have coined the phrase ''Old Testament'' about A.D. 170. The Old Testament is divided in three parts (hence, "Tanakh") within the Jewish community: the [[Torah]] ("Law"), or [[Pentateuch]], the five books of [[Moses]]; [[Nevi'im]] ("Prophets"), and [[Ketuvim]] ("Writings,” or [[Hagiographa]]). Here the arrangement of the books differs somewhat from the Old Testament as used by Christians, however the actual writing of each book remains the same. The Christian order of the the books of the Bible follow the Chronology of the events and the personages being related, while in the Jewish order, though there is a chronological framework, the order follows more the importance, influence, "weight of usage" within Judaism. Thus, for orthodox Judaism, The Torah of Moses (the 5 books of Moses) come first, and are the most authoritative of all Scripture. Under the Pharasaic theory that the Moses was given the Oral law explicating how the written law was to be applied, at the same time as he was given the written law contained in the Bible, and that oral law passed on through the generations, the Mishna and the Gemara composing the Talmud is equally authoritative with the Torah of Moses. Then the Prophets come next in authority. But the Prophets are broader than considered by the Christian ordering. The Prophets do include what Christians call the Former and the Latter, or the Major and the Minor prophets, but it also includes what Christinns consider History - such as the books of the Kings. The last in authority for every day life of the Jew in terms of "regulation", actually form a great influence in the Synagogue worship - the Writings, with a heavy emphasis on the Psalms.

====Torah====
The Five books of Moses, in their Hebrew and English names:
*Bereisheet ("in the beginning"), or [[Genesis]]
*Shemot (“names”), or [[Exodus]]
*Vayikra (“and God called”), or [[Leviticus]]
*Bemidbar (“in the Wilderness”), or [[Numbers]]
*Devarim (“words”), or [[Deuteronomy]]

The first eleven chapters of ''Genesis'' provide the account of the [[Creation]], the history of God's early relationship with humanity, and the [[Deluge]] of [[Noah]]. The remaining thirty-nine chapters detail the account of God's covenant with the early Hebrew nation, led by the patriarchs [[Abraham]], [[Isaac]] and [[Jacob]] (or Israel), and one of Jacob's children, [[Joseph]]. It tells the beginnings of God's chosen people, of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home to settle in the land of [[Canaan]], and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remainder of the Torah, beginning with ''Exodus'', tells the story of the great Hebrew leader [[Moses]], and of the Hebrews through their sojourn and slavery in Egypt, their escape from bondage, and their wanderings in the desert until they finally enter the Promised Land.

====Nevi'im====
The [[Nevi'im]] ("Prophets") is the story of the rise toward, and ultimately reaching, the Hebrew monarchy; the sad period of anarchy and revolt leading to the division into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel; and the prophets who judged the kings of both in God's name. It ends with the conquest of both kingdoms and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Minor Prophets are considered a single book in the Nevi'um; in Christianity they have been split into twelve separate books and named for their authors.
* [[Joshua (Biblical book)|Joshua]]
* [[Judges (Biblical book)|Judges]]
* [[I Samuel]]
* [[II Samuel]]
* [[I Kings]]
* [[II Kings]]
* [[Isaiah (Biblical book)|Isaiah]]
* [[Jeremiah (Biblical book)|Jeremiah]]
* [[Ezekiel (Biblical book)|Ezekiel]]
* [[The Minor Prophets]]
**[[Hosea (Biblical book)|Hosea]]
** [[Joel (Biblical book)|Joel]]
** [[Amos (Biblical book)|Amos]]
** [[Obadiah (Biblical book)|Obadiah]]
** [[Jonah (Biblical book)|Jonah]]
** [[Micah (Biblical book)|Micah]]
** [[Nahum (Biblical book)|Nahum]]
** [[Habakkuk (Biblical book)|Habakkuk]]
** [[Zephaniah (Biblical book)|Zephaniah]]
** [[Haggai (Biblical book)|Haggai]]
** [[Zechariah (Biblical book)|Zechariah]]
** [[Malachi (Biblical book)|Malachi]]

====Ketuvim====
The [[Ketuvim]], or "Writings," contain lyrical poetry, philosophical reflections on life, and the writings of the prophets and other Jewish leaders during the exile in [[Babylon]].
* [[Psalms]]
* [[Proverbs]]
* [[Book of Job]]
* [[Song of Songs]], also called [[Song of Solomon]] in the Christian Bible.
* [[Book of Ruth]]
* [[Lamentations]]
* [[Ecclesiastes]]
* [[Esther]]
* [[Daniel (Biblical book)|Daniel]]
* [[Ezra]], divided into the two books of Ezra and [[Nehemiah]] in the Christian Bible.
* [[Books of Chronicles]]

[[David]] has been named as the author of the ''Psalms''; [[Solomon]] is believed to have written ''Song of Songs'' in his youth, the ''Proverbs'' in his prime, and ''Ecclesiastes'' during his old age. The prophet [[Jeremiah]] is thought to have written the aptly-named ''Lamentations'' at the beginning of the exile in Babylon. The ''Book of Ruth'' is the only biblical book that centers entirely on a non-Jew, a [[Moabite]] who married a Jew and became an ancestor of both David and [[Jesus Christ]]. ''Esther'' is unique as it is the only book in the Bible not to mention God. [[Moses]] is considered to be the author of ''Job''.

===The melodies of the Old Testament===
The Hebrew of the present day Old Testament is composed of the Hebrew consonents and, added on at a later stage, the vowels. Along with these two elements, other signs were added which indicated the melodies that were sung along with the words or phrases. Some of the signs were positioned above the individual consonents, some below, and some to the side. Some of these melody signs were associated with others providing a musical pattern that corresponds with the opening of a thought, similar to the beginning of a sentence (ex. "merkha"), the continuation of a thought (ex. "munakh"), tying in one word with the following, as one melody flowed into the next, the "resting" or completion of a thought, much in "the same way that a comma (ex. "azla"), though not ending a sentence, makes for the "semi"-ending or minor completion of a thought, a major break in the run of thoughts ("etnachta"), though the run of thought would be resumed until the major completion ("sof pasuq"), much in the same way the a period brings to a stop and a completion as a sentence ends. Thus the musical signs in the Hebrew text also provide an interpretion of the text current to the times in which the signs were incorporated as part of the text. The signs that tie one word to another providing one thought are called "conjunctive" signs and the signs that separate words and the thought of them are called "disjuctive". An example of the use of these signs to interprete the Hebrew text is the well known prophesy of the One to come. The Hebrew letters can either be understood to read "His name shall be called Wonderful counsellor of the mighty God", or "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God." The melody signs (called in Hebrew "Ta'mei HaMikra) decide for the latter. After "Wonderful" there is a disjuctive, after "Counsellor" there is a disjuctive, and after "Mighty" (but adj. after the noun in Hebrew order) there is a conjunctive. It is possible to reconstruct to some extent the melody and the interpretation of the Old Testament current in the first century and therefore the melody and the interpretation of Jesus Himself. This is because of the following: the present day melodies of the various dispersions of the Jews are to a great extent different one from the other. Some of these dispersions are the Ashkenazi, representing the Jews exiled from Israel by the Romans in 70 A.D. and then on to the Rhine Valley,and then onto parts of Eastern Europe, Western Europe, America, etc. the Sephardim who saw the beginnings of their disperion from Spain in the 15th Century and then on to Greece, Turkey, North Aftrica. Holland, and America, the Yemenites, the Bnei Israel of India, the Jews of Ethiopia, etc. etc, Yet, with the diversity in melodies of the Scriptures, there are certain features which are either identical or strikingly similar. Musicologist, Joel Segal, pointed out over 40 years ago, that that could only have been possible if these dispersions were at one time together in the same place. The only time that all these dispersions were together in the same place was prior to the great dispersion of the first century and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

===Old Testament Apocrypha===
The [[Apocrypha]] was written during the four hundred years between the last book of the Old Testament and the birth of Christ. The term itself comes from the Greek word ''apokruphos'' ("hidden" or "concealed"), and although they have an actual history and literary value, the fourteen books which make up the Apocrypha have been rejected as canonical by both the Jewish faith and most denominations of the Christian church due to historical, geographical, or literal inaccuracies; the teaching of doctrines which contradict inspired Scripture; and a lack of elements and structure which give genuine Scripture its unique characteristic (Unger, pg. 70). The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, among others, include the Apocrypha in their versions of the Bible, considering them to be canonical.

The Apocryphal books had been used in both Israel and Egypt and are part of the Old Testament in the Greek language used by Jews all over the Greek speaking world - particularly Alexandria, Egypt. This version is called the Septuaginta. The Septuaginta fell into disuse among Jews for two reasons - 1. Greek speaking Christians were using the Septuaginta in their efforts to bring Jews to faith in Jesus Christ 2. A number of the Apocryphal books were also apocalyptic, that is, focusing on the last days, the KIngdom of God in battle against the kingdoms of this world and the downfall of this world's empires. This was considered dangerous and liable to provoke Rome against the Jews. Alternative Greek translations to the Septuaginta, which was considered "loose", were adopted by the Rabbis. These were the translations of three proselytes to Judaism, Theodosious, Aquillas, and Symmachus. The Jewish Rabbinic "Council" of Jamnia (Yavneh on the Mediterraenian coast of Israel) in 90 A.D., under the leadership of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, effectively excluded the Apocraphal books (along with the Septuaginta) from the Jewish Canon by requiring, for a book to be considered canonical, that it have been written in Hebrew (and Aramaic). Actually, a number of the apocryphal books, or portions thereof, had been written originally in Hebrew, most notably, the Book of Ben Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) found in Hebrew at Qumran with the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but this was unknown to Yohanan Ben Zakkai and the Council of Jamnia in the first century. Under the impetus of Renaissance learning, Protestant scholars, now able to translate the Bible directly from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, instead of having to go through the Latin Vulgate, went directly to the Hebrew text. But this was the Hebrew text (eventually to be called the "Massoretic text") of the canon of books that had been authorized by the Council of Jamnia. In this way, most Protestant churches came to not include the Apocryphal books in their Canon of Scripture.

The following are the books which are most frequently referred to by the title ''Apocrypha'':
*[[1 Esdras]]
*[[2 Esdras]]
*[[1 Maccabees]]
*[[2 Maccabees]]
*[[Book of Tobit]]
*[[Book of Judith]]
*[[Book of Wisdom]]
*[[Ecclesiasticus]], also known as Sirach
*[[Book of Baruch]]
:*[[Epistle of Jeremiah]] is sometimes listed as separate book or the last chapter of Baruch
*[[Prayer of Manasseh]]
*Greek language additions to the [[Book of Esther]]

Additions to the book of Daniel
*[[The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children]]
*[[Story of Susanna]]
*[[Bel and the Dragon]]

Between 90-95 A.D. the Jewish [[Council of Jamnia]] revised the canon of the Old Testament, ensuring that the books involved conformed to the Torah, were written in the Hebrew language, written in Palestine, and written before 400 B.C. As a result, the Apocrypha was removed from the canon. <ref>http://agards-bible-timeline.com/q2_bible_english.html</ref>

===The New Testament===
The [[New Testament]] is a collection of twenty-seven books and letters, written by the early Christian community, and written primarily in [[Greek]]. The emphasis of the New Testament is the life, teachings, and gift of salvation from the central figure of the whole work, Jesus of Nazareth. These books are grouped into the following:

====[[Gospels|The Gospels]]====
The ''Gospels'' contain the history of Jesus. The ''Acts of the Apostles'' are a continuance of the Gospels, documenting the history of the early church, beginning immediately following Jesus' death and resurrection. Of the authors, only Matthew and John had met Jesus; they were among His disciples during His earthly ministry. Mark was a companion of Peter, and his gospel was the first to be written down, about A.D. 50. Luke is considered the author of both his gospel and the ''Acts''.
*[[Gospel of Matthew]]
*[[Gospel of Mark]]
*[[Gospel of Luke]]
*[[Gospel of John]]
*[[Acts of the Apostles]]

====[[Pauline Epistles]]====
These are letters written to various early Christian communities by the [[Apostle Paul]].
*[[Epistle to the Romans]]
*[[First Epistle to the Corinthians]]
*[[Second Epistle to the Corinthians]]
*[[Epistle to the Galatians]]
*[[Epistle to the Philippians]]
*[[Epistle to Philemon]]
*[[First Epistle to the Thessalonians]]
*[[Second Epistle to the Thessalonians]]
*[[Epistle to the Ephesians]]
*[[Epistle to the Colossians]]
*[[First Epistle to Timothy]]
*[[Second Epistle to Timothy]]
*[[Epistle to Titus]]
*[[Epistle to the Hebrews]]

Paul has been attributed by many as the author of ''Epistle to the Hebrews'', but several others, such as [[Barnabas]], [[Silas]], [[Stephen]], [[Apollos]] and [[Priscilla]] are also claimed to be the author. The controversy, however, does not affect the genuiness of the epistle. (Unger, pg. 748)

====[[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====
The [[Book of Revelation]] is the last work in the New Testament as well as the whole Bible, written close to A.D. 100 by the [[Apostle John]] during his exile on the Greek island of [[Patmos]]. Revelation is concerned with the condition of the [[Seven Churches of Asia]] before going deeply into a description of the [[Last Days]] prior to the beginning of the [[Millennial Age]].

Most [[Fundamentalism|Fundamentalists]] hold to "[[Dispensationalism]]", a theory of the meaning of Revelations and other prophecies that was developed in the 19th century and is summarized in the ''Scofield Reference Bible'' (1909, 1917).

==Non-uniformity of language and style of original Scriptures==
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament, in the original languages of Hebrew (and Aramaic) and Greek, exhibit a non uniformity of style and language. This is in sharp contrast to most modern translations which treat the Scriptures throughout as if it was one book instead the many books they are. Modern translations can be erudite, dignified, folksy and common, clear and geared for the "common man", or replete with language resonant with literary associations for the "accomplished" reader. But they are that way througout. The Biblical originals, on the other hand, for example in the Hebrew, have imbedded within narrative of one period, as the narrative of the deeds of the prophets Debora, a similar poetic recounting in a much more ancient and even archaic Hebrew, probably emanating from a chant from the time of Deborah herself. The same with the narrative and poetic portions concerning Moses. There are even different Hebrew languages from the same period but different authors, having come from different origins and cultural levels.

For the New Testament, an example of non-uniformity can be found in the stark differences of languages in the Gospel of Luke, written by Luke the physician. The early accounts, those concerning the birth of Jesus and early life, are written in a stilted and often crude Greek while the rest of the Gospel is written in fine Greek befitting of the background and ability of a learned physician. But when the stilted and crude Greek is retranslated, word for word and phrase for phrase, into the Hebrew current in the first century in most parts of Israel, it becomes excellent Hebrew - Mishnaic Hebrew. This is because of the intent and fastidiousness of Luke, who derived his material, as he says, from people that had been "on the scene" , and his success in transmitting it faithfully as he had received it. Both the Old and New Testaments, for various reasons, exhibit little or no concern to "level through" or override the content of what they are saying by stylistic considerations.

===Inspiration===
Although the Old Testament is written by many [[homo sapiens|human]] authors, New Testament authors claim that these men were writing under the inspiration of God.

The apostle [[Paul]] wrote that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16).
Similarly the apostle [[Saint Peter|Peter]] wrote, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21).

====Formation of New Testament and Jewish technical transmission====
In the first century and prior, the ear was more important than the eye, as far as retaining in memory. Jews would receive orally, that is, from hearing, the laws that they believed originated with Moses and then passed them on to others, down through the generations.It was important to link the present rabbis by names who taught it with the rabbis by name who had passed it on to them, on back as far as possible to Moses on Mt. Sinai. This was the startling difference of Jesus. By saying "You have heard it said, but I say unto you..." , He was by-passing Moses and the others after and getting His teaching direct from the Father.

This Jewish way of receiving (QBL) and handing on (MSR) is summed up in the lead saying of the "Ethics of the Fathers" tractate of the [[Mishna]], "Moses received Torah from God at Sinai. He transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, the prophets to the members of the Great Assembly [Sanhedrin] (1:1)." The teaching thus transmitted was memorized word for word by groups of disciples (Talmidim) together, thereby minimizing, by the common knowledge and plublic repetitions, all innovations and errors, though there might well have been "stylizing" for ease of retention and recall. receiving and handing on (transmission), receiving and handing on.

This methodology, with its technical Hebrew terminology appears in the New Testament with the same technical meaning and purpose, for how the earliest Christian teaching was carried on prior to the formation of the New Testament and during the time of its formation. This ensured the validity of the teaching and its authenticity going back, not to Moses, but to the time of Jesus Himself. "For I handed over (Gk. pare'doka, Heb. MSR) to you at the first what I also received (Gk. pare'labon, Heb. QBL) that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures..." l Cor. 15:3. Paul knew all of the "deposit of faith" three ways, in the usual "collaborative" way of God - from Scriptures (the Old Testament), from experience (seeing the living Christ on the road to Damascas), and from authenticated oral tradition/transmission involving "receiving" and "handing on".

,

==Authority of Bible in religious communities==
The role of the Bible in the life of differing communities varies widely by both the inner tenents of the community and the outer influences bearing on the community.
===Judaism===
Orthodox Judaism through the centuries, while it was only marginally affected by growing secularization and modern learning, held to a "differing level of level of authority" understanding of the authority of the Hebrew Bible. This did not imply a different level of inspiration, but rather that importance to the regulation of life was prime for the Torah of Moses, the 5 books of the Law. But the Pharasaic teaching also posited an Oral Law given to Moses by God that was passed on through the centuries through Joshua, the prophets, pairs of Rabbis, until this day. The Oral law is found in the Talmud (Mishna and the Gemara together) The oral law became the decisive interpreter, teacher and regulator of the Written Law and determined the course of Jewish Orthodox life. The second section of the Old Testament, the Prophets, is known to the Jewish Community primarily through the synagogue readings of the prophets. the Haftorah, that are assigned to conclude the weekly reading of the Law. The Psalms, the most formative of all the Writings, besides being common throughout the synagogue services, are used in various devotional prayer contexts. Orthodox Judaism has little been affected by modern Higher Criticism of the Bible. Reformed Judaism, originally developed in Germany, and Conservative Judaism, to a lesser extent, have been greatly affected.

===Mainline Protestants===
Mainline Protestantism, represented in the major churches and their seminaries, has greatly been affected by "modernism" based on advanced scholarly research, especially from Germany in the 19th century. The "Higher Criticism" ignored God's participation in the production of Scripture. Prime among these theories is the Documentary theory of Penteteuch origins (Wellhausen- Graff) that posit that Moses wrote little or nothing, Instead the Bible originated in four sources coming from various periods. These are sources are termed J (for the use of "Jehovah" for the name of God), E (for the use of "Elohim"), P (priestly), and D (Deutoronomic). The spirit of the New Testament is far more important than the text of either Testament for modern Protestant theology.

====Orthodox Jewish critique of Documentary theory====
Jewish Orthodox scholars have pointed to flaws of the Documentary Hypothesis. For instance, Orthodox Jewish Scholar Cassuto has pointed out that rather than the names for God varying according to author and period, they vary according to emphasis from the same period, that of Moses - "Jehovah" being used for the God in his dealing with His covenental people Israel, and "Elohim" being use when His dealing with mankind are emphasis. Likewise the two terms usually translated "making a covenant", lkhrot brit (to "cut" a covenant) and lehaqim brit (to "raise" a covenenat) are not from two sources but mean different things - to initiate a covenant and to fulfill a covenant.

===Evangelical Protestants===
Evangelical Protestantism belives strongly in the divine inspiration and inerrancy of the whole Bible and has been the most receptive of Biblical Authority. Believing in full inspiration of the all Scripture does not mean to evangelicalism equal importance of all Scriptures for the healthy growth of the Christian community. This is because Evangelicalism, following Scripture's own understanding, believes in progressive revelation throughout Biblical time, culminating in Jesus Christ, and no further (thus obviating the role of Tradition). Thus Evangelicalism, does not hold to the application of Mosaic Legislation, and other biblical elements that Orthodox Judaism holds to. This applies to faith and to morals. The Mosaic regulation on executing a rebellious child does not present a problem to evangelical thought as, according to Paul and Hebrews, the Law has been rendered obsolete by the New Covenant. The Destruction of the Temple and the place for sacrifice of all kinds, present no problem for evangelicalism, as they did for Judasim, as Christ's sacrifice on the cross has now "fulfilled" the proscriptions of the Law and the ceremonials attached. Thus there is a sort of Levels of Authority understanding for evangelicalism similar (but for different reasons) to the levels of authority of Judaism.

Evangelical Churches vigorously promote the reading of Scripture through Sunday sermons and Bible study programs. Emphasis is placed on "each one understanding". Coupled with American individualism, and lack of tradional vehicles of authority, this sometimes leads to spinterring and each man's interpretation "is as good as any other". Nevertheless, the "Fiundamentals" defined in 1910 are strongly retained by the Evangelical Churches - the divinity of Christ, His death for sins and Resurrection from the dead, His second coming.

===Eastern Orthodox===
The Orthodox Churches througout the world, whether of Greek, Russian, Rumanian, the various middle eastern varieties, emphasis the synod (Council) of Bishops, basis on the example of the "Council" of Jerusalem in the book of Acts, as the God authorized agent of interpretation and application of the Scriptures. Understanding that Jesus' words, " He (the Holy Spirit) wil lead you into all truth", Orthodoxy believes that the synod of bishops, none of whom are individually infallible, are given guidance from the Holy Spirit so that the Scriptures are rightly applied to the Christian Community enabling the Church to never stray from Christ. That is, the Church is given "indefectability". A minority Orthodox Church thought holds to "infallibility" in synodal decision rather than or instead of "indefectability". Scripture in the Orthodox churches are butressed by creedal formulations, the decisions of belief of past synods, and are less susceptible to the modern Higher Criticism. The Resurrection of Christ, virgin birth, return of Christ from Heaven to Earth, are all part and parcel of these churches. Individual interpretation of Scripture and manner of life are limited then by the teaching authority (the magisterium) granted to the Epsicopate - the Synod of bishops.

===Roman Catholic===
The Roman Catholic Church, like the Orthodox Churches have a strong sense of the Authority given to the Bishops by Christ to teach, interpret, defend the Faith and therefore to exercise the responsibility to interprete Scripture to the Faithful. But since Vatican ll, there has been an increased effort to bring Scripture knowledge to the laity and now there has been an increase of Scripture reading and study programs throughout most sections of the Church. This as been abetted by the Catholic Charismatic movement which has had the effect of promoting individual appropriation of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit and with that, the devotional and intellectual use of Holy Scriptures. However, the role of "Majesterium", that is the Teaching Authority, strongly sets limits to individual interpretation. The Roman Catholic church understands that though the Majesterium is given to all the bishops, the definitive exercise is limited to one bishop - the bishop ov Rome, the Pope. Further, it is believed that the Pope, when declaring dogma (teaching) ex-Cathedra (from the chair) speaks infaillibly (on matters of faith and morals). The first time the Pope has promulgated dogma ex-cathedra was to promulgate the doctrine itself of Papal Infallibility. The Pope , through the Vatican prelates and all the bishops can regulate much of Catholic community life, and some of the regualtion based on the interpretation of Scripture or the application of interporetation of Scripture. An example of this is the prohibition of abortion. The Church has accepted most of the modern Higher Critical methodology of Scripture, including the Documentary theory of origins first developed within German Protestantism. But the effects of this on the tenents of the Christian Faith are much mitigated due to the creedal affirmations of the Church developed centuries ago and Papal authority. This the Roman Catholic Church does not waver on the Deity of Christ, the Trinity, the death and resurrection of Christ, and the second comming.

==Evangelical Understanding of the History of the Bible==
Rejecting the "Higher Criticism" accepted by the mainline Protestant denominations, Evangelicals and many Catholics hold to a more traditional history of the Bible. This section summarizes their views.

[[Image:Gospel of Luke in Arab.gif|thumb|This tenth-century Egyptian codex was donated to Pope Eugenius IV by the Coptic delegates at the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Translated from a Coptic original, it is one of the earliest Arabic versions of any part of the New Testament, none of which can be dated before the late eighth or ninth centuries.]]

The oldest books of the Bible are certainly the five books of the Torah and ''Job''. In ''1st Kings'' 6:1, Solomon is stated to have begun building the Temple "''in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come up out of the land of Egypt''". It had been established by scholars and historians that Solomon had begun building the Temple in the fourth year of his reign, or 961 B.C., making the [[date of the Exodus]] under Moses to have been 1441 B.C. During the following forty years Moses wrote the Torah and ''Job'', completing them before his death at [[Mt. Nebo]] about 1400 B.C. According to Biblical scholar and historian Robert D. Wilson the Torah as it stands dates from the time of Moses, the five books constitute one continuous work, and was written by a single individual, Moses himself (Wilson, pg 11).

The remaining books of the Old Testament were written at various times since the death of Moses, with ''Malachi'', the last Old Testament book, being written about 455 B.C. During this period each of the books was written and re-written on parchment or papyrus, with the editors taking great care in their work; a single Biblical book hand-written today can take weeks to complete. The older scrolls were disposed of by burial or systematic destruction when worn from normal usage; as a result, the oldest surviving examples of Biblical manuscripts are those which have been carefully preserved either by direct actions of people (such as monasteries), or by removal from forces of decay. Currently, the oldest surviving manuscripts are those found within the caves of Qumran in 1948 and known as the [[Dead Sea Scrolls]], dating between 250 B.C. to A.D. 70; the complete ''Isaiah'' scroll of this collection dates to 150 B.C.

Around 200 B.C. the [[Septuagint]], a Greek-language version of the Old Testament, was completed. This was due to the Hellenization of large areas of the Middle East after the conquest of Alexander the Great, making Greek the de-facto language for everyday communications and business. The Septuagint marks the first time in history that the Bible was translated into a foreign language.

===Early New Testament history===
In 1st Timothy 5:8, Paul quoted as scripture ''"the laborer is worthy of his hire."'' This line is found nowhere else in the Bible except Matthew 10:10 and Luke 5:7. In 2nd Peter 3:15-16, Peter classes Paul's letters with "other scriptures". Both lines are indicative of the writing down and general use of the New Testament prior to A.D. 60 (Halley, pg. 741-742). Spurious "gospels" which are known to have appeared by A.D. 100, make references to the New Testament. [[Clement of Rome]], writing in his own letter to the Corinthians in A.D. 95, refers to ''Matthew'', ''Luke'', ''Corinthians'', ''Hebrews'', ''1st Timothy'', and ''1st Peter'' (Halley, pg. 743).

The oldest surviving New Testament fragment of which there is a reliable date is the [[John Rylands Fragment]] (P52) of the ''Gospel of John'', dating from 117-138 A.D., just decades from when the Gospel was first written. <ref>[http://www.biblefacts.org/history/oldtext.html N.T. Ancient Manuscripts]</ref> The time span between the writing of the New Testament and the oldest surviving fragments are well under two hundred years. By comparison, Greek classics such as [[Herodotus]], [[Plato]], [[Euripides]], and [[Homer]] have a time span well over a thousand years each between the date of the oldest known fragment of writing and the time period they were first written.

==Translations==
===The Peshitta===
The second translated version of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament (after the Greek Septuaginta) was the Aramaic language Peshitta. In 36 A.D., both the Queen of Adiabene (the last existing Province of the hated and feared by the Jews Assyrian Empire), known in Greek as Queen Helena (not the mother of Constantine) and known to the Jews as Queen ShlomZion ("Peace of Zion"), and her son King Ezad were converted to Judaism. Queen Helena's conversion, as wiell as others of the Kingdom, furthered the already developing translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in her Kingdom's language -Aramaic. That developing translation came to be known as the Peshitta - meaning simple or common speech, in much the same way as the Hebrew Bible would be translated into Latin by Jerome, with extensive help from a Rabbi,and the resultant translation would be called the Vulgate - meaning simple or common speech. The Peshitta, retaining elements of the then Jewish "[[Targum]]ic" (interpretive) and other Jewish understandings of the Hebrew Bible (see[[Midrash]]), is primarily based on the Pre-Masoretic Hebrew Scriptures - though certain books, such as the Prophet Isaiah,are translations primarily from the Septuagint The development of the Old Testament Peshitta translation is held by some to have taken place alternatively in Adiabene's nearby neighbor Edessa.

As Thomas and his followers went to India, others (possibly Adai (Thaddeus), the Galilean from Caesarea Phillipi among them) arrived in [[Adiabene]], and having gone probaly to the synagogues first, as did the Apostle Paul), they found already, if not a populous, then an elite governmental element, conversant with the Biblical message in Aramaic. From these people, hearing the preaching of the messengers from Israel ,came believers in Jesus Christ, and soon after, came the translation of the Greek New Testament Scriptures into Aramaic, and so the Peshitta was added to by inclusion of the New Testament in Aramaic. Unlike the Greek canon of the New Testament Scriptures, the Peshitta originally did not include the following books: the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second Epistle of John, the Third Epistle of John, the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation. But these books translated into the Syriac (as Christian Aramaic is known) are part of the Peshitta now and used by the Aramaic based churches, primarily in India and the Middle East - the Syrian Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East (Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East), the Indian Orthodox Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Maronite Church, the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syro-Malabar Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

Adiabene and its surroundings then became the sending center for a mission to the East that would eventually, taking advantage of the newly rediscovered monsoon winds blowing for months across the Arabian sea, making it possible for ships to no longer hug the coasts, and taking advantage of the "Silk Road" all the way from Antioch in Syria to China, take the message of Jesus Christ to India (bringing about the Aramaic (Syriac) language churches of Kerala) and even to China itself. And so, the Peshitta, written in the Middle East, become the Scriptures, for a while, of the Far East Churches of Jesus Christ, particularly in India.

===The Vulgate===
[[Jerome]], a Latin scholar deeply interested in the study of the Scriptures, completed the second edition of the Bible in the Latin language. The ''[[Vulgate]]'' was meant to replace the inaccuracies of the earlier ''[[Vetus Latina]]'', the standard Bible of the early Catholic Church. Jerome had moved to [[Jerusalem]] in 382, and set to work on what eventually became a fresh translation of the Bible from the Greek of the ''Septuagint'' to translating the New Testament into Latin; from 390-405 he decided to re-translate his Old Testament directly from the Hebrew then in use by the Jewish community. The ''Vulgate'' had a marked influence in church history, and remained the standard Latin Bible in the Roman Catholic Church for centuries; such was the length of time in use that it was finally replaced by the ''[[Nova Vulgata]]'' in 1979.
==Printing==
[[Image:Gutenburg1.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Printers copy of a page from a Gutenberg Bible, printed in Germany about 1469.]]
[[Johannes Gutenberg]] of [[Mainz]], [[Germany]] invented the first mechanical printing press in 1448. His machine consisted of a large press which when cranked down, pressed a sheet of paper upon a platform in which were set thousands of inked metal letter typefaces (called "movable type"), set in place to read for a particular page. The first book in history printed by this method was the [[Gutenberg Bible]], in the ''Vulgate'' Latin version, of which 180 were printed, and approximately 50 survive today in varying conditions around the world.

The Gutenberg Bible marked another first: printed Bibles could be mass produced to get into the hands of many people at a low cost. They first had to be translated out of Latin into a common language, and [[Martin Luther]] made the great German translation, 1522-1534. The Protestant Reformers emphasized that laymen should study the Bible, and printing made it possible to go beyond the interpretationsd shown in stained glass windows to the actual text.

==English language versions of the Bible==

===Wycliff's Bible===
The first translation of the Bible into English was made under the supervision of the English cleric [[John Wyclif]] in the 1380's, with the assistance of Nicholas Hereford and John Purvey. Wyclif held that the Bible should be placed directly in the hands of the people, but was this was opposed by the English Church hierarchy of his day; indeed, one of Wyclif's opponents, Henry Knighton, compared giving the Bible to the people in English to "casting pearls before swine". Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury promulgated a ban on all English Bibles in 1407, and possession of one was considered evidence of [[heresy]].

Wyclif's was a scholarly translation, based on the [[Latin]], [[Greek]], and [[Hebrew]] texts, but was found to be unweildy due to its adherence to Latin grammar (in which, for instance, verbs tend to be at the end of sentences). A second Wycliffite translation was prepared late in this period, which avoided this problem, but due to the fact that it could only be distributed in manuscript form, it was an expensive volume. Outside of the nobility and gentry, it was more common to see only a single [[The Gospels|Gospel]], or a copy of the Psalms, than an entire Bible, which cost more than the average working person could earn in a year.

Over the next century, its form of English gradually became antiquated, leading English Protestants such as [[William Tyndale]] to feel that an entirely new translation was needed.

===Tyndale===
During the middle of the 16th century there was a renewed sense of the need to get the Bible directly into the hands of the common man; prior to that the Bible was restricted to readings in the Church alone. The Reformers were a group of people who were shocked at the differences between what the Roman Catholic Church was practicing as opposed to what the Bible stated can or cannot be done (this was one of the causes of the [[Reformation]]). At great cost to themselves, the Reformers began the work of translating the Bible in the various languages of Europe; the printing press would ensure the newly-translated Bibles would be mass-produced.

[[William Tyndale]] was committed to getting the Bible in the hands of his English countrymen. Expressing open defiance of the Pope, Tyndale declared that if God would spare his life he would make it possible for even an ordinary farmer to know more about the Scriptures than the Pope. <ref>http://www.tbaptist.com/aab/tyndale.htm</ref> Tyndale's translation of the New Testament was completed by 1525. By April, 1526, 6,000 copies were printed and delivered to England. Official opposition led to the destruction of most of them. Nevertheless, the printing press rendered it impossible to completely suppress such a book, and new copies were printed and smuggled into [[England]] Tyndale was arrested and charged with heresy for his efforts on May 21, 1536, and was executed the following year. His efforts at translating the Bible led to the Matthews and Bishop's Bibles, then finally to the [[King James Version]], where ninety percent of the text closely follows Tyndale's translation.

===Authorised or King James Version===
[[Image:E-sword.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The internet has increased the availability of the Bible world-wide. Shown here is a screenshot to [[E-Sword]], a freely-downloadable Bible study program. <ref>[http://www.e-sword.net E-Sword]</ref> (Rick Meyers, 2007)]]
In 1601 King [[James I]] selected forty-seven of the ablest scholars in [[England]] to undertake the creation of a standard Bible in English, based upon careful translations of the [[Masoretic Text]] used by the Jewish community, and the best Greek translations (especially the ''[[Textus Receptus]]'') then available. The scholars were divided into six committees in [[Oxford]], [[Westminster]], and [[Cambridge]], with each scholar had dedicating himself to doing a portion of the Bible, often consulting each other to check the flow and harmony of the work in progress. The result was the 1611 Authorised Version, known in [[United States of America|America]] as the [[King James Bible|King James Version]].

The effects of the Authorised Version were profound. Using less than 2,500 different words in its vocabulary, this Bible was written in a poetic style matched by few. The work influenced the writings of [[Shakespeare]]. [[John Milton]] has numerous images taken from this Bible in his ''[[Paradise Lost]]''. The direct style of writing caused it to be easily available to the common man. Poets and writers, such as [[Herman Melville]], [[Walt Whitman]], [[Emily Dickinson]] and many others were deeply inspired by it. It altered the course of English history, with England growing to a world power since the book's publication; when asked by a visiting dignitary what made England great, [[Queen Victoria]] pulled out her copy of the Bible and declared "This is the secret of England's greatness."

=== Other versions ===

Today, the Bible is available in many versions across the English-speaking world, and has been translated into languages spoken by the vast majority of people on Earth, and even portions into a recently-created language from the fictional world of [[Star Trek]], [[Klingon]]. <ref>[http://www.kli.org/wiki/index.php?Klingon%20Bible%20Translation%20Project Klingon Bible Translation Project]</ref> The past two decades saw the emergence of [[Internet]] use; the creation of the Bible as a software program was inevitable, and several, such as [[E-Sword]] and Theophilos, are available at no cost with a wealth of Bible-study material as well.

==Bible Scientific Foreknowledge==
[[Bible scientific foreknowledge]] holds that the Bible shows an understanding of scientific knowledge beyond that believed to exist at the time the Bible was composed. Many Christian scientists and apologists such as the Christian scientists and apologists at [[Creation Ministries International]], [[Answers in Genesis]], and [[CreationWiki]] assert that the [http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Bible_scientific_foreknowledge Bible contains knowledge that shows an understanding of scientific knowledge beyond that believed to exist at the time the Bible was composed].<ref>[http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Bible_scientific_foreknowledge Bible Scientific Foreknowledge]</ref><ref>http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1718/</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i1/medicine.asp</ref>

==Humor in the Bible==

{{main|Humor in the Bible}}

The Bible, especially the Old Testament, contains irony, puns, sarcasm, etc. It may be noted that the sense of what is humorous varies from people to people and from nation to nation, as well as varying from age to age. What caused a chuckle, smile, or laughter in the biblical "genre" was more connected with ''satisfaction'' at the vindication of righteousness among men. Thus to our day and age, and the commonality of people, for believers and non believers, the meaning of the spewing up of Jonah on the shores (even the great fish could not stomach him!) might be viewed as God working out His original will in history, Jonah flight from responsiblity being aborted, for the "days and ages" of the Bible, there was the added satisfaction derived from the understanding that God was not mocked by the rebellion of Jonah. Likewise that the "many cattle" also found repentence and acceptance by God, would not have brought the smile of glee, mingled with doubt, but the smile of satisfaction that God's wide heart found its exultant victory over the measly, narrow perspective of the renagade prophet. There was no shame to stifle the Biblical chuckle at the "hows" of the vindication of God's justice. Yet, what we consider humorous also appears:

For example:

:After noticing that his father-in-law Laban was not treating him as in the past, Jacob decided to flee with his family. Rachel, one of Jacob’s wives, stole her father Laban’s teraphim (statues used for idolatry and/or divination). Laban pursued them and intercepted them in the Gilead mountains (Genesis 31:30): "Why have you stolen my gods?" Laban said to Jacob. The Midrash comments that it cannot be much of a god if it can be stolen (Midrash Genesis Rabbah 74:8). Jonsson (1985, 44-45) suggests that there is humor (albeit "rough" humor) in the fact that, not only was Laban deceived, but his idols were actually underneath his daughter Rachel’s posterior while she claimed that the "manner of women" was upon her. This idol did not get much respect. [http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/economic/friedman/bibhumor.htm]

==Bible Translations==
The Bible has been translated many times and in many ways so anyone, from the youngest child to the learned scholar, can read the entire scpripture in their language and reading level. A Latin version is the [[Latin Vulgate]] Bible. Here are some common English versions:

*[[American Standard Version]]
*[[Amplified Bible]]
*[[Douey-Rheims]]
*[[English Standard Version]]
*[[Good News Version]]
*[[King James Version]]
*[[Living Bible]]
*[[New American Standard Version]]
*[[New English Bible]]
*[[New International Version]]
*[[New King James Version]]
*[[Revised Standard Version]]
*[[Revised Version]]
*[[Septuagint]]
*[[Conservative Bible]] - still a work-in-progress here at Conservapedia

==Bible versions==
Apart from Bibles that include the [[Apocrypha]], The [[New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures]] is a distinct version that was produced to justify many of the unique doctrines of [[Jehovah's Witnesses]].

== See also ==
*[[Bible exegesis]]
*[[Bible prophecy]]
*[[Biblical accuracy]]
*[[Famous Bible paintings]]
*[[Midrash]]
*[[Targum]]
*[[Aramaic Church]]
*[[Judaism]]
*[[Essay: The Way of Salvation]]
*[[Conservative Bible Project]]

==External links==
===Bible societies ===
*[http://www.americanbible.org/ American Bible Society]
*[http://www.biblesociety.org/ United Bible Society]
*[http://www.ibs.org/ The International Bible Society (New York/Colorado Springs)]
*[http://www.wbtc.com/site/PageServer World Bible Translation Center]
*[http://www.wycliffe.org/home.htm Wycliffe Bible Translators]
*[http://www.labibliaweb.com/ La Biblia] In Spanish.

===Online, internet, and downloadable Bibles===
====Hebrew====
* [http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm Hebrew-English Bible] ([[Jewish Publication Society of America|JPS]] 1917 translation; includes Hebrew audio)
* [http://tanakhml2.alacartejava.net/cocoon/tanakhml/d13.php2xml?sfr=1&prq=1&pnt=tru&acc=tru&dia=tru&enc=heb XML Hebrew-English (KJV) Bible]
* [http://www.spcm.org/english/Hebrew_OT/ Old Testament in Hebrew]

====Greek====
* [http://www.ccel.org/w/westcott/gnt/toc.htm Koine Greek New Testament]
* [http://www.htmlbible.com/sacrednamebiblecom/moderngreek/ Modern Greek Bible]

====Latin====
* [http://www.LatinVulgate.com/ Latin Vulgate] — Latin Vulgate with parallel Douay-Rheims and King James English translations
* [http://www.sacredbible.org/ SacredBible.org] — Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible
* [http://www.spcm.org/english/Vulgate/ Jerome's Latin Vulgate (405 A.D.)]

====English====
* [http://www.audio-bible.com/bible/bible.html AudioBible] — Audio version of the King James Version.
* [http://www.blueletterbible.org/ Blue Letter Bible] — On-line interactive reference library continuously updated from the teachings and commentaries of selected pastors and teachers who hold to the conservative, historical Christian faith.
* [http://www.e-sword.net E-sword] — Downloadable Bible for Windows.
* [http://www.onlinebible.net/ The Online Bible North America] — Downloadable Bible for Windows.
* [http://www.theophilos.sk/ Theophilos Bible program]
* [http://www.spcm.org/english/ASB/ American Standard Version].
* [http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/ English Standard Version] from Good News/Crossway (the publisher).
* [http://www.verselink.org/ King James Version with dictionary].
* [http://www.spcm.org/english/KJV/ King James Version].
* [http://www.newlivingtranslation.com New Living Translation]
* [http://bible.oremus.org/ New Revised Standard Version].
* [http://www.europepourchrist.org/biblesite/WEB/ World English Bible].
* [http://www.dynamicbible.com/ King James Version built using AJAX technologies], with Strongs and Greek Morphological Codes by Robinson.
* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/index.htm#index The Hypertext Bible] with side-by-side translations in English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew at the [[Internet Sacred Text Archive]]
* [http://www.biblegateway.com/ Bible Gateway at GospelCom.net] text search in any one of many translations in numerous languages.
* [http://www.biblereadthrough.com/ Bible Read-Through] — read through the Bible in a year aid.
* [http://www.TheFreeBible.com/ TheFreeBible.com] Bible software downloads
* [http://www.scripture4all.org/ Interlinear (word-by-word) translation of the Christian Bible] Hebrew and Koine Greek
* http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/aramaic_nt_resources.htm - Aramaic New Testament resources
* [http://www.spcm.org/en/versions.php Over 40 versions of the Bible]
* [http://www.armenianchurchlibrary.com/Bibletranslationsandstudies.html Eastern and Western Armenian Bible]
* [http://www.bible9.com/ Online Bible (King James Version & Old Testament)]
* [http://www.spcm.org/LSG_FR/ Bible — Louis Segond de 1910]
* [http://www.latinvulgate.com/christverse.aspx Complete Sayings of Christ]
* [http://bible.crosswalk.com/ParallelBible/ Crosswalk.com Parallel Bible]
* [http://www.blueletterbible.org/search.html#verse Blue Letter Bible]
* [http://recoveryversion.org/ Recovery Version Bible]

====Spanish====

* [http://www.wbtc.com/site/PageServer?pagename=downloads_spanish Spanish Bible] PDT version
* [http://www.labibliaweb.com/cid/1 Versiones de la Biblia] In Spanish.

====Turkish====
* [http://www.incil.info Turkish Bible] (Turkish Old and New Testament)

====Finnish====
* [http://www.raamattu-kirja.com Finnish Bible] (Finnish Old and New Testament)
* [http://vastaus.net Raamattu] (Study Finnish Bible)

====Japanese====
*[http://www.ibsstl.org/bibles/japanese/index.php On-line version hosted by the International Bible Society]
*[http://www.bible.or.jp/e/index.html Japan Bible Society]

====Others====
* [http://agards-bible-timeline.com/q2_bible_english.html Bible Timeline]
* [http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/bible/TO_Torah_880.htm?OVRAW=Torah&OVKEY=torah&OVMTC=standard My Jewish Learning.com]
* [http://search.americanbible.org/ American Bible Society] to search NASB, KJV, CEV, ASV and others.
* [http://etext.virginia.edu/kjv.browse.html University of Virginia Library] KJV word proximity search.
* [http://www.1enormousidea.com/Default.aspx?tabid=42 Many translations in English, verse by verse]
* [http://www.bible-marathi.com Nava Karar] NT Translation from Greek to Marathi
* [http://www.bible-researcher.com/links12.html Gender-neutral Bible translations].
* [http://www.evangelicalbible.com/why.htm Word-for-Word vs.Thought-for-Thought translation] Outlines the difference between formal and dynamic equivalent translation philosopy.
* [http://www.kli.org/wiki/index.php?Klingon%20Bible%20Translation%20Project Klingon Bible].

===Commentaries and analysis===
* [http://www.ldolphin.org/icc-am.html Biblical chronology] by Alan Montgomery, B.Sc.(Hon)
* [http://www.dinur.org/resources/resourceCategoryDisplay.aspx?categoryID=411&rsid=478 Biblical History], The Jewish History Resource Center — Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
* [http://www.chabad.org/article.asp?aid=63255 Judaica Press Translation] — online Jewish translation of the Tanakh.
* [http://www.angdatingdaan.org/biblicaltopics/bib_bible_1.htm Reading and Understanding the Bible].
* [http://en.bibleinfo.com/ Source for Bible Answers].
* [http://www.amazingfacts.org/school/af_logon.asp Amazing Facts Bible Studies].
* [http://www.iishj.org/images/Bible.pdf Learning Bible Today] — a historical approach the Bible.
* [http://eword.gospelcom.net/comments/gill/ John Gill's Exposition of the Bible] — verse by verse commentary.
* [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc.i.html/ Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible] — unabridged.
*[http://www.verselink.org/ Topical References]
*[http://www.verselink.org/ Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedia]

===Wikis===
* [http://bible.tmtm.com BibleWiki]
* [http://wikible.org Wikible]

==Bibliography==
* Achtemeier, Paul J., ed. ''Harper's Bible Dictionary'' (1985), 1190pp; mainstream scholarship
* Ackroyd, P.R., ed. ''The Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings to Jerome; the West from the Fathers to the Reformation; the West from the Reformation to the Present Day'' (3 vol 1978), standard summary of scholarship; [http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Bible-Beginnings-Jerome/dp/0521099730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243248143&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search vol 1]; [http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Bible-Fathers-Reformation/dp/0521290171/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243248143&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search vol 2]; [http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-History-Bible-Reformation-Present/dp/0521290163/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243248143&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search vol 3]
* Coggins, R.J. ''Introducing the Old Testament'' (Oxford University Press: 1990), 172pp. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=22765464 online edition]
* Morgan, Robert, and John Barton. ''Biblical Interpretation'' (Oxford University Press: 1988), 342 pp [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=74356941 online edition]
* Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob, ed. ''The New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible'' ('''NIDB''') (5 vol 2009), the latest mainstream scholarship
*Unger, Merril F. ''Unger's Bible Dictionary'', Moody Press, Chicago, IL (1966; new edition 2006); Evangelical
**Unger, Merril F. ''The New Unger's Bible Dictionary'', (2006); 1416pp; Evangelical
*Unger, Merril F. ''Unger's Bible Handbook'', Moody Press, Chicago, IL (1967); Evangelical.
*Halley, Henry H. ''Halley's Bible Handbook'', Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI (1965); Evangelical
* Sandys-Wunsch, John. ''What Have They Done to the Bible: A History of Modern Biblical Interpretation'' 2005) Scholarly history of transations and interpretations to 1900; [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814650287 excerpt and text search]
* Williamspn, Peter. ''Catholic principles for interpreting scripture: a study of the Pontifical Biblical Commission's The interpretation of the Bible in the Church'' (2001); Catholic; [http://books.google.com/books?id=kooFtFGQsfsC&dq=intitle:bible+intitle:interpretation&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=2000&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES excerpts and text search]
*Wilson, Robert D. ''A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament'', Sunday School Times, Inc, Philadelphia, PA (1926).

===Language===
*Blass, Frederich, and others. ''A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and other early Christian literature,'' translated by Robert W. Funk; University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (1961); German edition ''Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Griechisch'' Friedrich Rehkopf, editor, 14th edition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976.
*Moulton, James H., and others. ''A Grammar of New Testament Greek'' (two volumes), edited by Wilbert Francis Howard, T&T Clark Publishers, Harrisburg, PA (1985); originally published 1920, Edinburgh, Scotland.
*Bauer, Walter. ''Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Scriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Litteratur''. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, editors; 6th edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, Germany (1988). Heading βιβλίον, columns 281-82.

==References==

<references/>

[[Category:Bible| ]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Book of Worship]]

User talk:JacobB

2009-10-31T22:43:44Z

MeganHolt: /* ... */ new section

{{welcome|sig=--[[User:Jpatt|Jpatt]] 23:26, 7 July 2009 (EDT)}}

== Blocking ==

It is a good idea to look at "Recent Changes" and post to the Admins who have recently been active. Even if you don't see activity from Jpatt or myself, we usually are alerted to messages left on our talk pages. ;-) --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 02:16, 11 July 2009 (EDT)

== Please do not move anything..... ==

We don't allow editors to move articles. The reason being is that it wipes all the editing history. Please undo all your redirects and changes (now), and post to my talk page about what you want done. Admins can move and rename pages, which keeps their edit history intact. Thanks. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 18:53, 14 July 2009 (EDT)

== Christmas Tree... ==

:From the early contributors, all vandal site members and common trolls, yes, it was a joke. I previously deleted this same "debate" 23 Nov, 2007, and it was recreated. Thanks for noticing and posting, Jacob....it's going to go bye bye. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 23:02, 20 July 2009 (EDT)
::Glad to hear it. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 23:14, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

== Good Work ==
Vandal page for sure. --[[User:Jpatt|Jpatt]] 15:01, 8 August 2009 (EDT)

== Awesome work! ==

Awesome work on the [[Gospel of Mark (Translated)]] !!!--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:57, 15 August 2009 (EDT)

== Wow ==

Wow, that's fantastic, JacobB, but please don't get too far ahead. Please work on translating before posting more originals. Thanks so much!--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 18:23, 20 August 2009 (EDT)

== Another budding mathematician? ==

I see on your user page you're headed to math grad school... are you applying in this cycle? Good luck! I just started this term. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 20:00, 28 September 2009 (EDT)
:I'm accepted to a masters program for the spring already, and I'm planning on getting a PhD, hopefully with work on geometric function theory, that's a big area of interest for me. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 20:04, 28 September 2009 (EDT)

== Jesus Seminar ==

All I was doing was giving readers a quick way to find an alternative to the liberal butchering of the Bible. Not sure why that merits a block or a reversion, but if you're set in your decision, then so it goes. Unfortunate it had to come to threats without any dialogue. [[User:DonnyB|DonnyB]] 00:45, 7 October 2009 (EDT)
:It doesn't merit a block or reversion (or perhaps, since I'm new to these privileges, I'm wary of using them). Either way, I don't want this project which attempts to cut up and destroy the Gospels to fit a liberal agenda associated with the Conservative Bible Project, something I'm very involved in. Claiming that the CBP is a conservative version of the Jesus Seminar's blasphemy isn't accurate. Since they are nothing alike, it would be like putting a "See Also: Antarctica" on a page dealing with skirts. That's why it was reverted.
:The block threat was made because I think you realize this, and made this, your first ever edit, in bad faith. But, I'm not sure, and it's wrong it arbitrarily block people. I hope I'm wrong, that you will contribute constructively. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 00:50, 7 October 2009 (EDT)
::Fair enough, perhaps I didn't quite understand Jesus Seminar well enough and found the CBP a similar alternative. But yes, I plan on contributing constructively, and hopefully you'll give me a second chance to make a good first impression :). [[User:DonnyB|DonnyB]] 00:54, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

== Size of Mark ==

I notice you've been dividing various books to keep the size down. Do you think you could split Mark as well, as it's growing very large as it's translated? [[User:DouglasA|DouglasA]] 19:40, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

== Question ==

Hello, I was Darmientie, and was banned and told to make a new account. I was just wondering why you asked me to do this. Thanks.
:Correct format for names is first name, last initial, or some variation of that. So I blocked that account, you changed your name - problem solved! Welcome to Conservapedia. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 20:36, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

== Vandal wave ==

Did we get everyone? I think you beat me 14-10, even if I count the one where I accidentally changed your block. Good work! --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 00:26, 8 October 2009 (EDT)
:I think that's all of them, and I think I changed a few of your blocks as well. These 503 errors are killing me! [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 00:28, 8 October 2009 (EDT)

== Conservative Bible Project ==

Greetings, friend.

This is [[User:TerryH]]. This Project has been done in a willy-nilly fashion for too long. I certainly appreciate the yeoman's work you have been doing, i.e. putting up the tables having the KJV original verses, ready to be translated. I wanted to get that in before I told you something else: Under the authority of Mr. [[User:Aschlafly|Schlafly]], I am taking command of this Project.

My qualifications are these: I am well-enough versed in ancient Greek to pick up a Greek text (in fact, it's the Greek New Testament, 28th ed., by Nestle and Aland, published by the German Bible Society) and read it almost as fast as I can read English. I've also begun to study Biblical Hebrew. Beyond that, I've been an administrator on CP for a long time, and the administration feels that it needs to have one of their own in command, instead of seeing uncoordinated efforts being made.

The best way to illustrate my qualifications is with a sample. In one week, I translated all of the Gospel According to Matthew. You can read my work [[Matthew 1-9 (Translated)|here]], [[Matthew 10-19 (Translated)|here]], and [[Matthew 20-28 (Translated)|here]].

So much for my own qualifications. Now I'd like to know yours, and how you see yourself functioning in this Project.

I appreciate your defenses of this Project. You have the "fire in the belly" of a good soldier.

Let me set forth, as well, my philosophy of translation. We need to translate the Bible into good ''idiomatic'' English. That means that we not only translate Greek words into English words, but also Greek idiom into English idiom. You can see examples in Matthew 27. For example: "The last error will be worse than the first" should read, I maintain, "If that happens, we'll have a worse problem."

Or: "The crowd marvelled, saying, There has not been such so seen in Israel" should read, "The crowd said, "Wow! Nothing like that has ever been seen in Israel!" See the difference? How do I defend that? Well, the Greek word rendered "to marvel" conveys the sense of someone staring at a thing, letting his jaw drop to the floor, and finally saying, "Wow. Just, wow."

I'll have more to say on some other Talk pages. But first, I need to hear from you. Reply either here or, best of all, on ''my'' Talk page.

In Him,

--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 21:44, 13 October 2009 (EDT)

:::: hey, I left an apology on the debate page, didn't mean to behave immaturely. We may disagree, but there is no reason to become uncivil about the issue, and so I apologize for losing my cool. Here's to more civil discussion and spirited debate in the future [[User:Pnino|Pnino]] 00:23, 16 October 2009 (EDT)

==Blocking==
If you please, I want you to hold off on the blocking regarding the CBP, with the exception of vandalism. Asking a question regarding who is qualified to make these edits, or placing a correct word which may contradict conservative thought is not grounds to remove someone. If there is any questions, refer them to project leader TerryH or ASchlafly. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 19:08, 21 October 2009 (EDT)

== ... ==

Why do you continue to act against the chosen people? Welcome Stephen Colbert into your life and he will forgive all you have done! Peace and happiness be upon all who follow the way of truthiness! [[User:MeganHolt|MeganHolt]] 18:43, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

User talk:MarkGall

2009-10-31T22:43:44Z

MeganHolt: /* ... */ new section

{{welcome|sig=[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 00:50, 10 June 2009 (EDT)}}

Hello there, Mark! I am truly glad to see that you are adding new pages for Obama's "Czars." So far, so good for a newcomer to Conservapedia!
-[[User:RKLuffy88|RKLuffy88]]

== Czars... ==

<big>Great work, Mark, but can we please consolidate these into one Obama Czar article?</big> --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 22:10, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

:As before, I'm happy to merge them -- I only created seperate pages since it was requested on the main page by DeanS to fill in red links he added to [[Obama Administration]]. What should the new article be titled, and how would you recommend laying it out? --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 16:44, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

::One would have to find the articles, as they are not linked from the Obama Administration page. If you can do that, provide the links, I can move them onto the same page, entitled Obama Administration Czars. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 21:31, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

:::Here they are:
:::[[Alan Bersin]], [[Steven Rattner]], [[Gil Kerlikowske]], [[Paul A. Volcker]], [[Carol Browner]], [[Jeffrey Zients]], [[Cameron Davis]], [[Nancy-Ann DeParle]], [[John Brennan]], [[Dennis Blair]], [[Kenneth R. Feinberg]], [[Cass R. Sunstein]], [[Vivek Kundra]], [[Adolfo Carrion, Jr.]], [[Gary Samore]]
:::These are all linked at [[Obama Administration]] (the sixth section, "czars"), which ought to be updated accordingly. I can go through and clean up the redundant information once your merge is finished. Thanks! --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 21:46, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

== String Theory ==

Thanks for adding the attributions to Givental, Lian, Liu, and Yau. Don't ask me why I left out such an important credit.--[[User:Lemonpeel|Lemonpeel]] 12:36, 16 June 2009 (EDT)

*Lotrsw86? --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 05:13, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

::Who/what is Lotrsw86? If you suspect me of having another username, I assure you that's not the case. I hope it's clear from my contributions by now that I'm not a vandal. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 11:12, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

==Math articles==
If you please, try to place an example of a problem within the math articles that are posted. For instance, in your [[Fundamental group]] article there could be a problem within each subtopic, broken down in a step-by-step manner to lead the reader in understanding and solving it. Think this is possible? [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 01:42, 4 July 2009 (EDT)

:I like your idea about problems in the math articles. The issue here is that it's difficult to come up with problems on the fundamental group that could really be answered at this level. An exposition at this level doesn't give the reader the knowledge to solve any real problems. I don't even prove what the fundamental group of the circle is -- a proof requires much more theory than is in the article, but the intuition is clear. I could ask for intuitive guesses about fundamental groups, but just about every space that a new reader knows about is given as an example already! I will try to think something up, I'm sure it can be done.
:In the article [[differential geometry]] which I did a bit of work on a couple weeks ago, I inserted "motivating questions" in a few places, to indicate why someone would care about it. I can certainly do this in the fundamental group article. Actually, I was thinking that on the front page [[mathematics]], it would be neat to put motivating questions under all the headers you created, to give a flavor of these areas of mathematics. What do you think of that idea? --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 09:33, 4 July 2009 (EDT)

::I added two problems/solutions to [[fundamental group]]. What do you think? One is for conceptual understanding, while one tests ability to manipulate the definitions. I'll try to add more. What do you think? --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 21:51, 7 July 2009 (EDT)

== big bang ==
You undid my edit; why? The list of astronomers I posted contained many people who are far more knowledgeable than either Arp or Burbidge, as evidenced by their continued research in the field of cosmology. While Arp and Geoff might be fine astronomers, they certainly do not understand the preponderance of data that contradicts their pet theories; if their's are notable names to be attached to an article in opposition to the Big Band Theory, why should the names of proponents not be included?

:You added a useless list of mostly obscure scientists. It did nothing to improve the exposition of the article and created the appearance that the theory is more widely supported among scientists than it actually is. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 16:53, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

==Edit summaries==

Hi, Mark. Could you be more specific than ''reinserted some correct info'' when you edit difficult or advanced articles like [[Infinity]]? Our readers and contributors need to know WHAT is being inserted and WHY. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] [[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]] 10:36, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

:My apologies. I was reinserting some correct information which I had inadvertently removed when taking out some apparent vandalism, and didn't think to state what it actually was. That material's been there for some time so I hope it won't be controversial, but I'll try to pay more attention in the future. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 11:28, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

::Excellent edit summary here. [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Windows_bugs&curid=87465&diff=701666&oldid=701664&rcid=768499] Keep this link for a get-out-of-jail-free card! ;-) --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] [[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]] 18:42, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

== Possibility ==

Mark, it just dawned on me that you might enjoy teaching a math course here to high school homeschoolers. Just a thought for you to consider ...--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 10:42, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

:Mr. Schlafly, I would certainly love to do that at some point. Unfortunately, for now I don't have time to put in the effort it would require to do it well -- I'm busy enough teaching undergrads (who I suspect are much less motivated than the homeschoolers here!) and keeping up with my own work. I'd consider it at some point in the future, perhaps next year so I can develop materials over the summer. I saw that you once tried to start up a [[Conservapedia:Critical_Thinking_in_Math|math course]] here -- if enough interest materializes again, I'd be happy to be an assistant teacher and help out as much as I'm able! --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 10:49, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

:: Mark, that's fine and I appreciate your work ethic! Maybe I'll get a math course started sometime early next year, and with your help it can grow.

:: The advantage of teaching with the wiki software is that a course can improve dramatically each time it is taught. I'm seeing that with the Economics course now. Thanks again for your insights and effort.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 12:35, 19 September 2009 (EDT)

== Templates etc. ==

(Sorry about ping-ponging this thread all over my page, Andy's page, and your page, but it will be finished very soon.)

Thanks for weighing in on this. I've made the "H" change, calculus; I don't think there's any issue about that one.

On the "A" change (topology/Riemann), I've been going back and forth in my mind about how to do this. I don't think that it being an open question or not is really important. These things are really just decorations. Though I think the best description should be along the lines of "You should know what the equation to the left is talking about before reading this article." (Sort of like the "You must be this tall to go on this ride" signs at amusement parks :-) Or maybe it should be stronger, as in "You should know what this is talking about ''and be able to solve it''." Which of course means Riemann is not suitable. And I think the higher homotopy groups would cut me out. :-( My topology study ended at about the point of the higher homotopy groups. :-( In any case, by the "and be able to solve it" criterion, which works for the other 3 templates, pi-1 of S-1 is about right.

In any case, let me know if this is OK, or if you want pi-m of S-n, and we can let Andy re-protect them. Unprotecting the two lower ones ("E" and "M") was not necessary; it was never my intention to modify those, but I was in too big a hurry last night, at 12 minutes past midnight, to deal with such subtleties. [[User:PatrickD|PatrickD]] 09:51, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

:Sure, sounds good to me. \pi_1(S^1) is about the right level. Thanks for fixing this! --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 14:19, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

== Incompleteness Theorem ==

Mark:

I'm planning to work on the issues of logic, completeness, undecidability, and the Gödel incompleteness theorem next. Basically, everywhere I look, I see things to do, and I happened to look at the [[Undecidable]] page and the [[Axiom]] page. The latter is fairly straightforward -- the characterization of the axioms of geometry being "challenged" by Non-Euclidean geometry needs to be clarified.

But the "undecidable" stuff needs a lot more care. I'm pretty sure I understand the issues, but I'm not 100% sure, so I want to run it by you. It seems to me that essentially all of the material about "Famous undecidable statements" is wrong. These may be statements that are at the edge of what ZF and ZFC mean, but they don't relate to the Gödel incompleteness theorem. And "undecidablility" is about the Gödel incompleteness theorem, ''not'' about the axioms of ZF.

My understanding is that the Gödel incompleteness theorem says, roughly
:*Any logical system rich enough to express integer arithmetic is "incomplete" in the sense that it is not true that, for every well-formed formula F, either F or not F is a theorem (has a proof in that logic).
The logical systems being analyzed by Gödel are simple logics about integers, with nowhere near the sophistication of ZF or ZFC. The non-provability of AC in plain ZF is not really what the Gödel incompleteness theorem is about. You simply add AC, get ZFC, note that the result is still consistent (that is, you now have a trivial proof of AC because it is an axiom, but you do not have a proof of not-AC) and move on.

Hence, it seems to me that all the things in the article related to AC (Banach-Tarski, Continuum hypothesis, large cardinals, non-measurable sets) belong in a different article, since they distract from Gödel's contribution. Only the halting problem (a result from the closely related field of theoretical computer science) is directly relevant to Gödel. And that's what "decidability" should be about.

Of course, fact that neither AC nor not-AC has a proof in ZF is an example of incompletness, but it's not what Gödel was talking about. That is, plain ZF is incomplete, but incomplete logics are a dime a dozen. Gödel showed that ''no'' logic rich enough for integers could be complete.

Does this make sense?

[[User:PatrickD|PatrickD]] 23:07, 23 September 2009 (EDT)

:Hi Patrick,

:Logic's not my forte (you may have noticed I haven't really touched those articles), but I believe everything you say is correct. I am certain that the only thing on the list of "undecidable problems" which is actually undecidable is the halting problem. "Undecidable" is certainly not the same thing as "not provable within ZF", and choice is independent of ZF, not undecidable. Your statement of incompleteness is also good, and I think understandable.

:If you haven't seen it, there's a nice little book called "Godel's Proof" by Nagel that sketches the proof (in 100+ pages) in a fairly nontechnical way. I couldn't give a formal statement of the theorem, but your summary is more or less the same as the one there. I'm looking forward to seeing the article!

== [[Dirichlet's theorem]] ==

Thanks for explaining the requirement!--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:38, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

:No problem... thanks for catching the error in the statement! Can't believe I missed that one. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 00:48, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

== Functors ==

Sorry to mess up your elegant article on mathematical functors with low-class computer stuff, but there are probably more people familiar with the latter usage. :-(

Was the material on contravariant functors OK? I remember learning about this back in college. The cohomology functor is contravariant, right?

[[User:PatrickD|PatrickD]] 15:31, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

:My article's not elegant at all! It's just a cleanup until the CP treatment of category theory gets redone (if ever; I don't think it's a high priority). Thanks for adding the CS definition -- I'd heard the term, but never knew what it was before! I think the ideal situation would be a single page about basic notions in category theory -- definition of category, examples, definition of functor, examples, definition of natural transformation, examples, .... It doesn't make sense to me for functor to have its own page. I'd put things like "pushout square" and "adjoint functor" on their own pages, if they were ever written, but I'm not sure they belong here.

:You're right on about contravariant functors. I probably should've mentioned it. Sometimes these days when people write "functor" they just mean covariant functor, and a controvariant functor from A is just regarded as a covariant functor from A^op (A with all arrows reversed). It's definitely more illuminating this way, and cohomology is indeed an example.

:The other example I'm thinking about adding is Hom(-,V) and Hom(V,-), both functors from Vect_k to Vect_k. Given a fixed vector space V, Hom(-,V) is the functor that sends an object W in Vect_k to the set of linear maps from W to V, which is itself a vector space. The first of these is contravariant and the second is covariant (or the other way, I always get it wrong), and it's easy to write down why. It's a nice pair of examples in an easy-to-understand category. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 17:00, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

== Awesome work! ==

Great job on some of these math articles, especially all that content to diffeomorphism! [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 17:57, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

:Thanks! I'm not really sure what to do with that one -- the notion and examples are obvious to anyone who knows what a smooth manifold is, but not very useful to anyone else. It's a hard thing to motivate. But hopefully the exotic spheres will be news to some. Jump in if you have any ideas to make it easier to read for people with less background!

If you like the geometric style argument we talked about on [[Talk:Essay:Quantifying Openmindedness]], you should check out "Visual Complex Analysis" by Tristan Needham, a doctoral student of Roger Penrose. It's full of cool geometric arguments for complex analysis and Riemann manifolds that I haven't seen anywhere else. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 00:11, 2 October 2009 (EDT)

:I'm a big fan of that book! I was a teaching assistant in a complex analysis course a couple years ago, and almost all of my review sessions (an hour a week) consisted of presenting the arguments from Needham to try to convince the students the theorems were plausible! My intuitions in physics are really bad, I ought to work on seeing things like that. Do you know any physics books along those lines? --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 00:43, 2 October 2009 (EDT)

::Oh, that's awesome! I had the privilege of studying under Dr. Needham at USF, in private sessions my senior year, and I know for a fact that he is working on a similar book for differential geometry. He based the methods of the book off of Newton's Principia, which uses tons and tons of geometric arguments (and a similar lack of rigor!), and Misner Thorne Wheeler is another book recommended by Dr. Needham, and riddled with geometric arguments. Even if you're not interested in GR, it's an excellent resource for differential geometry. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 01:05, 2 October 2009 (EDT)

:::Actually, I had a Fields medalist professor recommend once that we all read Needham's book, that's where I heard about it in the first place. I wish the differential geometry one had come out earlier -- my text had almost no geometry at all. GR is something that I'm hoping to understand better -- I'll definitely give Misner Thorne Wheeler a look. Thanks! --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 01:16, 2 October 2009 (EDT)

::::A Fields medalist professor? That's so cool, who is it? [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 01:20, 2 October 2009 (EDT)

==Typo==
Good work MarkGall, you have become a real contributor here.--[[User:Jpatt|Jpatt]] 15:29, 3 October 2009 (EDT)

I've learned a great deal from you Mark. Your catching the typo was one of many examples. Thanks.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:31, 3 October 2009 (EDT)

== Blocking and editing ==

Mark, you've received well-deserved blocking and night editing. Congratulations!--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 18:52, 6 October 2009 (EDT)

:Thanks, I appreciate it! Yet another distraction from those late-night problem sets. Is there a page where I can learn how to block correctly? --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 19:19, 6 October 2009 (EDT)

== Gravity ==

I finally got around to reading the gravity material in [[Talk:Essay:Quantifying_Openmindedness]],
and there are a lot of correct things, a few things that may miss the point slightly, and a few instances of people talking past each other unnecessarily.

First, you are absolutely right that the divergence theorem establishes an exponent of exactly 2 for divergenceless vector fields in flat Euclidean space. But there's no reason to require that the gravitational "field" be divergenceless. In fact, it could be argued that "dark energy" creates the nonzero divergence, if people used a pure classical gravitational "field", which they don't.

Remember that Newton's formula was a mathematically exact consequence of Kepler's laws (ellipses, focus, equal-area law, etc.), which were an exact geometrical formulation from Brahe's not-completely-exact observations. And that all this was done hundreds of years before the divergence theorem. Newton was exactly matching Kepler's laws, and therefore set the exponent to exactly 2. That was exactly the correct thing to do, in terms of the observations available at the time.

But I think the reasoning in terms of geometry and divergences and "the force spreading out over a greater area" isn't right. The notion of forces being inversely proportional to the square of the distance is something that comes from optics and electromagnetism. We know that light power must diminish exactly as the square of the distance because it contains energy, energy is conserved, and the vacuum is completely transparent. But there is no such requirement for the gravitational "field" of the Sun. It doesn't emit energy. If gravity worked differently, Kepler's geometrical laws might have been different, and Newton very well might have made the force inversely proportional to r3. He was fitting data; he knew nothing about divergences or the flatness of space.

Andy also makes the very valid point that a mathematical theory must obey physical observations, and, if it doesn't, that theory needs to be re-examined. So the question might well have been worded as:
*Do you think that is impossible that the correct behavior of gravity is that of Newtonian gravity, but with the gravitational force proportional to 1/r2.00000001, rather than 1/r2?
We could make other similar questions:
*Do you think that is impossible that the formula F = ma (or E = mc2, or E = hν, or any other famous formula) is not correct?
But formulating the gravity question in terms of an exponent of 2.00000001 may not be the right way to formulate the question. It is well known that alternative exponents don't work. This was tried around 1900, to explain the anomalous perihelion shift of Mercury, but it didn't work. There is no one exponent that works for both Mercury and Earth. General Relativity is the accepted better explanation, though it is known that there are problems with that -- quantum gravity, cosmological constant, dark energy, and a peculiar behavior of the Voyager spacecraft.

Now one ''could'' ask whether the person is openminded enough to question the "experts" that have analyzed the Mercury data, and understand General Relativity, and have crunched the numbers. After all, very few people have crunched the numbers; they depend on perceived "experts". So, in view of question 13, this may be a valid question to ask:
*Do you think it impossible that General Relativity is not correct?
But I doubt that many people who doubt General Relativity believe that going back to Newton's theory with a different exponent is the way to go. Unless, of course, they have crunched those numbers.

[[User:PatrickD|PatrickD]] 00:17, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

:You raise some interesting points. To your question "Do you think that is impossible that the correct behavior of gravity is that of Newtonian gravity, but with the gravitational force proportional to 1/r2.00000001, rather than 1/r2?", I might still answer no, on the grounds that if there is divergence in the gravitational field, then I wouldn't consider the force to be Newtonian gravity: you need dark energy, or an object creating a force from outside itself (possibly I'm wrong about this -- would you agree with this statement at least?)
:I agree that a theory must fit observation, and some question along these lines would be fine -- it strikes me as odd to ask things about gravity being an inverse square law, since (at least as I understand physics), outside of the Newtonian context we don't really want think about gravity as a force with such and such strength at such and such distance anyway. And if we're talking about gravity not being an inverse-square law, then to me, we're no longer talking about Newtonian physics anyway. Some of your other suggested formulae I don't know the derivations of -- I bet there's another one that I'd prefer to use for this question.
:I also like your point about trusting experts in science. To some extent, this is necessary -- I'm not sure I have any personal reason to believe in the germ theory of disease, much less general relativity: I'm just taking someone's word for it. Obviously how much we should trust the experts on a particular subject depends on a lot of things. I bet some philosopher of science has thought hard about this -- I'd be interested to read the results! --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 00:33, 7 October 2009 (EDT) (hope I didn't forget to respond to anything!)
:Fantastic job on [[complex number]], by the way.

== Pictures, etc. ==

(Now that things have quieted down to the point where I don't have a 75% failure rate when I try to view a page.)

Warning -- long, rambling message!

About gravity:

:... if we're talking about gravity not being an inverse-square law, then to me, we're no longer talking about Newtonian physics anyway.

Yes, someone else had mentioned the point that Newton's law is Newton's law, and Newton said 2.0; case closed. You would have to call it something else. That's why my "straw man" question had been carefully worded "... the correct behavior of gravity is that of Newtonian gravity, but with ...".

The issue of trusting experts (I'm not about to reconstruct a few thousand years of science experiments in my basement; the Hubble telescope won't fit) is central to the whole question, and is what the "quantifying openmindedness" question should be aimed at. But I have no idea how to phrase that question in the right way.

About complex numbers: Thanks for the kind words. I need all the public support I can get.

I see that my picture request has gotten noticed by an admin (Jpatt). I had been about to ask you, here, to do what you could to get some action, since I'm staying strictly off of admins' talk pages. But Jpatt's "If he provides the pic link, no problem" comment shows that either he doesn't appreciate the difficulty, or else I don't appreciate what "pic link" means. I need to either mail the jpeg to someone (and the normal Conservapedia "email this user" feature doesn't take attachments) or I need to be given access to some web site, somewhere on the planet, that I can upload it to. And no, I'm not going to create a facebook account :-(

About the Riemann mapping theorem: Conformal map displays, that is, graphs of horizontal and vertical lines as mapped under analytic functions, are very pretty to look at. Can you outline for me what the square/circle function would be? I may have known it at one time, but I sure can't remember it now. It sort of goes crazy in the "corners", I believe.

As far as software to create it, I recall that William Beason had once named "winplot", something that I had never heard of. But I looked at the WP page for a random diagram (Argand diagrams from their complex number article, naturally!), and they have some nice pictures, with the usual explanation of how they got them. Answer: Matlab! For example, go to the "geometric interpretation of the operations" section of their "complex number" page. (I won't give the URL; I can't stand the captcha.) Click on a picture; look at the properties. You'll see the actual Matlab code. So we could do this sort of thing. But I don't have Matlab; it's hugely expensive. Further looking around shows that there's a free program from the FSF called GNU Octave. This might be worth checking out. That is, if either of us finds ourselves with an enormous excess of spare time :-) If this works out, we should be able to put something on the [[Tips for writing math and science articles]] page.

There's also a little graphing program I wrote for my own use that might be able to be pressed into service.

About the "imaginary number" fiasco. This guy needs to be watched carefully. Not with a "bot", but with human eyeballs. I think he's a fairly obvious parodist trying to get his jollies by singlehandedly creating another Bible translation / Stephen Colbert phenomenon. He has a zero chance of succeeding in any case; he won't get 2 million Google hits with that kind of garbage. I had planned to revert with an edit comment along the lines of "We have a higher standard of logic here; proving that there is no real number satisfying X doesn't show that there is no complex number satisfying X." His "proof" makes no sense anyway, even though it's a proof of something that can be shown in 1 or 2 lines.

Then I saw that you had jumped in, and figured that I ought to jump in with a redirect.

Oh, I see he's at it again, at 13:00 EDT. I'd rather not engage him personally; I'm keeping a low profile, especially on talk pages.

:Thanks for the tip about graphing. The usual way to construct conformal maps between polygons and a circle is using [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarz%E2%80%93Christoffel_mapping Schwartz-Christoffel mappings]. Unfortunately this is a bit of a pain to compute, but I think the square <-> circle example is a particularly nice one for people who have seen this before, and might not be too impressed by circle <-> upper half plane or other such. I'll take a look at your suggestions when I have a chance -- I think I may have tried to do this in mathematica once as well. Unfortunately I don't have upload rights to help you, but I'll keep at that talk page.
:I've got my eye on Mr. Conservative Math Project too. I do not think he will be long for this site; I'll ban him if he posts any more nonsense. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 13:38, 12 October 2009 (EDT)

== Userbox ==

I thought you might like this userbox. [[Template:User weapon‎]]--[[User:DuncanB|Duncan]][[User talk:DuncanB|Channel 16]] 21:37, 14 October 2009 (EDT)

:Thanks! It's a bit conflicted with the beliefs expressed in my other userbox, but I can appreciate the sentiment (: --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 21:56, 14 October 2009 (EDT)

== Great block ==

Great block and reversions this evening, Mark! Meanwhile, I'm going to see how Calculus is covered in your superb [[Majoring in Mathematics]].--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:04, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

:Thanks! I think calculus might not be in there at all yet, but it probably ought to be. Maybe there can be a section called "basic tools" or something at the top, dealing with calculus and linear algebra. The outline of the article is growing faster than I have time to fill it in! Please do add your new suggestions to the page, and I'll keep working whenever I have time. It's the middle of the semester now, and things are getting busy again. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 23:14, 17 October 2009 (EDT)

== Good Bezout's theorem addition ==

Great addition of Bezout's theorem!

I wonder if we have enough on advanced calculus, though admittedly that is often handled in engineering rather than math departments. Perhaps it is folded into differential geometry in most math departments.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 15:37, 24 October 2009 (EDT)

== MemeShock ==

Here's the language engineering site I was mentioning:

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=memeshock&init=quick#/group.php?gid=12621914298&ref=search&sid=26704564.4138542612..1

And here's our dictionary of terms. (3.0 edition)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12621914298&v=app_2373072738&ref=search#/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=9162

== Bezout, etc. etc. ==

I've been given some nice graphing software (by a former editor on this site!), and I think I can create some nice graphs for your material on Bezout's theorem. My guess would be that the things we would want are
*A parabola and a slanted straight line, showing two intersections.
*Two ellipses, similar but rotated from each other, showing four intersections.
*Two cubics—exaggerated Chebyshev polynomials to show all the kinks—tilted relative to each other, and showing nine intersections.
I have created the third of these.

Do you agree that that's about the quantity and examples that are appropriate? They will have to be uploaded by the same mechanism as before—email to Jpatt.

Now my question. You seem to be interested in putting this stuff (along with a lot of other stuff) in the "majoring in math" article. It seems to me that this material should be in a page by itself. The same could be said for many of the other items. What is your vision for "majoring in math"? Is it OK to make brief mention of all these topics and then point to the various other articles? Or do you want it to be more or less self contained?

On other matters, the vector space stuff looks very interesting. I find myself drawn in many directions at once, with nowhere near enough time to do what I'd like. I've been doing some stuff with deduction/induction (as you may have noticed), and several other topics have caught my attention. And I haven't finished with the "number" hierarchy! I think rationals, reals, and complexes are done, but there are integers and natural numbers still to do. And I'd like to do a really good jobs with Peano's axioms as part of the natural number overhaul. And, of course, put Dedekind's "God made the integers..." quote at the top of the whole thing :-) And I still haven't finished the real analysis, what does "compact" really mean, etc. etc. So little time, so much to do.

Speaking of induction/induction, DWiggins needs watching, as SRFoster did before him. They both seem to have a modus operandi of: put in something that looks plausible but is in fact obviously wrong to any mathematically literate person, then repeatedly argue the point when called out on it. (There are a few people from farther back who also did this sort of thing.)

There are probably some other things to talk about, but that's enough for now. [[User:PatrickD|PatrickD]] 18:00, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

:Those sound like good examples for Bezout -- I didn't really have anything in mind. Thanks for taking the initiative on that one. I'm hoping that Majoring in Math can contain just a paragraph or two about each of these problems, with heavy emphasis on examples and motivation and probably no rigor in even stating theorems. I really would like it to be a more-or-less self-contained presentation, with links to other pages for more detail. I think my blurbs there should be at about the level of the introductory text to full articles on these topics (though many of them don't have full articles, or need them). I do think the scope of that page might be getting a bit out of control for this to be reasonable... I'll try to shorten it up a bit. Is there anything in particular that's already written that you'd suggest splitting off? I'm certainly welcome to any suggestions for that page, as it's still in a fairly early state.

:It looks like you're doing a great job on the "number" articles -- let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I've been doing most of my serious work on Majoring in Math, since I don't think there's too much point in making small improvements to articles that need to be overhauled, and I don't have much time at all for editing these day, so I might as well focus on something. I'm not planning to do much else to [[vector space]] for now -- I just noticed that this fairly fundamental article was in pretty bad shape, so I tossed in a few examples. --[[User:MarkGall|MarkGall]] 18:16, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

== ... ==

Why do you continue to act against the chosen people? Welcome Stephen Colbert into your life and he will forgive all you have done! Peace and happiness be upon all who follow the way of truthiness! [[User:MeganHolt|MeganHolt]] 18:43, 31 October 2009 (EDT)

Stephen Colbert

2009-10-31T22:43:36Z

MeganHolt: Replaced content with 'thumb '''Stephen Colbert''' is the almighty; the one who shall lead us out of darkness and ring in the new era of truthiness. All he says is wis...'

[[File:Stephencolbert2.jpg|thumb]]

'''Stephen Colbert''' is the almighty; the one who shall lead us out of darkness and ring in the new era of truthiness. All he says is wise and good, and none have the ability to challenge his power. Follow him and you shall be blessed.

== See also ==

*''[[God]]''

==References==
References are for liberal factinistas.

[[Category:Divine Beings]]