Bibles and Bible Stories
We all know that Easter is a time of the Easter Bunny and
Easter Eggs but it is also a deeply religious time of the year.
Here we are able to provide a selection of Bibles and Bible
stories including special Bible stories especially for children.
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History of the Bible
What is the Bible? Well, perhaps
we could call it a set of
regulations or a collection of
viewpoints. It could be construed
that this is the one book that we
ought to read but perhaps don’t.
How many times have we stayed in
a hotel to find a copy of the bible
left by the bedside cabinet? How
many times do we pick it up
thoughtfully and say to ourselves
“Must give that a read sometime”?
But do we? No it just goes back to
sleep by the bed.
But then again, if we wanted to
be negative about the bible we could
interpret it as a tool used to
control the masses, an unhistorical
and unscientific work of fiction.
The bible is reputed to have been
written between 1900 and 3000 years
ago. But some of such as the letters
found in New Testament, were written
during the initial onslaught of
Christianity. This was only twenty
or so years after the death of
Jesus. However, experts and
scientists are convinced that having
studied some of the original remains
of the New Testament together with
some of the full manuscripts, what
we see today are documents that are
as close as possible to the
originals.
So what does the bible consist
of? We’ve already hinted about it
but basically the Bible is divided
into two distinct halves known as
the Old Testament and the New
Testament.
The Old Testament of the Bible
The Old Testament (the word
‘testament’ refers to the
‘agreement’ or ‘covenant’) contains
39 books and is the larger of the
two halves. The first five books
are said to have been be written by
Moses but the whole collection
completed around 300BC.
The Old Testament books describes
many different subjects such as
history, law, poetry, proverbs and
prophecy. They were usually written
in Hebrew, although a small number
of them were written in Aramaic.
The Old Testament of a Catholic
Bible is larger than those used by
other Christians since it contains
an extra 6 complete books, and some
of the other books have bits added
to them. These Jewish books were
written between 300 BC and 100 AD.
Although Jews did not include these
in their own collection of Holy
books Christians had been using them
since the inception.
Martin Luther, who was the founder
of the Protestant church separated
these extra books from his German
translation of the Bible, and put
them in another section. He said
"These are books which are not held
equal to the Sacred Scriptures and
yet are useful and good for
reading".
The New Testament of the Bible
The New Testament contains a
total of 27 books and include four
books of observer accounts about the
life of Jesus. These books are
known as the Gospels or the good
news books. "Acts" is a book which
continues the story of the very
first Christians, and it is then in
turn suffixed by a large compilation
of letters. The New Testament was
first written in the language used
throughout the Roman Empire - Greek
Everything that us mere mortals
do is recorded here. From songs,
poetry, love, commemoration, sorrow
to political and spiritual
observations about mere mortals as
well as leaders. And ultimately,
records of the life of Jesus’
teaching, his death and resurrection
and issues covering the early
failures and successes of the
Christian movement that followed
him.
.
The writers of the books that make up the Bible
poured their personalities into
their work but the Bible’s writings
also suggest that they were being
steered by God. They clearly state
that God is interested in all of us,
our lives as individuals,
communities and nations. As such,
the Bible is at the heart of all the
churches, reflecting the view that
the Bible is God’s book.
Bibles
and Bible Stories
