Written by Bob Stanley, July 16, 1995
Revised, May 25, 2001
Back to Start Your
Class. Back to the Home Page... INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE:
*****INVOKE THE HOLY
SPIRIT*****
Can you think of one other book besides the Holy Bible that
has endured for
almost 2000 years and is just as viable today as it was
then?
Has any scientific book lasted more than 20 years before it was
replaced
by one with 'new' and 'improved' theories? Since the Bible was
inspired
by GOD, and since He is immutable (never changing), that makes His
word
immutable also. That means the Holy Bible and the truth that it
contains will
be with us until the end of time...
A. THE LAYOUT OF THE BIBLE: Catholic Bibles:
1. 'Bible' in Greek is
'biblion', meaning 'the book'.
2. It has 2 major sections, the Old
Testament and the New Testament.
3. The word, 'Testament' is one synonym
for 'Covenant'. The O.T. is the 'Old Covenant' with GOD, and the N.T. is the
'New Covenant'.
4. All books in the Bible were written by human authors
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
5. The O.T. in the front, is
about 4/5 of the whole Bible. It has 46 books, by many different authors, and
covers many centuries, from creation until about 50 B.C..
6. The N.T. in
the back, is about 1/5 of the total. It has 27 books written by various authors.
The first book was written about 48 A.D. and the last about 98. The NT covers
about 100 years beginning with the birth of Christ.
B. The Old Testament (O.T.): 46 books:
1. In Genesis, GOD created man.
Man fouled up, and GOD will send a redeemer to atone for mans sins.
2.
The rest of the O.T. is mainly devoted to the history of GODS' chosen people,
the Jewish nation, from its inception to the coming of the 'Redeemer'. Many
colorful people, and stories are presented, and GOD is often involved
directly.
3. There are many prophesies in the O.T., by many prophets,
that relate to the coming of a 'Messiah', who will redeem the human race and
'atone' for the offense made against GOD by Adam and Eve.
4. The
'Messiah' did come, but most of the Jewish people rejected Him as a 'false
prophet'. They are still waiting for him to come. The Jewish Bible is similar to
the O.T. that Catholics use. The number and arrangement of the books are
different.
C. The New Testament (N.T.): 27 books:
1. The N.T. picks up where the
O.T. ends. The 'Messiah', Jesus Christ, arrived. His birth, life, 3 year
ministry, words, crucifixion, resurrection, and His Church are
documented.
2. It begins with the 4 'Gospels' (meaning 'good news'), of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are of His life and what He said and
taught.
3. It has many books concerning the 50 to 60 years after His
death, mainly about the beginning of His Church, His teachings, and of the works
of His Apostles.
4. It ends with 'Revelation', which is prophetic about
things which have already been fulfilled and of things to come. It is highly
symbolic.
5. Hundreds of prophesies about 'the Christ' from the O.T. were
fulfilled by Him in the N.T.. Some are quite startling as to their accuracy.
When comparing the O.T. and N.T. it leaves little doubt, that the Bible is
truly the 'WORD Of GOD'.
D. History of the Bible: Old Testament
1. The first books of the O.T.
were probably written by Moses. Since he wrote of Adam and Eve, and others
before his time, it is agreed that 'tradition' played a role in the
text.
2. Most of the O.T. books were written in Hebrew, with a few in
Greek and parts of others in Aramaic.
3. The O.T. is divided into 3 main
sections.
a. Law...The first 5 books, are the
Jewish law. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are called the
'Torah' by the Jews and the 'Pentateuch' by Christians.
b. Prophets...From a Greek word meaning, 'to speak on behalf
of', are divided into 2 groups. 'Former Prophets', Joshua, Judges, Samuel,
Kings. 'Latter Prophets', Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and 12 more shorter books.
Christians call these 12, the 'Minor Prophets'.
c. Writings...These are all the rest of the books and include,
songs, hymns, poetry, stories, and wisdom.
E. History of the Bible: New Testament
1. The Church existed for many
years before the first book of the N.T. was written. Mt 16:18
2. The
first books were St Paul's earlier 'Epistles', probably 1Thessalonians written
about 48-52 A.D.
3. Revelation appeared about 96 A.D. The Gospel of John
about 98 A.D.
4. All N.T. books were written in Greek, except for
Matthew, which was probably written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.
5.
The N.T. is divided into 4 sections:
a. The Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. The words of Christ.
b. Acts: The history and formation of the early
Church.
c. Epistles: Letters to various persons and Churches.
d.
Revelation: 'The Apocalypse', a prophetic work.
F. The Bible as we know it today:
1. The list of 27 books of the N.T.,
called the canon, was settled by the Catholic Church. In 367, Athanasius, the
Bishop of Alexandria Egypt, made a list of the N.T. books, and later this list
was accepted by the Church. All Catholic Bibles use this list.
The Old
Testament canon was set at the 46 books we use today, by Pope St. Damasus I, in
a decree which he issued in 382.
2. The Latin 'Vulgate', a translation
from Greek and Hebrew, was completed by St. Jerome in about 404 A.D., and was
the main Bible in use until the 16th century. It had all 73 books. The official
Bible of the Catholic Church today is a 20th century revision of St. Jerome's
Vulgate.
3. Bibles were copied by hand, by Monks, and were very cost
prohibitive, until the invention of the printing press. It would take one monk
up to twenty years to hand copy just one Bible. The printing press produced the
first printed copies of the Bible in 1455. It was called the Gutenburg
Bible.
4. Bibles were without chapters until 1228, when Cardinal Stephen
Langton divided the books into chapters. The O.T. chapters had no division into
verses until 1448, and the N.T was divided into verses in 1551.
5. The
Bible is the most widely translated and distributed book ever, with over 1100
languages and dialects and about 30,000,000 distributed every year.
G. Versions of the Bible:
1. Martin Luther released 'his' German version
in 1534. He removed 7 books* from their rightful place, which had been there for
over 1000 years, and placed them in an appendix, simply because they did not
agree with his beliefs about Purgatory and other subjects.
* These 7 books
are: Judith, Tobit, Baruch, Wisdom , Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and parts of
Esther and Daniel. These books are called the "Deuterocanonical" by Catholics,
and "Apocrypha" by non-Catholics.
2. The King James Bible, released in
1611, became the mainstay of the Protestants and is still in use today by many.
For awhile the 7 books were included in an appendix. Later in the 19th century,
these 7 books were removed entirely. Interestingly, as other King James versions
emerged, some of them included those same 7 books, and other versions made them
optional, that is, "King James with Apocrypha".
3. Over 100 different
versions of the Bible are in use today. For persons looking for the truth, some
are corrupted, such as the NWT, (New World Translation) used by Jehovah
Witnesses. They changed the word of GOD to suit themselves.
4. Usually,
the various versions will have a 2 or 3 letter designation:
ALL BIBLES
ARE NOT THE SAME.
Some of the versions in use today are: Those marked
with * are Catholic
bibles.
KJ: King James
RKJ: Revised King James
GID: Gideon
(like King James)
NAB: New American Bible *
NIV: New International Version
RCR: Revised
Challoner-Rheims *
DRV: Douay-Rheims Version *
RSV-CE: Revised Standard Version, Catholic edition.
*
Good News Jerusalem
ANT: Amplified New
Testament
GAT: Goodspeeds American Translation
WET: Wuests Expanded
Translation
NAS: New American Standard
Navarre Bible, is RSV and N.T.
only, but the O.T. is coming. *
Darby
Translation
Jerusalem *
Ignatius which is an
RSV-CE *
There are many more versions than
these listed, over 100 now.
H. What Bible should I use:
1. Recommended Catholic Bibles:
NAB,
Navarre (an RSV-CE with commentary), DRV, RCR, RSV-CE (Catholic edition),
Jerusalem, Ignatius.
Out of all of these, I would choose the Douay Rheims if
you like the old English, or the Ignatius Bible for a more modern translation.
The Ignatius Bible is the only modern Catholic Bible which has no inclusive
language.
I. How do I read the Bible?:
1. You cannot comprehend it by simply
reading it. It is not a novel, but the word of GOD. 'Revelation' is one of the
hardest to interpret, as it was written in a 'code', because of Christian
persecution at the time.
2. The Bible can be likened a giant jigsaw
puzzle. Take a piece from here and a piece from there and keep adding pieces
until the whole picture becomes clear.
As an example, explain 'The Woman' in
Gen 3:15, John 2:4,19:26, and Rev 11:19-12:1.
Use a blackboard as a jigsaw
puzzle form. Label Genesis on the left with Revelation on the right, and John in
between. Just by reading the Bible as you would a novel, you would probably not
see this connection between the various books.
3. The best way, is to
form a Bible study class. We should not attempt to interpret the Bible on an
individual basis. The Bible even cautions us not to attempt to do this in Acts
8:26-40, 2Pet 1:19-21, and 2Pet 3:16. We have the Pope and the Magisterium of
the Catholic Church to interpret Scripture for us, and we should always
heed
their guidance when reading Holy Scripture. Who would you rather
believe, an individual with questionable credentials, or 3500 Bishops in
conjunction with the Holy Father, and all having impeccable
credentials?
END OF CLASS: BIBLE INTRODUCTION...
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