The Christian dogma is built on the Bible, but many do not know who is its author and when it was published. To get answers to these questions, scientists conducted a large number of studies. The spread of Holy Scripture in our century has reached enormous proportions, it is known that every second in the world one book is printed.
What is the Bible?
Christians collect the books that make up the Holy Scripture, called the Bible. He is considered the word of the Lord, which was given to people. Over the years, a lot of research has been done to understand who wrote the Bible and when it is believed that the revelation was given to different people and the records were held for many centuries. The Church recognizes the collection of books as inspired.
The Orthodox Bible in one volume consists of 77 books with two or more pages. It is considered a library of ancient religious, philosophical, historical and literary monuments. The Bible consists of two parts: the Old (50 books) and the New (27 books) Covenants. There is also a conditional division of the Old Testament books into legislative, historical and teacher's books.
Why was the Bible called the Bible?
There is one basic theory offered by biblical scholars and answering this question. The main reason for the appearance of the name "The Bible" is connected with the port town of Byblos, which was located on the Mediterranean coast. Through him, Egyptian papyrus was supplied to Greece. After some time this name in Greek began to mean the book. As a result, the book Bible appeared and this name is used only for the Holy Scripture, and therefore they write the name with a capital letter.
The Bible and the Gospel - what is the difference?
Many believers do not have an exact idea of the main Sacred Book for Christians.
- The Gospel is part of the Bible that enters the New Testament.
- The Bible is an early scripture, but the text of the Gospel was written much later.
- In the text, the Gospel tells only about life on earth and the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven. A lot of other information is presented in the Bible.
- There are differences in who wrote the Bible and the Gospel, so the authors of the main Sacred Book are not known, but at the expense of the second work there is the assumption that his text was written by the four Evangelists: Matthew, John, Luke and Mark.
- It is worth noting that the Gospel is written only in ancient Greek, and the texts of the Bible are presented in different languages.
Who is the author of the Bible?
For the believing people, the author of the Holy Book is the Lord, but experts can challenge this opinion, because in it there is the Wisdom of Solomon, the book of Job and others. In this case, answering the question - who wrote the Bible, we can assume that there were many authors, and everyone contributed to this work. There is an assumption that it was written by ordinary people who received the goddess, that is, they were only an instrument, holding a pencil over the book, and the Lord led their hands. Finding out where the Bible came from, it is worth pointing out that the names of people who wrote the text are unknown.
When is the Bible written?
For a long time there has been a debate about when the most popular book was written all over the world. Among the known statements, with which many researchers agree, are the following:
- Many historians, responding to a question concerning when the Bible appeared, point to the VIII-VI century BC. e.
- A huge number of biblical scholars are sure that the book was finally formed in the V-II century BC. e.
- Another common version of how many years of the Bible indicates that the book was compiled and presented to believers in about II-I century BC. e.
In the Bible, many events are described, so that one can come to the conclusion that the first books were written during the life of Moses and Joshua. Then there were other editions and additions, which formed the Bible as it is now known. There are also critics who challenge the chronology of writing a book, believing that it is impossible to trust the submitted text, since it claims to be of divine origin.
What language is the Bible written in?
The magnificent book of all time was written in ancient times and today it has been translated into more than 2,500 languages. The number of Bible editions exceeded 5 million copies. It is worth noting that the current publications are more recent translations from the original languages. The history of the Bible indicates that it was written for several decades, therefore texts in different languages are connected in it. The Old Testament is more heavily represented in Hebrew, but there are also texts in the Aramaic language. The New Testament is almost completely represented in the ancient Greek language.
Interesting facts about the Bible
Given the popularity of the Holy Scripture, no one will be surprised that the studies were conducted and this made it possible to discover a lot of interesting information:
- In the Bible, Jesus is mentioned most often, and in second place is David. Among the women of the laurels is the wife of Abraham Sarah.
- The smallest copy of the book was printed at the end of the 19th century and a method of photomechanical reduction was used for this. The size was 1.9 x 1.6 cm, and the thickness - 1 cm. To read the text, a magnifying glass was put on the cover.
- Facts about the Bible indicate that it contains about 3.5 million letters.
- In order to read the Old Testament it is necessary to spend 38 hours, and on New 11 hours will pass.
- Many will be surprised by the fact, but according to statistics, the Bible is stealing more than other books.
- Most of the copies of the Holy Scripture are made for export to China. In North Korea, reading this book is punishable by death.
- The Christian Bible is the most persecuted book. In the course of history, there is no known other work against which laws would be issued, for the violation of which a death penalty was imposed.