Bible
The Bible takes its name from the Latin Biblia ('book' or 'books') which comes from the Greek Ta Biblia ('the books') traced to the Phoenician port city of Gebal, known as Byblos to the Greeks. Writing became associated with Byblos as an exporter of papyrus (used in writing) and the Greek name for papyrus was bublos.
Although the Bible is often considered a single, cohesive, work, it is actually an anthology of ancient writings by many different authors over many centuries, which were collected in a single book. The Bible contains works of poetry, religious-themed narratives, philosophical musings such as The Book of Ecclesiastes, epistles, and the apocalyptic masterpiece known as The Book of Revelation.
The common thread in all these collected works is the existence of an all-powerful deity who is the creator of the universe and has an interest in the personal lives and final fate of human beings. The books of the Christian Bible were arranged in the sequence one finds them in today to tell the story of the creation of the world by a supreme deity, the fall of man from paradise, and humanity's redemption by the Son of God but these books were not written in that sequence nor would the original authors of the Old Testament works have had that particular story in mind.
The Bible of Judaism (collected and authorized by c. 3rd century BCE) contains the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and the Tanakh (the stories of the judges and prophets) and makes no mention of Jesus Christ. The God of the Bible in these works is the God of Judaism - a single all-powerful deity - and, prior to the appropriation of Hebrew scriptures by early Christianity, the stories which made up the Bible told the story of God's care for and intervention in the affairs of the Israelites of the Middle East.
Structure of the Bible
In Judaism, the scriptures are called the Tanakh and are recognized as comprising 24 books divided into three categories: The Pentateuch (or Teachings of the Five Books of Moses), The Prophets, and The Writings. Christianity, which appropriated the Tanakh and claimed it as their own early theological history, call it the Old Testament. Early Christian writers, years after the probable date of the death of Jesus, penned the gospels and The Book of Acts. Paul the Apostle wrote most of the epistles which make up the 27 books of the Christian New Testament and whose theology informs the gospels. The Book of Revelation, attributed to John of Patmos, is the last book of the Christian Bible.
It is difficult to accurately date the composition of the books which make up the Bible, but scholars generally agree that the Pentateuch dates to the 10th and 6th centuries BCE and that the Tanakh was fixed as scripture well before the 1st century CE. The books of the Christian New Testament were composed between 60-110 CE (the Gospels), 45-130 CE (the Epistles), and 68-100 (The Book of the Revelation of St. John). Many people of the ancient world, and even today, believe the Bible to have been written by God. It is held to be the bestselling book in history and has influenced religious thought worldwide for centuries.
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