\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nThe 24 canonical books of the \u201cTanakh\u201d<\/i> or \u201cHebrew Bible\u201d<\/i> can be split into three main parts:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- \u201cTorah\u201d<\/i><\/strong> (\u201cTeaching\u201d, also known as the \u201cPentateuch\u201d<\/i> or “Five Books of Moses”<\/i>): 1. Genesis, 2. Exodus, 3. Leviticus, 4. Numbers, 5. Deuteronomy.<\/li>\n
- \u201cNevi’im\u201d<\/i> <\/strong>(\u201cProphets\u201d): 6. Joshua, 7. Judges, 8. Samuel I and II, 9. Kings I and II, 10. Isaiah, 11. Jeremiah, 12. Ezekiel, 13. Twelve Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi).<\/li>\n
- \u201cKetuvim\u201d<\/i> <\/strong>(\u201cWritings\u201d): 14. Psalms, 15. Proverbs, 16. Job, 17. Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), 18. Ruth, 19. Lamentations, 20. Ecclesiastes, 21. Esther, 22. Daniel, 23. Ezra (including Nehemiah), 24. Chronicles I and II.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The Christian \u201cOld Testament\u201d<\/i><\/strong> is the collection of books written prior to the life of Jesus but accepted by Christians as scripture, and is broadly speaking the same as the \u201cHebrew Bible\u201d<\/i> as listed above (39 books in total when split, and usually in a different order). Some denominations also incorporate additional books into their canons. For example, the Roman Catholic Church also recognizes the following biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical books: Tobit, Judith, Maccabees I and II, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, and some Greek additions to Esther and Daniel.<\/p>\nThe Christian Bible<\/i> also includes the \u201cNew Testament\u201d<\/i><\/strong>, which relates the life and teachings of Jesus, the letters of the Apostle Paul and other disciples to the early church, and the Book of Revelation. This accounts for a further 27 books as follows:<\/p>\n\n- The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John).<\/li>\n
- Acts of the Apostles.<\/li>\n
- St. Paul\u2019s Epistles (Romans, Corinthians I and II, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians I and II, Timothy I and II, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews).<\/li>\n
- Other Epistles (James, Peter I and II, John I, II and III, Jude).<\/li>\n
- Revelation (also known as the Apocalypse).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/p>\n
The “Hebrew Bible”<\/i><\/strong> was probably canonized in three stages: the \u201cTorah\u201d<\/i> before the Babylonian Exile of the 6th Century BCE, the \u201cNevi\u2019im\u201d<\/i> by the time of the Syrian persecution of the Jews (around 167 BCE), and the \u201cKetuvim\u201d<\/i> shortly after 70 CE. Around this time, they listed their own recognized scriptures in a closed \u201ccanon\u201d, and excluded both Christian and other Jewish writings considered by them to be \u201capocryphal\u201d.<\/p>\nThe primary biblical text for early Christians was the \u201cSeptuagint\u201d<\/i>, the Greek translation of the \u201cHebrew Bible\u201d<\/i>, although, even in antiquity, translations were also made into Syriac, Coptic, Ge’ez and Latin, among other languages. However, somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity and, in the fourth century, a series of Synods or church councils (notably the Council of Rome in 382 CE and the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE) produced a definitive list of texts which resulted in the current 46 book canon of the \u201cOld Testament\u201d<\/i> and the 27 book canon of the \u201cNew Testament\u201d<\/i> recognized by Catholics today. Around 400 CE, St. Jerome produced the \u201cVulgate\u201d Latin edition of “The Bible”<\/i> in accord with the rulings of the earlier Synods and, at the Council of Trent in 1546, this was declared by the Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible<\/i> in the Latin rite.<\/p>\n
During the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century, however, Protestant denominations began to exclude those apocryphal or deuterocanonical \u201cOld Testament\u201d<\/i> texts added by the early Catholic church, effectively paring it back to the contents of the \u201cHebrew Bible\u201d<\/i>. Both Catholics and Protestants use the same 27 book \u201cNew Testament\u201d<\/i> canon.<\/p>\n
The books of the \u201cOld Testament\u201d<\/i> <\/strong>were primarily written in Biblical Hebrew, with some small portions (particularly the books of Daniel and Ezra) in Biblical Aramaic, at various unconfirmed dates between about the 9th Century and 4th Century BCE. The books of the \u201cNew Testament\u201d<\/i>, were written in Koine Greek (the common street language of the time, as opposed to the more literary Classical Greek), and can be more accurately dated to the 1st to 2nd Century CE.<\/p>\nThe actual individual authors of the books of “The Bible”<\/i> are unknown.<\/strong>
\n![\"bible](\"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/King-James-Version-Bible-first-edition-title-page.png\")
The traditional view that the books of the \u201cTorah\u201d<\/i> were written by Moses himself came under sporadic criticism from medieval scholars, and the modern \u201cdocumentary hypothesis\u201d suggests that it was actually written by many different people at different times, generally long after the events described. This views “The Bible”<\/i> more as a body of literature than as a work of history, believing that the historical value of the text lies not in its account of the events that it describes, but in what critics can infer about the times in which the authors lived. Although biblical archaeology has confirmed the existence of many of the people, places and events mentioned in “The Bible”<\/i>, many critical scholars have argued that “The Bible”<\/i> should be read not as an accurate historical document, but rather as a work of literature and theology that often draws on historical events (as well as on non-Hebrew mythology) as primary source material.<\/p>\nMost Christian denominations teach that “The Bible”<\/i> itself has an overarching message, around which Christian theology has been built over the centuries. Many Christians, Muslims and Jews regard “The Bible<\/i> as inspired by God yet written by a variety of imperfect men over hundreds of years. Other \u201cBible-believing\u201d Christians, however, regard both the “New Testament”<\/i> and “Old Testament”<\/i> as the undiluted Word of God, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans. Still others hold the Biblical infallibility perspective, that “The Bible”<\/i> is free from error in spiritual, but not necessarily in scientific, matters.<\/p>\n
Many other non-religious readers, however, view “The Bible”<\/i> solely as literature<\/strong>, and as a wellspring of myths and fables, although there is much debate as to the real literary merits of “The Bible”<\/i>. Even St. Augustine, in the late 4th Century CE, confessed that biblical style exhibits “the lowest of language” and had seemed to him, at least before his conversion, “unworthy of comparison with the dignity of Cicero”. Biblical narrative in particular (as opposed to biblical poetry) tends to work with a very limited vocabulary and consistently avoids metaphors and other sorts of figurative language, evincing a drastically stripped-down manner of storytelling that can seem the very antithesis of style (although it has been argued that the original Hebrew – as opposed to the rather stilted Latin translation – does indeed have \u201cstyle\u201d).<\/p>\n“The Bible”<\/i> includes both prose and poetry<\/strong>. The vast majority is written in prose, incorporating such prose features as plot, character, dialogue and timing, and prose is the form generally used when telling stories about people and historical events. However, poetry is also used extensively throughout “The Bible”<\/i>, particularly in the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and the Song of Songs. Certain books are written completely in poetic form and, according to some critics, up to a third of the \u201cOld Testament\u201d<\/i> is poetry. Much of the poetry in the \u201cOld Testament\u201d<\/i> can be described as ancient Hebrew poetry, which is marked by a literary feature called parallelism which features the repetition or reinforcement of a single idea in successive lines of poetry. It also employs features common to modern poetry, such as word plays, metaphors, rhymes and metre to communicate its message.<\/p>\nBeyond these two main categories, though, “The Bible”<\/i> includes a large number of specific types of literature (some expressed in prose and others in poetry), including laws, historical prose, psalms, songs, wisdom, proverbs, biography, dramatic, letters and apocalyptic, as well shorter sections of prayers, parables, prophecy and genealogies or family lists.<\/p>\n
![\"god,](\"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Vasnetsov-Christian-God-Painting-Art.jpg\")
Despite the diversity of the books of “The Bible”<\/i> and their separation in time, there are several unifying themes<\/strong> that run through both the “Old Testament” <\/i>and the “New Testament”<\/i>: that there is only one true God<\/em>, who created all that is the universe and takes an active, ongoing and loving role in its maintenance; that God loves his people of all races, nationalities and religions<\/em>, and seeks their love in return; that God created men and women with the power to choose between good and evil<\/em>, and we are called to do good by serving God and respecting our fellow human beings of the world, while evil is a constant temptation that we must do our best to resist; that God seeks the salvation of all people<\/em> from the power of sin and evil, and has intervened directly in human affairs (as well as sending the prophets and, ultimately, his son Jesus) to help us with that salvation.<\/p>\nThe first complete English translation of “The Bible”<\/i><\/strong>was that of John Wycliffe in 1382<\/strong>, but the Authorized King James Version of 1611 is often considered to be the best English translation from a literary perspective, and indeed some consider it to be among the greatest literature in the English language. It was produced during a particularly fertile period for English literature<\/strong> (within the lives of Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, et al), but also a period when religion had become very politicized. William Tyndale had been executed in 1536 for his early Protestant translation, although his work then became a major source for the King James Version. The work was accomplished by a committee of fifty scholars and clerics, working in six teams between 1604 and 1611. No Roman Catholics were invited to participate, although the 1582 English translation of the Catholic \u201cNew Testament\u201d<\/i> was one of the bibles used as a source.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
![\"the](\"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/bible-book-pages-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/i><\/strong>The Bible is too huge to summarize in any detail, but here is a very abbreviated review of its contents:<\/p>\n![\"bible](\"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/moses-with-ten-commandments.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"bible](\"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Saint_Paul_Writing_His_Epistles-1024x753.jpg\")
The Book of Revelation<\/strong> (also known as the Apocalypse) is also a letter of sorts, written by a man named John (possiby the apostle John), but it is in the form of apocalyptic literature, which tells a story largely through dramatic symbols, images and numbers. Revelation seeks to offer comfort and encouragement to Christians of all ages that God is firmly in control, and that, when the time is right, the forces of evil that seem to dominate our world will be utterly destroyed, and God’s eternal kingdom will come into its fulfillment.<\/p>\n