THE BIBLE

1. THE BIBLE AN INTRODUCTION WORLD LITERATURE I BY RALPH MONDAY

2. The Bible That most of Us are Familiar with: The King James Version, Translated in 1611.

3. AGE AUTHORSHIP ORIGINAL LANGUAGES PERTINENT QUESTIONS SINCE INDIVIDUALS ARE ALWAYS CURIOUS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THEIR FAITH. QUESTIONS READERS ASK ABOUT THE BIBLE

4. Known as the Good Book, as though it were a single volume, the Bible is a collection or library Of many small books written over a period of more than a thousand years. The Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament, is primarily a record of The Hebrew god’s dealings with his chosen people, Israel. 1. What is the Bible?

5. Moses with The Commandments. The word of God come Down from The sky. Revealed Religion.

6. The Old Testament is made up of 24 books, divided into 39 in the Christian Bible, Of narrative, poetry, and prophecy. It is a book that many millions of people have based their life upon. Christians add to the original Hebrew the New Testament, consisting of The Gospel--four narratives of Jesus’ life, a theological account of the early Church (Acts), 21 letters, and an apocalypse (revelation of future history).

7. Bible means “little books.” The word is derived from the Greek term biblion, The diminutive form of Byblos, which means “papyrus” or “book.” This concept originated in the ancient Phoenician City of Byblos, where the papyrus plant was cut and dried in strips For use as writing paper. Thus, the manuscript material produced was named after the place of its manufacture. 2. WHAT DOES THE WORD BIBLE MEAN?

8. Ruins of the Ancient city of Byblos.

9. BYBLOS (JBEIL) Byblos, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, its history reaches into antiquity. It is one of the richest archeological sites in the Middle East. It was the religious and commercial capital of the Phoenician coast and it was here where the first linear alphabet was invented. Byblos has given its name to the Bible.

10. The city of Byblos is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been inhabited continuously since Neolithic times more than 7000 years ago.  It is located in today's Lebanon, about 35 km north of Beirut.  In ancient times it was an important sea port from which the famous cedar trees of Lebanon were exported to Egypt in exchange for papyrus, ivory, ebony and gold.  Trade goods from as early as Egypt's 2nd dynasty have been found there.  Byblos is also noteworthy as the place where the linear alphabet was invented.  This became the basis for the modern alphabet that we use today.

11. The Temple of Baalat Gebal, the "Lady of Byblos" The local goddess of Byblos was Astarte, whose spheres of influence included war, protection, love and fertility. She was known as the Baalat Gebal, the "Lady of Byblos." This is Inanna or Ishtar—the same archetype.

12. No one knows. The Old Testament authors were not concerned with personal recognition– they were interested in Their sense of Israel’s god and his purpose for the world. Thus, Old Testament authorship is typically anonymous, Although later traditions assigned important books to eminent figures of the past. 3. Who Wrote the Bible?

13. In the last several centuries B.C.E., Moses was regarded As the author of the first five books of the Bible— The Pentateuch. However, most modern scholars believe that these books Assumed their present form long after Moses’ time. The majority of the narrative works—Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles—are the work of nameless Priests, scribes, and archivists. Scholars believe that the great prophets—Amos, Isaiah, Micah, and others—delivered their messages orally and That their words were collected and written down by later Disciples whose names are unknown.

14. The Bible is dated by most scholars from the creation to Israel’s conquest of Palestine— About the tenth century B.C.E. This document forms the oldest Narrative strand in the Pentateuch, and is characterized by its consistent use of The personal name Yahweh for the Hebrew god, and is Usually called J, for Jahveh, the German form of the divine name. 4. When Was The Bible Written? The Old Testament took approximately 1000 years to Assume its present form. The New Testament took about 100 years. 1100 years comprise the Bible’s creation.

15. No. At one time scholars believed that the Bible was the only significant literary production of the ancient near east. In the 19th century, in the library of the Assyrian Emperor Ashurbanipal IV (668-627 B.C.E.), in the ruins of his palace at Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian empire, Hundreds of clay tablets were discovered written in cuneiform. 5. Is the Bible the World’s Oldest Book?

16. The most important find were eleven tablets Recounting the legendary adventures of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk. A startlingly find was the story of Utnapishtim Who survived a great flood by building an ark According to the directions of Ea, the god of Wisdom. The story is remarkably similar to the flood story In Genesis, and the story is believed to go back To a single source, although the Gilgamesh Version is much older.

17. Noah Having A Problem With a Woodpecker.

18. 6. In What Languages Was the Bible Originally Written? Most of the Old Testament was written in classical Hebrew, the Semitic tongue spoken by the Israelites. Later, certain books were composed in Aramaic, An Aramean (Syrian) dialect closely related to Hebrew. This is the language probably spoken by Jesus. All of the New Testament is in Koine, the international Language of the first-century workaday world, a Blend of classical Greek with the commercial Vernacular of Near Eastern peoples conquered by Alexander the Great.

19. The first translation of the Hebrew Bible was begun in Alexandria, Egypt. This occurred in the mid-third century before Christ because the younger generation Of Jews no longer understood classical Hebrew. This is called the Septuagint after the 70 elders who supposedly produced it. It took more than two centuries to produce the translation. 7. When Was The Bible First Translated?

20. The Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) Was translated first, followed by the prophetic Books and the Writings (poetic and wisdom Literature), and eventually by works that became Known as the Apocrypha. The Septuagint was the Bible adopted by the early Greek-speaking Christians. The next translation was St. Jerome’s production of The Latin Vulgate. This was commissioned by the Bishop of Rome to render the Scriptures into the Common tongue for the Latin-speaking Western Church. Jerome, between 385 and 405 C.E. Produced the official Bible of Roman Catholicism.

21. 8. How Did Our Modern English Translations Come About? Two historical events ensured that the Bible would Have a larger English reading public. The first was Johann Gutenberg’s invention of Moveable type in 1455. The second was the Protestant Reformation, Started in 1517 by Martin Luther. Luther completed a German translation in 1522-34— The first version in a modern European language Based not on the official Latin Vulgate Bible but On the original Hebrew and Greek.

22. William Tyndale first translated the Bible into English (the New Testament) in 1525. He had to flee to Germany to do this, because he was under threat Of persecution. He never entirely completed his translation of the Old Testament, because in 1535-36 he was betrayed, Tried for heresy, and burned at the stake. The first freely distributed English Bible—the Coverdale Bible—(1535) relied heavily on Tyndale’s work. By far, the most popular version of all time is the King James English version, produced by scholars in 1611.

23. 9. What Is Meant By Canon? The term canon refers to the standard or Measurement by which books were included or Excluded from the final list of authoritative Scripture. In Greek, canon means a straight stick by which Something is ruled or measured. The Hebrew word qaneh also referred to measurement or the norm by which something Was judged.

24. 10. Which Parts Of The Bible Were First Accepted As Canonical? At about 400 B.C.E. the Jews decided that the First five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy—were Authoritative and binding. These five scrolls are called the Pentateuch, and Make up the Torah, meaning “law” or “instruction.” These are the words that Yahweh gave to Israel Through Moses, and remains, for Jews, the core nucleus to which all other parts of scripture accrue.