Saturday, January 15, 2011

What Is The Bible?

To start this blog, I'd like to introduce you to the Bible. To understand what the Bible is, it is important to understand how it came to be. The Bible, as we understand it, is the product of the Middle Ages, a time when books were more than a piece of paper, but many pieces of paper bound together into a book.

The term "Bible" comes from the greek word for "books", as the Bible was meant to be the putting together of the Books of the Sacred Library into one text.

Prior, several books of the Bible would be rolled together into scrolls (for example, the Pentateuch/Torah), as well as individual books being written on individual papyri.

Those books of the Bible themselves, may have replaced smaller tablets, turning several tablets of stories into one book. This is my thought though, its not a proven fact, as writing on clay tablets was quite common in the region before papyrus became what people wrote on.

So in a nutshell, the Bible is a product of several millenia of compilations of books, and was by no means a library compiled by God in the volume we call the Bible.

There are many Bibles for the many Abrahamic religions. All containing different books that are considered canon. What books are canon, differ widely, religion to religion.

The Bible is just a book full of books, which were themselves compilations of books.