Home > Names for books of Judeo-Christian scripture
This brief article distinguishes the various terms used to describe Jewish and Christian scripture. Several terms refer to the same material, although sometimes rearranged.1 Jewish perspective
For Jews, the Bible means...
- Torah - The five books of Moses. The word Torah literally means instruction. It is also called Chumash (Hebrew for "five") and Pentateuch (Greek for "five books").
- Neviim - The books of the Prophets
- Ketuvim - All the other books of the Bible (literally: "Writings").
Judaism has traditional held that along with the Torah God revealed a series of instructions on how to interpret and apply the Torah. The Torah is referred to as the written law, while the additional instructions were known as the Oral law. By the second century C.E. Jewish sages began writing down interpretations of the Bible; Orthodox Jews consider these writings to embody the "oral law." These writings take several forms:
- Mishnah - An analysis of the laws and meaning of the Bible, containing information from the oral law.
- Tosefta - A set of teachings that in many ways are similar to the Mishnah. It may be an early commentary on the Mishnah, or it may be an independent attempt to codify the oral law.
- Braitot - A genre of rabbinic literature from the same time period as the Mishnah and Tosefta that no longer exists. The only quotes still extant from this literature are found as quotes within the Mishnah and Tosefta.
- Midrash - A genre of rabbinic literature that is an elaboration of, and commentary on, Biblical narrative.
2 Christian perspective
For Christians, the Bible refers to the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Protestant Old Testament is largely identical to what Jews call the Bible; the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Old Testament is based on the prevailing first century Greek translation of the Jewish Bible, the Septuagint.
The Bible as used by world Christianity consists of two parts:
- The Old Testament, largely the same as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible.
- The New Testament, consisting of books added after Jesus' death
- The four canonical GospelsFor the genre of Christian-themed music, see gospel music. Gospels are a genre of ancient literature concerning the life of Jesus. The word derives from the Old English word for " Good News", a translation of the Greek word , euangelion''. This refers to tell of Jesus's life and teachings. ( MatthewThe Gospel of Matthew is one of the four Gospels of the New Testament. The gospels are traditionally printed with Matthew first, followed in order by Mark, Luke and John. Synopsis The book is divided into four parts: # Containing the genealogy, the birth,, MarkThe Gospel of Mark is the second in the most usual sequence of printing of the New Testament Gospels. The commonly accepted range of dates for the text in its existing form are ca. AD 65, the traditional date for the death of Peter, to ca. AD 80, a termin, LukeThe Gospel of Luke is the third of the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament, which tell the story of Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection. Although the text does not name its author, the modern consensus follows the traditional view that th, John)
- The book of Acts, written by Luke, recounts the early history of the Christian movement.
- The Epistles are letters, mostly written by St. Paul, to the various Christian communities of his day. Much of their content is interpretation of the teachings of Jesus.
- The Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse, is a book of prophecy usually interpreted as regarding the Second Coming of Jesus.
Christians disagree on the contents of the Old Testament. The Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches and some Protestants recognize an additional set of Jewish writings, known as the deuterocanonical books. They are not accepted as canonical by the Jews (although some ancient Jews appear to have accepted them) and by most of the Protestants, who consider them to be apocryphal.
There are also a number of other early Christian writings some individual Christians regard as scripture, but which are not by and large regarded as such by the churches. These include the apocryphal gospels , such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.
(Division of the Old Testament for Christians? I've read Pentateuch / Histories / Psalms & Proverbs / Prophets as one set of divisions.)
