Bible

File:Image:800px-Crop Book of Isaiah 2006-06-06.jpg

The Holy Bible, opened to the Book of Isaiah.

The Bible is the collection of canonical religious texts in Christianity. Most Christians believe that the men and women who wrote and translated the Bible were under Divine Inspiration, and/or that the Bible is God's infallible Word to men.

The "canon" is the standard set of scriptural books which are deemed to represent the Word of God, as opposed to books which are considered wise or inspirational but not authoritative. The canon has evolved over time.

Some books counted as part of the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church—such as the books of Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, The Wisdom of Solomon (or Ecclesiasticus), and Sirach&mash;are regarded as non-canonical by Protestants. Some modern Protestant Bibles, following the example set by the original King James Version, include these books but categorize them as Apocrypha; most omit them.

The early church's determination of the canon was based on several criteria, including authorship, consistency with the rest of Scripture, and the level of general acceptance at the time.

Protestants value direct access to the Bible by worshipers, without the need for intervention or interpretation by clergy. The translation of the Bible into "common" languages such as German and English, and the development of printing by Gutenberg, were motivated by the Protestant desire to make the Bible accessible to everyone.

Books of the Bible

The Old Testament

The Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible consists of 39 books. "Hebrew" in "Hebrew Bible" may refer to either the Hebrew language or to the Hebrew people who historically used Hebrew as a spoken language, and have continuously used the language in prayer and study, or both. As used by the Jewish community, the word Tanakh describes the three parts of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah ("Teaching/Law" also known as the Pentateuch), which is also famously known as the first five books of Moses; Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and Ketuvim ("Writings,” or Hagiographa). The arrangment of the books in this way is common within the Jewish community; within the familiar Bibles of the English-speaking world the arrangement differs, however the actual writing of each book does not.

The New Testament

The Bible as used by the majority of Christians includes the Hebrew Bible in its part as the Old Testament together with the New Testament, which relates the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, the Epistles or letters of the Apostle Paul and other disciples to the early church, and ending with the Book of Revelation.

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books, produced by Christians, with Jesus as its central figure, written primarily in Koine Greek in the early Christian period. Nearly all Christians recognize the New Testament (as stated below) as canonical. These books can be grouped into:

• The Gospels
  • Gospel According to Matthew
  • Gospel According to Mark
  • Gospel According to Luke
  • Gospel According to John
  • Acts of the Apostles

• Pauline Epistles
  • Epistle to the Romans
  • First Epistle to the Corinthians
  • Second Epistle to the Corinthians
  • Epistle to the Galatians
  • Epistle to the 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

• 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

Related articles

• Bible exegesis
• Bible inerrancy

External links

Bible societies

• American Bible Society
• United Bible Society
• The International Bible Society (New York/Colorado Springs)
• World Bible Translation Center
• Wycliffe Bible Translators

Bible texts

• Online Bible

Hebrew

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

Latin

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

English

• AudioBible — Audio version of the King James Version.
• 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.
• E-sword — Downloadable Bible in many different versions, for MS Windows.
• American Standard Version.
• English Standard Version from Good News/Crossway (the publisher).
• King James Version with dictionary.
• King James Version.
• New Living Translation
• New Revised Standard Version.
• New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
• World English Bible.
• LDS King James Version with audio, extensive commentary and cross-references.
• King James Version built using AJAX technologies, with Strongs and Greek Morphological Codes by Robinson.

Turkish

• Turkish Bible (Turkish Old and New Testament)

Klingon

• Klingon Bible Translation Project.

Others

• The Hypertext Bible with side-by-side translations in English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew at the Internet Sacred Text Archive
• Bible Gateway at GospelCom.net text search in any one of many translations/languages, or lookup complete passages in up to five different translations/languages at once. Select from among NIV, NASB, MSG, AMP, NLT, KJV, ESV, CEV, NKJV, ASV, NLV, NIrV and many others.
• The Brick Testament — Bible stories accurately rendered, illustrated in Lego(tm) blocks
• Bible Read-Through — read through the Bible aid that has a standard one year read through as well as the ability to design your own read through.
• TheFreeBible.com provides free Bible software downloads
• Interlinear (word-by-word) translation of the Christian Bible from the original Hebrew and Koine Greek
• Aramaic New Testament resources
• Over 40 versions of the Bible
• Eastern and Western Armenian Bible
• Online Bible (King James Version & Old Testament)
• Bible — Louis Segond de 1910
• Spanish Bible PDT version
• Complete Sayings of Christ (long download)
• Crosswalk.com Parallel Bible to see two versions side by side, any of NAS, ASV, ESV, NKJV, KJV, NLT, NRS, GNT, WEB, MSG, NIV, NIrV and many others.
• Blue Letter Bible provides resources on a verse by verse basis, such as commentaries, definitions, concordance with Hebrew/Greek, related information and parallel bible on the one selected verse in KJV, NKJV, NLT, NIV, ESV, NASB, RSV, ASV and others.
• American Bible Society to search NASB, KJV, CEV, ASV and others.
• University of Virginia Library for word proximity searches on the KJV bible.
• Many translations in English, verse by verse
• Nava Karar NT Translation from Greek to Marathi 2005 and Greek-Marathi wordbook by R H Kelkar
• The Bible Collection Collection of Sacred Books for Different Religions
• Gender-neutral Bible translations.

Commentaries

• Biblical History, The Jewish History Resource Center — project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
• Judaica Press Translation — online Jewish translation of the books of the Bible. Includes the Tanakh and Rashi's entire commentary.
• Reading and Understanding the Bible.
• Source for Bible Answers.
• Amazing Facts Bible Studies.
• Learning Bible Today — a historical approach the Bible.
• John Gill's Exposition of the Bible — verse by verse commentary.
• Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible — unabridged.

Wikis

• BibleWiki
• Wikible

Analysis

• Topical References
• Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedia