Bible

Bible (Anglicized from the Greek Βιβλία, i.e. little books, libelli; Latinized Biblia), the popular designation (usually in the phrase "Holy Bible") now everywhere current for the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testament in their present collected form. The sacred books were denominated by the Jews the writing (כּתִיב, kethib', written, or מִקרָא, mikra', recitation), a name of the same character as that applied by the Mohammedans (Koran) to denote their sacred volume. See SCRIPTURES, HOLY.

The Bible is divided into the Old and New Testaments, ἡ παλαιά, καὶ ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη. The name Old Testament is applied to the books of Moses by Paul (2Co 3:14), inasmuch as the former covenant comprised the whole scheme of the Mosaic revelation, and the history of this is contained in them. This phrase, "book of the covenant," taken probably from Ex 24:7; Ex 1 Maccabees 1:57 (βιβλίον διαθήκης), was transferred in the course of time-by a metonymy to signify the writings themselves. The word διαθήκη signifies either a testament or a covenant, but we now render it testament, because the translators of the old Latin version have always rendered it from the Sept., even when it was used as a translation of the Hebrew, בּרִית, Berith' (covenant), by the word Testamentum. The names given to the Old Testament were the Scriptures (Mt 21:42), Scripture (2Pe 1:20), the Holy Scriptures (Ro 1:2), the sacred letters (2Ti 3:15), the holy books (Sanhed. 91, 2), the law (Joh 12:34), the law, the prophets, and the psalms (Lu 24:44), the law and the prophets (Mt 5:17), the law, the prophets, and the other books (Prol. Ecclus.), the books of the old covenant (Ne 8:8), the book of the covenant (1 Maccabees 1:57; 2Ki 23:2). — Kitto, s.v. See TESTAMENT.

The other books (not in the canon) were called apocryphal, ecclesiastical, and deuterocanonical. The term New Testament has been in common use since the third century, and is employed by Eusebius in the same sense in which it is now commonly applied (Hist. Eccles, 2, 23). Tertullian employs the same phrase, and also that of "the Divine Instrument" in the same signification. See ANTILEGOMENA; see APOCRYPHA.