This page is a brief introduction to the Bible, though so much has been written about it - probably more than about any other book - that this is the briefest of précis.
The Bible is in two parts; the Old Testament (OT), which is the Jewish scripture, written in Hebrew and the Christian New Testament (NT) written in Greek. Each testament contains lots of books 39 in the OT and 27 in the NT The original documents have been lost - the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 date back to the 1st century BC and provide the earliest record of the OT. The NT was written between 40AD and 100AD. There are fragments of documents from these times and more complete collections from the end of the second century.
The first translation was of the OT into Greek occurred sometime from 285-246BC, and both OT and NT were translated into Latin (the Vulgate) by 400AD by Jerome. Getting an English version took a bit longer. The Venerable Bede translated John's Gospel into Anglo-Saxon in the 7th Century, King Alfred in the 9th Century translated some more and John Wycliffe in 1384 produced a complete translation of the Latin text.
Printed bibles were quickly produced when printing was invented, and Tyndale produced the first printed English Bible translated directly from the Greek in 1526. However the authorities - including VIPs like Sir Thomas Moore, Chancellor of England - did not want ordinary people to be able to read the bible - it undermined the authority of the Church. Tyndale was hunted down and burnt to death. However many English Bibles were produced in the 1500s.
King James I commissioned a group of scholars (to avoid individual bias) and the Authorised, or King James, version was published in 1611 for use in all English Churches. This is the bible with all the old fashioned English, A new version has recently been published which keeps most of the language, but makes changes where the words now have a totally different meaning to what they had in 1611.
There are now many different versions of the Bible. Whaddon Way tends to use two modern versions though many others appear at the mid-week study groups.
The Good News Bible, 1966/76, is written in non-academic everyday language. The New International Version (1972/79) in a new translation by a committee of scholars using up-to-date research to try to ensure that English means what the original writers meant to say.
There are also lots of free paraphrases of the bible. The Message is a vigorous translation meant to be read rather than studied. The Street Bible uses MTV language to appeal to young people.
All of these are available from the links below.
Alongside the Bible are the Bible Commentaries. These seek to explain the Bible by expanding the text in more detail and provide cross references to similar passages in other parts of the Bible. The "Bible Speaks Today" from IVP is good; older commentaries are available on the web - see the links below. There are also single volume commentaries - The New Lion Handbook to the Bible ( ISBN: 0 7459 3870 1) has been invaluable writing this page and the many pictures, maps and timelines are good too. Lion publish many other good reference books.
Copyright © Whaddon Way Church 2008. This website was designed and built by Michael Kelly