| Is The Bible A Religious Book? |
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Many people falsely believe that the Bible is a "religious" book. In reality it is 66 books that were written by 40 something authors over a 1,500 year time period. That would be as if the book of Genesis was written in 508 AD while the city of Rome was being invaded by barbarians and Revelation was written this morning while reading mychurch.
One would think that 66 books about many different subjects written by 40ish authors during 1,500 years of human history would have very little to do with each other--and that's logical. One of the miracles of the Bible is that those 66 books fit together--as if a guiding hand was involved in writing and gathering them together.
Is the Bible a collection of "religious" books? Hardly. A few books are "religious" like Leviticus which contains much information about the ancient Jewish religion. But the Bible also contains books about many other topics. There are history books--like Judges or Acts. There are poetry books--like Psalms. There are wisdom books--like Proverbs. There are political commentary books--like Jeremiah. There are biography books--like Matthew. There are recovery books--like Galatians. There are mystical books like Daniel or Revelation. And there is even a sexy book--Song of Songs. Quite the library!
These 66 books are grouped into two main sections and I bet you know what that are--this is like the first question Regis Philbin used to ask on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? So . . . Is that your final answer? You've got it for $100.00--it's the Old Testament and the New Testament.
A bit harder question is what languages were each of these written in? This is probably a $60,000.00 question. (Do you need to phone a friend?) The answer--O.T. in Hebrew (the Jewish language) and N.T. in Greek. No--neither was written in King James English.
A guy named Jerome translated both parts of the Bible into Latin (the Roman language--Et tu Brute) in the second or third century (or so). After that (for the most part) translation was forbidden by the Roman church. Latin was considered the holy language even though the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek (go figure) and if you wanted to read it, you had to learn Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. Anyone who attempted to translate it into a "vernacular" language (regular talk) was severely persecuted and frequently burned at the stake--ouch! Thank God for brave souls like John Wycliffe and William Tyndale who suffered greatly for translating the Bible into English. Their translations were burned and I think they were too.
Finally, a king of England named James decided to sponsor a translation himself, even if the Roman church didn't like it. That translation into English was released in 1611 AD. Dost thou knowest it? Thou calleth it The Authorized Version or The King James Bible. People actually used to talk that way in 17th century England and it is a beautiful translation. Only problem, most blogging, cell phoning, web searching, channel surfing folks don't understand it. Dost thou?
In our day many Greek and Hebrew scholars have taken the ancient manuscripts and translated them into modern, easy-to-read English. They may not be as well known as King Jim's version, but they sure are easy to read and understand. Why don't you try one today?
More to come --- Part II will be -- So Where Did The Bible Come From? |
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