99-559: The first complete Bible translation to Romanian was made in 1688, and called Biblia de la București ( The Bible from Bucharest ). The Old Testament was translated by Moldavian-born Nicolae Milescu in Constantinople. The translator used as his source a Septuagint published in Frankfurt in 1597. The manuscript was afterwards revised in Moldavia and later brought to Bucharest , where it
198-570: A 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae ( Divine Institutes ): But all scripture is divided into two Testaments. That which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets —is called the Old; but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The Jews make use of the Old, we of
297-629: A Gentile, and similarly for the Gospel of Matthew, though most assert Jewish-Christian authorship. However, more recently the above understanding has been challenged by the publication of evidence showing only educated elites after the Jewish War would have been capable of producing the prose found in the Gospels. Authorship of the Gospels remains divided among both evangelical and critical scholars. The names of each Gospel stems from church tradition, and yet
396-463: A corpus of fourteen "Pauline" epistles. While many scholars uphold the traditional view, some question whether the first three, called the "Deutero-Pauline Epistles", are authentic letters of Paul. As for the latter three, the "Pastoral epistles", some scholars uphold the traditional view of these as the genuine writings of the Apostle Paul; most regard them as pseudepigrapha . One might refer to
495-658: A different tradition and body of testimony. In addition, most scholars agree that the author of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles . Scholars hold that these books constituted two-halves of a single work, Luke–Acts . The same author appears to have written the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, and most refer to them as the Lucan texts. The most direct evidence comes from the prefaces of each book; both were addressed to Theophilus , and
594-451: A lord over them, saith the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the LORD'; for they shall all know Me, from
693-572: A lost translation of the Gospel of John into Old English by the Venerable Bede , which is said to have been prepared shortly before his death around the year 735. An Old High German version of the gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Charlemagne in c. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic was started in 863 by Cyril and Methodius . Alfred
792-640: A rich and varied history of more than a millennium. (See List of English Bible translations .) Textual variants in the New Testament include errors, omissions, additions, changes, and alternate translations. In some cases, different translations have been used as evidence for or have been motivated by doctrinal differences. The Hebrew Bible was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra ) in Biblical Aramaic . Some of
891-511: A scholarly consensus that many New Testament books were not written by the individuals whose names are attached to them. Scholarly opinion is that names were fixed to the gospels by the mid second century AD. Many scholars believe that none of the gospels were written in the region of Palestine . Christian tradition identifies John the Apostle with John the Evangelist , the supposed author of
990-453: A scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. See textual criticism . Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions, additions, and variants (mostly in orthography ). There are some fragmentary Old English Bible translations , notably
1089-594: A uniformity of doctrine concerning the Mosaic Law , Jesus, faith, and various other issues. All of these letters easily fit into the chronology of Paul's journeys depicted in Acts of the Apostles. The author of the Epistle of James identifies himself in the opening verse as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ". From the middle of the 3rd century, patristic authors cited the Epistle as written by James
SECTION 10
#17330925603411188-500: Is foreign to the original Hebrew word brit (בְּרִית) describing it, which only means 'alliance, covenant, pact' and never 'inheritance instructions after death'. This use comes from the transcription of Latin testamentum 'will (left after death)', a literal translation of Greek diatheke (διαθήκη) 'will (left after death)', which is the word used to translate Hebrew brit in the Septuagint . The choice of this word diatheke , by
1287-404: Is often thought that John the Apostle is John the Evangelist , i.e. author of the Gospel of John ) or to another John designated " John of Patmos " after the island where the text says the revelation was received (1:9). Some ascribe the writership date as c. 81–96 AD, and others at around 68 AD. The work opens with letters to seven local congregations of Asia Minor and thereafter takes
1386-558: Is one of the four great uncial codices . The earliest surviving complete single-volume manuscript of the entire Bible in Latin is the Codex Amiatinus , a Latin Vulgate edition produced in 8th-century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow . Latin and its early Romance dialects were widely spoken as the primary or secondary language throughout Western Europe, including Britain even in
1485-529: Is scholarly debate as to the reason why the translators of the Septuagint chose the term diatheke to translate Hebrew brit , instead of another Greek word generally used to refer to an alliance or covenant. The use of the phrase New Testament ( Koine Greek : Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη , Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē ) to describe a collection of first- and second-century Christian Greek scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian in his work Against Praxeas . Irenaeus uses
1584-524: Is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists , and that Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 , Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus are examples of these Bibles. Together with the Peshitta, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles. The Bible was translated into Gothic (an early East Germanic language) in the 4th century by a group of scholars, possibly under the supervision of Ulfilas (Wulfila). The canonical Christian Bible
1683-501: Is written as follows: "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James". The debate has continued over the author's identity as the apostle, the brother of Jesus, both, or neither. The Gospel of John, the three Johannine epistles , and the Book of Revelation , exhibit marked similarities, although more so between the gospel and the epistles (especially the gospel and 1 John) than between those and Revelation. Most scholars therefore treat
1782-697: The Wessex Gospels . Around the same time, a compilation now called the Old English Hexateuch appeared with the first six (or, in one version, seven) books of the Old Testament. The arrival of the mendicant preaching orders in the 12th century saw individual books being translated with commentary, in Italian dialects. Typically the Psalms were among the first books to be translated, being prayers: for example,
1881-457: The 27-book canon of the New Testament has been almost universally recognized within Christianity since at least Late Antiquity . Thus, in almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books: The earliest known complete list of the 27 books is found in a letter written by Athanasius , a 4th-century bishop of Alexandria , dated to 367 AD. The 27-book New Testament
1980-674: The Alexandrian text-type , the Byzantine text-type , the Western text-type and perhaps a largely lost Caesarean text-type , however many manuscripts are mixes of these. The discovery of older manuscripts which belong to the Alexandrian text-type, including the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus , led scholars to revise their view about the original Greek text. Karl Lachmann based his critical edition of 1831 on manuscripts dating from
2079-714: The Cathar and Waldensian heresies, in South France and Catalonia. This demonstrates that such translations existed: there is evidence of some vernacular translations being permitted while others were being scrutinized. A group of Middle English Bible translations were created: including the Wycliffean Bibles (1383, 1393) and the Paues New Testament, based on the Vulgate. New unauthorized translations were banned in England by
SECTION 20
#17330925603412178-590: The Deuterocanonical books not accepted in every denomination's canons, such as 2 Maccabees , originated in Koine Greek. In the third and second centuries B.C.E., the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Koine Greek, known as the Septuagint version. This was the version commonly used by the writers of the Gospels . From the 6th century to the 10th century AD, Jewish scholars, today known as Masoretes , compared
2277-614: The Epistle to the Laodiceans and the Third Epistle to the Corinthians as examples of works identified as pseudonymous. Since the early centuries of the church, there has been debate concerning the authorship of the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, and contemporary scholars generally reject Pauline authorship. The epistles all share common themes, emphasis, vocabulary and style; they exhibit
2376-434: The Gospel of John . Traditionalists tend to support the idea that the writer of the Gospel of John himself claimed to be an eyewitness in their commentaries of John 21 :24 and therefore the gospel was written by an eyewitness. This idea is rejected by the majority of modern scholars. Most scholars hold to the two-source hypothesis , which posits that the Gospel of Mark was the first gospel to be written . On this view,
2475-846: The Hebrew Bible into Greek , later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the Christian church and the basis of its canon . Jerome based his Latin Vulgate translation on the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the Masoretic text ), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books . The translation now known as the Septuagint was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians. It differs somewhat from
2574-453: The Jewish Bible 's Book of Jeremiah , Judaism traditionally disagrees: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; forasmuch as they broke My covenant, although I was
2673-636: The New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,726 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,274 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance . Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,756 languages. The Old Testament, written in Hebrew (with some sections in the book of Daniel in the Aramaic language) was translated into Aramaic (the so-called Targums, originally not written down), Greek and Syriac . The New Testament, written in Greek,
2772-625: The Palia de la Orăștie (Saxopolitan Old Testament) from 1581/1582 (the translators were Calvinist pastors from Transylvania ), The New Testament of Alba Iulia (1648). They were later followed by the Bible of Petru Pavel Aron (1760-1761), the Samuil Micu 's Bible from Blaj (1795), and others. In September 1911, the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) printed the Iași Old Testament (1874) with
2871-575: The earliest Polish translation from 1280. There are numerous manuscripts of the Psalms in Catalan from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, translated from the Vulgate, Occitan, French and Hebrew, with a New Testament and full bible translation made in the 1300s. Parts of an Old Testament in Old Spanish from the late 1300s still exist. Monks completed a translation into Franco-Provençal (Arpitan) c.1170-85, commissioned by Peter Waldo . The complete Bible
2970-685: The endings of Mark , the Pericope Adulteræ , the Comma Johanneum , and the Western version of Acts . Early manuscripts of the Pauline epistles and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever. The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text. Four main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament have been theorized to allow grouping and analysis of manuscripts and changes:
3069-611: The 2nd century. The Pauline letters are the thirteen New Testament books that present Paul the Apostle as their author. Paul's authorship of six of the letters is disputed. Four are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic , i.e., not actually written by Paul even if attributed to him within the letters themselves. Opinion is more divided on the other two disputed letters (2 Thessalonians and Colossians). These letters were written to Christian communities in specific cities or geographical regions, often to address issues faced by that particular community. Prominent themes include
Bible translations into Romanian - Misplaced Pages Continue
3168-498: The 4th century and earlier, to argue that the Textus Receptus must be corrected according to these earlier texts. There is also a long-standing tradition owing to Papias of Hierapolis (c.125) that the Gospel of Matthew was originally in Hebrew. Eusebius (c.300) reports that Pantaenus went to India (c. 200) and found them using a Gospel of St Matthew in Hebrew letters. Jerome also reports in his preface to St Matthew that it
3267-465: The 5th century. This claim has been disputed by modern Georgian scholars, although the creation of a Georgian alphabet was likely still motivated by Christians who wished to translate holy scriptures. In the 6th century, the Bible was translated into Old Nubian . By the end of the eighth century, Church of the East monasteries (so-called Nestorians ) had translated the New Testament and Psalms (at least,
3366-562: The 700s and 800s. Between the 4th to 6th centuries, the Bible was translated into Ge'ez (Ethiopic). In the 5th century, Mesrob Mashtots translated the Bible using the Armenian alphabet invented by him. Also dating from the same period is the first Georgian translation. The creation of the Georgian scripts , like the Armenian alphabet, was also attributed to Mashtots by the scholar Koryun in
3465-636: The Apostle ( Acts 16:10–17 ; arguing for an authorship date of c. AD 62 ), which is corroborated by Paul's Letter to the Colossians ( Col. 4:14 ), Letter to Philemon ( Philem. 23–24 ), and Second Letter to Timothy ( 2 Tim. 4:11 ), the gospel account of Luke "was received as having apostolic endorsement and authority from Paul and as a trustworthy record of the gospel that Paul preached" (e.g. Rom. 2:16 , according to Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History 3.4.8). The word testament in
3564-437: The Apostles is a narrative of the apostles' ministry and activity after Christ's death and resurrection, from which point it resumes and functions as a sequel to the Gospel of Luke . Examining style, phraseology, and other evidence, modern scholarship generally concludes that Acts and the Gospel of Luke share the same author, referred to as Luke–Acts . Luke–Acts does not name its author. Church tradition identified him as Luke
3663-610: The Epistle to the Hebrews does not internally claim to have been written by the Apostle Paul , some similarities in wordings to some of the Pauline Epistles have been noted and inferred. In antiquity, some began to ascribe it to Paul in an attempt to provide the anonymous work an explicit apostolic pedigree. In the 4th century, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo supported Paul's authorship . The Church largely agreed to include Hebrews as
3762-437: The Evangelist , the companion of Paul, but the majority of scholars reject this due to the many differences between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters, though most scholars still believe the author, whether named Luke or not, met Paul . The most probable date of composition is around 80–90 AD, although some scholars date it significantly later, and there is evidence that it was still being substantially revised well into
3861-407: The Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus's life and teaching." The ESV Study Bible claims the following (as one argument for gospel authenticity): Because Luke , as a second generation Christian, claims to have retrieved eyewitness testimony ( Luke 1:1–4 ), in addition to having traveled with Paul
3960-621: The Great , a ruler in England, had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch , which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared, in the West Saxon dialect ; these are called
4059-577: The Greek text. Origen 's Hexapla ( c. 235 ) placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament: the Hebrew consonantal text, the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek letters (the Secunda ), the Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite , one recension of the Septuagint, and the Greek translation of Theodotion . In addition, he included three anonymous translations of
Bible translations into Romanian - Misplaced Pages Continue
4158-464: The Jewish translators of the Septuagint in Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE, has been understood in Christian theology to imply a reinterpreted view of the Old Testament covenant with Israel as possessing characteristics of a 'will left after death' (the death of Jesus ) and has generated considerable attention from biblical scholars and theologians: in contrast to the Jewish usage where brit
4257-620: The Jews. With most people speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues . By the 3rd century BC, Alexandria had become the center of Hellenistic Judaism , and during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC translators compiled in Egypt a Koine Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures in several stages (completing
4356-661: The Just . Ancient and modern scholars have always been divided on the issue of authorship. Many consider the epistle to be written in the late 1st or early 2nd centuries. The author of the First Epistle of Peter identifies himself in the opening verse as "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ", and the view that the epistle was written by St. Peter is attested to by a number of Church Fathers : Irenaeus (140–203), Tertullian (150–222), Clement of Alexandria (155–215) and Origen of Alexandria (185–253). Unlike The Second Epistle of Peter ,
4455-467: The Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than previously thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition (" Vorlage ") from the one that became the basis for the Masoretic texts. Christian translations of
4554-431: The New Testament was translated into various Coptic (Egyptian) dialects. The Old Testament was already translated by that stage. In 331, the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople. Athanasius ( Apol. Const. 4 ) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it
4653-416: The New Testament were all or nearly all written by Jewish Christians —that is, Jewish disciples of Christ, who lived in the Roman Empire , and under Roman occupation . The author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts is frequently thought of as an exception; scholars are divided as to whether he was a Gentile or a Hellenistic Jew . A few scholars identify the author of the Gospel of Mark as probably
4752-462: The New Testament were only a few among many other early Christian gospels. The existence of such texts is even mentioned at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. Many non-canonical gospels were also written, all later than the four canonical gospels, and like them advocating the particular theological views of their various authors. In modern scholarship, the Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources for reconstructing Christ's ministry. The Acts of
4851-407: The New: but yet they are not discordant, for the New is the fulfilling of the Old, and in both there is the same testator, even Christ, who, having suffered death for us, made us heirs of His everlasting kingdom, the people of the Jews being deprived and disinherited. As the prophet Jeremiah testifies when he speaks such things: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new testament to
4950-414: The Nitzulescu New Testament (1895), revised by Professor Garboviceanu and checked by Prof Alexics. This was the official BFBS text before Cornilescu was adopted in 1924, but was more literal. This text was revised by Cornilescu from 1928 and printed by the Bible Society in 1931 but has not been issued since. Two main translations are currently used in Romanian. The Orthodox Church uses the Synodal Version,
5049-453: The Old Testament also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both). Bible translations incorporating modern textual criticism usually begin with the Masoretic text , but also take into account possible variants from all available ancient versions. The Christian New Testament was written in Koine Greek, and nearly all modern translations are to some extent based upon
SECTION 50
#17330925603415148-425: The Psalms (the Quinta , Sexta and Septima ). His eclectic recension of the Septuagint had a significant influence on the Old Testament text in several important manuscripts. In the 2nd century, the Old Testament was translated into Syriac translation, and the Gospels in the Diatessaron gospel harmony. The New Testament was translated in the 5th century, now known as the Peshitta. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries,
5247-417: The Romanian language, including the Cornilescu translation, which was initially intended to be an Orthodox translation, use the term "Malachians" or "Malacians" (i.e. "those who masturbate") for those who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor. 6: 9). According to Emanuel Conțac and Chrys C. Caragounis this translation is anachronistic (wrong), the word malakia changing its meaning in "masturbation" from
5346-419: The authors of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used as sources the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical Q document to write their individual gospel accounts. These three gospels are called the Synoptic Gospels , because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes in exactly the same wording. Scholars agree that the Gospel of John was written last, by using
5445-440: The authors of the Gospels do not identify themselves in their respective texts. All four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are anonymous works . The Gospel of John claims to be based on eyewitness testimony from the Disciple whom Jesus loved , but never names this character. The author of Luke-Acts claimed to access an eyewitness to Paul ; this claim remains accepted by most scholars. Objections to this viewpoint mainly take
5544-436: The authorship of which was debated in antiquity, there was little debate about Peter's authorship of this first epistle until the 18th century. Although 2 Peter internally purports to be a work of the apostle, many biblical scholars have concluded that Peter is not the author. For an early date and (usually) for a defense of the Apostle Peter's authorship see Kruger, Zahn, Spitta, Bigg, and Green. The Epistle of Jude title
5643-401: The date of composition of the latest New Testament texts. John A. T. Robinson , Dan Wallace , and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD. Many other scholars, such as Bart D. Ehrman and Stephen L. Harris , date some New Testament texts much later than this; Richard Pervo dated Luke–Acts to c. 115 AD , and David Trobisch places Acts in
5742-400: The drawing up of his Antitheses, centres in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator , as belonging to this rival God, and as alien from the law and the prophets . By the 4th century , the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius ,
5841-406: The epistle to the Hebrews, based on its distinctive style and theology, which are considered to set it apart from Paul's writings. The final book of the New Testament is the Book of Revelation , also known as the Apocalypse of John. In the New Testament canon, it is considered prophetical or apocalyptic literature . Its authorship has been attributed either to John the Apostle (in which case it
5940-469: The existing translation closer to the original manuscripts, in a form grammatically corrected and adapted according to the evolution of the modern Romanian language. The British and Foreign Bible Society, operating in Romania through the Interconfessional Bible Society of Romania ( SBIR ), brought out a special 90th anniversary definitive edition of the Cornilescu Bible in 2014, with many errors corrected. Some notable translators are: The Orthodox Bibles in
6039-428: The expression "New Testament" refers to a Christian new covenant that Christians believe completes or fulfils the Mosaic covenant (the Jewish covenant) that Yahweh (the God of Israel) made with the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses , described in the books of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. While Christianity traditionally even claims this Christian new covenant as being prophesied in
SECTION 60
#17330925603416138-423: The first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament , which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible ; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians. The New Testament is a collection of Christian texts originally written in the Koine Greek language, at different times by various authors. While the Old Testament canon varies somewhat between different Christian denominations ,
6237-444: The five as a single corpus of Johannine literature , albeit not from the same author. The gospel went through two or three "editions" before reaching its current form around AD 90–110. It speaks of an unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" as the source of its traditions, but does not say specifically that he is its author; Christian tradition identifies this disciple as the apostle John , but while this idea still has supporters, for
6336-471: The form of an apocalypse , a "revealing" of divine prophecy and mysteries, a literary genre popular in ancient Judaism and Christianity. The order in which the books of the New Testament appear differs between some collections and ecclesiastical traditions. In the Latin West, prior to the Vulgate (an early 5th-century Latin version of the Bible), the four Gospels were arranged in the following order: Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark. The Syriac Peshitta places
6435-432: The form of the following two interpretations, but also include the claim that Luke-Acts contains differences in theology and historical narrative which are irreconcilable with the authentic letters of Paul the Apostle . According to Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina , none of the authors of the Gospels were eyewitnesses or even explicitly claimed to be eyewitnesses of Jesus's life. Ehrman has argued for
6534-407: The fourteenth letter of Paul, and affirmed this authorship until the Reformation . The letter to the Hebrews had difficulty in being accepted as part of the Christian canon because of its anonymity. As early as the 3rd century, Origen wrote of the letter, "Men of old have handed it down as Paul's, but who wrote the Epistle God only knows." Contemporary scholars often reject Pauline authorship for
6633-523: The greater part of the New." Friar Giovanni da Montecorvino of the large Franciscan mission to Mongol China in the early 1300s translated the Psalms and New Testament into the language of the Tartars : the Uyghur language or perhaps the Mongolian language . A royal Swedish version of 1316 has been lost. The entire Bible was translated into Czech around 1360. The provincial synods of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234) temporarily outlawed possession of some vernacular renderings, in reaction to
6732-414: The house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they continued not in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord." ... For that which He said above, that He would make a new testament to the house of Judah, shows that the old testament which was given by Moses
6831-444: The late second century, the four narrative accounts of the life and work of Jesus Christ have been referred to as "The Gospel of ..." or "The Gospel according to ..." followed by the name of the supposed author. The first author to explicitly name the canonical gospels is Irenaeus of Lyon , who promoted the four canonical gospels in his book Against Heresies , written around 180. These four gospels that were eventually included in
6930-563: The later standardized Hebrew ( Masoretic Text ). This translation was promoted by way of a legend (primarily recorded as the Letter of Aristeas ) that seventy (or in some sources, seventy-two) separate translators all produced identical texts; supposedly proving its accuracy. Versions of the Septuagint contain several passages and whole books not included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh . In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or of Hebrew variants not present in
7029-414: The least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more. The word covenant means 'agreement' (from Latin con-venio 'to agree' lit. 'to come together'): the use of the word testament , which describes the different idea of written instructions for inheritance after death, to refer to the covenant with Israel in the Old Testament,
7128-601: The loose paraphrase Speculum Vitae Christi ( The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ ), which had been authorized into English around 1410. A Cornish version may have been made. The Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in 1416. New Testament The New Testament ( NT ) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon . It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus , as well as events relating to first-century Christianity . The New Testament's background,
7227-581: The major Catholic epistles (James, 1 Peter, and 1 John) immediately after Acts and before the Pauline epistles. The order of an early edition of the letters of Paul is based on the size of the letters: longest to shortest, though keeping 1 and 2 Corinthians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians together. The Pastoral epistles were apparently not part of the Corpus Paulinum in which this order originated and were later inserted after 2 Thessalonians and before Philemon. Hebrews
7326-557: The mid-to-late second century, contemporaneous with the publication of the first New Testament canon. Whether the Gospels were composed before or after 70 AD, according to Bas van Os, the lifetime of various eyewitnesses that includes Jesus's own family through the end of the First Century is very likely statistically. Markus Bockmuehl finds this structure of lifetime memory in various early Christian traditions. The New Oxford Annotated Bible claims, "Scholars generally agree that
7425-504: The original Greek, bypassing all translations, and going back to the original Hebrew wherever he could instead of the Septuagint. There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (including the Peshitta). The Codex Vaticanus dates to c. 325 –350, and is missing only 21 sentences or paragraphs in various New Testament books: it
7524-440: The original authors or collators, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the manuscripts that do survive. Most variants among the manuscripts are minor, such as alternative spelling, alternative word order, the presence or absence of an optional definite article ("the"), and so on. Occasionally, a major variant happens when a portion of a text was missing or for other reasons. Examples of major variants are
7623-475: The phrase New Testament several times, but does not use it in reference to any written text. In Against Marcion , written c. 208 AD, Tertullian writes of: the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel . And Tertullian continues later in the book, writing: it is certain that the whole aim at which he [ Marcion ] has strenuously laboured, even in
7722-569: The portions needed for liturgical use) from Syriac to Sogdian , the lingua franca in Central Asia of the Silk Road, which was an Eastern Iranian language with Chinese loanwords, written in letters and logograms derived from Aramaic script. They may have also translated parts of books into a Chinese . When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page ( marginal glosses ) to correct their text—especially if
7821-496: The post-resurrection appearances, but the emptiness of the tomb implies a resurrection). The word "gospel" derives from the Old English gōd-spell (rarely godspel ), meaning "good news" or "glad tidings". Its Hebrew equivalent being "besorah" (בְּשׂוֹרָה). The gospel was considered the "good news" of the coming Kingdom of Messiah , and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, the central Christian message. Starting in
7920-613: The preceding epistles. These letters are believed by many to be pseudepigraphic. Some scholars (e.g., Bill Mounce, Ben Witherington, R.C. Sproul) will argue that the letters are genuinely Pauline, or at least written under Paul's supervision. The Epistle to the Hebrews addresses a Jewish audience who had come to believe that Jesus was the Anointed One (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ—transliterated in English as "Moshiach", or "Messiah"; Greek: Χριστός—transliterated in English as "Christos", for " Christ ") who
8019-462: The preface to the Acts of the Apostles references "my former book" about the ministry of Jesus. Furthermore, there are linguistic and theological similarities between the two works, suggesting that they have a common author. The Pauline epistles are the thirteen books in the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul of Tarsus . Seven letters are generally classified as "undisputed", expressing contemporary scholarly near consensus that they are
8118-524: The provincial Oxford Synod in 1408 under church law; possession of material that contained Lollard material (such as the so-called General Prologue found in a few Wycliffite Bibles) was also illegal by English state law , in response to Lollard uprisings. Later, many parts of the Bible in Late Middle English were printed by William Caxton in his translation of the Golden Legend (1483), and in
8217-585: The relationship both to broader " pagan " society, to Judaism, and to other Christians. [Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).] The last four Pauline letters in the New Testament are addressed to individual persons. They include the following: [Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).] All of the above except for Philemon are known as the pastoral epistles . They are addressed to individuals charged with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss issues of Christian living, doctrine and leadership. They often address different concerns to those of
8316-578: The standard Romanian Orthodox Bible translation, published in 1988 with the blessings of Patriarch Teoctist Arăpașu . Most Protestant denominations use the Bible Society translation made by Dumitru Cornilescu . The New Testament was first published in 1921, and the whole Bible with references in 1924, produced by the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1989 appeared an unofficial revision by German publishing house Gute Botschaft Verlag (GBV); it tried to get
8415-408: The task by 132 BC). The Talmud ascribes the translation effort to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285–246 BC), who allegedly hired 72 Jewish scholars for the purpose, for which reason the translation is commonly known as the Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta , "seventy"), a name which it gained in "the time of Augustine of Hippo " (354–430 AD). The Septuagint (LXX), the very first translation of
8514-477: The text of various biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text. A series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud ) to the text, since the original text contained only consonants . This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation; since some words differ only in their vowels their meaning can vary in accordance with
8613-532: The vowels chosen. In antiquity, variant Hebrew readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek reporting speech originally in Aramaic , Greek and Latin (see Language of the New Testament ). The autographs , the Greek manuscripts written by
8712-413: The work of John Chrysostom (late 4th century AD). The New Translation into Romanian Language (NTLR, Baptist, 2006, copyright by Biblica ) does not have this false friend . Bible translation The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew , Aramaic , and Greek . As of November 2024 the whole Bible has been translated into 756 languages,
8811-412: The work of Paul: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. Six additional letters bearing Paul's name do not currently enjoy the same academic consensus: Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus. The anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews is, despite unlikely Pauline authorship, often functionally grouped with these thirteen to form
8910-649: Was again subject to revision by a team of Wallachian scholars (among whom were Radu Greceanu [ ro ] and his brother Șerban Greceanu) with the help of Șerban Cantacuzino and Constantin Brâncoveanu . Before the publication of the Biblia de la București , other partial translations were published, such as the Slavic-Romanian Tetraevangelion (Gospel) (Sibiu, 1551), Coresi 's Tetraevangelion (Brașov, 1561), The Book of Psalms from Brașov (1570),
9009-501: Was first formally canonized during the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) in North Africa. Pope Innocent I ratified the same canon in 405, but it is probable that a Council in Rome in 382 under Pope Damasus I gave the same list first. These councils also provided the canon of the Old Testament, which included the deuterocanonical books. There is no scholarly consensus on
9108-713: Was first translated into Syriac, Latin and Coptic – all before the time of Emperor Constantine. Jerome 's 4th-century Latin Vulgate version, a revision of earlier Latin translations, was dominant in Western Christianity during the Middle Ages . By the year 500, the Bible had been translated into Ge'ez , Gothic , Armenian and Georgian. By the year 1000, a number of other translations were added (in some cases partial), including Old Nubian, Sogdian, Arabic and Slavonic languages, among others. English Bible translations have
9207-591: Was formally established by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted by the church previously), confirmed by the Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the Book of Revelation ), and later established by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 (with Revelation added). Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 405. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising these earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to
9306-468: Was not perfect; but that which was to be given by Christ would be complete. Eusebius describes the collection of Christian writings as "covenanted" (ἐνδιαθήκη) books in Hist. Eccl. 3.3.1–7; 3.25.3; 5.8.1; 6.25.1. Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (the gospel of Mark in the original text ends with the empty tomb and has no account of
9405-613: Was originally composed "in Hebrew letters in Judea" not in Greek and that he saw and copied one from the Nazarene sect. The exact provenance, authorship, source languages and collation of the four Gospels is unknown but subject to much academic speculation and disputed methods . Some of the first translations of the Torah began during the Babylonian exile , when Aramaic became the lingua franca of
9504-604: Was predicted in the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. The author discusses the superiority of the new covenant and the ministry of Jesus, to the Mosaic Law Covenant and urges the readers in the practical implications of this conviction through the end of the epistle. The book has been widely accepted by the Christian church as inspired by God and thus authoritative, despite the acknowledgment of uncertainties about who its human author was. Regarding authorship, although
9603-405: Was the usual Hebrew word used to refer to pacts, alliances and covenants in general, like a common pact between two individuals, and to the one between God and Israel in particular, in the Greek world diatheke was virtually never used to refer to an alliance or covenant (one exception is noted in a passage from Aristophanes ) and referred instead to a will left after the death of a person. There
9702-513: Was translated into Old French in the late 13th century. Parts of this translation were included in editions of the popular Bible historiale , and there is no evidence of this translation being suppressed by the Church. In England, "about the middle of the fourteenth century — before 1361 — the Anglo-Normans possessed an independent and probably complete translation of the whole of the Old Testament and
9801-524: Was variously incorporated into the Corpus Paulinum either after 2 Thessalonians, after Philemon (i.e. at the very end), or after Romans. Luther's canon , found in the 16th-century Luther Bible , continues to place Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Apocalypse (Revelation) last. This reflects the thoughts of the Reformer Martin Luther on the canonicity of these books. It is considered the books of
#340659