SECTION 1

1.1 WHAT IS THE BIBLE?

The name ‘Bible’ comes from the Greek word bibilos which means ‘The book’.The Bible is comprised of 66 separate written books. It was written over a period of approximately 1400 to 1800 years by more than 40 authors from various walks of life. While many of the authors were identified, some remained unknown.

The Bible is divided into; the Old Testament, which comprised 39 book, and the New Testament, which comprised of 27 books. The Old Testament portion of the Bible; is the Bible of the nation of Israel, and it was divided into three segments: The Law or Torah, the Prophets or Nebilim, and the Writing or Kethubim.

Although the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, it was translated into Koine (common) Greek around 250-100BC This translation is referred to as the Septuagint or the LXX. It contains the same books as the Hebrew Old Testament, but the order and breakdown of the books was changed to the form now used in the Old Testament.

While the Old Testament was originally written in two Semitic languages; Hebrewa and Aramaic, the vast majority of it is in Hebrew language. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, which was the popular language used throughout most of the Meditarian world in the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. However a few Aramaic phrases are found in the New Testament because Aramaic was the vernacular of the people of Israel at that time/ Jesus and His disciples spoke Aramaic as well as Koine Greek. Much of the Old Testament was translated into Aramaic, and these works are referred to as the Targum.

Unlike other religious writings, the Bible presented itself as a factual news account of real events, places, people, and dialogue. Historians and archaeologists have repeatedly confirmed its authenticity.

Using the writers’ own writing styles and personalities, God shows us who He is and how to know Him. There is one central message consistently carried by all the 40 writers of the Bible: God, who created us all, desires a relationship with us. He wants us to know Him and to trust Him.

The Bible not only inspires us, it explains life and God to us. It does not answer all the questions we might have, but enough of them. It shows us how to live with purpose and compassion, and teaches us how to relate to others. It encourages us to rely on God for strength, direction, and enjoy his love for us. The Bible also tells us how we can have eternal life.

Multiple categories of evidence support the historical accuracy of the Bible as well as its claim to divine authorship. Here are a few reasons you can trust the Bible.

1.2 ESSENTIAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE BIBLE

• The Bible is God revealing Himself and His plan to restore mankind to Himself through salvation, and the most important life changing book the world has ever known - the Bible.
• The Bible is the divinely inspired and infallible (never wrong) revelation of God to man. God speaks in order to reveal Himself. From the time of Genesis and all throughout history, God has spoken to mankind and shown himself to us.
• Many different people were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the Bible. Yet their writings are completely unified and point in the same direction. They do not contradict or disagree with each other. They all fit.
• The Bible is God’s special book. It is one of the oldest books in the world and yet it is the most modern.
• The Bible as a whole was written over the period of l,600years.
• The New Testament was mainly written in Greek
• The only parts of the Bible which were written in Aramaic are parts of the book of Ezra and Daniel.
• The Bible was written by 40 humans author who were inspired by the Holy Ghost.
• The first Bible writer was Moses.
• Moses began writing the first five books of the Bible around 1,500B.C.
• The materials on which the Bible was originally written were, stone, clay, leather, vellum, parchment, papyrus, and animal skin.
• The Old Testament contains 39 books while the New Testament contains 27 books.
• The term “Old” and “New Testament”means “Old” and “New covenant” or “Old” and “New” Will, and it is a pointer to the covenant which God made with his elected people in the two dispensations.
• The Bible includes public records, history, poetry, prophecy, sermons, hymns, letters and law.
• The Bible’s great subject is Jesus Christ.
• The Old Testament is simply divided into three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
• The first five books of the Bible are known as the Pentateuch.
• The Law books of the Bible are, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
• The New Testament is given the four-fold topical arrangement of Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation
• The Bible is called the Scriptures, the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit; Spiritual Milk (1 Pet. 2:2); the Lamp and a Light (Ps. 119: 105); a Hammer (Jer. 23: 25); a Fire (23;25), and the Mirror (James 1:23-25).
• The shortest book of the Bible is 3 John; It has thirteen verses only.
• The only Historical book of the New Testament is the Book of Acts of Apostles, written by a Physician named Luke.

• There are 1,189 Chapters in the Bible.
• The New Testament contains 260 Chapters.
• There are 31,173 verses in the Bible.
• The Bible contains sixty-six books.
• The New Testament was not completed until about 100 years after the death of Jesus Christ.
• The last book of the Bible is called “Revelation.” It contains 22 Chapters.
• The last book of the Old Testament is Malachi. It contains four Chapters.
• The poetical books of the Bible are, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Songs of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes.
• The Historical books of the Old Testament are, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
• Four hundred years elapsed between the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament.
• The Prophetic books of the Old Testament are, Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
• The principal Bible manuscripts (MSS) are, codex Sinaiticus, codex Vaticanus, codes Alexandrinus, codex Cottonianus, and codex Abrosianus.
• The three oldest manuscripts of the Bible are, the codex Vaticanus, the codex Sinaiticus and the codex Alexandrinus.
• The Bible was first divided into Chapters by Cardinal Hugo in 1250A.D.

• The Geneva Bible was the first to divide the Bible texts into verses
• The Inspirations of the Bible can be explained as the process by which the Holy Spirit moved writers recorded God breathed writings.
• The Bible claims to be God’s inspired Book in 2nd Timothy J vs 16. “All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God … ”
• The Bible declares that its books are the Word of God more than 2,000 times.
• Canonical books of the Bible are the books that are considered genuine or inspired while those not included are considered to be corrupt and false.

• The books which were not canonized or included in the Bible are called, Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha.
• Pseudepigrapha books are those which were rejected by everyone and consequently not included in the Bible because they are false Writings.
• Apocrypha books are book which were accepted by some and rejected by others and as a result they are not included in the Bible except in one or two versions of the Bible.
• The Bible has been translated into over 1,200 languages of the world.
• The first translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek is known as the Septuagent. It is called Septuagint because seventy Jewish translators were involved in its production.
• The first complete English Bible was published in AD 1535
• Those who first translated the Bible into English are, John Wycliffe, William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.
• John Wycliffe’s English Translations of the Bible was made from the Latin Translation. The Old Testament was translated in 1380A.D; and The New Testament was done in 1382A.D.
• The Latin Translation was later known as the Vulgate.
• The Latin Translation of the Bible was produced in AD 404 by a brilliant scholar named Jerome.

• The King James Bible was Translated by 54 Translators including high Church men, Puritans, and Scholars, and it took them 7 years to complete. it.
• Greek was used for the writing of the New Testament because it was the most popular language then, while Aramaic was the market language (like the Nigerian Pigeon English) during the time of Christ, and Hebrew was the native language.
• The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in 1947 in a cave about 8 miles south of Jericho (Palestine).
• A group of people known as Masoretes succeeded the Scribes of the ancient time, and they continued to preserve the scared books of the Bible for another 500 years in a form as the Masoretic text.

• The King James Bible was completed in 1611A.D.
• God began by...