Meaning of BIBLE

It is the name by which the Holy Scriptures of the Christian Church have been designated since ancient times. An exposition of its content and an in-depth study of its text and message would take up a lot of space, and precisely all the articles in this dictionary illuminate a little the text of that Book par excellence that is the Word of God.

(A name.
Bible comes from Greek through Latin, and means "The Books." The biblical designation is "the Scripture(s)" and, in one place, "The Holy Scriptures" (Rom. 1:2). The absence of an adjective before the word Bible reveals that those who used it considered these writings:

(A) They formed by themselves a concrete and determined set and

(B) that they were superior to all other literary works.

These peerless writings are, therefore, the books par excellence. The etymology of the name Scripture, in singular and plural, allows us to make the same observation, a fact that is all the more notable since it frequently appears in the NT with the implicit meaning of the Greek term Bible (Mt. 21:42; Acts 8:32). .

On the other hand, the neuter plural of this last term has a collective meaning, marking the important fact that the Bible is not merely one book, but a large number of books.

At the same time, the use in the singular of the term "Writing" highlights the fact that the diversity of editors covers a wonderful unity that reveals an intelligent leadership, which did not stop operating during the more than a thousand years of its writing.

It is believed that the first to use this term was John Chrysostom (347-407 AD). That title is not found in the Bible itself, where such writings are called simply the Scripture or the Scriptures (Acts 8:32; 2 Tim. 3:16).

Only the Old Testament is accepted by the Jews, who did not include in their Canon the Apocrypha Books (see APOCRYPHAS) that appear in the Catholic versions, and divided it into three sections: the "Law", that is, the Pentateuch; the "Prophets", in which they put some of the historical books, the major prophets (except Daniel and Lamentations) and the twelve minor prophets; and the "Writings", where they placed all the others.

Ezra is credited with giving its final form to the Jewish Canon, with a total of 39 books. The 27 of the New Testament were written by the apostles or by authors closely associated with them.

The names "Old Testament" and "New Testament" have been used since the end of the second century, in order to distinguish between the Christian and Jewish Scriptures.

Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but some small portions are in Aramaic (Ezra 4:8-7:18; 7:12-26; Jer. 10:11; Dan. 2:4-7:28 ).

The New Testament, with the exception of a few words and sentences that were written in Aramaic, was written in the common Greek of the Hellenic world. The Protestant Bible contains 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament.

The Roman Catholic Old Testament contains 46 books and additions to the books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants accept only the 39 books of the Jewish Old Testament as canonical.

The additional books are known among Protestants as "apocrypha." They were part of the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint or LXX, or also the Seventy.

(b) Conservation and transmission of text.

Although it was written over a period of more than a thousand years, the Bible has come down to us in an admirable state of preservation.

The recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which date back to the second and third centuries BC, corroborated the surprising accuracy of the Hebrew text we possess today.

As for the accuracy of the New Testament, there are 4,500 Greek manuscripts dating back to 125 AD. to the invention of the printing press, versions dating back to 150 AD, and quotations from portions of the Old and New Testaments of the Church Fathers from the end of the first century.

The divisions by chapter and verse are relatively modern: it was begun in the 11th century, it is believed, by the scholar Lanfranco, and was completed in its present form by R. Estienne, in 1551.

Of all the books that Humanity has known, none has exerted as much influence as the Bible. The first book published in the printing press was the Bible, thus marking the passage to the Modern Era.

Famous authors have used it as a theme to make their creations. Plays, great musicians and writers, film and television programs have the Bible as their theme or find inspiration in it.

Complex philosophical movements are based on the Bible, an immortal book that has wiped away the tears of the sad and illuminated the laughter of the happy. It has provided the material for the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages and has been the basis of countless missionary enterprises around the world.

Complete or in part, it has been translated into more than a thousand