Bible
the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The Christian Bible consists
of the Old Testament and the New Testament (qq.v.), with the Roman Catholic and
Eastern Orthodox versions of the Old Testament being slightly larger because of
their acceptance of certain books and parts of books considered apocryphal by
Protestants. The Jewish Bible includes only the books known to Christians as the
Old Testament. The arrangements of the Jewish and Christian canons differ
considerably. The Protestant and Roman Catholic arrangements more nearly match
one another.
Traditionally the Jews have divided their scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament)
into three parts: the Torah (the “Law”), or Pentateuch; the Nevi'im (the
“Prophets”); and the Ketuvim (the “Writings”), or Hagiographa. The Pentateuch,
together with the book of Joshua (hence the name Hexateuch) can be seen as the
account of how Israel became a nation and of how it possessed the Promised Land.
The division designated as the “Prophets” continues the story of Israel in the
Promised Land, describing the establishment and development of the monarchy and
presenting the messages of the prophets to the people. The “Writings” include
speculation on the place of evil and death in the scheme of things (Job and
Ecclesiastes), the poetical works, and some additional historical books.
In the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, various types of literature are
represented; the purpose of the Apocrypha seems to have been to fill in some of
the gaps left by the indisputably canonical books and to carry the history of
Israel to the 2nd century BC.
The New Testament is by far the shorter portion of the Christian Bible, but,
through its associations with the spread of Christianity, it has wielded an
influence far out of proportion to its modest size. Like the Old Testament, the
New Testament is a collection of books, including a variety of early Christian
literature. The four Gospels deal with the life, the person, and the teachings
of Jesus, as he was remembered by the Christian community. The book of Acts
carries the story of Christianity from the Resurrection of Jesus to the end of
the career of Paul. The Letters, or Epistles, are correspondence by various
leaders of the early Christian church, chief among them the Apostle Paul,
applying the message of the church to the sundry needs and problems of early
Christian congregations. The Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) is the only
canonical representative of a large genre of apocalyptic literature that
appeared in the early Christian movement.
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
