BIBLE ORIGINS OF THE HOLY BOOK

CONTENTS

• Introduction

• Etymology

• Development

• Hebrew bible

Torah

Nevi'im

Ketuvim

• Septuagint

• Christian bibles

Old testament

New testament

• Versions and translations

• Views

• Archaeological and historical research

• Criticism

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TANAKH (24 books)

Written in Biblical Hebrew

Parts of Ezra, Jeremiah, Daniel in Biblical Aramaic(lingua franca)

24 books in Hebrew bible is divided and ordered into 39 books

TORAH (LAW) – 5TH CENT BCE

NEVI’IM (PROPHETS) – 2ND CENT BCE

KETUVIM (WRITINGS) – 2 CENTURY

OLD TESTAMENT

27 BOOKS

Written in koine greek

Both catholic and protestant have 27 books

4 CANONICAL GOSPELS (ACTS OF APOSTLES)

21 EPISTLES OR LETTERS

BOOK OF REVELATION

NEW TESTAMENT

• Translated by scholars from 3-4th century

• Translated from Hebrew canon to koine greek.

• New included later like Maccabees & wisdom of Ben Sira.

• Daniel & Ezra are longer than in Jewish canon.

• APOCRYPHAL BOOKS (composed directly in Greek) are included.

• Roman catholic and eastern orthodox follow it but not protestants.

SEPTUAGINT (LXX)

• 8th century

• Oldest manuscripts of greek bible

CODEX VATICANUS

• Late 8th century

• St. Jerome translated greek to Latin and known as Latin vulgate.

• After Latin translation western Latin speaking Christianity and Eastern Christianity split.

CODEX AMIATINUS

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JEWISH (REJECTED SEPTUAGINT):

Reasons for rejection:

Mistranslations.

Hebrew source texts used for Septuagint differed from Masoretic Tradition of Hebrew texts(canon of Jewish).

Felt to differentiate themselves from Christians.

Believed Hebrew language divine rather than Aramaic or Greek.

Canonical Ezra – Nehemiah are know as Esdras B, 1 Esdras, Esdras A in Septuagint.

o Esdras B – canonical Ezra – Nehemiah in theodotion’s

o 1 Esdras – similar to Ezra – Nehemiah in original canon.

o Esdras A – previous version in Septuagint on its own.

THEODOTION (REPLACED SEPTUAGINT)

Theodotion was a Jewish scholar who translated Hebrew bible to Greek.

Daniel is theodotions’s translation from Hebrew which resembles Masoretic Text.

Septuagint is discarded in favor of it in 2 & 3 centuries CE, Greek speaking followed it from 2 century CE and Latin speaking in 3 century CE

respectively.

PROTESTANT REFORMATION

Followed Jewish Canon but excluded additional texts called biblical Apocrypha.

Protestants only followed those books which are in Hebrew bible but Catholics and orthodox have wider canons.

Modern protestants do not accept the deuterocanonical books as canonical.

o Deuterocanonical books are part of peshitta or greek Septuagint which are not found in Hebrew bible.

AUTHORIZED KING JAMES VERSION

English translation of KJV in 18th century followed by Anglican and Protestants.

Late 18th century Latin Vulgate became standard and omitted Biblical Apocrypha.

Now a few KJV bibles include Biblical Apocrypha as a separate segment in them.

WESTERN TRANSLATION

Septuagint was abandoned in 10th century in favor of MASORETIC TEXT as the basis of translation of Old Testament into western languages.

In 14th century Septuagint used Masoretic Tradition to clarify.

They adopted few texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The term Bible is shared between Judaism and Christianity, although the contents of each of their collections of canonical texts is not the same. Different religious

groups include different books within their Biblical canons, in different orders, and sometimes divide or combine books, or incorporate additional material into canonical

books.

The Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, contains twenty-four books divided into three parts:

the five books of the Torah ("teaching" or "law"),

the Nevi'im ("prophets"),

the Ketuvim ("writings").

Christian Bibles range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church canon.

Old testament:

The first part of Christian Bibles is the Old Testament, which contains, at minimum, the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible divided into thirty-nine books and ordered

differently from the Hebrew Bible.

The Catholic Church and Eastern Christian churches also hold certain deuterocanonical books and passages to be part of the Old Testament canon.

New testament :

The second part is the New Testament, containing twenty-seven books: the four Canonical gospels, Acts of the Apostles, twenty-one Epistles or letters, and the Book of

Revelation.

By the 2nd century BCE

Jewish groups had called the Bible books the "scriptures" and referred to them as "holy,"

Christians now commonly call the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible "The Holy Bible.”

An early 4th-century Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible is found in the Codex Vaticanus. Dating from the 8th century, the Codex Amiatinus is the earliest surviving

manuscript of the complete Vulgate Bible.

The oldest Tanakh manuscript in Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the 10th century CE.

The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne. and is now

usually cited by book, chapter, and verse.

The Gutenberg Bible was the first Bible ever printed using movable type.

τὰ βιβλία

o A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative scripture by a particular religious community. The word "canon" comes from the Greek

"κανών", meaning "rule" or "measuring stick".

o The Septuagint from the Latin word septuaginta (meaning seventy), is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek. The title and its Roman numeral

acronym LXX refer to the legendary seventy Jewish scholars who completed the translation as early as the late 2nd century BCE. As the primary Greek translation of the Old

Testament,

o The Codex Vaticanus is said to be one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament), one of the four great uncial codices.

o The Codex Amiatinus, designated by siglum A, is the earliest surviving manuscript of the nearly complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate version, and is considered to be the most accurate

copy of St. Jerome's text. It is named after the location in which it was found in modern times, Mount Amiata in Tuscany.

o Saint Jerome (c.  347 – 30 September 420) was an Illyrian Latin Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, who also became a Doctor of the Church. He is best known for his

translation of the Bible into Latin

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The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the same word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin and ultimately from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books.“

Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra "holy book "Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, "the holy books".

The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book".

Christian use of the term can be traced to c. 223 CE.

The biblical scholar F.F. Bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew, delivered between 386 and 388) to use the Greek

phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.

ETYMOLOGY

DEVELOPMENT

It is not a magical book, but a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing." During the

solidification of the Hebrew canon (c. 3rd century BCE), the Bible began to be translated into Greek, now referred to as the Septuagint.

In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from oral traditions (similar to the Hebrew Bible) in a period after Jesus's death:

Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, but the results have not been too encouraging. The period of

transmission is short: less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Mark's Gospel. This means that there was little time for oral traditions to

assume fixed form.

The translation of the Bible into Latin marks the beginning of a parting of the ways between Western Latin-speaking Christianity and Eastern Christianity, which

spoke Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and other languages. The Bibles of the Eastern Churches vary considerably: the Ethiopic Orthodox canon includes 81 books and

contains many apocalyptic texts, such as were found at Qumran and subsequently excluded from the Jewish canon. As a general rule, one can say that the Orthodox

Churches generally follow the Septuagint in including more books in their Old Testaments than are in the Jewish canon

HEBREW BIBLE

Tanakh (Hebrew: ך"תנ ) reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings").

TORAH:

The Torah ( ( תורה is also known as the "Five Books of Moses" or the Pentateuch, meaning "five scroll-cases".[21] The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the

first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books:

Genesis, Bereshith ( (בראשית

Exodus, Shemot ( (שמות

Leviticus, Vayikra ( (ויקרא

Numbers, Bamidbar ( (במדבר

Deuteronomy, Devarim ( (דברים

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NEVI’IM :

Nevi'im (Hebrew: נביאיםNəḇî'îm , "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim.

It contains two sub-groups, the Former Prophets (Nevi'im Rishonim נביאים ראשונים , the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and

the Latter Prophets Nevi'im Aharonim נביאים אחרונים , the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and

the Twelve Minor Prophets.

• Hosea, Hoshea ( (הושע

• Joel, Yoel ( (יואל

• Amos, Amos ( (עמוס

• Obadiah, Ovadyah ( (עבדיה

• Jonah, Yonah ( (יונה

• Micah, Mikhah ( (מיכה

• Nahum, Nahum ( (נחום

• Habakkuk, Havakuk ( (חבקוק

• Zephaniah, Tsefanya ( (צפניה

• Haggai, Khagay ( (חגי

• Zechariah, Zekharyah ( (זכריה

• Malachi, Malakhi (מלאכי

KETUVIM :

Ketuvim or Kəṯûḇîm (in Biblical Hebrew: כתובים" writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the Ruach

HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit).

The Three Poetic Books (Sifrei Emet)

• Tehillim (Psalms) תהלים

• Mishlei (Book of Proverbs) משלי

• Iyyôbh (Book of Job) איוב

The Five Scrolls (Hamesh Megillot)

• Shīr Hashshīrīm (Song of Songs) or (Song of Solomon) שיר הששירים( Passover)

• Rūth (Book of Ruth) רות( Shābhû‘ôth)

• Eikhah (Lamentations) איכה( Ninth of Av) [Also called Kinnot in Hebrew.]

• Qōheleth (Ecclesiastes) קהלת( Sukkôth)

• Estēr (Book of Esther) אסתר( Pûrîm)

Other books

• Dānî’ēl (Book of Daniel) דניאל

• ‘Ezrā (Book of Ezra-Book of Nehemiah) עזרא

• Divrei ha-Yamim (Chronicles) הימיםדברי

• The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b-15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs,

Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles.

• In Tiberian Masoretic codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job,

Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Esther, Daniel, Ezra.

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o In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word meaning "My Master" which is the way a student would address a master of Torah. The word

"master" literally means "great one". the duties of the rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in

19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in

importance.

o The Talmud ("instruction, learning", from a root "teach, study") is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. It is also traditionally referred to as Shas, a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha

sedarim, the "six orders". The term "Talmud" normally refers to the Babylonian Talmud, though there is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud.

o The Jerusalem Talmud, also known as the Palestinian Talmud, Talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", often Yerushalmi is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century

Mishnah (Jewish oral tradition) which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th centuries, then divided between the Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima and

Palaestina Secunda.

CANONIZATION :

The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as biblical canon. While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as

early as the 5th century BCE and the Former and Latter Prophets were canonized by the 2nd century BCE, the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the 2nd century

of the Common Era.

Evidence suggests, however, that the people of Israel were adding what would become the Ketuvim to their holy literature shortly after the canonization of the

prophets. As early as 132 BCE references suggest that the Ketuvim was starting to take shape, although it lacked a formal title. References in the four Gospels as well

as other books of the New Testament that many of these texts were both commonly known and counted as having some degree of religious authority early in the 1st

century CE

ORGINAL LANGUAGES :

The Tanakh was mainly written in biblical Hebrew, with some portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28) in biblical Aramaic, a sister

language which became the lingua franca of the Semitic world.

SEPTUAGINT :

The Septuagint, or LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures and some related texts into Koine Greek, begun in the late 3rd century BCE and completed by

132 BCE.

As the work of translation progressed the canon of the Greek Bible expanded.

The Torah always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon.

prophetic writings, based on the Nevi'im, had various hagiographical works incorporated into it.

In addition, some newer books were included in the Septuagint, among these are the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. The Septuagint version of some Biblical

books, like Daniel and Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon. Some of these apocryphal books (e.g. the Wisdom of Solomon, and the second book of

Maccabees) were not translated, but composed directly in Greek.

JEWISH AND CHRISTIANS:

Since Late Antiquity, once attributed to a hypothetical late 1st-century Council of Jamnia, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural

texts. Several reasons have been given for this.

some mistranslations were claimed.

the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis.

the rabbis wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity.

the rabbis claimed for the Hebrew language a divine authority, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek - even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during

this period

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SEPTUAGINT:

The Septuagint is the basis for the Old Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches use most of the books of the Septuagint, while Protestant churches usually do not.

After the Protestant Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional texts, which came to be called Biblical

apocrypha.

The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible, the basis for the Revised Standard Version.

INCORPORATIONS FROM THEODOTION:

In most ancient copies of the Bible which contain the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the Book of Daniel is not the original Septuagint version, but instead is

a copy of Theodotion's translation from the Hebrew, which more closely resembles the Masoretic Text.

The Septuagint version was discarded in favour of Theodotion's version in the 2nd to 3rd centuries CE.

In Greek-speaking areas, this happened near the end of the 2nd century, and in Latin-speaking areas (at least in North Africa), it occurred in the middle of the 3rd

century.

History does not record the reason for this, and St. Jerome reports, in the preface to the Vulgate version of Daniel, "This thing 'just' happened.“

The canonical Ezra-Nehemiah is known in the Septuagint as "Esdras B", and 1 Esdras is "Esdras A".

1 Esdras is a very similar text to the books of Ezra-Nehemiah, and the two are widely thought by scholars to be derived from the same original text.

It has been proposed, and is thought highly likely by scholars, that "Esdras B" – the canonical Ezra-Nehemiah – is Theodotion's version of this material, and "Esdras A"

is the version which was previously in the Septuagint on its own.

Some texts are found in the Septuagint but are not present in the Hebrew. These additional books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of

Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azaria's, the Song of the Three Children,

Susanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms

of Solomon, and Psalm 151.

Some books that are set apart in the Masoretic Text are grouped together. For example the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the LXX one book in four

parts called Βασιλειῶν ("Of Reigns"). In LXX, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and it is called Paralipomenon (Παραλειπομένων—things left out). The

Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.

o The Biblical apocrypha (from the Greek word ἀπόκρυφος, apókruphos, meaning "hidden") denotes the collection of ancient books found, in some editions of the Bible,

in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments or as an appendix after the New Testament. Although the term apocrypha had been in use since the 5th

century, it was in Luther's Bible of 1534 that the Apocrypha was first published as a separate intertestamental section. There was agreement among the Reformers that

the Apocrypha contained "books proceeding from godly men" and therefore recommended reading. The Geneva Bible said this in 1560.

o Theodotion (AD 200) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar. perhaps working in Ephesus,. who in ca. AD 150 translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. Whether he was revising

the Septuagint, or was working from Hebrew manuscripts that represented a parallel tradition that has not survived, is debated.

o The Vulgate is a late fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible that became, during the 16th century, the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version of the

Bible. The translation was largely the work of St. Jerome, who, in 382, was commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina ("Old Latin") collection of Biblical

texts in Latin then in use by the Church.

o The Masoretic Text (MT) is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism. However, contemporary scholars seeking to understand the history of the

Hebrew Bible’s text use a range of other sources. These include Greek and Syriac translations, quotations from rabbinic manuscripts, the Samaritan Pentateuch and

others. the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books.

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KING JAMES VERSION :

The English-language King James Version (KJV) of 1611 followed the lead of

the Luther Bible in using an inter-testamental section labelled "Books

called Apocrypha", or just "Apocrypha" at the running page header. The KJV

followed the Geneva Bible of 1560 almost exactly (variations are marked

below). The section contains the following

Included in this list are those books of the Clementine Vulgate that were

not in Luther's canon. These are the books most frequently referred to by

the casual appellation "the Apocrypha". These same books are also listed

in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Despite

being placed in the Apocrypha, in the table of lessons at the front of some

printings of the King James Bible, these books are included under the Old

Testament.

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CHRISTIAN BIBLES:

A Christian Bible is a set of books that a Christian denomination regards as divinely inspired and thus constituting scripture.

Although the Early Church primarily used the Septuagint or the Targums among Aramaic speakers, the apostles did not leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead

the canon of the New Testament developed over time.

Groups within Christianity include differing books as part of their sacred writings, most prominent among which are the biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical

books.

Significant versions of the English Christian Bible include the Douay-Rheims Bible, the Authorized King James Version, the English Revised Version, the American Standard

Version, the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Version, the New King James Version, the New International Version, and the English Standard Version.

AUTHORIZED KING JAMES VERSION :

The King James Version (KJV), commonly known as the Authorized Version (AV) or King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the

Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611.

First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities.

The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568.

In January 1604, King James VI and I convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems

of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans, a faction within the Church of England.

TRANSLATION

James gave the translators instructions intended to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the

Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy.

The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New

Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew and Aramaic text, while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek and

Latin.

In the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible – for Epistle and Gospel readings – and as such was

authorized by Act of Parliament.

By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version had become effectively unchallenged as the English translation used in Anglican and Protestant churches.

Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars.

With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of the 19th century, this version of the Bible became the most widely printed book in history, almost

all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769 extensively re-edited by Benjamin Blayney at Oxford; and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha.

OLD TESTAMENT :

The books which make up the Christian Old Testament differ between the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches, with the Protestant movement

accepting only those books contained in the Hebrew Bible, while Catholics and Orthodox have wider canons.

A few groups consider particular translations to be divinely inspired, notably the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Peshitta, and the English King James

Version. APOCRYPHAL OR DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS:

In Eastern Christianity, translations based on the Septuagint still prevail. The Septuagint was generally abandoned in favour of the 10th-century Masoretic Text as the

basis for translations of the Old Testament into Western languages.

Some modern Western translations since the 14th century make use of the Septuagint to clarify passages in the Masoretic Text, where the Septuagint may preserve a

variant reading of the Hebrew text.

They also sometimes adopt variants that appear in other texts, e.g., those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A number of books which are part of the Peshitta or Greek Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew (Rabbinic) Bible are often referred to as deuterocanonical

books by Roman Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e., deutero) canon, that canon as fixed definitively by the Council of Trent 1545–1563.

It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one) and 27 for the New.

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Most Protestants term these books as apocrypha. Modern Protestant traditions do not accept the deuterocanonical books as canonical, although Protestant Bibles

included them in Apocrypha sections until the 1820s. However, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches include these books as part of their Old Testament.

The Roman Catholic Church recognizes:

• Tobit

• Judith

• 1 Maccabees

• 2 Maccabees

• Wisdom

• Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus)

• Baruch

• The Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch Chapter 6)

• Greek Additions to Esther (Book of Esther, chapters 10:4 – 12:6)

• The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children verses 1–68 (Book of Daniel, chapter 3, verses 24–90)

• Susanna (Book of Daniel, chapter 13)

• Bel and the Dragon (Book of Daniel, chapter 14)

In addition to those, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches recognize the following:

• 3 Maccabees

• 1 Esdras

• Prayer of Manasseh

• Psalm 151

Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches include:

• 2 Esdras i.e., Latin Esdras in the Russian and Georgian Bibles.

There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church, but was included by St. Jerome in an appendix to the Vulgate, and is an appendix

to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it is therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.

The Syriac Orthodox tradition includes:

• Psalms 151–155

• The Apocalypse of Baruch

• The Letter of Baruch

The Ethiopian Biblical canon includes:

• Jubilees

• Enoch

• 1–3 Meqabyan

• and some other books.

The Anglican Church uses some of the Apocryphal books liturgically. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Anglican Church include the

Deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix.

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PSEUDEPIGRAPHAL TEXTS:

The term Pseudepigrapha commonly describes numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 300 BCE to 300 CE.

Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is misrepresented.

The "Old Testament" Pseudepigraphal works include the following:

• 3 Maccabees

• 4 Maccabees

• Assumption of Moses

• Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)

• Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch)

• Book of Jubilees

• Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)

• Letter of Aristeas (Letter to Philocrates regarding the translating of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek)

• Life of Adam and Eve

• Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah

• Psalms of Solomon

• Sibylline Oracles

• Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch)

• Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

BOOK OF ENOCH:

Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch (such as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, surviving only in Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th to 6th

century CE).

These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah.

They are not part of the biblical canon used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel.

Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest or significance.

It has been observed that part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude (part of the New Testament) but Christian denominations generally regard the

Books of Enoch as non-canonical or non-inspired.

However, the Enoch books are treated as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

DENOMINATIONAL VIEWS OF PSEUDEPIGRAPHA:

There arose in some Protestant biblical scholarship an extended use of the term pseudepigrapha for works that appeared as though they ought to be part of the

biblical canon, because of the authorship ascribed to them, but which stood outside both the biblical canons recognized by Protestants and Catholics.

These works were also outside the particular set of books that Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical and to which Protestants had generally applied the term

Apocryphal.

Accordingly, the term pseudepigraphical, as now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics, may make it difficult to discuss questions of

pseudepigraphical authorship of canonical books dispassionately with a lay audience.

To confuse the matter even more, Eastern Orthodox Christians accept books as canonical that Roman Catholics and most Protestant denominations consider

pseudepigraphical or at best of much less authority.

There exist also churches that reject some of the books that Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants accept.

The same is true of some Jewish sects. Many works that are "apocryphal" are otherwise considered genuine.

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NEW TESTAMENT:

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse).

Jesus is its central figure.

he New Testament presupposes the inspiration of the Old Testament (2 Timothy 3:16).

Nearly all Christians recognize the New Testament as canonical scripture.

These books can be grouped into:

The Gospels

• Synoptic Gospels

• Gospel According to Matthew

• Gospel According to Mark

• Gospel According to Luke

• Gospel According to John

Narrative literature, account and history of the Apostolic age

• Acts of the Apostles

Pauline Epistles

• Epistle to the Romans

• First Epistle to the Corinthians

• Second Epistle to the Corinthians

• Epistle to the Galatians

• Epistle to the Ephesians

• Epistle to the Philippians

• Epistle to the Colossians

• First Epistle to the Thessalonians

• Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

Pastoral epistles

• First Epistle to Timothy

• Second Epistle to Timothy

• Epistle to Titus

• Epistle to Philemon

• Epistle to the Hebrews

General epistles, also called catholic 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

Apocalyptic literature, also called Prophetical

• Revelation, or the Apocalypse

ORIGINAL LANGUAGE:

The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from

the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600).

HISTORIC EDITIONS:

The original autographs, that is, the original Greek writings and manuscripts written by the original authors of the New Testament, have not survived.

But historically copies exist of those original autographs, transmitted and preserved in a number of manuscript traditions. When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they sometimes wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text—especially if a

scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text.

When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text.

Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions and additions.

The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type (generally minimalist), the Byzantine text-type

(generally maximalist), and the Western text-type (occasionally wild). Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts.

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DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN CANONS:

The Old Testament canon entered into Christian use in the Greek Septuagint translations and original books, and their differing lists of texts.

In addition to the Septuagint, Christianity subsequently added various writings that would become the New Testament.

Somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity.

In the 4th century a series of synods produced a list of texts equal to the 39, 46(51),54, or 57 book canon of the Old Testament and to the 27-book canon of the New

Testament that would be subsequently used to today, most notably the Synod of Hippo in AD 393.

Also c. 400, Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (see Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods.

With the benefit of hindsight it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon, although there are examples of other canonical lists in use after this

time.

A definitive list did not come from an Ecumenical Council until the Council of Trent (1545–63).

PROTESTANT REFORMATION:

During the Protestant Reformation, certain reformers proposed different canonical lists to those currently in use.

Though not without debate, see Antilegomena, the list of New Testament books would come to remain the same; however, the Old Testament texts present in the

Septuagint but not included in the Jewish canon fell out of favor.

In time they would come to be removed from most Protestant canons. Hence, in a Catholic context, these texts are referred to as deuterocanonical books, whereas in a Protestant context they are referred to as the Apocrypha, which means

"hidden", the label applied to all texts excluded from the biblical canon but which were in the Septuagint.

Thus, the Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon—the number of books (though not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a

different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books (51 books with some books combined into 46 books) as the canonical Old

Testament.

The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books,

while Catholics and Orthodox include additional texts that have not survived in Hebrew.

Both Catholics and Protestants (as well as Greek Orthodox) have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.

The New Testament writers assumed the inspiration of the Old Testament, probably earliest stated in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God".

ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX CANON:

The Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is wider than the canons used by most other Christian churches.

There are 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

The Ethiopian Old Testament Canon includes the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, in addition to Enoch and Jubilees

which are ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge'ez but are quoted in the New Testament, also Greek Ezra First and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 books of

Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter.

The three books of Meqabyan are not to be confused with the books of Maccabees.

The order of the other books is somewhat different from other groups', as well.

The Old Testament follows the Septuagint order for the Minor Prophets rather than the Jewish order. o A gospel is an account describing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The most widely known examples are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark,

Luke, and John, but the term is also used to refer to apocryphal gospels, non-canonical gospels, Jewish-Christian gospels, and gnostic gospels.

o A synod /ˈsɪnəd/ historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to

the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not. It is also sometimes used to refer to a church that is governed by a synod.

o The Protestant Reformation, often referred to simply as the Reformation,[1] was the schism within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other

early Protestant Reformers. Although there had been significant attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church before Luther, he is typically cited as the man who set the

religious world aflame in 1517 with his The Ninety-Five Theses.

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VERSIONS AND TRANSLATIONS:

The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint. In addition, they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into

Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking

East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.

Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in AD 382. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text

by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and in 1546 at the Council of Trent was declared by

the Roman Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Church.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH:

Biblical archaeology is the archaeology that relates to and sheds light upon the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Greek Scriptures (or "New Testament").

It is used to help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times.

There are a wide range of interpretations in the field of biblical archaeology.

One broad division includes biblical maximalism which generally takes the view that most of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is based on history although it is

presented through the religious viewpoint of its time.

It is considered the opposite of biblical minimalism which considers the Bible a purely post-exilic (5th century BCE and later) composition.

Even among those scholars who adhere to biblical minimalism, the Bible is a historical document containing first-hand information on the Hellenistic and Roman eras,

and there is universal scholarly consensus that the events of the 6th century BCE Babylonian captivity have a basis in history.

The historicity of the biblical account of the history of ancient Israel and Judah of the 10th to 7th centuries BCE is disputed in scholarship.

The biblical account of the 8th to 7th centuries BCE is widely, but not universally, accepted as historical, while the verdict on the earliest period of the United Monarchy

(10th century BCE) and the historicity of David is unclear.

Archaeological evidence providing information on this period, such as the Tel Dan Stele, can potentially be decisive.

The biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, and the migration to the Promised Land and the period of Judges are not considered historical in

scholarship.

Regarding the New Testament, the setting being the Roman Empire in the 1st century CE, the historical context is well established.

There has been some debate on the historicity of Jesus, but the mainstream opinion is that Jesus was one of several known historical itinerant preachers in 1st-century

Roman Judea, teaching in the context of the religious upheavals and sectarianism of Second Temple Judaism.

CRITICISM:

In modern times, the view that the Bible should be accepted as historically accurate and as a reliable guide to morality has been questioned by many mainstream academics

in the field of biblical criticism. Most Christian groups claim that the Bible is inspired by God, and some oppose interpretations of the Bible that are not traditional or "plain

reading". Some groups within the most conservative Protestant circles believe that the Authorized King James Version is the only accurate English translation of the Bible, and

accept it as infallible. They are generally referred to as "King James Only". Many within Christian fundamentalism – as well as much of Orthodox Judaism—strongly support

the idea that the Bible is a historically accurate record of actual events and a primary source of moral guidance.

In addition to concerns about morality, inerrancy, or historicity, there remain some questions of which books should be included in the Bible (see canon of scripture). Jews

discount the New Testament, most Christians deny the legitimacy of the New Testament apocrypha, and a view sometimes referred to as Jesusism does not affirm the

scriptural authority of any biblical text other than the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.

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BIBLICAL MAXIMALISM:

There is no scholarly controversy on the historicity of the events recounted after the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BCE, but there is great controversy concerning

earlier data. The positions of "maximalists" vs. "minimalists" refer primarily to the monarchy period, spanning the 10th to 7th centuries BCE. The maximalist position holds that

the accounts of the United Monarchy and the early kings of Israel, king David and king Saul, are to be taken as largely historical

BIBLICAL MINIMALISM:

Biblical minimalism, also known as the Copenhagen School because two of its most prominent figures taught at Copenhagen University, was a movement or trend in biblical

scholarship that began in the 1990s with two main claims:

first, that the Bible cannot be considered reliable evidence for what had happened in ancient Israel; and

second, that "Israel" itself is a problematic subject for historical study.

o Second Temple Judaism refers to the religion of Judaism during the Second Temple period, between the construction of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 515 BCE,

and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. This period witnessed major historical upheavals and significant religious changes that would affect not only Judaism but also

Christianity (which calls it the Intertestamental period). The origins of the authority of scripture, of the centrality of law and morality in religion, of the synagogue and of

apocalyptic expectations for the future all developed in the Judaism of this period.

o The Hellenistic period is the period of ancient Greek and eastern Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the

Roman Empire as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the subsequent conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt in 30 BC. At this time, Greek cultural influence and power was

at its peak in Europe, Africa and Asia, experiencing prosperity and progress in the arts, exploration, literature, theatre, architecture, music, mathematics, philosophy, and

science. It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the brilliance of the Greek Classical era.

o The Tanakh is the canon of the Hebrew Bible. It is also known as the Masoretic Text or Miqra.

o The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 981 texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. They were found inside caves about a mile

inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name. Nine of the scrolls were rediscovered at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in

2014, after they had been stored unopened for six decades following their excavation in 1952. The texts are of great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because

they include the earliest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which

preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.

HEBREW BIBLE (OR TANAKH) MANUSCRIPTS:

The Aleppo Codex (c. 920 CE) and Leningrad Codex (c. 1008 CE) were the oldest Hebrew language manuscripts of the Tanakh.

The 1947 find at Qumran of the Dead Sea scrolls pushed the manuscript history of the Tanakh back a millennium from the two earliest complete codices.

Before this discovery, the earliest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.

Out of the roughly 800 manuscripts found at Qumran, 220 are from the Tanakh. Every book of the Tanakh is represented except for the Book of Esther; however, most

are fragmentary.

Notably, there are two scrolls of the Book of Isaiah, one complete , and one around 75% complete. These manuscripts generally date between 150 BCE to 70 CE.

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