The word book in the bible

News flash: the Bible is huge: about 611,000 words long, all divvied up across 66 smaller documents called the “books” of the Bible.

That’s because the Bible is a collection of writings from different authors writing at different times. In some ways, that makes it easier to approach the Bible: we can read it in “chunks” rather than needing to read the whole Bible at once.

But it also makes it a bit confusing. The Bible itself is a book. In fact, the word “bible” comes from the Latin and Greek words for “book” (biblia and biblos, respectively). But it’s a book of books. That means if you want to know the Bible better, you’ll need to get acquainted with the 66 documents it comprises.

That can take a while, so . . .

Here’s a snapshot of every book of the Bible

I’ve written a one-sentence overview of every book of the Bible. They’re listed in the order they show up in the Protestant Bible. If you want more, I’ve linked to quick, 3-minute guides to every book of the Bible, too.

This is a lot to take in, so if you want to start with baby steps, check out this list of the shortest books of the Bible.

Old Testament books of the Bible

The Old Testament includes 39 books which were written long before Jesus was born.

The first five books of the Bible are called the Torah, or the Law of Moses.

1. Genesis 

Genesis answers two big questions: “How did God’s relationship with the world begin?” and “Where did the nation of Israel come from?”

Author: Traditionally Moses, but the stories are much older.

Fun fact: Most of the famous Bible stories you’ve heard about are probably found in the book of Genesis. This is where the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, the Tower of Babel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob’s ladder, and Joseph’s coat of many colors are recorded.

2. Exodus

God saves Israel from slavery in Egypt, and then enters into a special relationship with them.

Author: Traditionally Moses

3. Leviticus

God gives Israel instructions for how to worship Him.

Author: traditionally Moses

4. Numbers

Israel fails to trust and obey God, and wanders in the wilderness for 40 years.

Author: Traditionally Moses

5. Deuteronomy

Moses gives Israel instructions (in some ways, a recap of the laws in Exodus–Numbers) for how to love and obey God in the Promised Land.

Author: Traditionally Moses

6. Joshua

Joshua (Israel’s new leader) leads Israel to conquer the Promised land, then parcels out territories to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Author: Nobody knows

Fun fact: You’ve probably heard of a few fantastic stories from this book (the Battle of Jericho and the day the sun stood still), but most of the action happens in the first half of this book. The last half is pretty much all about divvying up the real estate.

7. Judges

Israel enters a cycle of turning from God, falling captive to oppressive nations, calling out to God, and being rescued by leaders God sends their way (called “judges”).

Author: Nobody knows

8. Ruth

Two widows lose everything, and find hope in Israel—which leads to the birth of the future King David.

Author: Nobody knows

9. 1 Samuel

Israel demands a king, who turns out to be quite a disappointment.

Author: Nobody knows

10. 2 Samuel

David, a man after God’s own heart, becomes king of Israel.

Author: Nobody knows

11. 1 Kings

The kingdom of Israel has a time of peace and prosperity under King Solomon, but afterward splits, and the two lines of kings turn away from God.

Author: Nobody knows

12. 2 Kings

Both kingdoms ignore God and his prophets, until they both fall captive to other world empires.

Author: Nobody knows

13. 1 Chronicles

This is a brief history of Israel from Adam to David, culminating with David commissioning the temple of God in Jerusalem.

Author: Traditionally Ezra

14. 2 Chronicles

David’s son Solomon builds the temple, but after centuries of rejecting God, the Babylonians take the southern Israelites captive and destroy the temple.

Author: Traditionally Ezra

15. Ezra

The Israelites rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and a scribe named Ezra teaches the people to once again obey God’s laws.

Author: Ezra

16. Nehemiah

The city of Jerusalem is in bad shape, so Nehemiah rebuilds the wall around the city.

Author: Nehemiah

17. Esther

Someone hatches a genocidal plot to bring about Israel’s extinction, and Esther must face the emperor to ask for help.

Author: Nobody knows

Books of Poetry in the Old Testament

18. Job

Satan attacks a righteous man named Job, and Job and his friends argue about why terrible things are happening to him.

Author: Nobody knows

19. Psalms

A collection of 150 songs that Israel sang to God (and to each other)—kind of like a hymnal for the ancient Israelites.

Author: So many authors—meet them all here!

20. Proverbs

A collection of sayings written to help people make wise decisions that bring about justice.

Author: Solomon and other wise men

21. Ecclesiastes

A philosophical exploration of the meaning of life—with a surprisingly nihilistic tone for the Bible.

Author: Traditionally Solomon

22. Song of Solomon (Song of Songs)

A love song (or collection of love songs) celebrating love, desire, and marriage.

Author: Traditionally Solomon (but it could have been written about Solomon, or in the style of Solomon)

Books of prophecy in the Old Testament

23. Isaiah

God sends the prophet Isaiah to warn Israel of future judgment—but also to tell them about a coming king and servant who will “bear the sins of many.”

Author: Isaiah (and maybe some of his followers)

24. Jeremiah

God sends a prophet to warn Israel about the coming Babylonian captivity, but the people don’t take the news very well.

Author: Jeremiah

25. Lamentations 

A collection of dirges lamenting the fall of Jerusalem after the Babylonian attacks.

Author: Traditionally Jeremiah

26. Ezekiel

God chooses a man to speak for Him to Israel, to tell them the error of their ways and teach them justice: Ezekiel.

Author: Ezekiel

27. Daniel

Daniel becomes a high-ranking wise man in the Babylonian and Persian empires, and has prophetic visions concerning Israel’s future.

Author: Daniel (with other contributors)

28. Hosea

Hosea is told to marry a prostitute who leaves him, and he must bring her back: a picture of God’s relationship with Israel.

Author: Hosea

29. Joel

God sends a plague of locusts to Judge Israel, but his judgment on the surrounding nations is coming, too.

Author: Joel

30. Amos

A shepherd named Amos preaches against the injustice of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Author: Amos

31. Obadiah

Obadiah warns the neighboring nation of Edom that they will be judged for plundering Jerusalem.

Author: Obadiah

32. Jonah

A disobedient prophet runs from God, is swallowed by a great fish, and then preaches God’s message to the city of Nineveh.

Author: Traditionally Jonah

33. Micah

Micah confronts the leaders of Israel and Judah regarding their injustice, and prophecies that one day the Lord himself will rule in perfect justice.

Author: Micah

34. Nahum

Nahum foretells of God’s judgment on Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

Author: Nahum

35. Habakkuk

Habakkuk pleads with God to stop the injustice and violence in Judah, but is surprised to find that God will use the even more violent Babylonians to do so.

Author: Habakkuk

36. Zephaniah

God warns that he will judge Israel and the surrounding nations, but also that he will restore them in peace and justice.

Author: Zephaniah

37. Haggai

The people have abandoned the work of restoring God’s temple in Jerusalem, and so Haggai takes them to task.

Author: Haggai

38. Zechariah

The prophet Zechariah calls Israel to return to God, and records prophetic visions that show what’s happening behind the scenes.

39. Malachi

God has been faithful to Israel, but they continue to live disconnected from him—so God sends Malachi to call them out.

New Testament books of the Bible

The New Testament includes 27 books about Jesus’ ministry and what it means to follow him. The first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels.

40. The Gospel of Matthew

This is an account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, focusing on Jesus’ role as the true king of the Jews.

Author: Matthew

41. The Gospel of Mark

This brief account of Jesus’ earthly ministry highlights Jesus’ authority and servanthood.

Author: John Mark

42. The Gospel of Luke

Luke writes the most thorough account of Jesus’ life, pulling together eyewitness testimonies to tell the full story of Jesus.

Author: Luke

43. The Gospel of John

John lists stories of signs and miracles with the hope that readers will believe in Jesus.

Author: John

44. Acts

Jesus returns to the Father, the Holy Spirit comes to the church, and the gospel of Jesus spreads throughout the world.

Author: Luke

Paul’s epistles

45. Romans

Paul summarizes how the gospel of Jesus works in a letter to the churches at Rome, where he plans to visit.

Author: Paul

46. 1 Corinthians

Paul writes a disciplinary letter to a fractured church in Corinth, and answers some questions that they’ve had about how Christians should behave.

Author: Paul

47. 2 Corinthians

Paul writes a letter of reconciliation to the church at Corinth, and clears up some concerns that they have.

Author: Paul

48. Galatians

Paul hears that the Galatian churches have been lead to think that salvation comes from the law of Moses, and writes a (rather heated) letter telling them where the false teachers have it wrong.

Author: Paul

49. Ephesians

Paul writes to the church at Ephesus about how to walk in grace, peace, and love.

Author: Paul

50. Philippians

An encouraging letter to the church of Philippi from Paul, telling them how to have joy in Christ.

Author: Paul

51. Colossians

Paul writes the church at Colossae a letter about who they are in Christ, and how to walk in Christ.

Author: Paul

52. 1 Thessalonians

Paul has heard a good report on the church at Thessalonica, and encourages them to “excel still more” in faith, hope, and love.

Author: Paul

53. 2 Thessalonians

Paul instructs the Thessalonians on how to stand firm until the coming of Jesus.

Author: Paul

54. 1 Timothy

Paul gives his protegé Timothy instruction on how to lead a church with sound teaching and a godly example.

Author: Paul

55. 2 Timothy

Paul is nearing the end of his life, and encourages Timothy to continue preaching the word.

Author: Paul

56. Titus

Paul advises Titus on how to lead orderly, counter-cultural churches on the island of Crete.

Author: Paul

57. Philemon

Paul strongly recommends that Philemon accept his runaway slave as a brother, not a slave.

Author: Paul

The general, or Catholic, epistles

58. Hebrews

A letter encouraging Christians to cling to Christ despite persecution, because he is greater.

Author: Nobody knows

59. James

A letter telling Christians to live in ways that demonstrate their faith in action.

Author: James (likely the brother of Jesus)

60. 1 Peter

Peter writes to Christians who are being persecuted, encouraging them to testify to the truth and live accordingly.

Author: Peter

61. 2 Peter

Peter writes a letter reminding Christians about the truth of Jesus, and warning them that false teachers will come.

Author: Peter

62. 1 John

John writes a letter to Christians about keeping Jesus’ commands, loving one another, and important things they should know.

Author: John

63. 2 John

A very brief letter about walking in truth, love, and obedience.

Author: John

64. 3 John

An even shorter letter about Christian fellowship.

Author: John

65. Jude

A letter encouraging Christians to contend for the faith, even though ungodly persons have crept in unnoticed.

Author: Jude

66. Revelation

John sees visions of things that have been, things that are, and things that are yet to come.

Author: John

January 19, 2019

in Bible, Christian Life and Faith, Sermons

1105

What Every Christian Should Know, Believe and live.
(Scripture Passage: Psalm 119: 89-104)

The Bible is a very wonderful book. It is a composite library of 66 books, of which 39 comprise the Old Testament and 27 the New Testament. The Bible is unique, for it is no mere haphazard collection of writings, but is an organic whole, each of the 66 books being necessary to the whole ‘library’. Any careful reader will quickly discover that there is a plan behind the arrangement of the books, and a unity about the Bible that is nothing less than miraculous. That is why we have entitled this study ‘The Bible: God’s Miracle Book’. The Bible is inspired, authoritative and entirely trustworthy. What are the grounds for believing this? Consider the following:

1. THE WONDER AND MIRACLE OF ITS FORMATION.

The Old Testament may be divided into four sections: The Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy); the historical books (Joshua to Job); the poetical books (Psalms to Song of Solomon); and the prophetical books (Isaiah to Malachi). In the New Testament the historical books are Matthew to Acts; the doctrinal books are Romans to Jude; and the great book of prophecy is The Revelation. But from where did these 66 books come? How were they written, and by whom? How were they brought together in one volume? Here is a miracle of tremendous significance!

The 66 books of the Bible were written by some forty different writers, who lived in different countries, spoke different languages and came from different backgrounds. The writers included a king, a doctor, a herdsman, a tax gatherer, a theologian, a scribe, a fisherman, etc., and their writings spread over a period of 1600 years, so there could be no collusion or communication. Think of it –- 40 different writers, spread over 55 generations, producing 66 books; and yet when these books are placed together there is a perfect unity and harmony about them and they all fit together like a jigsaw. What is the explanation? There is only one explanation: the Bible is God’s miracle book.

1. THE CLAIM OF ITS WRITERS.

God is the Author of the Bible, but He employed many human writers. These forty writers claimed to be writing down the words of the Lord. ‘This is what the Lord says…’ and similar expressions occur hundreds of times in the Bible –-

compare Exodus 20:1 and 24:4. ‘In the twenty-seven chapters of Leviticus there are fifty-six assertions assigning its authorship to the Lord Himself.’ The same is true of the historical, the poetical and the prophetical books of the Old Testament. What about the New Testament? The Old Testament is woven into the New Testament. Literally scores of Old Testament sayings are quoted in the New Testament, and Jesus, the Gospel-writers, Paul, Peter, James and John all accepted the divine authority and authorship of the Old Testament – – look up 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21. What is the explanation of the fact that the writers in the Bible claim to have written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? The explanation is this: the Bible is God’s word not man’s word book.

1. THE ACCURACY OF ITS STATEMENTS.

It is commonly held that the Bible is full of errors and mis-statements. Let us understand that there are many things in the Bible about which we need fuller light; but let us also state confidently that the Bible is accurate and reliable. What seem to be discrepancies are often cleared away after careful and prayerful investigation –- look up Psalm 119:160. There is not one single proved inaccuracy in the whole Bible. The Bible is accurate historically, geographically, genealogically, scientifically, psychologically, typologically, and verbally. What is the secret of this amazing accuracy? The Bible is God’s word not man’s word book.

1. THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF ITS REVELATION.

The revelation of truth we have in the Bible is progressively given, and by the time we get to the Book of Revelation we have a perfect and complete body of truth. In the 66 books there is everything we need to know about ourselves, sin, death, Heaven, human destiny, human relations and, above all, about God and His nature, about Christ and His love, and about redemption. The revelation in the Bible is complete –- look up Jude 3. There is everything we need in the Bible: the Bible is God’s word not man’s word book.

1. THE FULFILMENT OF ITS PROPHECIES.

Two-thirds of the Bible is made up of prophecies. Prophecy is history written in advance. Only a small portion of these prophecies has so far been fulfilled, but all fulfilled prophecy has been literally fulfilled. In the Bible we have prophecies relating to places, events and people. A most helpful approach to this subject would be to study the Old Testament prophecies relating to the Person of Christ and see them literally fulfilled in His birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension. Note also that over thirty prophecies relating to His arrest, trial and crucifixion were all literally fulfilled within 24 hours when He died. What is the explanation of the power of this book to predict the future? The Bible is God’s word not man’s word book.

1. THE INSISTENCE OF ITS MESSAGE.

One message runs right through the Bible – the message of God’s great love for sinful humanity; of the gift of His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; of His provision of salvation, and of His righteous claims perfectly satisfied at Calvary – Genesis 3:15. Throughout the Bible we trace the message of John 3:16, until we come to the final appeal to sinful men to accept the Gospel invitation – Revelation 22:17. What is the explanation of this one insistent message running through the Bible? The Bible is God’s word not man’s book. But as we conclude this study, notice one final evidence of the Bible’s unique nature, inspiration and authority: it is to be found in:

1. THE EXPLANATION OF ITS AUTHOR.

What is the explanation of the miraculous nature of the Bible? The answer is stated in 1 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21. These verses proclaim the inspiration of the Old Testament scriptures; while John 14:26 and 16:13 refer to the inspiration of the writers of the books of the New Testament.

Thank God, the Bible is God-given, fully inspired, completely authoritative and absolutely trustworthy! It truly is God’s word book. Let us love it, believe it, learn it, practice it, defend it and pass it on to others.

The Holy Bible is the Voice of God, speaking to man created in His own image and likeness revealing Himself; it is not the voice of Man speaking to his fellow men about God, his Creator.

The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, ‘the books’) is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthology – a compilation of texts of a variety of forms – originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text can vary.

The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible. It is called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning five books) in Greek; the second oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi’im); the third collection (the Ketuvim) contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. «Tanakh» is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible composed of the first letters of those three parts of the Hebrew scriptures: the Torah («Teaching»), the Nevi’im («Prophets»), and the Ketuvim («Writings»). The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Tanakh, in Hebrew and Aramaic, that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism. The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BCE (Before Common Era); it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible.

Christianity began as an outgrowth of Judaism, using the Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament. The early Church continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospels, Pauline epistles and other texts quickly coalesced into the New Testament.

With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. It has had a profound influence both on Western culture and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or being translated into about half of the world’s languages.

Etymology

The term «Bible» can refer to the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible, which contains both the Old and New Testaments.^[1]

The English word Bible is derived from Koinē Greek: τὰ βιβλία, romanized: ta biblia, meaning «the books» (singular βιβλίον, biblion).^[2]
The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of «scroll» and came to be used as the ordinary word for «book».^[3] It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, «Egyptian papyrus», possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.^[4]

The Greek ta biblia («the books») was «an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books».^[5] The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John 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.^[6]

Latin biblia sacra «holy books» translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια (tà biblía tà hágia, «the holy books»).^[7] Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra «holy book». It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.^[8]

Development and history

The Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of books whose complex development is not completely understood. The oldest books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars are just beginning to explore «the interface between writing, performance, memorization, and the aural dimension» of the texts. Current indications are that the ancient writing–reading process was supplemented by memorization and oral performance in community.^[9] The Bible was written and compiled by many people, most of whom are unknown, from a variety of disparate cultures.^[10]

British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote:^[11]

[T]he biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural, economic, and ecological – varied enormously. There are texts which reflect a nomadic existence, texts from people with an established monarchy and Temple cult, texts from exile, texts born out of fierce oppression by foreign rulers, courtly texts, texts from wandering charismatic preachers, texts from those who give themselves the airs of sophisticated Hellenistic writers. It is a time-span which encompasses the compositions of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Sophocles, Caesar, Cicero, and Catullus. It is a period which sees the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire (twelfth to seventh century) and of the Persian empire (sixth to fourth century), Alexander’s campaigns (336–326), the rise of Rome and its domination of the Mediterranean (fourth century to the founding of the Principate, 27 BCE), the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and the extension of Roman rule to parts of Scotland (84 CE).

The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand on papyrus scrolls.^[12] No originals survive. The age of the original composition of the texts is therefore difficult to determine and heavily debated. Using a combined linguistic and historiographical approach, Hendel and Joosten date the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 and the Samson story of Judges 16 and 1 Samuel) to having been composed in the premonarchial early Iron Age (c. 1200 BCE).^[13] The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are the oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length that are not fragments.^[14]

The earliest manuscripts were probably written in paleo-Hebrew, a kind of cuneiform pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period.^[15] The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE.^[16] From the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid in reading.^[17] By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs.^[18] Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others.^[19] Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script and updating archaic forms while also making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care.^[20]

Considered to be scriptures (sacred, authoritative religious texts), the books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures).^[21] The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning «law», «instruction», or «teaching») or Pentateuch («five books»), was accepted as Jewish canon by the fifth century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called the Nevi’im («prophets»), was canonized in the third century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim («writings»), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the second century BCE and the second century CE.^[22] These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with some parts in Aramaic, which together form the Hebrew Bible or «TaNaKh» (an abbreviation of «Torah», «Nevi’im», and «Ketuvim»).^[23]

Hebrew Bible

There are three major historical versions of the Hebrew Bible: the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text, and the Samaritan Pentateuch (which contains only the first five books). They are related but do not share the same paths of development. The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and some related texts, into Koine Greek, begun in Alexandria in the late third century BCE and completed by 132 BCE.^[24][25][a] Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King of Egypt, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora.^[24][26] Existing complete copies of the Septuagint date from the third to the fifth centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the second century BCE. ^[27] Revision of its text began as far back as the first century BCE.^[28] Fragments of the Septuagint were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; portions of its text are also found on existing papyrus from Egypt dating to the second and first centuries BCE and to the first century CE.^[28]: 5

The Masoretes began developing what would become the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism near the end of the Talmudic period (c. 300–c. 500 CE), but the actual date is difficult to determine.^[29][30][31] In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas’sora (from which we derive the term «masoretic»).^[29] These early Masoretic scholars were based primarily in the Galilean cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, and in Babylonia (modern Iraq). Those living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee (c. 750–950), made scribal copies of the Hebrew Bible texts without a standard text, such as the Babylonian tradition had, to work from. The canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (called Tiberian Hebrew) that they developed, and many of the notes they made, therefore differed from the Babylonian.^[32] These differences were resolved into a standard text called the Masoretic text in the ninth century.^[33] The oldest complete copy still in existence is the Leningrad Codex dating to c. 1000 CE.^[34]

The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah maintained by the Samaritan community since antiquity, which was rediscovered by European scholars in the 17th century; its oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE.^[35] Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon.^[36] They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh.^[b] A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh’s Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle.^[37]

In the seventh century, the first codex form of the Hebrew Bible was produced. The codex is the forerunner of the modern book. Popularized by early Christians, it was made by folding a single sheet of papyrus in half, forming «pages». Assembling multiples of these folded pages together created a «book» that was more easily accessible and more portable than scrolls. In 1488, the first complete printed press version of the Hebrew Bible was produced.^[38]

New Testament

During the rise of Christianity in the first century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians called these new scriptures the «New Testament», and began referring to the Septuagint as the «Old Testament».^[39] The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work.^[40][41] Most early Christian copyists were not trained scribes.^[42] Many copies of the gospels and Paul’s letters were made by individual Christians over a relatively short period of time very soon after the originals were written.^[43] There is evidence in the Synoptic Gospels, in the writings of the early church fathers, from Marcion, and in the Didache that Christian documents were in circulation before the end of the first century.^[44][45] Paul’s letters were circulated during his lifetime, and his death is thought to have occurred before 68 during Nero’s reign.^[46][47] Early Christians transported these writings around the Empire, translating them into Old Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages.^[48]

Bart Ehrman explains how these multiple texts later became grouped by scholars into categories:

during the early centuries of the church, Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it is no surprise that different localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say, the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they were for the most part «in-house» documents, copied from one another; they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics, which were not the same as those found in a place like Alexandria, Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize that the scribes in Alexandria – which was a major intellectual center in the ancient world – were particularly scrupulous, even in these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form of the text of the early Christian writings was preserved, decade after decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes.^[49]

These differing histories produced what modern scholars refer to as recognizable «text types». The four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian, Western, Caesarean, and Byzantine.^[50]

The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by those of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Between 385 and 405 CE, the early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate.^[52] Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon. The Council of Trent (1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation, authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of the Bible.^[53] A number of biblical canons have since evolved. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church canon, and the 66-book canon of most Protestant denominations, to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon, among others.^[54] Judaism has long accepted a single authoritative text, whereas Christianity has never had an official version, instead having many different manuscript traditions.^[55]

Variants

All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those that copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts.^[56][57] A variant is any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains that «Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS [manuscripts] attest to it.»^[58] Hebrew scholar Emanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated.^[59]

Medieval handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were considered extremely precise: the most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts.^[60] Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts still contain some variants.^[61] The majority of all variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional.^[62] In the Hebrew text, «memory variants» are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include the substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional.^[63]

Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons.^[62][64] Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The fourth edition of the United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text.^[65]

Content and themes

Themes

The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women,^[66]: 203 sex,^[67] children, marriage,^[68] neighbors,^[69]: 24 friends, the nature of authority and the sharing of power,^{[70]: 45–48} animals, trees and nature,^[71]: xi money and economics,^[72]: 77 work, relationships,^[73] sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others.^[74] Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: «The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, [as well as] axiological and aesthetic assumptions about the nature of value and beauty. These are all implicit in the texts.»^[75]

However, discerning the themes of some biblical texts can be problematic.^[76] Much of the Bible is in narrative form and in general, biblical narrative refrains from any kind of direct instruction, and in some texts the author’s intent is not easy to decipher.^[77] It is left to the reader to determine good and bad, right and wrong, and the path to understanding and practice is rarely straightforward.^[78] God is sometimes portrayed as having a role in the plot, but more often there is little about God’s reaction to events, and no mention at all of approval or disapproval of what the characters have done or failed to do.^[79] The writer makes no comment, and the reader is left to infer what they will.^[79] Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Schatz explain that the Bible «often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without explanation or apology».^[80]

The Hebrew Bible contains assumptions about the nature of knowledge, belief, truth, interpretation, understanding and cognitive processes.^[81] Ethicist Michael V. Fox writes that the primary axiom of the book of Proverbs is that «the exercise of the human mind is the necessary and sufficient condition of right and successful behavior in all reaches of life».^[82] The Bible teaches the nature of valid arguments, the nature and power of language, and its relation to reality.^[75] According to Mittleman, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character.^[83][84]

In the biblical metaphysic, humans have free will, but it is a relative and restricted freedom.^[85] Beach says that Christian voluntarism points to the will as the core of the self, and that within human nature, «the core of who we are is defined by what we love».^[86] Natural law is in the Wisdom literature, the Prophets, Romans 1, Acts 17, and the book of Amos (Amos 1:3–2:5), where nations other than Israel are held accountable for their ethical decisions even though they don’t know the Hebrew god.^[87] Political theorist Michael Walzer finds politics in the Hebrew Bible in covenant, law, and prophecy, which constitute an early form of almost democratic political ethics.^[88] Key elements in biblical criminal justice begin with the belief in God as the source of justice and the judge of all, including those administering justice on earth.^[89]

Carmy and Schatz say the Bible «depicts the character of God, presents an account of creation, posits a metaphysics of divine providence and divine intervention, suggests a basis for morality, discusses many features of human nature, and frequently poses the notorious conundrum of how God can allow evil.»^[90]

Hebrew Bible

The authoritative Hebrew Bible is taken from the masoretic text (called the Leningrad Codex) which dates from 1008. The Hebrew Bible can therefore sometimes be referred to as the Masoretic Text.^[91]

The Hebrew Bible is also known by the name Tanakh (Hebrew: תנ»ך‎). This reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah («Teaching»), Nevi’im («Prophets») and Ketuvim («Writings») by using the first letters of each word.^[92] It is not until the Babylonian Talmud (c. 550 BCE) that a listing of the contents of these three divisions of scripture are found.^[93]

The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28)^[94] written in Biblical Aramaic, a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world.^[95]

Torah

The Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the «Five Books of Moses» or the Pentateuch, meaning «five scroll-cases».^[96] Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself.^[97][98] Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility that Moses first assembled the separate sources.^[99][100] There are a variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed,^[101] but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),^[102][103] or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).^[104]

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, Beresheeth (בראשית)
• Exodus, Shemot (שמות)
• Leviticus, Vayikra (ויקרא)
• Numbers, Bamidbar (במדבר)
• Deuteronomy, Devarim (דברים)

The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God’s early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God’s covenant with the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and Jacob’s children, the «Children of Israel», especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt.

The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses.^[105]

The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law. Tradition states that there are 613 commandments (taryag mitzvot).

Nevi’im

Nevi’im (Hebrew: נְבִיאִים, romanized: Nəḇî’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).

The Nevi’im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, focusing on conflicts between the Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in «the LORD God»^[106] (Yahweh) and believers in foreign gods,^[c][d] and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers;^[e][f][g] in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Former Prophets

The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land, and end with the release from imprisonment of the last king of Judah. Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover:

• Joshua’s conquest of the land of Canaan (in the Book of Joshua),
• the struggle of the people to possess the land (in the Book of Judges),
• the people’s request to God to give them a king so that they can occupy the land in the face of their enemies (in the Books of Samuel)
• the possession of the land under the divinely appointed kings of the House of David, ending in conquest and foreign exile (Books of Kings)

Latter Prophets

The Latter Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets, counted as a single book.

• Hosea, Hoshea (הושע) denounces the worship of gods other than Yehovah, comparing Israel to a woman being unfaithful to her husband.
• Joel, Yoel (יואל) includes a lament and a promise from God.
• Amos, Amos (עמוס) speaks of social justice, providing a basis for natural law by applying it to unbelievers and believers alike.
• Obadiah, Ovadyah (עבדיה) addresses the judgment of Edom and restoration of Israel.
• Jonah, Yonah (יונה) tells of a reluctant redemption of Ninevah.
• Micah, Mikhah (מיכה) reproaches unjust leaders, defends the rights of the poor, and looks forward to world peace.
• Nahum, Nahum (נחום) speaks of the destruction of Nineveh.
• Habakkuk, Havakuk (חבקוק) upholds trust in God over Babylon.
• Zephaniah, Tsefanya (צפניה) pronounces coming of judgment, survival and triumph of remnant.
• Haggai, Khagay (חגי) rebuild Second Temple.
• Zechariah, Zekharyah (זכריה) God blesses those who repent and are pure.
• Malachi, Malakhi (מלאכי) corrects lax religious and social behaviour.

Ketuvim

Ketuvim or Kəṯûḇîm (in Biblical Hebrew: כְּתוּבִים «writings») is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy.^[107]

In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. «Stichs» are the lines that make up a verse «the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content».^[108] Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ»ת, which is also the Hebrew for «truth»). Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a «special system» of accenting used only in these three books.^[109]

The five scrolls

The five relatively short books of Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot. These are the latest books collected and designated as «authoritative» in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the second century CE.^[110]

Other books

The books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah^[h] and Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares.^[111] They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons.^[112]

• Their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion).
• The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them.
• Two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in the Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic.

Book order

The following list presents the books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most current printed editions.

• Tehillim (Psalms) תְהִלִּים is an anthology of individual Hebrew religious hymns.
• Mishlei (Book of Proverbs) מִשְלֵי is a «collection of collections» on values, moral behavior, the meaning of life and right conduct, and its basis in faith.
• Iyyôbh (Book of Job) אִיּוֹב is about faith, without understanding or justifying suffering.
• Shīr Hashshīrīm (Song of Songs) or (Song of Solomon) שִׁיר הַשִׁירִים (Passover) is poetry about love and sex.
• Rūth (Book of Ruth) רוּת (Shābhû‘ôth) tells of the Moabite woman Ruth, who decides to follow the God of the Israelites, and remains loyal to her mother-in-law, who is then rewarded.
• Eikhah (Lamentations) איכה (Ninth of Av) [Also called Kinnot in Hebrew.] is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
• Qōheleth (Ecclesiastes) קהלת (Sukkôth) contains wisdom sayings disagreed over by scholars. Is it positive and life-affirming, or deeply pessimistic?
• Estēr (Book of Esther) אֶסְתֵר (Pûrîm) tells of a Hebrew woman in Persia who becomes queen and thwarts a genocide of her people.
• Dānî’ēl (Book of Daniel) דָּנִיֵּאל combines prophecy and eschatology (end times) in story of God saving Daniel just as He will save Israel.
• ‘Ezrā (Book of Ezra–Book of Nehemiah) עזרא tells of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile.
• Divrei ha-Yamim (Chronicles) דברי הימים contains genealogy.

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.^[113]

One of the large scale differences between the Babylonian and the Tiberian biblical traditions is the order of the books. Isaiah is placed after Ezekiel in the Babylonian, while Chronicles opens the Ketuvim in the Tiberian, and closes it in the Babylonian.^[114]

The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as canonical. While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as early as the fifth century BCE and the Former and Latter Prophets were canonized by the second century BCE, the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the second century CE.^[110]

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.^[115] Against Apion, the writing of Josephus in 95 CE, treated the text of the Hebrew Bible as a closed canon to which «… no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable…»^[116] For an extended period after 95CE, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny.^[117]

Septuagint

The Septuagint («the Translation of the Seventy», also called «the LXX»), is a Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible begun in the late third century BCE.

As the work of translation progressed, the Septuagint expanded: the collection of prophetic writings had various hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books such as the Books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach were added. These are among the «apocryphal» books, (books whose authenticity is doubted). The inclusion of these texts, and the claim of some mistranslations, contributed to the Septuagint being seen as a «careless» translation and its eventual rejection as a valid Jewish scriptural text.^{[118][119][i]}

The apocrypha are Jewish literature, mostly of the Second Temple period (c. 550 BCE – 70 CE); they originated in Israel, Syria, Egypt or Persia; were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and attempt to tell of biblical characters and themes.^[121] Their provenance is obscure. One older theory of where they came from asserted that an «Alexandrian» canon had been accepted among the Greek-speaking Jews living there, but that theory has since been abandoned.^[122] Indications are that they were not accepted when the rest of the Hebrew canon was.^[122] It is clear the Apocrypha were used in New Testament times, but «they are never quoted as Scripture.»^[123] In modern Judaism, none of the apocryphal books are accepted as authentic and are therefore excluded from the canon. However, «the Ethiopian Jews, who are sometimes called Falashas, have an expanded canon, which includes some Apocryphal books».^[124]

The rabbis also wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity.^[a][j] Finally, the rabbis claimed a divine authority for the Hebrew language, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek – even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given the status of a sacred language comparable to Hebrew).^[k]

Incorporations from Theodotion

The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version, c. 100 BCE, and the later Theodotion version from c. second century CE. Both Greek texts contain three additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children; the story of Susannah and the Elders; and the story of Bel and the Dragon. Theodotion’s translation was so widely copied in the Early Christian church that its version of the Book of Daniel virtually superseded the Septuagint’s. The priest Jerome, in his preface to Daniel (407 CE), records the rejection of the Septuagint version of that book in Christian usage: «I … wish to emphasize to the reader the fact that it was not according to the Septuagint version but according to the version of Theodotion himself that the churches publicly read Daniel.»^[125] Jerome’s preface also mentions that the Hexapla had notations in it, indicating several major differences in content between the Theodotion Daniel and the earlier versions in Greek and Hebrew.

Theodotion’s Daniel is closer to the surviving Hebrew Masoretic Text version, the text which is the basis for most modern translations. Theodotion’s Daniel is also the one embodied in the authorised edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587.^[126]

Final form

Textual critics are now debating how to reconcile the earlier view of the Septuagint as ‘careless’ with content from the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, scrolls discovered at Wadi Murabba’at, Nahal Hever, and those discovered at Masada. These scrolls are 1000–1300 years older than the Leningrad text, dated to 1008 CE, which forms the basis of the Masoretic text.^[127] The scrolls have confirmed much of the Masoretic text, but they have also differed from it, and many of those differences agree with the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch or the Greek Old Testament instead.^[118]

Copies of some texts later declared apocryphal are also among the Qumran texts.^[122] Ancient manuscripts of the book of Sirach, the «Psalms of Joshua», Tobit, and the Epistle of Jeremiah are now known to have existed in a Hebrew version.^[128] The Septuagint version of some biblical books, such as the Book of Daniel and Book of Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon.^[129] In the Septuagint, Jeremiah is shorter than in the Masoretic text, but a shortened Hebrew Jeremiah has been found at Qumran in cave 4.^[118] The scrolls of Isaiah, Exodus, Jeremiah, Daniel and Samuel exhibit striking and important textual variants from the Masoretic text.^[118] The Septuagint is now seen as a careful translation of a different Hebrew form or recension (revised addition of the text) of certain books, but debate on how best to characterize these varied texts is ongoing.^[118]

Pseudepigraphal books

Pseudepigrapha are works whose authorship is wrongly attributed. A written work can be pseudepigraphical and not be a forgery, as forgeries are intentionally deceptive. With pseudepigrapha, authorship has been mistransmitted for any one of a number of reasons.^[130]

Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works are not the same. Apocrypha includes all the writings claiming to be sacred that are outside the canon because they are not accepted as authentically being what they claim to be. For example, the Gospel of Barnabas claims to be written by Barnabas the companion of the Apostle Paul, but both its manuscripts date from the Middle Ages. Pseudepigrapha is a literary category of all writings whether they are canonical or apocryphal. They may or may not be authentic in every sense except a misunderstood authorship.^[130]

The term «pseudepigrapha» is commonly used to describe 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 questioned.) The Old Testament pseudepigraphal works include the following:^[131]

• 3 Maccabees
• 4 Maccabees
• Assumption of Moses
• Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)
• Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch)
• Hebrew Book of Enoch (3 Enoch) (also known as «The Revelation of Metatron» or «The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest»)
• Book of Jubilees
• Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 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
• Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)
• Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

Book of Enoch

Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch such as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, which survives only in Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving in Hebrew of the c. fifth century – c. sixth century CE. These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. The fragment of Enoch found among the Qumran scrolls attest to it being an ancient work.^[132] The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) are estimated to date from about 300 BCE, and the latest part (Book of Parables) was probably composed at the end of the first century BCE.^[133]

Enoch is not part of the biblical canon used by most 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. Part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude and the book of Hebrews (parts of the New Testament), but Christian denominations generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical.^[134] The exceptions to this view are the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.^[132]

The Ethiopian Bible is not based on the Greek Bible, and the Ethiopian Church has a slightly different understanding of canon than other Christian traditions.^[135] In Ethiopia, canon does not have the same degree of fixedness, (yet neither is it completely open).^[135] Enoch has long been seen there as inspired scripture, but being scriptural and being canon are not always seen the same. The official Ethiopian canon has 81 books, but that number is reached in different ways with various lists of different books, and the book of Enoch is sometimes included and sometimes not.^[135] Current evidence confirms Enoch as canonical in both Ethiopia and in Eritrea.^[132]

Christian Bible

A Christian Bible is a set of books divided into the Old and New Testament that a Christian denomination has, at some point in their past or present, regarded as divinely inspired scripture by the holy spirit.^[136] The Early Church primarily used the Septuagint, as it was written in Greek, the common tongue of the day, or they used the Targums among Aramaic speakers. Modern English translations of the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible are based on the Masoretic Text.^[34] The Pauline epistles and the gospels were soon added, along with other writings, as the New Testament.^[137]

Old Testament

The Old Testament has been important to the life of the Christian church from its earliest days. Bible scholar N.T. Wright says «Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures.»^[138] Wright adds that the earliest Christians searched those same Hebrew scriptures in their effort to understand the earthly life of Jesus. They regarded the «holy writings» of the Israelites as necessary and instructive for the Christian, as seen from Paul’s words to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), as pointing to the Messiah, and as having reached a climactic fulfillment in Jesus generating the «new covenant» prophesied by Jeremiah.^[139]

The Protestant Old Testament of the twenty-first century has a 39-book canon – the number of books (although not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division. 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.

However, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as its Old Testament (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one),^[140] and the Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize 6 additional books. These additions are also included in the Syriac versions of the Bible called the Peshitta and the Ethiopian Bible.^[l][m][n]

Because the canon of Scripture is distinct for Jews, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Protestants, the contents of each community’s Apocrypha are unique, as is its usage of the term. For Jews, none of the apocryphal books are considered canonical. Catholics refer to this collection as «Deuterocanonical books» (second canon) and the Orthodox Church refers to them as «Anagignoskomena» (that which is read).^{[141] [o]}

Books included in the Roman Catholic, Greek, and Slavonic Bibles are: Tobit, Judith, Greek Additions to Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (also called the Baruch Chapter 6), the Greek Additions to Daniel, along with 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees.^[142]

The Greek Orthodox Church, and the Slavonic churches (Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia) also add:^[143]

• 3 Maccabees
• 1 Esdras (called 2 Esdras in the Slavonic canon)
• Prayer of Manasseh
• Psalm 151

2 Esdras (4 Ezra) and the Prayer of Manasseh are not in the Septuagint, and 2 Esdras does not exist in Greek, though it does exist in Latin. There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church. It is in an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it is therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.^[144]

The Syriac Orthodox Church also includes:

• Psalms 151–155
• The Apocalypse of Baruch
• The Letter of Baruch^[145]

The Ethiopian Old Testament Canon uses Enoch and Jubilees (that only survived in Ge’ez), 1–3 Meqabyan, Greek Ezra and the Apocalypse of Ezra, and Psalm 151.^[n][l]

The Revised Common Lectionary of the Lutheran Church, Moravian Church, Reformed Churches, Anglican Church and Methodist Church uses the apocryphal books liturgically, with alternative Old Testament readings available.^[p] Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Lutheran Church and Anglican Church include the fourteen books of the Apocrypha, many of which are the deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix.^[147]

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 apocryphal. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible, the basis for the Revised Standard Version.^[148]

The Orthodox Old Testament[149][q]	Greek-based name	Conventional English name
Law
Γένεσις	Génesis	Genesis
Ἔξοδος	Éxodos	Exodus
Λευϊτικόν	Leuitikón	Leviticus
Ἀριθμοί	Arithmoí	Numbers
Δευτερονόμιον	Deuteronómion	Deuteronomy
History
Ἰησοῦς Nαυῆ	Iêsous Nauê	Joshua
Κριταί	Kritaí	Judges
Ῥούθ	Roúth	Ruth
Βασιλειῶν Αʹ[r]	I Reigns	I Samuel
Βασιλειῶν Βʹ	II Reigns	II Samuel
Βασιλειῶν Γʹ	III Reigns	I Kings
Βασιλειῶν Δʹ	IV Reigns	II Kings
Παραλειπομένων Αʹ	I Paralipomenon[s]	I Chronicles
Παραλειπομένων Βʹ	II Paralipomenon	II Chronicles
Ἔσδρας Αʹ	I Esdras	1 Esdras
Ἔσδρας Βʹ	II Esdras	Ezra–Nehemiah
Τωβίτ[t]	Tobit	Tobit or Tobias
Ἰουδίθ	Ioudith	Judith
Ἐσθήρ	Esther	Esther with additions
Μακκαβαίων Αʹ	I Makkabaioi	1 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Βʹ	II Makkabaioi	2 Maccabees
Μακκαβαίων Γʹ	III Makkabaioi	3 Maccabees
Wisdom
Ψαλμοί	Psalms	Psalms
Ψαλμός ΡΝΑʹ	Psalm 151	Psalm 151
Προσευχὴ Μανάσση	Prayer of Manasseh	Prayer of Manasseh
Ἰώβ	Iōb	Job
Παροιμίαι	Proverbs	Proverbs
Ἐκκλησιαστής	Ekklesiastes	Ecclesiastes
Ἆσμα Ἀσμάτων	Song of Songs	Song of Solomon or Canticles
Σοφία Σαλoμῶντος	Wisdom of Solomon	Wisdom
Σοφία Ἰησοῦ Σειράχ	Wisdom of Jesus the son of Seirach	Sirach or Ecclesiasticus
Ψαλμοί Σαλoμῶντος	Psalms of Solomon	Psalms of Solomon[u]
Prophets
Δώδεκα	The Twelve	Minor Prophets
Ὡσηέ Αʹ	I. Osëe	Hosea
Ἀμώς Βʹ	II. Amōs	Amos
Μιχαίας Γʹ	III. Michaias	Micah
Ἰωήλ Δʹ	IV. Ioël	Joel
Ὀβδίου Εʹ[v]	V. Obdias	Obadiah
Ἰωνᾶς Ϛ’	VI. Ionas	Jonah
Ναούμ Ζʹ	VII. Naoum	Nahum
Ἀμβακούμ Ηʹ	VIII. Ambakum	Habakkuk
Σοφονίας Θʹ	IX. Sophonias	Zephaniah
Ἀγγαῖος Ιʹ	X. Angaios	Haggai
Ζαχαρίας ΙΑʹ	XI. Zacharias	Zachariah
Ἄγγελος ΙΒʹ	XII. Messenger	Malachi
Ἠσαΐας	Hesaias	Isaiah
Ἱερεμίας	Hieremias	Jeremiah
Βαρούχ	Baruch	Baruch
Θρῆνοι	Lamentations	Lamentations
Ἐπιστολή Ιερεμίου	Epistle of Jeremiah	Letter of Jeremiah
Ἰεζεκιήλ	Iezekiêl	Ezekiel
Δανιήλ	Daniêl	Daniel with additions
Appendix
Μακκαβαίων Δ’ Παράρτημα	IV Makkabees	4 Maccabees[w]

New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second portion of the Christian Bible. While some scholars assert that Aramaic was the original language of the New Testament,^[151] the majority view says it was written in the vernacular form of Koine Greek. Still, there is reason to assert that it is a heavily Semitized Greek: its syntax is like conversational Greek, but its style is largely Semitic.^[152][x][y] Koina Greek was the common language of the western Roman Empire from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BCE) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600) while Aramaic was the language of Jesus, the Apostles and the ancient Near East.^{[151][z][aa][ab]} The term «New Testament» came into use in the second century during a controversy over whether the Hebrew Bible should be included with the Christian writings as sacred scripture.^[153]

It is generally accepted that the New Testament writers were Jews who took the inspiration of the Old Testament for granted. This is probably stated earliest in 2 Timothy 3:16: «All scripture is given by inspiration of God». Scholarship on how and why ancient Jewish–Christians came to create and accept new texts as equal to the established Hebrew texts has taken three forms. First, John Barton writes that ancient Christians probably just continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what they believed were inspired, authoritative religious books.^[154] The second approach separates those various inspired writings based on a concept of «canon» which developed in the second century.^[155] The third involves formalizing canon.^[156] According to Barton, these differences are only differences in terminology; the ideas are reconciled if they are seen as three stages in the formation of the New Testament.^[157]

The first stage was completed remarkably early if one accepts Albert C. Sundberg [de]‘s view that «canon» and «scripture» are separate things, with «scripture» having been recognized by ancient Christians long before «canon» was.^[158] Barton says Theodor Zahn concluded «there was already a Christian canon by the end of the first century», but this is not the canon of later centuries.^[159] Accordingly, Sundberg asserts that in the first centuries, there was no criterion for inclusion in the «sacred writings» beyond inspiration, and that no one in the first century had the idea of a closed canon.^[160] The gospels were accepted by early believers as handed down from those Apostles who had known Jesus and been taught by him.^[161] Later biblical criticism has questioned the authorship and datings of the gospels.

At the end of the second century, it is widely recognized that a Christian canon similar to its modern version was asserted by the church fathers in response to the plethora of writings claiming inspiration that contradicted orthodoxy: (heresy).^[162] The third stage of development as the final canon occurred in the fourth century with a series of synods that produced a list of texts of the canon of the Old Testament and the New Testament that are still used today. Most notably the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE and that of c. 400. Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (the Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. This process effectively set the New Testament canon.

New Testament books already had considerable authority in the late first and early second centuries.^[163] Even in its formative period, most of the books of the NT that were seen as scripture were already agreed upon. Linguistics scholar Stanley E. Porter says «evidence from the apocryphal non-Gospel literature is the same as that for the apocryphal Gospels – in other words, that the text of the Greek New Testament was relatively well established and fixed by the time of the second and third centuries».^[164] By the time the fourth century Fathers were approving the «canon», they were doing little more than codifying what was already universally accepted.^[165]

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books^[166] of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse). These books can be grouped into:

The Gospels are narratives of Jesus’ last three years of life, his death and resurrection.

• Synoptic Gospels
  • Gospel of Matthew
  • Gospel of Mark
  • Gospel of Luke
• Gospel of John

Narrative literature, provide an account and history of the very early Apostolic age.

• Acts of the Apostles

Pauline epistles are written to individual church groups to address problems, provide encouragement and give instruction.

Pastoral epistles discuss the pastoral oversight of churches, Christian living, doctrine and leadership.

Catholic epistles, also called the general epistles or lesser epistles.

Apocalyptic literature

• Book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse, predicts end time events.

Both Catholics and Protestants (as well as Greek Orthodox) currently have the same 27-book New Testament Canon. They are ordered differently in the Slavonic tradition, the Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition.^[167]

Canon variations

Peshitta

The Peshitta (Classical Syriac: ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ or ܦܫܝܼܛܬܵܐ pšīṭtā) is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition. The consensus within biblical scholarship, although not universal, is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from biblical Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century CE, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated from the Greek.^[ac] This New Testament, originally excluding certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (616 CE) of Thomas of Harqel.^[ad][151]

Catholic Church canon

The canon of the Catholic Church was affirmed by the Council of Rome (AD 382), the Synod of Hippo (in AD 393), the Council of Carthage (AD 397), the Council of Carthage (AD 419), the Council of Florence (AD 1431–1449) and finally, as an article of faith, by the Council of Trent (AD 1545–1563) establishing the canon consisting of 46 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament for a total of 73 books in the Catholic Bible.^{[168][169][ae]}

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.^[171] In addition to the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, the Ethiopian Old Testament Canon uses Enoch and Jubilees (ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge’ez, but are quoted in the New Testament),^[142] Greek Ezra and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 books of Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter.^[n][l] The three books of Meqabyan are not to be confused with the books of Maccabees. The order of the books is somewhat different in that the Ethiopian Old Testament follows the Septuagint order for the Minor Prophets rather than the Jewish order.^[171]

Influence

With a literary tradition spanning two millennia, the Bible is one of the most influential works ever written. From practices of personal hygiene to philosophy and ethics, the Bible has directly and indirectly influenced politics and law, war and peace, sexual morals, marriage and family life, letters and learning, the arts, economics, social justice, medical care and more.^[172]

The Bible is one of the world’s most published books, with estimated total sales of over five billion copies.^[173] As such, the Bible has had a profound influence, especially in the Western world,^[174][175] where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed in Europe using movable type.^[176] It has contributed to the formation of Western law, art, literature, and education.^[177]

Criticism

Critics view certain biblical texts to be morally problematic. The Bible neither calls for nor condemns slavery outright, but there are verses that address dealing with it, and these verses have been used to support it. Some have written that supersessionism begins in the book of Hebrews where others locate its beginnings in the culture of the fourth century Roman empire.^[178]: 1 The Bible has been used to support the death penalty, patriarchy, sexual intolerance, the violence of total war, and colonialism.

In the Christian Bible, the violence of war is addressed four ways: pacifism, non-resistance; just war, and preventive war which is sometimes called crusade.^{[179]: 13–37} In the Hebrew Bible, there is just war and preventive war which includes the Amalekites, Canaanites, Moabites, and the record in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and both books of Kings.^[180] John J. Collins writes that people throughout history have used these biblical texts to justify violence against their enemies.^[181] Anthropologist Leonard B. Glick offers the modern example of Jewish fundamentalists in Israel, such as Shlomo Aviner a prominent theorist of the Gush Emunim movement, who considers the Palestinians to be like biblical Canaanites, and therefore suggests that Israel «must be prepared to destroy» the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not leave the land.^[182]

Nur Masalha argues that genocide is inherent in these commandments, and that they have served as inspirational examples of divine support for slaughtering national opponents.^[183] However, the «applicability of the term [genocide] to earlier periods of history» is questioned by sociologists Frank Robert Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn.^[184] Since most societies of the past endured and practiced genocide, it was accepted at that time as «being in the nature of life» because of the «coarseness and brutality» of life; the moral condemnation associated with terms like genocide are products of modern morality.^[184]: 27 The definition of what constitutes violence has broadened considerably over time.^{[185]: 1–2} The Bible reflects how perceptions of violence changed for its authors.^[185]: 261

Phyllis Trible, in her now famous work Texts of Terror, tells four Bible stories of suffering in ancient Israel where women are the victims. Tribble describes the Bible as «a mirror» that reflects humans, and human life, in all its «holiness and horror».^[186]

John Riches, professor of divinity and biblical criticism at the University of Glasgow, provides the following view of the diverse historical influences of the Bible:

It has inspired some of the great monuments of human thought, literature, and art; it has equally fuelled some of the worst excesses of human savagery, self-interest, and narrow-mindedness. It has inspired men and women to acts of great service and courage, to fight for liberation and human development; and it has provided the ideological fuel for societies which have enslaved their fellow human beings and reduced them to abject poverty. … It has, perhaps above all, provided a source of religious and moral norms which have enabled communities to hold together, to care for, and to protect one another; yet precisely this strong sense of belonging has in turn fuelled ethnic, racial, and international tension and conflict. It has, that is to say, been the source of great truth, goodness, and beauty at the same time as it has inspired lies, wickedness, and ugliness.^[187]

Politics and law

The Bible has been used to support and oppose political power. It has inspired revolution and «a reversal of power» because God is so often portrayed as choosing what is «weak and humble (the stammering Moses, the infant Samuel, Saul from an insignificant family, David confronting Goliath, etc.) to confound the mighty».^[188][189] Biblical texts have been the catalyst for political concepts like democracy, religious toleration and religious freedom.^[190]: 3 These have, in turn, inspired movements ranging from abolitionism in the 18th and 19th century, to the civil rights movement, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and liberation theology in Latin America. The Bible has been the source of many peace movements and efforts at reconciliation around the world .^[191]

The roots of many modern laws can be found in the Bible’s teachings on due process, fairness in criminal procedures, and equity in the application of the law.^[192] Judges are told not to accept bribes (Deuteronomy 16:19), are required to be impartial to native and stranger alike (Leviticus 24:22; Deuteronomy 27:19), to the needy and the powerful alike (Leviticus 19:15), and to rich and poor alike (Deuteronomy 1:16, 17; Exodus 23:2–6). The right to a fair trial, and fair punishment, are also found in the Bible (Deuteronomy 19:15; Exodus 21:23–25). Those most vulnerable in a patriarchal society – children, women, and strangers – are singled out in the Bible for special protection (Psalm 72:2, 4).^{[193]: 47–48}

The philosophical foundation of human rights is in the Bible’s teachings of natural law.^[194][195] The prophets of the Hebrew Bible repeatedly admonish the people to practice justice, charity, and social responsibility. H. A. Lockton writes that «The Poverty and Justice Bible (The Bible Society (UK), 2008) claims there are more than 2000 verses in the Bible dealing with the justice issues of rich-poor relations, exploitation and oppression».^[196] Judaism practiced charity and healing the sick but tended to limit these practices to their own people.^[197] For Christians, the Old Testament statements are enhanced by multiple verses such as Matthew 10:8, Luke 10:9 and 9:2, and Acts 5:16 that say «heal the sick». Authors Vern and Bonnie Bullough write in The care of the sick: the emergence of modern nursing, that this is seen as an aspect of following Jesus’ example, since so much of his public ministry focused on healing.^[197]

In the process of following this command, monasticism in the third century transformed health care.^[198] This produced the first hospital for the poor in Caesarea in the fourth century. The monastic health care system was innovative in its methods, allowing the sick to remain within the monastery as a special class afforded special benefits; it destigmatized illness, legitimized the deviance from the norm that sickness includes, and formed the basis for future modern concepts of public health care.^[199] The biblical practices of feeding and clothing the poor, visiting prisoners, supporting widows and orphan children have had sweeping impact.^{[200][201][202]}

The Bible’s emphasis on learning has had formidable influence on believers and western society. For centuries after the fall of the western Roman Empire, all schools in Europe were Bible-based church schools, and outside of monastic settlements, almost no one had the ability to read or write. These schools eventually led to the West’s first universities (created by the church) in the Middle Ages which have spread around the world in the modern day.^[203] Protestant Reformers wanted all members of the church to be able to read the Bible, so compulsory education for both boys and girls was introduced. Translations of the Bible into local vernacular languages have supported the development of national literatures and the invention of alphabets.^[204]

Biblical teachings on sexual morality changed the Roman empire, the millennium that followed, and have continued to influence society.^[205] Rome’s concept of sexual morality was centered on social and political status, power, and social reproduction (the transmission of social inequality to the next generation). The biblical standard was a «radical notion of individual freedom centered around a libertarian paradigm of complete sexual agency».^{[206]: 10, 38} Classicist Kyle Harper describes the change biblical teaching evoked as «a revolution in the rules of behavior, but also in the very image of the human being».^{[207]: 14–18}

Literature and the arts

The Bible has directly and indirectly influenced literature: St Augustine’s Confessions is widely considered the first autobiography in Western Literature.^[208] The Summa Theologica, written 1265–1274, is «one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature.»^[209] These both influenced the writings of Dante’s epic poetry and his Divine Comedy, and in turn, Dante’s creation and sacramental theology has contributed to influencing writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien^[210] and William Shakespeare.^[211]

Many masterpieces of Western art were inspired by biblical themes: from Michelangelo’s David and Pietà sculptures, to Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and Raphael’s various Madonna paintings. There are hundreds of examples. Eve, the temptress who disobeys God’s commandment, is probably the most widely portrayed figure in art.^[212] The Renaissance preferred the sensuous female nude, while the «femme fatale» Delilah from the nineteenth century onward demonstrates how the Bible and art both shape and reflect views of women.^[213][214]

The Bible has many rituals of purification which speak of clean and unclean in both literal and metaphorical terms.^[215] The biblical toilet etiquette encourages washing after all instances of defecation, hence the invention of the bidet.^[216][217]

Interpretation and inspiration

Biblical texts have always required interpretation, and this has given rise to multiple views and approaches according to the interplay between various religions and the book.^[218]

The primary source of Jewish commentary and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible is the Talmud. The Talmud, (which means study and learning), is a summary of ancient oral law and commentary on it.^[219] It is the primary source of Jewish Law.^[220] Adin Steinsaltz writes that «if the Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism, then the Talmud is the central pillar».^[221] Seen as the backbone of Jewish creativity, it is «a conglomerate of law, legend and philosophy, a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, anecdotes and humor» all aimed toward the purpose of studying biblical Torah.^[220]

Christians often treat the Bible as a single book, and while John Barton says they are «some of the most profound texts humanity has ever produced», liberals and moderates see it as a collection of books that are not perfect.^[222] Conservative and fundamentalist Christians see the Bible differently and interpret it differently.^[223] Christianity interprets the Bible differently than Judaism does with Islam providing yet another view.^[224] How inspiration works and what kind of authority it means the Bible has are different for different traditions.^[225]

The Second Epistle to Timothy says that «all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness». (2 Timothy 3:16)^[226] Various related but distinguishable views on divine inspiration include:

• the view of the Bible as the inspired word of God: the belief that God, through the Holy Spirit, intervened and influenced the words, message, and collation of the Bible^[227]
• the view that the Bible is also infallible, and incapable of error in matters of faith and practice, but not necessarily in historic or scientific matters
• the view that the Bible represents the inerrant word of God, without error in any aspect, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans

Within these broad beliefs many schools of hermeneutics operate. «Bible scholars claim that discussions about the Bible must be put into its context within church history and then into the context of contemporary culture.»^[139] Fundamentalist Christians are associated with the doctrine of biblical literalism, where the Bible is not only inerrant, but the meaning of the text is clear to the average reader.^[228]

Jewish antiquity attests to belief in sacred texts,^[229][230] and a similar belief emerges in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention divine agency in relation to its writings.^[231] In their book A General Introduction to the Bible, Norman Geisler and William Nix write: «The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record.»^[232] Most evangelical biblical scholars^[233][234] associate inspiration with only the original text; for example some American Protestants adhere to the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which asserted that inspiration applied only to the autographic text of scripture.^[235] Among adherents of biblical literalism, a minority, such as followers of the King-James-Only Movement, extend the claim of inerrancy only to a particular version.^[236]

Religious significance

Both Judaism and Christianity see the Bible as religiously and intellectually significant.^[237] It provides insight into its time and into the composition of the texts, and it represents an important step in the development of thought.^[237] It is used in communal worship, recited and memorized, provides personal guidance, a basis for counseling, church doctrine, religious culture (teaching, hymns and worship), and ethical standards.^{[237][238]: 145}

The Bible is centrally important to both Judaism and Christianity, but not as a holy text out of which entire religious systems can somehow be read. Its contents illuminate the origins of Christianity and Judaism, and provide spiritual classics on which both faiths can draw; but they do not constrain subsequent generations in the way that a written constitution would. They are simply not that kind of thing. They are a repository of writings, both shaping and shaped by the two religions…»^[239]

As a result, there are teachings and creeds in Christianity and laws in Judaism that are seen by those religions as derived from the Bible which are not directly in the Bible.^[83]

For the Hebrew Bible, canonization is reserved for written texts, while sacralization reaches far back into oral tradition.^[240]: 80 When sacred stories, such as those that form the narrative base of the first five books of the Bible, were performed, «not a syllable [could] be changed in order to ensure the magical power of the words to ‘presentify’ the divine».^[240]: 80 Inflexibility protected the texts from a changing world.^[240]: 80 When sacred oral texts began the move to written transmission, commentary began being worked in, but once the text was closed by canonization, commentary needed to remain outside. Commentary still had significance. Sacred written texts were thereafter accompanied by commentary, and such commentary was sometimes written and sometimes orally transmitted, as is the case in the Islamic Madrasa and the Jewish Yeshiva.^[240]: 81 Arguing that Torah has had a definitive role in developing Jewish identity from its earliest days, John J. Collins explains that regardless of genetics or land, it has long been true that one could become Jewish by observing the laws in the Torah, and that remains true in the modern day.^[241]

The Christian religion and its sacred book are connected and influence one another, but the significance of the written text has varied throughout history. For Christianity, holiness did not reside in the written text, or in any particular language, it resided in the Christ the text witnessed to. David M. Carr writes that this gave early Christianity a more ‘flexible’ view of the written texts.^[242]: 279 Wilfred Cantwell Smith points out that «in the Islamic system, the Quran fulfills a function comparable to the role… played by the person of Jesus Christ, while a closer counterpart to Christian scriptures are the Islamic Hadith ‘Traditions’.»^[243]: 133 For centuries the written text had less significance than the will of the church as represented by the Pope, since the church saw the text as having been created by the church. One cause of the Reformation was the perceived need to reorient Christianity around its early text as authoritative.^[244]: 13 Some Protestant churches still focus on the idea of sola scriptura, which sees scripture as the only legitimate religious authority. Some denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only infallible source of Christian teaching. Others, though, advance the concept of prima scriptura in contrast, meaning scripture primarily or scripture mainly.^[af][ag]

In the twenty-first century, attitudes towards the significance of the Bible continue to differ. Roman Catholics, High Church Anglicans, Methodists and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of both the Bible and sacred tradition in combination. United Methodists see Scripture as the major factor in Christian doctrine, but they also emphasize the importance of tradition, experience, and reason. Lutherans teach that the Bible is the sole source for Christian doctrine.^[245] Muslims view the Bible as reflecting the true unfolding revelation from God; but revelation which had been corrupted or distorted (in Arabic: tahrif), and therefore necessitated correction by giving the Quran to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.^[ah] The Rastafari view the Bible as essential to their religion,^[247] while the Unitarian Universalists view it as «one of many important religious texts».^[248]

Versions and translations

The original texts of the Tanakh were almost entirely written in Hebrew with about one percent in Aramaic. The earliest translation of any Bible text is the Septuagint which translated the Hebrew into Greek.^[33] As the first translation of any biblical literature, the translation that became the Septuagint was an unparalleled event in the ancient world.^[249] This translation was made possible by a common Mediterranean culture where Semitism had been foundational to Greek culture.^[250] In the Talmud, Greek is the only language officially allowed for translation.^[119] The Targum Onkelos is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible believed to have been written in the second century CE.^[33] These texts attracted the work of various scholars, but a standardized text was not available before the 9th century.^[33]

There were different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew. These were copied and edited in three different locations producing slightly varying results. Masoretic scholars in Tiberias in ancient Palestine copied the ancient texts in Tiberian Hebrew. A copy was recovered from the «Cave of Elijah» (the synagogue of Aleppo in the Judean desert) and is therefore referred to as the Aleppo Codex which dates to around 920. This codex, which is over a thousand years old, was originally the oldest codex of the complete Tiberian Hebrew Bible.^[251] Babylonian masoretes had also copied the early texts, and the Tiberian and Babylonian were later combined, using the Aleppo Codex and additional writings, to form the Ben-Asher masoretic tradition which is the standardized Hebrew Bible of today. The Aleppo Codex is no longer the oldest complete manuscript because, during riots in 1947, the Aleppo Codex was removed from its location, and about 40% of it was subsequently lost. It must now rely on additional manuscripts, and as a result, the Aleppo Codex contains the most comprehensive collection of variant readings.^[34] The oldest complete version of the Masoretic tradition is the Leningrad Codex from 1008. It is the source for all modern Jewish and Christian translations.^[33][251]

Levidas writes that, «The Koine Greek New Testament is a non-translated work; most scholars agree on this – despite disagreement on the possibility that some passages may have appeared initially in Aramaic… It is written in the Koine Greek of the first century [CE]».^[252] Early Christians translated the New Testament into Old Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages.^[48] The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time.^[253][254]

Pope Damasus I (366–383) commissioned 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, in the 4th century CE (although Jerome expressed in his prologues to most deuterocanonical books that they were non-canonical).^[255][256] In 1546, at the Council of Trent, Jerome’s Vulgate translation was declared by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Church.^[257] The Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament, and they had no need to translate the Greek New Testament.^[253][254] This contributed to the East-West Schism.^[52]

Many ancient translations coincide with the invention of the alphabet and the beginning of vernacular literature in those languages. According to British Academy professor N. Fernández Marcos, these early translations represent «pioneer works of enormous linguistic interest, as they represent the oldest documents we have for the study of these languages and literature».^[258]

Translations to English can be traced to the seventh century, Alfred the Great in the 9th century, the Toledo School of Translators in the 12th and 13th century, Roger Bacon (1220–1292), an English Franciscan monk of the 13th century, and multiple writers of the Renaissance.^[259] The Wycliffite Bible, which is «one of the most significant in the development of a written standard», dates from the late Middle English period.^[260] William Tyndale’s translation of 1525 is seen by several scholars as having influenced the form of English Christian discourse as well as impacting the development of the English language itself.^[261] Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German in 1522, and both Testaments with Apocrypha in 1534, thereby contributing to the multiple wars of the Age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Important biblical translations of this period include the Polish Jakub Wujek Bible (Biblia Jakuba Wujka) from 1535, and the English King James/Authorized Version (1604–1611).^[262] The King James Version was the most widespread English Bible of all time, but it has largely been superseded by modern translations.^[53]
Some New Testaments verses found to be later additions to the text are not included in modern English translations, despite appearing in older English translations such as the King James Version.

Historically significant translations of the Bible in English

Name	Abbreviation	Published[ai]
Wycliffe Bible	WYC	1382
Tyndale Bible[aj]	TYN	1526[ak]
Geneva Bible	GNV	1560
Douay–Rheims Bible	DRB	1610[al]
King James Version	KJV	1611
English Revised Version	RV	1885
Revised Standard Version	RSV	1952
New American Bible	NAB	1970
New International Version	NIV	1978
New King James Version	NKJV	1982
New Revised Standard Version	NRSV	1989
English Standard Version	ESV	2001

Some denominations have additional canonical texts beyond the Bible, including the Standard Works of the Latter Day Saints movement and Divine Principle in the Unification Church.

Nearly all modern English translations of the Old Testament are based on a single manuscript, the Leningrad Codex, copied in 1008 or 1009. It is a complete example of the Masoretic Text, and its published edition is used by the majority of scholars. The Aleppo Codex is the basis of the Hebrew University Bible Project in Jerusalem.^[34]

Since the Reformation era, Bible translations have been made into the common vernacular of many languages. The Bible continues to be translated to new languages, largely by Christian organizations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission and Bible societies. Lamin Sanneh writes that tracing the impact on the local cultures of translating the Bible into local vernacular language shows it has produced «the movements of indigenization and cultural liberation».^[263] «The translated scripture … has become the benchmark of awakening and renewal».^[204]

Bible translations, worldwide (as of September 2022)^[264]

Number	Statistic
7,388	Approximate number of languages spoken in the world today
2,846	Number of translations into new languages in progress
1,248	Number of languages with some translated Bible portions
1,617	Number of languages with a translation of the New Testament
724	Number of languages with a full translation of the Bible (Protestant Canon)
3,589	Total number of languages with some Bible translation

Archaeological and historical research

Biblical archaeology is a subsection of archaeology that relates to and sheds light upon the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament.^[265] It is used to help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times.^[266] There are a wide range of interpretations in the field of biblical archaeology.^[267] One broad division includes biblical maximalism, which generally takes the view that most of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible is based on history although it is presented through the religious viewpoint of its time. According to historian Lester L. Grabbe, there are “few, if any” maximalists in mainstream scholarship.^[268] It is considered to be the extreme opposite of biblical minimalism which considers the Bible to be a purely post-exilic (5th century BCE and later) composition.^[269] According to Mary-Joan Leith, professor of religious studies, many minimalists have ignored evidence for the antiquity of the Hebrew language in the Bible, and few take archaeological evidence into consideration.^[270] Most biblical scholars and archaeologists fall somewhere on a spectrum between these two.^[271][268]

The biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, the migration to the Promised Land, and the period of Judges are sources of heated ongoing debate. There is an absence of evidence for the presence of Israel in Egypt from any Egyptian source, historical or archaeological.^[272] Yet, as William Dever points out, these biblical traditions were written long after the events they describe, and they are based in sources now lost and older oral traditions.^[273]

The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient non–biblical texts, and archaeology support the Babylonian captivity beginning around 586 BCE.^[274] Excavations in southern Judah show a pattern of destruction consistent with the Neo-Assyrian devastation of Judah at the end of the eighth century BCE and 2 Kings 18:13.^[275] In 1993, at Tel Dan, archaeologist Avraham Biran unearthed a fragmentary Aramaic inscription, the Tel Dan stele, dated to the late ninth or early eighth century that mentions a «king of Israel» as well as a «house of David» (bet David). This shows David could not be a late sixth-century invention, and implies that Judah’s kings traced their lineage back to someone named David.^[276] However, there is no current archaeological evidence for the existence of King David and Solomon or the First Temple as far back as the tenth century BCE where the Bible places them.^[277]

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, surveys demonstrated that Acts of the Apostles (Acts) scholarship was divided into two traditions, «a conservative (largely British) tradition which had great confidence in the historicity of Acts and a less conservative (largely German) tradition which had very little confidence in the historicity of Acts». Subsequent surveys show that little has changed.^[278] Author Thomas E. Phillips writes that «In this two-century-long debate over the historicity of Acts and its underlying traditions, only one assumption seemed to be shared by all: Acts was intended to be read as history».^[279] This too is now being debated by scholars as: what genre does Acts actually belong to?^[279] There is a growing consensus, however, that the question of genre is unsolvable and would not, in any case, solve the issue of historicity: «Is Acts history or fiction? In the eyes of most scholars, it is history – but not the kind of history that precludes fiction.» says Phillips.^[280]

Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism refers to the analytical investigation of the Bible as a text, and addresses questions such as history, authorship, dates of composition, and authorial intention. It is not the same as criticism of the Bible, which is an assertion against the Bible being a source of information or ethical guidance, nor is it criticism of possible translation errors.^[281]

Biblical criticism made study of the Bible secularized, scholarly and more democratic, while it also permanently altered the way people understood the Bible.^[282] The Bible is no longer thought of solely as a religious artifact, and its interpretation is no longer restricted to the community of believers.^[283] Michael Fishbane writes, «There are those who regard the desacralization of the Bible as the fortunate condition for» the development of the modern world.^[284] For many, biblical criticism «released a host of threats» to the Christian faith. For others biblical criticism «proved to be a failure, due principally to the assumption that diachronic, linear research could master any and all of the questions and problems attendant on interpretation».^[285] Still others believed that biblical criticism, «shorn of its unwarranted arrogance,» could be a reliable source of interpretation.^[285] Michael Fishbane compares biblical criticism to Job, a prophet who destroyed «self-serving visions for the sake of a more honest crossing from the divine textus to the human one».^[283] Or as Rogerson says: biblical criticism has been liberating for those who want their faith «intelligently grounded and intellectually honest».^[286]

Bible museums

• The Dunham Bible Museum is located in Houston Baptist University, Houston, Texas. It is known for its collection of rare Bibles from around the world and for having many different Bibles of various languages.^[287]
• The Museum of the Bible opened in Washington, D.C. in November 2017.^[288] The museum states that its intent is to «share the historical relevance and significance of the sacred scriptures in a nonsectarian way», but this has been questioned.^[289][290]
• The Bible Museum in St Arnaud, Victoria, Australia opened in 2009.^[291] As of 2020, it is closed for relocation.^[292]
• There is a Bible Museum at The Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.^[293][294]
• The Bible Museum on the Square in Collierville, Tennessee opened in 1997.^[295][296]
• Biedenharn Museum and Gardens in Monroe, Louisiana includes a Bible Museum.^[297]

Gallery

• Bibles

• 

  Old Bible from a Greek monastery

• 

• 

  American Civil War Era Illustrated Bible

• 

  A miniature Bible

• 

Illustrations

The grandest medieval Bibles were illuminated manuscripts in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations. Up to the 12th century, most manuscripts were produced in monasteries in order to add to the library or after receiving a commission from a wealthy patron. Larger monasteries often contained separate areas for the monks who specialized in the production of manuscripts called a scriptorium, where «separate little rooms were assigned to book copying; they were situated in such a way that each scribe had to himself a window open to the cloister walk.»^[298] By the 14th century, the cloisters of monks writing in the scriptorium started to employ laybrothers from the urban scriptoria, especially in Paris, Rome and the Netherlands.^[299]
Demand for manuscripts grew to an extent that the Monastic libraries were unable to meet with the demand, and began employing secular scribes and illuminators.^[300] These individuals often lived close to the monastery and, in certain instances, dressed as monks whenever they entered the monastery, but were allowed to leave at the end of the day.^[301] A notable example of an illuminated manuscript is the Book of Kells, produced circa the year 800 containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables.

The manuscript was «sent to the rubricator, who added (in red or other colours) the titles, headlines, the initials of chapters and sections, the notes and so on; and then – if the book was to be illustrated – it was sent to the illuminator.»^[302] In the case of manuscripts that were sold commercially, the writing would «undoubtedly have been discussed initially between the patron and the scribe (or the scribe’s agent,) but by the time that the written gathering were sent off to the illuminator there was no longer any scope for innovation.»^[303]

• Bible illustrations

• 

  Bible from 1150, from Scriptorium de Chartres, Christ with angels

• 

  Blanche of Castile and Louis IX of France Bible, 13th century

• 

  Maciejowski Bible, Leaf 37, the 3rd image, Abner (in the centre in green) sends Michal back to David.

• 

  Jephthah’s daughter laments – Maciejowski Bible (France, ca. 1250)

• 

  Coloured version of the Whore of Babylon illustration from Martin Luther’s 1534 translation of the Bible

• 

  An Armenian Bible, 17th century, illuminated by Malnazar

• 

  Fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, Foster Bible, 19th century

• 

  Jonah being swallowed by the fish, Kennicott Bible, 1476

See also

Notes

References

Works cited

Further reading

External links

• «The Bible collected news and commentary» The New York Times.
• «The Bible collected news and commentary» The Guardian.
• The British Library: Discovering Sacred Texts – Christianity
• The National Library of Israel – Over 15,000 scanned manuscripts of the Old Testament
• Trinity College Digital Collections images of complete manuscript of the Book of Kells.
• Check out different versions of the Christian Bible

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«Books of the Bible» redirects here. For the edition of the Bible without chapters and verses, see The Books of the Bible (book).

For a law promulgated by a synod, an ecumenical council, or an individual bishop, see Canon (canon law).

A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called «books») which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible.

The English word canon comes from the Greek κανών kanōn, meaning «rule» or «measuring stick». The use of the word «canon» to refer to a set of religious scriptures was first used by David Ruhnken, in the 18th century.^[1]

Various biblical canons have developed through debate and agreement on the part of the religious authorities of their respective faiths and denominations. Some books, such as the Jewish–Christian gospels, have been excluded from various canons altogether, but many disputed books are considered to be biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical by many, while some denominations may consider them fully canonical. Differences exist between the Hebrew Bible and Christian biblical canons, although the majority of manuscripts are shared in common.

Different religious groups include different books in their biblical canons, in varying orders, and sometimes divide or combine books. The Jewish Tanakh (sometimes called the Hebrew Bible) contains 24 books divided into three parts: the five books of the Torah («teaching»); the eight books of the Nevi’im («prophets»); and the eleven books of Ketuvim («writings»). It is composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew. The Septuagint (in Koine Greek), which closely resembles the Hebrew Bible but includes additional texts, is used as the Christian Greek Old Testament, at least in some liturgical contexts. The first part of Christian Bibles is the Old Testament, which contains, at minimum, the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible but divided into 39 (Protestant) or 46 (Catholic) books and ordered differently. The second part is the New Testament, containing 27 books: the four canonical gospels, Acts of the Apostles, 21 Epistles or letters and the Book of Revelation. The Catholic Church and Eastern Christian churches hold that certain deuterocanonical books and passages are part of the Old Testament canon. The Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian Christian churches may have differences in their lists of accepted books.

Some Christian groups have additional or alternate canonical books which are considered holy scripture but not part of the Bible.

Jewish canonsEdit

Rabbinic JudaismEdit

Rabbinic Judaism (Hebrew: יהדות רבנית) recognizes the twenty-four books of the Masoretic Text, commonly called the Tanakh (Hebrew: תַּנַ»ךְ) or Hebrew Bible.^[2] Evidence suggests that the process of canonization occurred between 200 BC and 200 AD, and a popular position is that the Torah was canonized c. 400 BC, the Prophets c. 200 BC, and the Writings c. 100 AD^[3] perhaps at a hypothetical Council of Jamnia—however, this position is increasingly criticised by modern scholars.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} According to Marc Zvi Brettler, the Jewish scriptures outside the Torah and the Prophets were fluid, with different groups seeing authority in different books.^[10]

The Book of Deuteronomy includes a prohibition against adding or subtracting (4:2, 12:32) which might apply to the book itself (i.e. a «closed book», a prohibition against future scribal editing) or to the instruction received by Moses on Mount Sinai.^[11] The book of 2 Maccabees, itself not a part of the Jewish canon, describes Nehemiah (c. 400 BC) as having «founded a library and collected books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David, and letters of kings about votive offerings» (2:13–15).

The Book of Nehemiah suggests that the priest-scribe Ezra brought the Torah back from Babylon to Jerusalem and the Second Temple (8–9) around the same time period. Both I and II Maccabees suggest that Judas Maccabeus (c. 167 BC) likewise collected sacred books (3:42–50, 2:13–15, 15:6–9), indeed some scholars argue that the Hasmonean dynasty fixed the Jewish canon.^[12] However, these primary sources do not suggest that the canon was at that time closed; moreover, it is not clear that these sacred books were identical to those that later became part of the canon.

The Great Assembly, also known as the Great Synagogue, was, according to Jewish tradition, an assembly of 120 scribes, sages, and prophets, in the period from the end of the biblical prophets to the time of the development of Rabbinic Judaism, marking a transition from an era of prophets to an era of rabbis. They lived in a period of about two centuries ending c. 70 AD. Among the developments in Judaism that are attributed to them are the fixing of the Jewish biblical canon, including the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, and the Twelve Minor Prophets; the introduction of the triple classification of the Oral Torah, dividing its study into the three branches of midrash, halakot, and aggadot; the introduction of the Feast of Purim; and the institution of the prayer known as the Shemoneh ‘Esreh as well as the synagogal prayers, rituals, and benedictions.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to the Tanakh, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism considers the Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד ) to be another central, authoritative text. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs, and history. The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (c. 200 AD), the first written compendium of Judaism’s oral Law; and the Gemara (c. 500 AD), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Tanakh. There are numerous citations of Sirach within the Talmud, even though the book was not ultimately accepted into the Hebrew canon.

The Talmud is the basis for all codes of rabbinic law and is often quoted in other rabbinic literature. Certain groups of Jews, such as the Karaites, do not accept the Oral Law as it is codified in the Talmud and only consider the Tanakh to be authoritative.

Samaritan canonEdit

Another version of the Torah, in the Samaritan alphabet, also exists. This text is associated with the Samaritans (Hebrew: שומרונים; Arabic: السامريون), a people of whom the Jewish Encyclopedia states: «Their history as a distinct community begins with the taking of Samaria by the Assyrians in 722 BC.»^[13]

The Abisha Scroll, the oldest scroll among the Samaritans in Nablus

The Samaritan Pentateuch’s relationship to the Masoretic Text is still disputed. Some differences are minor, such as the ages of different people mentioned in genealogy, while others are major, such as a commandment to be monogamous, which appears only in the Samaritan version. More importantly, the Samaritan text also diverges from the Masoretic in stating that Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Gerizim—not Mount Sinai—and that it is upon Mount Gerizim that sacrifices to God should be made—not in Jerusalem. Scholars nonetheless consult the Samaritan version when trying to determine the meaning of text of the original Pentateuch, as well as to trace the development of text-families. Some scrolls among the Dead Sea scrolls have been identified as proto-Samaritan Pentateuch text-type.^[14]

Samaritans consider the Torah to be inspired scripture, but do not accept any other parts of the Bible—probably a position also held by the Sadducees.^[15] They did not expand their canon by adding any Samaritan compositions. There is a Samaritan Book of Joshua; however, this is a popular chronicle written in Arabic and is not considered to be scripture. Other non-canonical Samaritan religious texts include the Memar Markah («Teaching of Markah») and the Defter (Prayerbook)—both from the 4th century or later.^[16]

The people of the remnants of the Samaritans in modern-day Israel/Palestine retain their version of the Torah as fully and authoritatively canonical.^[13] They regard themselves as the true «guardians of the Law». This assertion is only re-enforced by the claim of the Samaritan community in Nablus (an area traditionally associated with the ancient city of Shechem) to possess the oldest existing copy of the Torah—one that they believe to have been penned by Abisha, a grandson of Aaron.^[17]

Christian canonsEdit

With the potential exception of the Septuagint, the apostles did not leave a defined set of scriptures; instead the canon of both the Old Testament and the New Testament developed over time. Different denominations recognize different lists of books as canonical, following various church councils and the decisions of leaders of various churches.

For mainstream Pauline Christianity (growing from proto-orthodox Christianity in pre-Nicene times) which books constituted the Christian biblical canons of both the Old and New Testament was generally established by the 5th century, despite some scholarly disagreements,^[18] for the ancient undivided Church (the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, before the East–West Schism). The Catholic canon was set at the Council of Rome (382).^[19]

In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent (1546) affirmed the Vulgate as the official Catholic Bible in order to address changes Martin Luther made in his recently completed German translation which was based on the Hebrew language Tanakh in addition to the original Greek of the component texts. The canons of the Church of England and English Presbyterians were decided definitively by the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), respectively. The Synod of Jerusalem (1672) established additional canons that are widely accepted throughout the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Various forms of Jewish Christianity persisted until around the fifth century, and canonicalized very different sets of books, including Jewish–Christian gospels which have been lost to history. These and many other works are classified as New Testament apocrypha by Pauline denominations.

The Old and New Testament canons did not develop independently of each other and most primary sources for the canon specify both Old and New Testament books. For the biblical scripture for both Testaments, canonically accepted in major traditions of Christendom, see biblical canon § canons of various traditions.

Early ChurchEdit

Earliest Christian communitiesEdit

The Early Church used the Old Testament, namely the Septuagint (LXX)^[20] among Greek speakers, with a canon perhaps as found in the Bryennios List or Melito’s canon. The Apostles did not otherwise leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead, the New Testament developed over time.

Writings attributed to the apostles circulated among the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating in collected forms by the end of the 1st century AD. Justin Martyr, in the early 2nd century, mentions the «memoirs of the Apostles», which Christians (Greek: Χριστιανός) called «gospels», and which were considered to be authoritatively equal to the Old Testament.^[21]

Marcion’s listEdit

Marcion of Sinope was the first Christian leader in recorded history (though later considered heretical) to propose and delineate a uniquely Christian canon^[22] (c. AD 140). This included 10 epistles from Paul, as well as an edited version of the Gospel of Luke, which today is known as the Gospel of Marcion. By doing this, he established a particular way of looking at religious texts that persists in Christian thought today.^[23]

After Marcion, Christians began to divide texts into those that aligned well with the «canon» (meaning a measuring line, rule, or principle) of accepted theological thought and those that promoted heresy. This played a major role in finalizing the structure of the collection of works called the Bible. It has been proposed that the initial impetus for the proto-orthodox Christian project of canonization flowed from opposition to the list produced by Marcion.^[23]

Apostolic FathersEdit

A four-gospel canon (the Tetramorph) was asserted by Irenaeus in the following quote: «It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four-quarters of the earth in which we live, and four universal winds, while the church is scattered throughout all the world, and the ‘pillar and ground’ of the church is the gospel and the spirit of life, it is fitting that she should have four pillars breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh […] Therefore the gospels are in accord with these things … For the living creatures are quadriform and the gospel is quadriform […] These things being so, all who destroy the form of the gospel are vain, unlearned, and also audacious; those [I mean] who represent the aspects of the gospel as being either more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other hand, fewer.»^[24]

By the early 3rd century, Christian theologians like Origen of Alexandria may have been using—or at least were familiar with—the same 27 books found in modern New Testament editions, though there were still disputes over the canonicity of some of the writings (see also Antilegomena).^[25] Likewise by 200, the Muratorian fragment shows that there existed a set of Christian writings somewhat similar to what is now the New Testament, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them.^[26] Thus, while there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings were accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the 3rd century.^[27]

Eastern ChurchEdit

Alexandrian FathersEdit

Origen of Alexandria (184/85–253/54), an early scholar involved in the codification of the biblical canon, had a thorough education both in Christian theology and in pagan philosophy, but was posthumously condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 since some of his teachings were considered to be heresy. Origen’s canon included all of the books in the current New Testament canon except for four books: James, 2nd Peter, and the 2nd and 3rd epistles of John.^[28]

He also included the Shepherd of Hermas which was later rejected. The religious scholar Bruce Metzger described Origen’s efforts, saying «The process of canonization represented by Origen proceeded by way of selection, moving from many candidates for inclusion to fewer.»^[29]

In his Easter letter of 367, Patriarch Athanasius of Alexandria gave a list of exactly the same books that would become the New Testament–27 book–proto-canon,^[30] and used the phrase «being canonized» (kanonizomena) in regard to them.^[31]

Fifty Bibles of ConstantineEdit

In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople. Athanasius^[32] recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans. Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists, and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are examples of these Bibles. Those codices contain almost a full version of the Septuagint; Vaticanus lacks only 1–3 Maccabees and Sinaiticus lacks 2–3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Baruch and Letter of Jeremiah.^[33] Together with the Peshitta and Codex Alexandrinus, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles.^[34]

There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon; however, Jerome (347-420), in his Prologue to Judith, makes the claim that the Book of Judith was «found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures».^[35]

Eastern canonsEdit

The Eastern Churches had, in general, a weaker feeling than those in the West for the necessity of making sharp delineations with regard to the canon. They were more conscious of the gradation of spiritual quality among the books that they accepted (for example, the classification of Eusebius, see also Antilegomena) and were less often disposed to assert that the books which they rejected possessed no spiritual quality at all. For example, the Trullan Synod of 691–692, which Pope Sergius I (in office 687–701) rejected^[36] (see also Pentarchy), endorsed the following lists of canonical writings: the Apostolic Canons (c. 385), the Synod of Laodicea (c. 363), the Third Synod of Carthage (c. 397), and the 39th Festal Letter of Athanasius (367).^[37] And yet, these lists do not agree. Similarly, the New Testament canons of the Syriac, Armenian, Egyptian Coptic and Ethiopian Churches all have minor differences, yet five of these Churches are part of the same communion and hold the same theological beliefs.^[38]

PeshittaEdit

The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition. Most of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament are found in the Syriac, and the Wisdom of Sirach is held to have been translated from the Hebrew and not from the Septuagint.^[39] This New Testament, originally excluding certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (616 AD) of Thomas of Harqel.^[40]

The standard United Bible Societies 1905 edition of the New Testament of the Peshitta was based on editions prepared by Syriacists Philip E. Pusey (d.1880), George Gwilliam (d.1914) and John Gwyn.^[41] All twenty seven books of the common western New Testament are included in this British & Foreign Bible Society’s 1905 Peshitta edition.

Western ChurchEdit

Latin FathersEdit

The first Council that accepted the present Catholic canon (the Canon of Trent of 1546) may have been the Synod of Hippo Regius, held in North Africa in 393. A brief summary of the acts was read at and accepted by the Council of Carthage (397) and also the Council of Carthage (419).^[42] These Councils took place under the authority of Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who regarded the canon as already closed.^[43]
Their decrees also declared by fiat that Epistle to the Hebrews was written by Paul, for a time ending all debate on the subject.

Augustine of Hippo declared without qualification that one is to «prefer those that are received by all Catholic Churches to those which some of them do not receive» (On Christian Doctrines 2.12). In the same passage, Augustine asserted that these dissenting churches should be outweighed by the opinions of «the more numerous and weightier churches», which would include Eastern Churches, the prestige of which Augustine stated moved him to include the Book of Hebrews among the canonical writings, though he had reservation about its authorship.^[44]

Philip Schaff says that «the council of Hippo in 393, and the third (according to another reckoning the sixth) council of Carthage in 397, under the influence of Augustine, who attended both, fixed the catholic canon of the Holy Scriptures, including the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, … This decision of the transmarine church however, was subject to ratification; and the concurrence of the Roman see it received when Innocent I and Gelasius I (A.D. 414) repeated the same index of biblical books. This canon remained undisturbed till the sixteenth century, and was sanctioned by the council of Trent at its fourth session.»^[45] According to Lee Martin McDonald, the Revelation was added to the list in 419.^[42] These councils were convened under the influence of Augustine of Hippo, who regarded the canon as already closed.^[46][47][48]

Pope Damasus I’s Council of Rome in 382 (if the Decretum is correctly associated with it) issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above.^[30] Likewise, Damasus’ commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, c. 383, proved instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West.^[49]

In a letter (c. 405) to Exsuperius of Toulouse, a Gallic bishop, Pope Innocent I mentioned the sacred books that were already received in the canon.^[50] When bishops and Councils spoke on the matter of the Biblican canon, however, they were not defining something new, but instead «were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church».^[51] Thus from the 4th century there existed unanimity in the West concerning the New Testament canon as it is today,^[52] with the exception of the Book of Revelation. In the 5th century the East too, with a few exceptions, came to accept the Book of Revelation and thus came into harmony on the matter of the New Testament canon.^[53]

As the canon crystallised, non-canonical texts fell into relative disfavour and neglect.^[54]

Council of FlorenceEdit

The contents page in a complete 80 book King James Bible, listing «The Books of the Old Testament», «The Books called Apocrypha», and «The Books of the New Testament»

Before the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Florence (1439–1443) took place. With the approval of this ecumenical council, Pope Eugenius IV (in office 1431–1447) issued several papal bulls (decrees) with a view to restoring the Eastern churches, which the Catholic Church considered as schismatic bodies, into communion with Rome. Catholic theologians regard these documents as infallible statements of Catholic doctrine. The Decretum pro Jacobitis contains a complete list of the books received by the Catholic Church as inspired, but omits the terms «canon» and «canonical». The Council of Florence therefore taught the inspiration of all the Scriptures, but did not formally pronounce itself on canonicity.^[55][56]

Luther’s canon and apocryphaEdit

Martin Luther (1483–1546) moved seven Old Testament books (Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Book of Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch) into a section he called the «Apocrypha, that are books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read».^[57]

All of these apocrypha are called anagignoskomena by the Eastern Orthodox Church per the Synod of Jerusalem.

As with the Lutheran Churches,^[58] the Anglican Communion accepts «the Apocrypha for instruction in life and manners, but not for the establishment of doctrine»,^[59] and many «lectionary readings in The Book of Common Prayer are taken from the Apocrypha», with these lessons being «read in the same ways as those from the Old Testament».^[60] The Protestant Apocrypha contains three books (3 Esdras, 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh) that are accepted by many Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches as canonical, but are regarded as non-canonical by the Catholic Church and are therefore not included in modern Catholic Bibles.^[61]

Anabaptists use the Luther Bible, which contains the intertestamental books; Amish wedding ceremonies include «the retelling of the marriage of Tobias and Sarah in the Apocrypha».^[62] The fathers of Anabaptism, such as Menno Simons, quoted «them [the Apocrypha] with the same authority and nearly the same frequency as books of the Hebrew Bible» and the texts regarding the martyrdoms under Antiochus IV in 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees are held in high esteem by the Anabaptists, who historically faced persecution.^[63]

Lutheran and Anglican lectionaries continue to include readings from the Apocrypha.^[64]

Council of TrentEdit

In response to Martin Luther’s demands, the Council of Trent on 8 April 1546 approved the present Catholic Bible canon, which includes the deuterocanonical books, and the decision was confirmed by an anathema by vote (24 yea, 15 nay, 16 abstain).^[65] The council confirmed the same list as produced at the Council of Florence in 1442,^[66] Augustine’s 397-419 Councils of Carthage,^[45] and probably Damasus’ 382 Council of Rome.^[30][67] Sixtus of Siena coined the term deuterocanonical to describe certain books of the Catholic Old Testament that had not been accepted as canonical by Jews and Protestants but which appeared in the Septuagint.^[68] The Old Testament books that had been rejected by Luther were later termed «deuterocanonical», not indicating a lesser degree of inspiration, but a later time of final approval. The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate contained in the Appendix several books considered as apocryphal by the council: Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Esdras, and 4 Esdras.^[69]

Protestant confessionsEdit

Several Protestant confessions of faith identify the 27 books of the New Testament canon by name, including the French Confession of Faith (1559),^[70] the Belgic Confession (1561), and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647). The Second Helvetic Confession (1562), affirms «both Testaments to be the true Word of God» and appealing to Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, it rejected the canonicity of the Apocrypha.^[71] The Thirty-Nine Articles, issued by the Church of England in 1563, names the books of the Old Testament, but not the New Testament. The Belgic Confession^[72] and the Westminster Confession named the 39 books in the Old Testament and, apart from the aforementioned New Testament books, expressly rejected the canonicity of any others.^[73]

The Lutheran Epitome of the Formula of Concord of 1577 declared that the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures comprised the Old and New Testaments alone.^[74] Luther himself did not accept the canonicity of the Apocrypha although he believed that its books were «Not Held Equal to the Scriptures, but Are Useful and Good to Read».^[75] Lutheran and Anglican lectionaries continue to include readings from the Apocrypha.^[64]

Other apocryphaEdit

Various books that were never canonized by any church, but are known to have existed in antiquity, are similar to the New Testament and often claim apostolic authorship, are known as the New Testament apocrypha. Some of these writings have been cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the 27 books of the modern canon.^[76][77] Thus Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches generally do not view these New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible.^[77]

Canons of various Christian traditionsEdit

Final dogmatic articulations of the canons were made at the Council of Trent of 1546 for Roman Catholicism,^[78] the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the Eastern Orthodox Church. Other traditions, while also having closed canons, may not be able to point to an exact year in which their canons were complete. The following tables reflect the current state of various Christian canons.

Old TestamentEdit

The Early Church primarily used the Greek Septuagint (or LXX) as its source for the Old Testament. Among Aramaic speakers, the Targum was also widely used. All of the major Christian traditions accept the books of the Hebrew protocanon in its entirety as divinely inspired and authoritative, in various ways and degrees.

Another set of books, largely written during the intertestamental period, are called the deuterocanon («second canon») by Catholics, the deuterocanon or anagignoskomena («worthy of reading») by Eastern Orthodox Churches, and the biblical apocrypha («hidden things») by Protestants. These are works recognized by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches as being part of scripture (and thus deuterocanonical rather than apocryphal), but Protestants do not recognize them as divinely inspired. Some Protestant Bibles—especially the English King James Bible and the Lutheran Bible—include an «Apocrypha» section.

Many denominations recognize deuterocanonical books as good, but not on the level of the other books of the Bible. Anglicanism considers the apocrypha worthy of being «read for example of life» but not to be used «to establish any doctrine».^[79] Luther made a parallel statement in calling them: «not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but…useful and good to read.»^[80]

In the Oriental Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon, the books of Lamentations, Jeremiah, and Baruch, as well as the Letter of Jeremiah and 4 Baruch, are all considered canonical by the Orthodox Tewahedo Churches. However, it is not always clear as to how these writings are arranged or divided. In some lists, they may simply fall under the title «Jeremiah», while in others, they are divided in various ways into separate books. Moreover, the book of Proverbs is divided into two books—Messale (Prov. 1–24) and Tägsas (Prov. 25–31).^{[citation needed]}

Additionally, while the books of Jubilees and Enoch are fairly well known among western scholars, 1, 2, and 3 Meqabyan are not. The three books of Meqabyan are often called the «Ethiopian Maccabees», but are completely different in content from the books of Maccabees that are known or have been canonized in other traditions. Finally, the Book of Joseph ben Gurion, or Pseudo-Josephus, is a history of the Jewish people thought to be based upon the writings of Josephus.^{[note 1]} The Ethiopic version (Zëna Ayhud) has eight parts and is included in the Orthodox Tewahedo broader canon.^{[note 2][81]}

Some ancient copies of the Peshitta used in the Syriac tradition include 2 Baruch (divided into the Apocalypse of Baruch and the Letter of Baruch; some copies only include the Letter) and the non-canonical Psalms 152–155.

The Ethiopian Tewahedo church accepts all of the deuterocanonical books of Catholicism and anagignoskomena of Eastern Orthodoxy except for the four Books of Maccabees.^[82] It accepts the 39 protocanonical books along with the following books, called the «narrow canon».^[83] The enumeration of books in the Ethiopic Bible varies greatly between different authorities and printings.^[84]

• 4 Baruch or the Paralipomena of Jeremiah
• 1 Enoch
• Jubilees
• First, Second and Third Books of Ethiopian Maccabees
• The Ethiopian broader biblical canon

Protestants and Catholics^[85] use the Masoretic Text of the Jewish Tanakh as the textual basis for their translations of the protocanonical books (those accepted as canonical by both Jews and all Christians), with various changes derived from a multiplicity of other ancient sources (such as the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.), while generally using the Septuagint and Vulgate, now supplemented by the ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts, as the textual basis for the deuterocanonical books.

Eastern Orthodoxy uses the Septuagint (translated in the 3rd century BCE) as the textual basis for the entire Old Testament in both protocanonical and deuteroncanonical books—to use both in the Greek for liturgical purposes, and as the basis for translations into the vernacular.^[86][87] Most of the quotations (300 of 400) of the Old Testament in the New Testament, while differing more or less from the version presented by the Masoretic text, align with that of the Septuagint.^[88]

Marcionism rejects the Old Testament entirely; Marcion considered the Old Testament and New Testament gods to be different entities.

Diagram of the development of the Old TestamentEdit

The books of the Old Testament, showing their positions in both the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, shown with their names in Hebrew) and Christian Bibles. The Deuterocanon shown in yellow and the Apocrypha shown in grey are not accepted by some major denominations; the Protocanon shown in red, orange, green, and blue are the Hebrew Bible books considered canonical by all major denominations.^{[citation needed]}

TableEdit

The order of some books varies among canons.

	Judaism	Western tradition	Eastern Orthodox tradition	Oriental Orthodox tradition	Church of the East tradition
Books	the Hebrew Bible	Protestant [O 1]	Lutheran	Anglican	Roman Catholic[89] [O 2]	Greek Orthodox	Slavonic Orthodox	Georgian Orthodox	Armenian Apostolic[O 3]	Syriac Orthodox	Coptic Orthodox	Orthodox Tewahedo[90][O 4]	Assyrian Church of the East	Ancient Church of the East
	Torah	Pentateuch
Genesis	Yes Bereshit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exodus	Yes Shemot	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Leviticus	Yes Vayikra	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Numbers	Yes Bemidbar	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Deuteronomy	Yes Devarim	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Nevi’im	Historical books
Joshua	Yes Yehoshua	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Josue	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Judges	Yes Shofetim	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ruth	Yes Rut (part of Ketuvim)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1 and 2 Samuel	Yes Shemuel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes 1 and 2 Kings	Yes 1 and 2 Kingdoms	Yes 1 and 2 Kingdoms	Yes 1 and 2 Kingdoms	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1 and 2 Kings	Yes Melakhim	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes 3 and 4 Kings	Yes 3 and 4 Kingdoms	Yes 3 and 4 Kingdoms	Yes 3 and 4 Kingdoms	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1 and 2 Chronicles	Yes Divrei Hayamim (part of Ketuvim)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes 1 and 2 Paralipomenon	Yes 1 and 2 Paralipomenon	Yes 1 and 2 Paralipomenon	Yes 1 and 2 Paralipomenon	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Prayer of Manasseh	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)[O 5]	No (Apocrypha)[O 5]	No – (inc. in Appendix in Clementine Vulgate)	Yes (?) (part of Odes)[O 6]	Yes (?) (part of Odes)[O 6]	Yes (?) (part of Odes)[O 6]	Yes (?)	Yes (?)	Yes[91]	Yes (part of 2 Chronicles)	Yes (?)	Yes
Ezra (1 Ezra)	Yes Ezra–Nehemiah (part of Ketuvim)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes 1 Esdras	Yes Esdras B’	Yes 1 Esdras	Yes 1 Ezra	Yes 1 Ezra	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nehemiah (2 Ezra)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes 2 Esdras	Yes Esdras Γ’ or Neemias	Yes Neemias	Yes Neemias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1 Esdras (3 Ezra)	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No	No 1 Esdras (Apocrypha)	No – (inc. in Appendix in Clementine Vulgate as 3 Esdras.)[92]	Yes Esdras A’	Yes 2 Esdras	Yes 2 Ezra	Yes 2 Ezra[O 7]	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No – inc. in some mss.	Yes Ezra Kali	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No (?) – inc. in some mss.
2 Esdras 3–14 (4 Ezra or Apocalypsis of Esdras)[O 8]	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No	No 2 Esdras (Apocrypha)	No — (inc in Appendix in Clementine Vulgate as 4 Esdras.)	No (Greek ms. lost)[O 9]	No 3 Esdras (appendix)	No 3 Ezra – inc. as noncanonical[O 10]	Yes 3 Ezra[O 7]	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No – inc. in some mss.	Yes Ezra Sutu’el	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No (?) – inc. in some mss.
2 Esdras 1–2; 15–16 (5 and 6 Ezra or Apocalypsis of Esdras)[O 8]	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No	No (part of 2 Esdras apocryphon)	No — (inc. in Appendix in Clementine Vulgate as 4 Esdras.)	No (Greek ms.)[O 11]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Esther[O 12]	Yes Ester (part of Ketuvim)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Additions to Esther	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tobit	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes Tobias (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Judith	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1 Maccabees[O 13]	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes 1 Machabees (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
2 Maccabees[O 13]	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes 2 Machabees (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
3 Maccabees	No	No − inc. in RSV and NRSV (Apocrypha)	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[O 7]	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
4 Maccabees	No	No − inc. RSV and NRSV (Apocrypha)	No	No	No	No (appendix)	No (appendix)	No – inc. as noncanonical[O 10]	No (early tradition)	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No (Coptic ms,)	No	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No (?) – inc. in some mss.
Jubilees	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
1 Enoch	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
2 Enoch	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (?)	No	No
3 Enoch	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (?)	No	No
1 Ethiopic Maccabees (1 Meqabyan)	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
2 and 3 Ethiopic Maccabees[O 14] (2 and 3 Meqabyan)	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Ethiopic Pseudo-Josephus (Zëna Ayhud)	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)[O 15]	No	No
Josephus’ Jewish War VI	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No – inc. in some mss.[O 16]	No	No	No – inc. in some mss.[O 16]	No – inc. in some mss.[O 16]
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs	No	No	No	No	No	No (Greek ms.)	No	No	No – inc. in some mss.	No	No	No	No	No
Joseph and Asenath	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No – inc. in some mss.	No	No	No (early tradition?)[O 17]	No	No
	Ketuvim	Wisdom literature
Book of Job	Yes Iyov	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Psalms 1–150[O 18]	Yes Tehillim	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Psalm 151	No	No − inc. in RSV and NRSV (Apocrypha)	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Psalms 152–155	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No	No	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No (?) – inc. in some mss.
Psalms of Solomon[O 19]	No	No	No	No	No	No – inc. in some mss.	No	No	No	No – inc. in some mss.	No	No	No – inc. in some mss.	No – inc. in some mss.
Proverbs	Yes Mishlei	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (in 2 books)	Yes	Yes
Ecclesiastes	Yes Qohelet	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Song of Songs	Yes Shir Hashirim	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Canticle of Canticles	Yes Aisma Aismaton	Yes Aisma Aismaton	Yes Aisma Aismaton	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Book of Wisdom or Wisdom of Solomon	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wisdom of Sirach or Sirach (1–51)[O 20]	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes[O 21] Ecclesiasticus (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Prayer of Solomon (Sirach 52)[O 22]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
	Nevi’im	Major prophets
Isaiah	Yes Yeshayahu	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Isaias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ascension of Isaiah	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No – liturgical (?)[O 23]	No	No	No – Ethiopic mss. (early tradition?)[O 24]	No	No
Jeremiah	Yes Yirmeyahu	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Jeremias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lamentations (1–5)	Yes Eikhah (part of Ketuvim)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[O 25]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (part of Säqoqawä Eremyas)[O 26]	Yes	Yes
Ethiopic Lamentations (6; 7:1–11:63)	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (part of Säqoqawä Eremyas)[O 26]	No	No
Baruch	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[O 27][O 28]	Yes	Yes
Letter of Jeremiah	No	No − inc. in some mss as Baruch Chapter 6. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes (chapter 6 of Baruch) (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (part of Säqoqawä Eremyas)[O 29][O 26][O 28]	Yes	Yes
Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch 1–77)[O 30]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No	No	No (?) – inc. in some mss.	No (?) – inc. in some mss.
Letter of Baruch (2 Baruch 78–87)[O 30]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No (?) – inc. in some mss.[93]	No	No	No (?) – inc. in some mss.[93]	No (?) – inc. in some mss.
Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)[O 31]	No	No	No	No	No	No (Greek ms.)	No (Slavonic ms.)	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
4 Baruch	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (part of Säqoqawä Eremyas)	No	No
Ezekiel	Yes Yekhezqel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Ezechiel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Daniel	Yes Daniyyel (part of Ketuvim)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Additions to Daniel[O 32]	No	No − inc. in some mss. (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	No (Apocrypha)	Yes (Deuterocanonical)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Trei Asar	Twelve Minor Prophets
Hosea	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Osee	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Joel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Amos	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Obadiah	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Abdias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Jonah	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Jonas	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Micah	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Micheas	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nahum	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Habakkuk	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Habacuc	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Zephaniah	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Sophonias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Haggai	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Aggeus	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Zechariah	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Zacharias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Malachi	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes Malachias	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Table notesEdit

The table uses the spellings and names present in modern editions of the Bible, such as the New American Bible Revised Edition, Revised Standard Version and English Standard Version. The spelling and names in both the 1609–1610 Douay Old Testament (and in the 1582 Rheims New Testament) and the 1749 revision by Bishop Challoner (the edition currently in print used by many Catholics, and the source of traditional Catholic spellings in English) and in the Septuagint differ from those spellings and names used in modern editions that derive from the Hebrew Masoretic text.^[94]

The King James Version references some of these books by the traditional spelling when referring to them in the New Testament, such as «Esaias» (for Isaiah). In the spirit of ecumenism more recent Catholic translations (e.g., the New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, and ecumenical translations used by Catholics, such as the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition) use the same «standardized» (King James Version) spellings and names as Protestant Bibles (e.g., 1 Chronicles, as opposed to the Douaic 1 Paralipomenon, 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings, instead of 1–4 Kings) in the protocanonicals.

The Talmud in Bava Batra 14b gives a different order for the books in Nevi’im and Ketuvim. This order is also quoted in Mishneh Torah Hilchot Sefer Torah 7:15. The order of the books of the Torah are universal through all denominations of Judaism and Christianity.

1. ^ The term «Protestant» is not accepted by all Christian denominations who often fall under this title by default—especially those who view themselves as a direct extension of the New Testament church. However, the term is used loosely here to include, with the exception of Lutherans and Anglicans, most of the non-Roman Catholic Protestant, Charismatic/Pentecostal, Reformed, and Evangelical churches. Other western churches and movements that have a divergent history from Roman Catholicism, but are not necessarily considered to be historically Protestant, may also fall under this umbrella terminology.
2. ^ The Roman Catholic Canon as represented in this table reflects the Latin tradition. Some Eastern Rite churches who are in fellowship with the Roman Catholic Church may have different books in their canons.
3. ^ The growth and development of the Armenian Biblical canon is complex. Extra-canonical Old Testament books appear in historical canon lists and recensions that are either exclusive to this tradition, or where they do exist elsewhere, never achieved the same status. These include the Deaths of the Prophets, an ancient account of the lives of the Old Testament prophets, which is not listed in this table. (It is also known as the Lives of the Prophets.) Another writing not listed in this table entitled the Words of Sirach—which is distinct from Ecclesiasticus and its prologue—appears in the appendix of the 1805 Armenian Zohrab Bible alongside other, more commonly known works.
4. ^ Adding to the complexity of the Orthodox Tewahedo Biblical canon, the national epic Kebra Negast has an elevated status among many Ethiopian Christians to such an extent that some consider it to be inspired scripture.
5. ^ ^{a b} The English Apocrypha includes the Prayer of Manasseh, 1 & 2 Esdras, the Additions to Esther, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, and the Additions to Daniel. The Lutheran Apocrypha omits from this list 1 & 2 Esdras. Some Protestant Bibles include 3 Maccabees as part of the Apocrypha. However, many churches within Protestantism—as it is presented here—reject the Apocrypha, do not consider it useful, and do not include it in their Bibles.
6. ^ ^{a b c} The Prayer of Manasseh is included as part of the Book of Odes, which follows the Psalms in Eastern Orthodox Bibles. The rest of the Book of Odes consists of passages found elsewhere in the Bible. It may also be found at the end of 2 Chronicles (2 Paralipomenon)
7. ^ ^{a b c} 2 Ezra, 3 Ezra, and 3 Maccabees are included in Bibles and have an elevated status within the Armenian scriptural tradition, but are considered «extra-canonical».
8. ^ ^{a b} In many eastern Bibles, the Apocalypse of Ezra is not an exact match to the longer Latin Esdras–2 Esdras in KJV or 4 Esdras in the Vulgate—which includes a Latin prologue (5 Ezra) and epilogue (6 Ezra). However, a degree of uncertainty continues to exist here, and it is certainly possible that the full text—including the prologue and epilogue—appears in Bibles and Biblical manuscripts used by some of these eastern traditions. Also of note is the fact that many Latin versions are missing verses 7:36–7:106. (A more complete explanation of the various divisions of books associated with the scribe Ezra may be found in the Wikipedia article entitled «Esdras».)
9. ^ Evidence strongly suggests that a Greek manuscript of 4 Ezra once existed; this furthermore implies a Hebrew origin for the text.
10. ^ ^{a b} In Eastern Orthodox Churches, including the Georgian Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Councils are the highest written determining church authority on the lists of Biblical books. Canon 2 of the Quintsext Council, held in Trullo and affirmed by the Eastern Orthodox Churches, listed and affirmed Biblical Canon lists, such as the list in Canon 85 of the Canons of the Apostles. Trullo’s Biblical Canon lists affirmed documents such as 1-3 Maccabees, but neither Slavonic 3 Esdra/Ezra (AKA Vulgate «4 Ezra/Esdras»), nor 4 Maccabees. Source: Canon 2, Council of Trullo, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3814.htm
    Georgian Orthodox Bibles apparently tend to include Slavonic 3 Esdra/Ezra and 4 Maccabees (both apocryphal). Contemporary Georgian Orthodox Bibles may mark them and the Deuterocanonical Books (eg. 1-3 Maccabees) as «noncanonical.» See eg. «The Old Testament in Modern Georgian Language» on the following Georgian Orthodox website: http://www.orthodoxy.ge/tserili/biblia/sarchevi.htm
11. ^ An early fragment of 6 Ezra is known to exist in the Greek language, implying a possible Hebrew origin for 2 Esdras 15–16.
12. ^ Esther’s placement within the canon was questioned by Luther. Others, like Melito, omitted it from the canon altogether.
13. ^ ^{a b} The Latin Vulgate, Douay–Rheims, and Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition place First and Second Maccabees after Malachi; other Catholic translations place them after Esther.
14. ^ 2 and 3 Meqabyan, though relatively unrelated in content, are often counted as a single book.
15. ^ Some sources place Zëna Ayhud within the «narrower canon».
16. ^ ^{a b c} A Syriac version of Josephus’s Jewish War VI appears in some Peshitta manuscripts as the «Fifth Book of Maccabees», which is clearly a misnomer.
17. ^ Several varying historical canon lists exist for the Orthodox Tewahedo tradition. In one particular list Archived 10 August 2006 at the Wayback Machine found in a British Library manuscript (Add MS 16188), a book of Assenath is placed within the canon. This most likely refers to the book more commonly known as Joseph and Asenath. An unknown book of Uzziah is also listed there, which may be connected to the lost Acts of Uziah referenced in 2 Chronicles 26:22.
18. ^ Some traditions use an alternative set of liturgical or metrical Psalms.
19. ^ In many ancient manuscripts, a distinct collection known as the Odes of Solomon is found together with the similar Psalms of Solomon.
20. ^ The book of Sirach is usually preceded by a non-canonical prologue written by the author’s grandson.
21. ^ In the Latin Vulgate and Douay-Rheims, chapter 51 of Ecclesiasticus appears separately as the «Prayer of Joshua, son of Sirach».
22. ^ A shorter variant of the prayer by King Solomon in 1 Kings 8:22–52 appeared in some medieval Latin manuscripts and is found in some Latin Bibles at the end of or immediately following Ecclesiasticus. The two versions of the prayer in Latin may be viewed online for comparison at the following website: BibleGateway.com: Sirach 52 / 1 Kings 8:22–52; Vulgate
23. ^ The «Martyrdom of Isaiah» is prescribed reading to honor the prophet Isaiah within the Armenian Apostolic liturgy. While this likely refers to the account of Isaiah’s death within the Lives of the Prophets, it may be a reference to the account of his death found within the first five chapters of the Ascension of Isaiah, which is widely known by this name. The two narratives have similarities and may share a common source.
24. ^ The Ascension of Isaiah has long been known to be a part of the Orthodox Tewahedo scriptural tradition. Though it is not currently considered canonical, various sources attest to the early canonicity—or at least «semi-canonicity»—of this book.
25. ^ In some Latin versions, chapter 5 of Lamentations appears separately as the «Prayer of Jeremiah».
26. ^ ^{a b c} Ethiopic Lamentations consists of eleven chapters, parts of which are considered to be non-canonical.
27. ^ The canonical Ethiopic version of Baruch has five chapters, but is shorter than the LXX text.
28. ^ ^{a b} Some Ethiopic translations of Baruch may include the traditional Letter of Jeremiah as the sixth chapter.
29. ^ The «Letter to the Captives» found within Säqoqawä Eremyas—and also known as the sixth chapter of Ethiopic Lamentations—may contain different content from the Letter of Jeremiah (to those same captives) found in other traditions.
30. ^ ^{a b} The Letter of Baruch is found in chapters 78–87 of 2 Baruch—the final ten chapters of the book. The letter had a wider circulation and often appeared separately from the first 77 chapters of the book, which is an apocalypse.
31. ^ Included here for the purpose of disambiguation, 3 Baruch is widely rejected as a pseudepigraphon and is not part of any Biblical tradition. Two manuscripts exist—a longer Greek manuscript with Christian interpolations and a shorter Slavonic version. There is some uncertainty about which was written first.
32. ^ Bel and the Dragon, Susanna, and The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children.

New TestamentEdit

Among the various Christian denominations, the New Testament canon is a generally agreed-upon list of 27 books. However, the way in which those books are arranged may vary from tradition to tradition. For instance, in the Slavonic, Orthodox Tewahedo, Syriac, and Armenian traditions, the New Testament is ordered differently from what is considered to be the standard arrangement. Protestant Bibles in Russia and Ethiopia usually follow the local Orthodox order for the New Testament. The Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East both adhere to the Peshitta liturgical tradition, which historically excludes five books of the New Testament Antilegomena: 2 John, 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation. However, those books are included in certain Bibles of the modern Syriac traditions.

Other New Testament works that are generally considered apocryphal nonetheless appear in some Bibles and manuscripts. For instance, the Epistle to the Laodiceans^{[note 3]} was included in numerous Latin Vulgate manuscripts, in the eighteen German Bibles prior to Luther’s translation, and also a number of early English Bibles, such as Gundulf’s Bible and John Wycliffe’s English translation—even as recently as 1728, William Whiston considered this epistle to be genuinely Pauline. Likewise, the Third Epistle to the Corinthians^{[note 4]} was once considered to be part of the Armenian Orthodox Bible,^[95] but is no longer printed in modern editions. Within the Syriac Orthodox tradition, the Third Epistle to the Corinthians also has a history of significance. Both Aphrahat and Ephraem of Syria held it in high regard and treated it as if it were canonical.^[96] However, it was left-out of the Peshitta and ultimately excluded from the canon altogether.

The Didache,^{[note 5]} The Shepherd of Hermas,^{[note 6]} and other writings attributed to the Apostolic Fathers, were once considered scriptural by various early Church fathers. They are still being honored in some traditions, though they are no longer considered to be canonical. However, certain canonical books within the Orthodox Tewahedo traditions find their origin in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers as well as the Ancient Church Orders. The Orthodox Tewahedo churches recognize these eight additional New Testament books in its broader canon. They are as follows: the four books of Sinodos, the two books of the Covenant, Ethiopic Clement, and the Ethiopic Didascalia.^[97]

TableEdit

	Western tradition	Eastern Orthodox tradition	Oriental Orthodox tradition	Early Christianity
Books	Protestant [O 1]	Roman Catholic	Greek Orthodox	Armenian Apostolic[N 1]	Coptic Orthodox	Orthodox Tewahedo	Syriac Orthodox	Marcionism
Canonical gospels[N 2]
Matthew	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 3]	No
Mark[N 4]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 3]	No
Luke	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 3]	Gospel of Marcion
John[N 4][N 5]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 3]	No
Acts of apostles
Acts[N 4]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Acts of Paul and Thecla[N 6][98][99]	No	No	No	No (early tradition)	No	No	No (early tradition)	No
Pauline epistles
Romans	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1 Corinthians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2 Corinthians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
3 Corinthians[N 6][N 7]	No	No	No	No − inc. in some mss.	No	No	No (early tradition)	No
Galatians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ephesians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Philippians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Colossians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Laodiceans	No − inc. in Wycliffe and early Quaker Bibles.[N 8]	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (contents unknown)
1 Thessalonians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2 Thessalonians	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1 Timothy	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2 Timothy	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Titus	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Philemon	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Catholic epistles (General epistles)
Hebrews	Yes[N 9]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
James	Yes[N 9]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1 Peter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2 Peter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 10]	No
1 John[N 4]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2 John	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 10]	No
3 John	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 10]	No
Jude	Yes[N 9]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 10]	No
Apocalypse[N 11]
Revelation	Yes[N 9]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[N 10]	No
Apostolic Fathers[N 12] and Church Orders[N 13]
1 Clement[N 14][100]	No (Codices Alexandrinus and Hierosolymitanus)	No
2 Clement[N 14][100]	No (Codices Alexandrinus and Hierosolymitanus)	No
Shepherd of Hermas[N 14]	No (Codex Siniaticus)	No
Epistle of Barnabas[N 14]	No (Codices Hierosolymitanus and Siniaticus)	No
Didache[N 14]	No (Codex Hierosolymitanus)	No
Ser’atä Seyon (Sinodos)	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No
Te’ezaz (Sinodos)	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No
Gessew (Sinodos)	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No
Abtelis (Sinodos)	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No
Book of the Covenant 1 (Mäshafä Kidan)	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No
Book of the Covenant 2 (Mäshafä Kidan)	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No
Ethiopic Clement (Qälëmentos)[N 15]	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No
Ethiopic Didescalia (Didesqelya)[N 15]	No	No	No	No	No	Yes (broader canon)	No	No

Table notesEdit

1. ^ The growth and development of the Armenian Biblical canon is complex. Extra-canonical New Testament books appear in historical canon lists and recensions that are either distinct to this tradition, or where they do exist elsewhere, never achieved the same status. Some of the books are not listed in this table. These include the Prayer of Euthalius, the Repose of St. John the Evangelist, the Doctrine of Addai (some sources replace this with the Acts of Thaddeus), a reading from the Gospel of James (some sources replace this with the Apocryphon of James), the Second Apostolic Canons, the Words of Justus, Dionysius Aeropagite, the Acts of Peter (some sources replace this with the Preaching of Peter), and a Poem by Ghazar. (Various sources also mention undefined Armenian canonical additions to the Gospels of Mark and John, however, these may refer to the general additions—Mark 16:9–20 and John 7:53–8:11—discussed elsewhere in these notes.) A possible exception here to canonical exclusivity is the Second Apostolic Canons, which share a common source—the Apostolic Constitutions—with certain parts of the Orthodox Tewahedo New Testament broader canon. The correspondence between King Agbar and Jesus Christ, which is found in various forms—including within both the Doctrine of Addai and the Acts of Thaddeus—sometimes appears separately. It is noteworthy that the Prayer of Euthalius and the Repose of St. John the Evangelist appear in the appendix of the 1805 Armenian Zohrab Bible. However, some of the aforementioned books, though they are found within canon lists, have nonetheless never been discovered to be part of any Armenian Biblical manuscript.
2. ^ Though widely regarded as non-canonical, the Gospel of James obtained early liturgical acceptance among some Eastern churches and remains a major source for many of Christendom’s traditions related to Mary, the mother of Jesus.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} The Diatessaron, Tatian’s gospel harmony, became a standard text in some Syriac-speaking churches down to the 5th century, when it gave-way to the four separate gospels found in the Peshitta.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Parts of these four books are not found in the most reliable ancient sources; in some cases, are thought to be later additions; and have therefore not historically existed in every Biblical tradition. They are as follows: Mark 16:9–20, John 7:53–8:11, the Comma Johanneum, and portions of the Western version of Acts. To varying degrees, arguments for the authenticity of these passages—especially for the one from the Gospel of John—have occasionally been made.
5. ^ Skeireins, a commentary on the Gospel of John in the Gothic language, was included in the Wulfila Bible. It exists today only in fragments.
6. ^ ^{a b} The Acts of Paul and Thecla and the Third Epistle to the Corinthians are portions of the greater Acts of Paul narrative, which is part of a stichometric catalogue of New Testament canon found in the Codex Claromontanus, but has survived only in fragments. Some of the content within these individual sections may have developed separately, however.
7. ^ The Third Epistle to the Corinthians always appears as a correspondence; it also includes a short letter from the Corinthians to Paul.
8. ^ The Epistle to the Laodiceans is present in some western non-Roman Catholic translations and traditions. Especially of note is John Wycliffe’s inclusion of the epistle in his English translation, and the Quakers’ use of it to the point where they produced a translation and made pleas for its canonicity (Poole’s Annotations, on Col. 4:16). The epistle is nonetheless widely rejected by the vast majority of Protestants.
9. ^ ^{a b c d} These four works were questioned or «spoken against» by Martin Luther, and he changed the order of his New Testament to reflect this, but he did not leave them out, nor has any Lutheran body since. Traditional German Luther Bibles are still printed with the New Testament in this changed «Lutheran» order. The vast majority of Protestants embrace these four works as fully canonical.
10. ^ ^{a b c d e} The Peshitta excludes 2 John, 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation, but certain Bibles of the modern Syriac traditions include later translations of those books. Still today, the official lectionary followed by the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, present lessons from only the twenty-two books of Peshitta, the version to which appeal is made for the settlement of doctrinal questions.
11. ^ The Apocalypse of Peter, though not listed in this table, is mentioned in the Muratorian fragment and is part of a stichometric catalogue of New Testament canon found in the Codex Claromontanus. It was also held in high regard by Clement of Alexandria.
12. ^ Other known writings of the Apostolic Fathers not listed in this table are as follows: the seven Epistles of Ignatius, the Epistle of Polycarp, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Epistle to Diognetus, the fragment of Quadratus of Athens, the fragments of Papias of Hierapolis, the Reliques of the Elders Preserved in Irenaeus, and the Apostles’ Creed.
13. ^ Though they are not listed in this table, the Apostolic Constitutions were considered canonical by some including Alexius Aristenus, John of Salisbury, and to a lesser extent, Grigor Tat’evatsi. They are even classified as part of the New Testament canon within the body of the Constitutions itself. Moreover, they are the source for a great deal of the content in the Orthodox Tewahedo broader canon.
14. ^ ^{a b c d e} These five writings attributed to the Apostolic Fathers are not currently considered canonical in any Biblical tradition, though they are more highly regarded by some more than others. Nonetheless, their early authorship and inclusion in ancient Biblical codices, as well as their acceptance to varying degrees by various early authorities, requires them to be treated as foundational literature for Christianity as a whole.
15. ^ ^{a b} Ethiopic Clement and the Ethiopic Didascalia are distinct from and should not be confused with other ecclesiastical documents known in the west by similar names.

See alsoEdit

• Canon (fiction)
• List of religious texts
• Related to the Bible
  • Biblical criticism
  • Canonical criticism
  • Jewish apocrypha
  • List of Old Testament pseudepigrapha
  • Non-canonical gospels include:
    • Gospel of Barnabas
    • Gospel of Bartholomew
    • Gospel of Basilides
    • Gospel of Thomas
    • List of Gospels
  • New Testament apocrypha
  • Pseudepigrapha
  • Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible
• Canons of other religions
  • Islamic holy books
  • Canonization of Islamic scripture
  • Avesta or Zoroastrian scriptures
  • Yazidi holy texts
  • Hindu scriptures
  • Sikh scriptures or Adi Granth aka Guru Granth Sahib
  • Tripiṭaka or Buddhist canon
    • Pāli Canon
    • Mahayana Canons
  • Chinese classics
  • Thirteen Classics or Confucian canon
    • Ruzang
  • Daozang or Taoist canon

NotesEdit

ReferencesEdit

CitationsEdit

1. ^ McDonald & Sanders (2002), p. 11-3, Introduction—»We should be clear, however, that the current use of the term ‘canon’ to refer to a collection of scripture books was introduced by David Ruhnken in 1768 in his Historia critica oratorum graecorum for lists of sacred scriptures. While it is tempting to think that such usage has its origins in antiquity in reference to a closed collection of scriptures, such is not the case.»
2. ^ For the number of books of the Hebrew Bible see: Darshan, G. (2012). «The Twenty-Four Books of the Hebrew Bible and Alexandrian Scribal Methods». In Niehoff, M. R. (ed.). Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters: Between Literary and Religious Concerns. Leiden: Brill. pp. 221–44.
3. ^ McDonald & Sanders (2002), p. 4.
4. ^ W. M., Christie (1925). «The Jamnia Period in Jewish History» (PDF). Journal of Theological Studies. os–XXVI (104): 347–64. doi:10.1093/jts/os-XXVI.104.347.
5. ^ Lewis, Jack P. (April 1964). «What Do We Mean by Jabneh?». Journal of Bible and Religion. Oxford University Press. 32 (2): 125–32. JSTOR 1460205.
6. ^ Freedman, David Noel, ed. (1992). Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. III. New York: Doubleday. pp. 634–37.
7. ^ Lewis, Jack P. (2002). «Jamnia Revisited». In McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (eds.). The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers.
8. ^ McDonald & Sanders (2002), p. 5.
9. ^ Cited are Neusner’s Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine, pp. 128–45, and Midrash in Context: Exegesis in Formative Judaism, pp. 1–22.
10. ^ Brettler, Marc Zvi (2005). How To Read The Bible. Jewish Publication Society. pp. 274–75. ISBN 978-0-8276-1001-9.
11. ^ Blenkinsopp, Joseph (2002). «The Formation of the Hebrew Canon: Isaiah as a Test Case». In McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (eds.). The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 60.
12. ^ Davies, Philip R. (2002). «The Jewish Scriptural Canon in Cultural Perspective». In McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (eds.). The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 50. With many other scholars, I conclude that the fixing of a canonical list was almost certainly the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty.
13. ^ ^{a b} «Samaritans». Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. 1906.
14. ^ VanderKam, James C. (2002). «Questions of Canon through the Dead Sea Scrolls». In McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (eds.). The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 94. Citing private communication with Emanuel Tov on biblical manuscripts: Qumran scribe type c.25%, proto-Masoretic Text c. 40%, pre-Samaritan texts c. 5%, texts close to the Hebrew model for the Septuagint c. 5% and nonaligned c. 25%.
15. ^ «Sadducees». Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. 1906. With the destruction of the Temple and the state the Sadducees as a party no longer had an object for which to live. They disappear from history, though their views are partly maintained and echoed by the Samaritans, with whom they are frequently identified (see Hippolytus, «Refutatio Hæresium», ix. 29; Epiphanius, l.c. xiv.; and other Church Fathers, who ascribe to the Sadducees the rejection of the Prophets and the Hagiographa; comp. also Sanh. 90b, where «Ẓadduḳim» stands for «Kutim» [Samaritans]; Sifre, Num. 112; Geiger, l.c. pp. 128–29), and by the Karaites (see Maimonides, commentary on Ab. i. 3; Geiger, «Gesammelte Schriften», iii. 283–321; also Anan ben David; Karaites).
16. ^ Bowman, John, ed. (1977). Samaritan Documents, Relating To Their History, Religion and Life. Pittsburgh Original Texts & Translations Series No. 2. Translated by Bowman, John.
17. ^ Crown, Alan D. (October 1991). «The Abisha Scroll – 3,000 Years Old?». Bible Review.
18. ^ «Canon», George J. Reid. In The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Charles George Herbermann (Robert Appleton Company, 1908) pp. 272, 273.
19. ^ «Decree of Council of Rome (AD 382) on the Biblical Canon». Taylor Marshall. 19 August 2008. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
20. ^ Sanders, J. A. (2002). «The Issue of Closure in the Canonical Process». In McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (eds.). The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 259. … the so-called Septuagint was not in itself formally closed. Attributed to Albert Sundberg’s 1964 Harvard dissertation.
21. ^ Ferguson, Everett (2002). «Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon». In McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (eds.). The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers. pp. 302–303; cf. Justin Martyr. First Apology. 67.3.
22. ^ Metzger (1997), p. 98. «The question whether the Church’s canon preceded or followed Marcion’s canon continues to be debated.»
23. ^ ^{a b} von Harnack, Adolf (1914). «Appendix VI». Origin of the New Testament.
24. ^ Ferguson (2002), p. 301; cf. Irenaeus. Adversus Haereses. 3.11.8.
25. ^ Both points taken from Noll, Mark A. (1997). Turning Points. Baker Academic. pp. 36–37.
26. ^ de Jonge, H. J. (2003). «The New Testament Canon». In de Jonge, H. J.; Auwers, J. M. (eds.). The Biblical Canons. Leuven University Press. p. 315.
27. ^ Ackroyd, P. R.; Evans, C. F., eds. (1970). The Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 308.
28. ^ Prat, Ferdinand (1911). «Origen and Origenism». The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company. According to Eusebius’ Church History 6.25: a 22 book OT [though Eusebius does not name Minor Prophets, presumably just an oversight?] plus 1 deuterocanon [«And outside these are the Maccabees, which are entitled S<ph?>ar beth sabanai el.»] and 4 Gospels but on the Apostle «Paul … did not so much as write to all the churches that he taught; and even to those to which he wrote he sent but a few lines.»
29. ^ Metzger (1997), p. 141.
30. ^ ^{a b c} Lindberg, Carter (2006). A Brief History of Christianity. Blackwell Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 1-4051-1078-3.
31. ^
    Brakke, David (1994). «Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth Century Egypt: Athanasius of Alexandria’s Thirty Ninth Festal Letter». Harvard Theological Review. 87 (4): 395–419. doi:10.1017/s0017816000030200. S2CID 161779697.
32. ^ Apol. Const. 4
33. ^ Hengel, Martin (2004), Septuagint As Christian Scripture, A&C Black, p. 57, ISBN 9780567082879
34. ^ The Canon Debate, pages 414-415, for the entire paragraph
35. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). «Book of Judith» . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.: Canonicity: «…»the Synod of Nicaea is said to have accounted it as Sacred Scripture» (Praef. in Lib.). It is true that no such declaration is to be found in the Canons of Nicaea, and it is uncertain whether St. Jerome is referring to the use made of the book in the discussions of the council, or whether he was misled by some spurious canons attributed to that council»
36. ^ Ekonomou, Andrew J. (2007). Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes. Lexington Books. p. 222. ISBN 978-0-73911977-8.
37. ^ Schaff, Philip; Wace, Henry (eds.). «Council in Trullo». Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 14.
38. ^ Metzger (1997).
39. ^ Syriac Versions of the Bible by Thomas Nicol
40. ^ Geoffrey W. Bromiley The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Q-Z 1995– Page 976 «Printed editions of the Peshitta frequently contain these books in order to fill the gaps. D. Harklean Version. The Harklean version is connected with the labors of Thomas of Harqel. When thousands were fleeing Khosrou’s invading armies, …»
41. ^ Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Subsidia Catholic University of America, 1987 «37 ff. The project was founded by Philip E. Pusey who started the collation work in 1872. However, he could not see it to completion since he died in 1880. Gwilliam,
42. ^ ^{a b} McDonald & Sanders (2002), Appendix D-2, Note 19. «Revelation was added later in 419 at the subsequent synod of Carthage.»
43. ^ Ferguson (2002), p. 320; Bruce, F. F. (1988). The Canon of Scripture. Intervarsity Press. p. 230.; cf. Augustine. De Civitate Dei. 22.8.
44. ^ «Corey Keating, The Criteria Used for Developing the New Testament Canon» (PDF).
45. ^ ^{a b} Schaff, Philip, «Chapter IX. Theological Controversies, and Development of the Ecumenical Orthodoxy», History of the Christian Church, CCEL
46. ^ Ferguson, Everett. «Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon», in The Canon Debate, eds. L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (Hendrickson, 2002) p. 320
47. ^ F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 230
48. ^ cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 22.8.
49. ^ Bruce (1988), p. 225.
50. ^ «Innocent I». Bible Research. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
51. ^ Ferguson (2002), p. 319-320.
52. ^ Bruce (1988), p. 215.
53. ^ Ackroyd & Evans (1970), p. 305; cf. Reid, George (1908). «Canon of the New Testament». Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.
54. ^ Rohmann, Dirk (2016). Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity: Studies in Text Transmission. Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte. Vol. 135. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 9783110485554. Retrieved 11 April 2018. Prudentius [348-c. 410] … intends to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity and was likely aware that at this time the Bible has not replaced other books as much as he wants to think. This passage also presents a possible hint that old Latin translations were replaced with a new canonical version, perhaps alluding to the Vulgate, written by Jerome at the end of the fourth century. By implication, this suggests that uncanonical texts were unlikely to be transcribed – an ideologically and authoritatively endorsed selection process that comes close to modern understandings of censorship.
55. ^ Gigot, Francis Ernest Charles (1900). «The Canon of the Old Testament in the Christian Church: Section II. From the Middle of th Fifth Century to our Day». General Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures. Vol. 1 of Introduction to the study of the Holy Scriptures (3 ed.). New York: Benziger. p. 71. Retrieved 1 February 2021. […] the bull of Eugenius IV did not deal with the canonicity of the books which were not found in the Hebrew Text, but simply proclaimed their inspiration […].
56. ^
    Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). «Canon of the Old Testament» . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. section titled «The Council of Florence 1442»
57. ^ Fallows, Samuel; et al., eds. (1910) [1901]. The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopædia and Scriptural Dictionary, Fully Defining and Explaining All Religious Terms, Including Biographical, Geographical, Historical, Archæological and Doctrinal Themes. The Howard-Severance co. p. 521.
58. ^ Geisler, Norman L.; MacKenzie, Ralph E. (1995). Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences. Baker Publishing Group. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-8010-3875-4. Lutherans and Anglicans used it only for ethical / devotional matters but did not consider it authoritative in matters of faith.
59. ^ Ewert, David (11 May 2010). A General Introduction to the Bible: From Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations. Zondervan. p. 104. ISBN 9780310872436.
60. ^ Thomas, Owen C.; Wondra, Ellen K. (1 July 2002). Introduction to Theology, 3rd Edition. Church Publishing, Inc. p. 56. ISBN 9780819218971.
61. ^ Henze, Matthias; Boccaccini, Gabriele (20 November 2013). Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall. Brill Publishing. p. 383. ISBN 9789004258815.
62. ^ Wesner, Erik J. «The Bible». Amish America. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
63. ^ deSilva, David A. (20 February 2018). Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance. Baker Books. ISBN 978-1-4934-1307-2.
64. ^ ^{a b} Readings from the Apocrypha. Forward Movement Publications. 1981. p. 5.
65. ^ Metzger (1997), p. 246. «Finally on 8 April 1546, by a vote of 24 to 15, with 16 abstentions, the Council issued a decree (De Canonicis Scripturis) in which, for the first time in the history of the Church, the question of the contents of the Bible was made an absolute article of faith and confirmed by an anathema.»
66. ^ «Council of Basel 1431-45 A». Papalencyclicals.net. 14 December 1431. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
67. ^ Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1983), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 232
68. ^ Bibliotheca sancta, Lyon, Pesnot 1575, reprint Leiden, IDC 1988, vol. 1, pp. 13-14
69. ^ Praefatio, Biblia Sacra Vulgata, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1983, p. XX. ISBN 3-438-05303-9
70. ^ Schaff, Philip. Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches, French Confession of Faith, p. 361
71. ^ The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter 1, Of The Holy Scripture Being The True Word of God
72. ^ Belgic Confession 4. Canonical Books of the Holy Scripture
73. ^ The Westminster Confession rejected the canonicity of the Apocrypha stating that «The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.» Westminster Confession of Faith, 1646
74. ^ «The Epitome of the Formula of Concord — Book of Concord». Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
75. ^ Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther. Volume 3, p. 98 James L. Schaaf, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985–1993. ISBN 0-8006-2813-6
76. ^ Van Liere, Frans (2014). An Introduction to the Medieval Bible. Cambridge University Press. pp. 68–69. ISBN 9780521865784.
77. ^ ^{a b} Ehrman, Bart D. (2003). Lost Christianities: Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. pp. 230–231. ISBN 9780199756681.
78. ^ Reid (1908).
79. ^ The foundational Thirty-Nine Articles of Anglicanism, in Article VI, asserts that these disputed books are not (to be) used «to establish any doctrine,» but «read for example of life.» Although the biblical apocrypha are still used in Anglican Liturgy, («Two of the hymns used in the American Prayer Book office of Morning Prayer, the Benedictus es and Benedicite, are taken from the Apocrypha. One of the offertory sentences in Holy Communion comes from an apocryphal book (Tob. 4: 8–9). Lessons from the Apocrypha are regularly appointed to read in the daily, Sunday, and special services of Morning and Evening Prayer. There are altogether 111 such lessons in the latest revised American Prayer Book Lectionary [The books used are: II Esdras, Tobit, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Three Holy Children, and I Maccabees.]» —The Apocrypha, Bridge of the Testaments Archived 5 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine), the modern trend has been to not even print the Old Testament Apocrypha in editions of Anglican-used Bibles.
80. ^ Samuel Fallows; et al., eds. (1910) [1901]. The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopædia and Scriptural Dictionary, Fully Defining and Explaining All Religious Terms, Including Biographical, Geographical, Historical, Archæological and Doctrinal Themes. The Howard-Severance company. p. 521.
81. ^ «The Bible». Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. 2003. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
82. ^ According to some enumerations, including Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, 1 Esdras, 4 Ezra (not including chs. 1-2 or 15-16), Wisdom, the rest of Daniel, Baruch, and 1-2 Maccabees
83. ^ These books are accounted pseudepigrapha by all other Christian groups, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox (Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Introduction)
84. ^ «The Biblical Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Today». Islamic-awareness.org. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
85. ^ Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (7 May 2001). «Liturgiam Authenticam» (in Latin and English). Vatican City. Retrieved 18 January 2012. Canon 24. ‘Furthermore, it is not permissible that the translations be produced from other translations already made into other languages; rather, the new translations must be made directly from the original texts, namely … the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, as the case may be, as regards the texts of Sacred Scripture.’
86. ^ Ware, Timothy (1993). The Orthodox Church: New Edition. Penguin Books. p. 368. ISBN 978-0-14-014656-1.
87. ^ «Introduction». Orthodox Study Bible (Annotated ed.). Nashville, TN, USA: Thomas Nelson. 2008. p. 1824. ISBN 978-0-7180-0359-3.
88. ^ McLay, R. Timothy (2004). The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research. Wm. B. Eerdman’s. p. 222. ISBN 978-0-8028-6091-0.
89. ^ «Books of the Bible». United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
90. ^ «The Bible». Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
91. ^ read at Easter Saturday vigil
92. ^ «Are 1 and 2 Esdras non-canonical books?». Catholic Answers. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
93. ^ ^{a b} The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective : The Place of the Late Writings of the Old Testament Among the Biblical Writings and their Significance in the Eastern and Western Church Traditions, p. 160
94. ^ Generally due to derivation from transliterations of names used in the Latin Vulgate in the case of Catholicism, and from transliterations of the Greek Septuagint in the case of the Orthodox (as opposed to derivation of translations, instead of transliterations, of Hebrew titles) such Ecclesiasticus (DRC) instead of Sirach (LXX) or Ben Sira (Hebrew), Paralipomenon (Greek, meaning «things omitted») instead of Chronicles, Sophonias instead of Zephaniah, Noe instead of Noah, Henoch instead of Enoch, Messias instead of Messiah, Sion instead of Zion, etc.
95. ^ Saifullah, M. S. M. «Canons & Recensions of the Armenian Bible». Islamic Awareness. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
96. ^ Metzger (1997), pp. 219, 223; cf. 7, 176, 182. Cited in Epp, Eldon Jay (2002). «Issues in the Interrelation of New Testament Textual Criticism and Canon». In McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (eds.). The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 492.
97. ^ Cowley, R. W. (1974). «The Biblical Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Today». Ostkirchliche Studien. 23: 318–323.
98. ^ Burris, Catherine; van Rompay, Lucas (2002). «Thecla in Syriac Christianity: Preliminary Observations». Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 5 (2): 225–236. doi:10.31826/9781463214104-012. Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
99. ^ Carter, Nancy A. (2000), The Acts of Thecla: A Pauline Tradition Linked to Women, Conflict and Community in the Christian Church, archived from the original on 13 February 2012
100. ^ ^{a b} «The Canonization of Scripture | Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles». Retrieved 2 April 2022.

1. ^ The term «Protestant» is not accepted by all Christian denominations who often fall under this title by default—especially those who view themselves as a direct extension of the New Testament church. However, the term is used loosely here to include, with the exception of Lutherans and Anglicans, most of the non-Roman Catholic Protestant, Charismatic/Pentecostal, Reformed, and Evangelical churches. Other western churches and movements that have a divergent history from Roman Catholicism, but are not necessarily considered to be historically Protestant, may also fall under this umbrella terminology.

BibliographyEdit

• Beckwith, R. T. (1986). The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-8028-3617-5.
• Davis, L. D. (1983). The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology. Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-5616-7.
• Ferguson, Everett. Encyclopedia of Early Christianity.
• Fox, Robin Lane (1992). The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible. Penguin Books.
• Gamble, Harry Y. (2002). The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning. Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN 1-57910-909-8.
• Jurgens, W. A. (1970). Faith of the Early Fathers. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press.
• Lightfoot, Joseph; Harmer, John; Holmes, Michael, eds. (1992). The Apostolic Fathers. Barker Book House. ISBN 978-0-8010-5676-5.
• McDonald, L. M.; Sanders, J. A. (2002). «Introduction». The Canon Debate. Hendrickson Publishers.
• Metzger, Bruce M. (13 March 1997). The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-826954-4.
• Nersessian, V. (2001). «The Armenian Canon of the New Testament». The Bible in the Armenian Tradition. Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum. ISBN 978-0-89236-640-8.
• Sundberg, Albert (1964). The Old Testament of the Early Church. Harvard Press.

Further readingEdit

• Armstrong, Karen (2007) The Bible: A Biography. Books that Changed the World Series. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-969-3
• Barnstone, Willis (ed.) (1984). The Other Bible: Ancient Alternative Scriptures. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-7394-8434-0.
• Childs, Brevard S. (1984). The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction. SCM Press. ISBN 0-334-02212-6.
• Gallagher, Edmon L.; Meade, John D. (2017). The biblical canon lists from early Christianity: texts and analysis. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-879249-9. OCLC 987346634.
• Schneemelcher Wilhelm (ed). Hennecke Edgard, New Testament Apocrypha, 2 vol. Original title: Neutestamentliche Apokryphen
• McDonald, Lee Martin (2009). Forgotten Scriptures. The Selection and Rejection of Early Religious Writings. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-23357-0.
• McDonald, Lee Martin (2000). Early Christianity and Its Sacred Literature. Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN 1-56563-266-4.
• McDonald, Lee Martin (2007). The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority. 3rd ed. Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56563-925-6.
• Pentiuc, Eugen J., ed. (2022). The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Orthodox Christianity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-094868-9.
• Souter, Alexander (1954). The Text and Canon of the New Testament. 2nd ed. Studies in Theology, No. 25. London: Duckworth.
• Stonehouse, Ned Bernhard (1929). The Apocalypse in the Ancient Church: A Study in the History of the New Testament Canon. Oosterbaan & Le Cointre.
• Taussig, Hal (2013). A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Wall, Robert W.; Lemcio, Eugene E. (1992). The New Testament as Canon: A Reader in Canonical Criticism. JSOT Press. ISBN 1-85075-374-1.
• Westcott, Brooke Foss. (1875). A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament. 4th ed. London: Macmillan.

External linksEdit

•   Media related to Biblical canon at Wikimedia Commons
• The Canon of Scripture – contains multiple links and articles
• Cross Wire Bible Society Archived 5 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• Old Testament Reading Room and New Testament Reading Room – Online resources referenced by Tyndale Seminary
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Canon of the New Testament
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Bible Canon
• Table of Tanakh Books – includes Latin, English, Hebrew and abbreviated names (from Tel Aviv University).
• The Bible in the Armenian Church (an essay, with full official canon at the end)
• H. Schumacher, The Canon of the New Testament (London 1923), pp. 84–94.
• Dale B. Martin, Introduction to New Testament History and Literature» course materials, Open Yale course, Yale University, archived from the original on 15 August 2010, retrieved 7 January 2016
• WELS Topical Q&A: Canon — 66 Books in the Bible, by Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (Confessional Lutheran perspective)