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	Bible is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones Date Process Result May 15, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted October 25, 2006 Articles for deletion Speedily kept October 29, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed
Current status: Former featured article candidate

The intro needs to be edited

The intro needs to make it clear that the bible is made up of mostly fiction. As it stands, an uncritical reader might get the impression that the contents of the bible are true and accurate descriptions of history, and that would be unfortunate. 46.162.76.182 (talk) 16:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'll ask the question, even though I think I'm just feeding a troll, but what parts are mostly fiction? And where are the sources to back this up?--JOJ 16:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not mean to offend people, and I do not just want to see people argue, but if by "troll" you mean "someone who raises a question that he know's is sensitive", then, yeah, guilty as charged, I guess. I'll also admit that I'm not very familiar with the Bible. But, any part where Jesus performs miracles or any part where God speaks to people or effects immediate changes in the world, is quite obviously not quite an accurate description of history, and I'm under the impression that at least some parts of the Bible focus on that sort of thing. 46.162.76.182 (talk) 17:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The intro does have its issues. Rather than addressing the fictional nature of much of the bible (as suggested above), I simply request that the intro be less repetitive. For example, the intro states that an alternative name for the bible is "holy bible" three times! This point only need to be made once; if at all. — fcsuper _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 23:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I personally think my intro makes distinctions that need to be made:

The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books"), known as the Holy Bible, is the English word that refers to the several similar compilations of books that most Jews and Christians believe to be sacred scripture. The Bible is the best-selling book in history with more than 6 billion copies published.. The Bible—composed of the Tanakh (also known as the Old Testament) and the New Testament—is the literary foundation of the religions of Judaism and Christianity, respectively. + The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books"), known as the Holy Bible, refers to several similar collections of sacred scripture related to Judaism and Christianity. The Bible is the best-selling book in history with more than 6 billion copies published. - There is no Bible that all Jews and Christians agree upon. This disagreement is because some different dominations hold different books and their respective arrangements to be God's Word. Mainstream Judaism divides the Tanakh into 24 books, while a minority stream of Judaism, the Samaritans, accepts only five—the Pentateuch. The 24 books of the Hebrew Bible are divided and rearranged into the 39 books of the Christian Old Testament, although the two texts, as a whole, remain the same. Complete Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to the 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

What do you think? --Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 21:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

How come now the article refers to the Bible as "the primary religious text" of Christianity and Judaism? It does not earn the status of "sacred text" or "holy book"? After all, it is listed in the Religious texts article, which defines these texts as "the texts which various religious traditions consider to be sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition. Many religions and spiritual movements believe that their sacred texts are divinely or supernaturally inspired." Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 04:39, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages does not proselytize. The article may express that certain groups consider their scripture sacred or holy, but it may not make such a categorization its own. That would be a violation of WP:RNPOV ♆ CUSH ♆ 09:36, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I also think that the introduction needs to mention Jesus as the centerpoint of the whole Bible. Although non-messianic Jews (and others) will disagree, a good argument can be made that the Bible is about Jesus. We could at least say that the OT makes reference to a future Messiah savior figure, and that Jesus best fulfills this in the NT. Afterall, He said it Himself ("I did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets , but to fulfill them" - Matthew 5:17), and all the NT is about Him. You probably won't agree, but let your thoughts be known. Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That idea would represent a strong and moot WP:POV, which is unacceptable for a Misplaced Pages article. If it is important to mention Jesus when talking about the New Testament, then that is the context to include that point. — fcsuper _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 22:45, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

What about at least saying something like, "Christians believe the entire Bible is about Jesus." Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 04:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Do they? All of them? Find a reliable source for that. ♆ CUSH ♆ 06:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The introduction needs to be changed so that it does state that the bible is the accumulation of texts that "convey the mythology of Judaism and Christianity". The word "mythology" needs to be deleted as implies that the events recorded are false stories of false people, comparable with the myths of Hercules, Zeus, the Trojan Horse, and others. The word "mythology" needs to be removed due to the overwhelming historical evidence for the majority of historical events and people recorded in the bible. Events like the Jewish nation's dwelling in Israel; The first and second temples; Kings like David, Solomon and others; the dividing of the Kingdom of Israel into the North (Israel) and the South (Judah); interaction between Israel and Cyrus The Great; the extremely overwhelming historical evidence for Jesus Christ and the fact that amongst leading biblical historians, the is essentially consensus of the historical existence of Jesus; evidence for the Apostle Paul and his missionary journeys, as well as other apostles like Peter, Andrew, John, and many others; and for the churches that were established in places like Colossae, Philippi, and others. As you can see, the user at the top of this section who wrote "The intro needs to make it clear that the bible is made up of mostly fiction." clearly has not done any research to make such a suggestion. While there are smaller events recorded in the bible that can't be proven by history, the vast majority of the main events can be undoubtedly proven in history, and therefore the bible is not mythology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamespbeasley (talk • contribs) 00:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Best selling book in history

This little factoid has been pushed by Christians for years. It is a sales pitch and it doesn't belong on Misplaced Pages. The sales of many different books were combined to arrive at this promotional figure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.54.236.121 (talk) 11:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be good to have a figure of how many copies of the bible are produced annually (even combining many versions and editions), so that it can be compared objectively with other literature. Cesiumfrog (talk) 06:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

This should not be referenced in the opening paragraph. Perhaps it can be stated later on as a claim made by the community. Without actual facts and figures, this cannot not be stated and linked, especially in its current place. 94.113.2.4 (talk) 22:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but after all these centuries, the Holy Bible is still in print. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.64.0.252 (talk) 20:46, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently the sources for the "best selling" claim are dubious. The first one is a book called The Oracles of God which uses a BusinessWeek article and this book as its sources for the publication numbers. The BuinessWeek article in turn refers to this article which has an unsourced claim for 2.5 billion copies. I was unable to check the sources for the 6 billion copies claim in the Top 10 book. Nevertheless, estimating a number for such book is almost impossible, as said already in the List_of_best-selling_books article. Pushing it is just silly. --piksi (talk) 23:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

It is unfair to say that these magazine articles proposing how many copies of the Bible have been produced are unsourced. After all, A Tale of Two Cities—the book listed as the best-seller is unsourced as well. The article with that figure merely says, "Charles Dickens’ second stab at a historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, has sold more than 200 million copies to date, making it the bestselling novel – in any genre – of all time." Where did the author get that figure? Same with any other book. That article reads, "Religious books, especially the Bible and the Qur'an, are probably the most-printed books, but it is nearly impossible to find reliable figures about them. Many copies of the Bible and the Qur'an are printed and given away free, instead of being sold. The same goes for some political books, like the works of Mao Zedong or Adolf Hitler. All such books have been excluded from this list for those reasons." Many other books "are printed and given away free, instead of being sold," so why target just the Bible and the Qur'an? --Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 01:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, the List_of_best-selling_books no longer lists the Bible (or Qur'an) due to the difficulty of finding reliable figures. But it does mention that either of those books are probably the most printed. Maybe stating that the Bible is one of the most printed books in history would better? Though I haven't looked for a resource for that. Paperfree (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The issue with "number of copies printed" is the same as "number of copies sold". There are too many organizations printing and then distributing Bibles, for anybody to hope to track that data accurately.Gideons International claims to have distributed 1,600,000,000 Bibles and New Testaments since 1908, or 70,000,000 per year.(http://www.gideons.org/AboutUs/WorldwideImpact.aspx) The Bible Society claims to distribute 25,000,000 Bibles per year. (http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society/what-we-do-around-the-world/making-the-bible-affordable/) Umpteen other organizations also give away Bibles. Their numbers may, or may not be included in the total for either Gideon's or Bible Society. Other organizations distribute Bibles for profit. Deduct the gratis distributors that purchased Bibles from those who sell it for a profit. This only addresses the issue of print copies. When audio, video, and electronic copies are factored in, data reliability is even more questionable.

Whilst it is a pretty safe bet that the Bible is the most printed, and most distributed book in history, once one eliminates self-reporting sites, reliable sources are going to be virtually non-existent.

If one wants to include things with reliable sources, that the Bible is at the top of the charts, then number of languages it has been translated into, is the category to select. (457 languages, with partial translation in another 1,211 languages, and ongoing work in another 1,500 languages:http://www.wycliffe.org/About/Statistics)(451 languages and ongoing work in another 2,028 languages:http://biblesociety.org.nz/global-news/scripture-now-in-2479-languages/)(2,527 languages, in whole or in part:http://www.unitedbiblesocieties.org/sample-page/)p (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The Bible into a single file

Hello, I report the existence of the Bible in a single digital file: http://www.lafeuilledolivier.com/Ecritures/KJV.htm. Is this feature worth being added to external links? 09:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I would say that it would be more appropriate to link to something such as Bible Gateway, which allows the Bible to be read in multiple versions and multiple languages, if we are to add anything of the sort at all. http://www.BibleGateway.com Preston A. Vickrey (humbly) (talk) 04:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Children's Bibles

In Germany, there are - since the Middle Ages - Children's Bibles (i.e. books that contain some excerpts from the Bible in easy language and with many illustrations) by many authors, illustrators and publishers. This is described in de:Kinderbibel. In the English Misplaced Pages I just find The Children's Bible Story Book. Is there really only this one? --84.184.14.141 (talk) 13:25, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

In this article, nothing more than a short mention is warranted. However, this concept fully warrants a separate article, whoch I believe should be started by translating the German article in its entirety. Please give me some time to check what I can do. -- Blanchardb -- timed 17:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"...whoch I believe should be started by..."

It is not what you believe. Misplaced Pages should only be organized and contributed by non-biased FACTS, not how people believe it should work/look/state. It should be runned by the NPOV rule. I understand your suggestion, but if the anonymous IP address "believes" that he/she should contribute to this article by adding more information, then that means that there is a conflict between you and he/she.

The best way to fix this conflict is:

• 1) The IP address should make a Misplaced Pages account to be trusted with his/her contributions
• 2) Have enough referances/sources to prove that the Children's Bibles in German should be/stay in this Misplaced Pages. Whether or not the article should be translated does not mean that he/she can contribute to the article about the Holy Bible, or
• 3) You prove that this information is not related enough to be in this article, and that
• 4) He/she creates or contribute to the article of "Children's Bibles " or any other title.

Thank you for understaning, I hope that this advice fixes the problem :D

序名三　「Jyonasan」 20:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Post Script: "whoch" is not a word in the American English dictionary, "I believe" it is a typo (mispelling), if you meant to write "which".

Jewish vs Christian views of Creation

There is an article on Creation according to the Book of Genesis that discusses creation. There is a suggestion now to rename it and give it a Biblical name that may overlap with the New Testamant. I think that will mix differing views, but not being an expert on all of the topics, I think clarifications on that will be helpful here: Talk:Creation_according_to_Genesis#Requested_move_.28as_a_way_to_resolve_every_reasonable_concern.29

Your comments will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think a clarifications should be given instead of rename it.--Myth&Truth (talk) 10:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

External Link

Does the link at the the bottom of the article actually have permission to post the NRSV online, or does it just claim to by posting a large amount of the Bible online in small increments? If it does not have permission, then it should be removed.--Frindro (talk) 03:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The site abides by the publisher's copyright, so I don't see that there is a problem. -- Blanchardb -- timed 06:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It does not seem like they do, in fact there seems to be three infringements on the copyright: (1) over 500 verses have been reproduced, (2) entire books of the Bible have been reproduced, and (3) as there is very little work accompanying the parts of the Bible, which appears to be in its entirety, on the website the reproduction of the NRSV accounts for over 50% of the work.--Frindro (talk) 04:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Stages towards canonization of the New Testament

A very good analysis of the canonization of the new testament appears here]. However I don't know how this information would best be integrated to the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Odinbolt (talk • contribs) 20:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

That site is a blog, and, as such, does not qualify as a reliable source unless it has been itself widely cited, which doesn't seem to be the case. However, it does contain adequate references, so the best way to go would be to usurp the site's references without violating its copyright on the synthesis. -- Blanchardb -- timed 05:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Can an external link be added for the Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project www.wycliffe.org/bppp this project seeks prayer for languages that don't have the Bible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluecheese1 (talk • contribs) 20:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC) Arabic Christian Magazine The Grace offering the Arabic Bible — Preceding unsigned comment added by النعمة (talk • contribs) 23:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

New Testament introduction

I find it more than a little odd that the New Testament section is introduced by a reference to an article (Frank Stagg) that reads more like a deification than an encyclopedia article. Also, the point-of-view seems to be that of a rather recently-formed denomination (Southern Baptist) and not reflective of historical Christianity as a whole. It makes the section seem to say that THIS is the ONE, single approach. It strikes me as an unbalanced and impoverished introduction to the subject of Christian scripture. Is there any way we can broaden this? The canon was determined nearing fifteen and a half centuries before this guy was born--is there any way we can broaden this, especially given that it is the introduction???? InFairness (talk) 05:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Without even looking at the article on Stagg, I'd say there was extreme POV in that statement, so the wholesale deletion of that passage was a plus for the article. Good job. -- Blanchardb -- timed 16:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Compromise vs. comprise

"The five books of the Torah compromise the legal code and origins of the Israelite nation." Shouldn't it say "comprise the legal code..." etc.? The page is locked so I couldn't edit it. 98.245.12.131 (talk) 20:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Good catch...looks like a vandal or maybe unintentional typo. Someone fixed it now. — fcsuper _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 20:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Stephenog, 17 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please change "The Hebrew Bible is comprised of the books" to "The Hebrew Bible comprises the books" as the first is grammatically incorrect. Stephenog (talk) 14:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done --Darkwind (talk) 16:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

likely broken link

I have been doing some online bible study from the Lineberrys site, however, I have been unable to connect for months now. I suggest you find a new link for the new revised standard version. 68.144.80.168 (talk) 20:59, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The Holy Bible

Bible (disambiguation) mentions The Holy Bible (album). Is The Holy Bible (album) noteworthy enough (I've never heard of the album) to receive its own mention here, whereas Bible (band) is not? —ron2 22:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, Manic Street Preachers are definitely more notable than Bible (band). · CUSH · 22:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Davidlandin, 18 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} I would like to suggest a link to your non-English translations page found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/Bible_translations_by_language

This link could go below the "English Translations" link in the right hand box.

David Landin (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)Dacid Landin

David Landin (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

 Not done: That's what the languages links on the left side of the page are for. 22:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request

"The Bible Jesus read was the Old Testament essentially as we know it today. Books which are largely overlooked or misunderstood by modern Christians, such as Job, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes, the prophets, etc., are books which Jesus spent time reading and used in some of his quotes."

as

"The Bible read during the time Jesus is believed to have existed would have been the Old Testament essentially as we know it today , including books such as Job, Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes."

No need to specify who "believed"; clear in context, and clunky to define "who" believe(d) this. "The prophets" is vague, the rest of the paragraph is implied by the former part, the "etc" is superfluous in the light of "such as/including". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.70.217.172 (talk) 15:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Can an External link be added to this page for The Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project (BPPP)(see http://www.wycliffe.org/bppp )? The BPPP program encourages prayer for languages that do not have the Bible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluecheese1 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

We don't know what was "the Bible" at the time of Jesus. There may have been no official list at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.207.42.7 (talk) 14:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, we do know what was holy text the Jewish people at the time of Jesus. That would be the Tanakh, which *roughly* corresponds to the Christian Old Testement. For more, see Wikipdeia's own article on the Tanakh: http://en.wikipedia.org/Tanakh

However, this discussion is moot as the text quoted above in the original edit request is no longer part of the article. Prtwhitley (talk) 04:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Plot section

I'm wondering if there shouldn't be a "plot" section to provide an overview of exactly what goes down in the Bible, as opposed to the development/significance/other stuff that occupies the article. If "plot" is considered offensive, maybe "overview" or something. I read the Bible a few years ago, but this article should really provide a legit plot summary here, rather than just covering all that in intense detail on dozens of sub-articles. Tezero (talk) 03:08, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, plot summaries are found in the articles about the particular books of the Bible. ≡ CUSH ≡ 08:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

What Cush said. The bible as such doesn't have a plot - some parts are history, many are not, and there are a lot of gaps. PiCo (talk) 12:23, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

You mean a time-line of Biblical history like Adam & Eve leave the garden, Methuselah born, Noah builds the Ark, Tower of Babel construction halted, Jacob gets a coat, et cetera? What about the events that we aren't sure about when they happened? Like perhaps event A occurred before event or perhaps it happened after it... Cross-referencing all Books to create an accurate outline of events would take too long and who's to decide which events are major and minor?

Plot of the Jewish bible (same as the Old Testament but with the books arranged differently - the Jewish bible ends with the Book of Chronicles): Creation-origin in and migration from Babylon-enslavement in and escape from Egypt-godly kingdom in Judah but God's grace withdrawn due to failure to worship Yahweh alone-enslavement in Babylon-restoration to a second godly kingdom in Judah ruled by priests and God (equals end of history).

Plot of the Christian bible (Old Testament same books as Jewish but end with the prophet Malachi): Creation-earthly kingdom under God's chosen, David (so far same as Jewish plot, but from this point it changes)-destruction of God's earthly kingdom due to sin (not the same sin as in the Jewish bible, which was failure to worship Yahweh; for Christians it's failure of faith rather than worship)-God sends his son, beginning of the earthly kingdom defined by faith-end of time with coming of the heavenly kingdom (i.e., the message of Revelations, which forms a counterpart to Genesis's creation myth).

Judaism is about God's election of a closed community (the Jews) and their salvation through worship; Christianity is about God's invitation to enter an open community (the Church) and salvation through faith. Neither is right or wrong, they're just two ways of constructing a narrative using many of the same books, but in a different order and with different interpretations.PiCo (talk) 05:03, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I would add that that even among Jews and Christians, there are other ways of telling "the plot." So I am against such a section if it is based just on a reading of the Bible - that would violate NPOV and NOR. If we had a section that drew on reliable secondary sources, especially literary critics who have written on the Bible, that would be acceptable. But the plot of any work of literature is always the product of interpretation. If you think the plot of Moby Dick is, a sailor joins the crew of a whaling ship, meets an obsessed captain, and disaste ensues, or that the plot of War and Peace is, first there is peace, then war, then peace again, then you must hav been sleeping during class! Slrubenstein | Talk 11:38, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I think a section outlining content is probably needed, since some readers may have no idea. It doesn't need to be detailed. Perhaps something like "The Old Testament outlines traditions of the creation of the world and the history of the Hebrew people from the settlement of Caanan to the Macabbean period of the 2nd Century BC. It also contains the divine law held to have been delivered by God through the prophet Moses along with a narrative of subsequent prophets and wisdom literature. The New testament documents the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and his followers in the 1st Century AD, along with theological discussions and prophetic works." Xandar 00:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This seems like one of the only core topics here on WP where it seems to assume that everyone knows a lot about it already. Tezero (talk) 18:24, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a small number (about 100) selected for the first week of the trial of the Misplaced Pages:Pending Changes system on the English language Misplaced Pages. All the articles listed at Misplaced Pages:Pending changes/Queue are considered for level 1 pending changes protection, unless stated otherwise.

The following request appears on that page:

Many of the articles were selected semi-automatically from a list of indefinitely semi-protected articles. Please confirm that the protection level appears to be still warranted, and consider unprotecting instead, before applying pending changes protection to the article.

However with only a few hours to go, comments have only been made on two of the pages.

Please update the page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC).

Introduction wordiness

In terms of content, the introduction is vastly improved since the last time I've seen this article (earlier last year?). At that time, the introduction had a somewhat evangelistic tone. It now as a much more neutral tone. However, my complaint now is that sentence structure and wordiness of the current introduction makes reading it somewhat difficult. To those who are editing this article right now, may I suggest collectively looking over the text of the introduction to apply some brevity? — fcsuper _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 19:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

In the introduction it says "The Christian Bible is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament, containing the 39 books of Hebrew Scripture," I believe this should be reworded to reflect that depending on which Bible is being used the number varies, but if this can not be done it would seem to be best to say that the number is 46 as that is the most common number —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.236.228 (talk) 07:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

please turn the word "sacred" in the first line into a link

In the first line, reading "The Bible refers to collections of sacred scripture ", the word "sacred" should be a link. sacred

God, maker of the world (talk) 07:33, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's really necessary; we don't want to overlink. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 03:44, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Instead shouldn't the words "sacred scripture" be replaced with "texts" to preserve NPOV? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.249.60 (talk) 08:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Bit confusing

Just browsing through this because I don't know much about it. All very interesting, but got to this sentence: "The New Testament refers to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures: the law, the prophets, and the writings" Which confused me. Retrospectively it does make sense; it's just that it can have two meanings. I read it as though the Hebrew Scriptures were called the New Testament. I suppose if you were already familiar with the subject matter it wouldn't matter soI don't know if this is important enough to change or not? Maybe something like: The New Testament makes reference to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures: the law, the prophets, and the writings —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.128.119 (talk) 14:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that's inaccurate. "Old Testament" wouldn't be accurate either, since the Old Testament is the collection of Hebrew scriptures, not the division thereof. Anyone has any idea what the author of this paragraph had in mind? -- Blanchardb -- timed 15:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I just tried a remedy. The mistake goes waaaaaay back in the history of the artice. It is sloppy writing: it is understandable to think that "refers" = 'signifies" but in this context, "refer" does not mean signifies or stands for, it means refers to in the colloquial sense like "I was talking to your sister the other day and she refered to your new car" - it doesn't mean "sister" = "new car." In this case, the point is that the authors of the NT were themselves familiar with the three-fold division of the Hebrew Bible, suggesting that by the time the NT was written, Jews had already canonized their Bible. "refer" = 'attests to" or something like that. Does this make sense? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

best-selling

The introduction goes to great length to explain that there is no single Bible, but that "a Bible" is any of the numerous existing compilations (not to mention translations). It then goes on to say that "The Bible" is the best-selling book in history. That's a bit crude, isn't it? You may as well claim that "AT 750ff is the most popular tale in history". --dab (𒁳) 08:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't understand your point. You're comparing a compilation with a list? -- Blanchardb -- timed 16:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

no. let me be more clear:

1. I am asking for a WP:RS to the effect that "The Bible is the best-selling book in history". So far we just have a bunch of web pages saying so
2. I am asking for a clarification as to which bible we mean by "the Bible". Does this include the Jewish Bible, or is this strictly the standard 66-book Christian bible?

If we can substantiate the claim that "the 66-book Christian Bible is the best-selling book of all time", this will actually be a meaningful statement. --dab (𒁳) 16:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"So far we just have a bunch of web pages saying so". Actually, the cited sources are Newsweek and Russell Ash. The simple fact that it is the "best-selling book" is probably true, but I do agree that it is an odd thing to say about the Bible, especially considering the number of organizations that give it away for free. In response to your second question, the List of best-selling books considers all versions of "The Bible", presumably Jewish and Christian alike, as one thing. If I'm not mistaken, the Christian Bible is basically a superset of the Jewish Bible, so it's not a horrendous mistake to lump them together. ...comments? ~BFizz 16:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The Businessweek item hardly counts, as it is an article about Harry Potter. They draw a 2.5 billion figure out of their sleeve in passing, with no reference (as likely as not the journalist just pulled that number off Misplaced Pages). But you are right that the Ash reference may be quotable, I think I missed that. The question is, what does it say? Does it just say "The Bible", and what does it base its estimate on?

Yes, if we are charitable, we can state that "those books of the bible which are common to all canons", presumably that's simply the Hebrew Bible, can be argued to be sold every time any sort of bible is being sold. The Bible is also a special case in the sense that the vast majority of copies sold are in translation. --dab (𒁳) 17:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The short answer to the question is that nobody knows how many copies of the Bible have sold, stolen, or given away. The long answer is (Outdenting, because it is easier to list source and numbers):

• http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-06-04/news/0706030703_1_religious-publishers-book-industry-study-group-bible-publisher claims 25 000 000 copies are sold annually. Whilst no explicit source is given, it quotes sources from both Zondervan and Thomas Nelson;
• http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=87554 claims 250 000 000 copies have been sold in the last ten years. It doesn't give a source;
• http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society/what-we-do-around-the-world/making-the-bible-affordable/ claims to distribute 25 000 000 copies a year;
• http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-the-bible/what-is-the-bible/what-is-the-bible-2/ claims 6 000 000 000 copies printed between 1816 and 1992;
• http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-the-bible/what-is-the-bible/what-is-the-bible-2/ claims 2.4 000 000 000 copies printed between 1816 & 1975 ; jonathon (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Unless specifically stated otherwise, Bible Society statistics always refer to the 66 Book Protestant Canon. I'd venture to guess that despite Catholic and Orthodox Christians outnumbering Protestant Christians by 3 to 1, more Bibles are purchased by Protestant Christians, than Orthodox and Catholic Christians combined.jonathon (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I propose to keep the current statement to the effect that "estimates range in the billions" is good enough and should be kept. Especially because a few billion copies is easily enough to substantiate the claim of "most copies sold, ever". --dab (𒁳) 14:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Quotations from Chairman Mao claims that between 5 billion and 6.5 billion copies of that book were printed under Chairman Mao's leadership. As such, I think it would appropriate to put the Bible Society number of 6 billion in this article, with a link to the source for that figure.) jonathon (talk) 16:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Generally, I would imagine that "best-selling" refers to the act of selling the book. Putting up an exact statistic for the total number of bibles printed is very different...since many of those were given away. True, somebody had to pay for them, but it's not the same buy-sell relationship that usually goes with the term "best-selling". I understand the desire to get the wikilink in here for "list of best-selling books" since The Bible is at the top of the list, but I repeat my sentiment that it is an odd thing to say about the Bible; perhaps we can move it out of the intro and into a subsection somewhere? ...comments? ~BFizz 00:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The Bible is unusual, in that people buy it for the sole purpose of giving it away. http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society/what-we-do-around-the-world/making-the-bible-affordable/ claims 25 million copies a year are distributed. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-06-04/news/0706030703_1_religious-publishers-book-industry-study-group-bible-publisher claims 25 million copies a year are sold. Are you looking at gratis distribution by Bible Societies and non-gratis distribution by commercial publishers, for a total of 50 million copies a year? Or are only 25 million copies a year distributed, with the commercial publishers and the Bible Society using the terminology they normally use when referring to their own operations?

Bible vs Christian Bible

I was trying to get some info on the various gospels of the Christian Bible, not to mention quoted text from different sources (i.e. different translations). It seems really odd that there is no separate article on the Christian Bible. Is there a reason for this? Dynasteria (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Given that the section Christian canons of the Bible covers pretty much everything that would be included in such an article, it is not necessary. -- Blanchardb -- timed 02:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Nothing is absolutely "necessary." The question is what is ideal or at least desirable under the rubric of an encyclopedia. Moreover, your comment doesn't address the decision not to give it a separate article. Or why the present article is supposed to address that need. Dynasteria (talk) 14:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe I've addressed the issue of why there's no separate article. It would be an unneeded duplication. See speedy deletion criterion A10. -- Blanchardb -- timed 16:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

There is New Testament, which is the article on the part of the Christian Bible that is in fact Christian (as opposed to pre-Christian). There is also Old Testament. I don't really see that creating another article would be useful. In fact, Biblical canon is already suspiciously redundant with this article. --dab (𒁳) 12:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The "Christian cannons of the Bible" section is large enough that splitting it into its own subarticle is not an unusual propsition. The purpose of splitting it out would be, of course, to shorten this article and only retain a summary style overview of the section in this article. I don't have strong feelings either way on the issue. ...comments? ~BFizz 17:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

You could delete that entire section, replacing it with a pointer to the existing article that it duplicates --- right down to the table. What I've forgotten, is what that article is called. :( jonathon (talk) 23:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's review here, wikipedians. There is a separate article for the Hebrew Bible, the Qu'ran, Hindu texts, Buddhist texts... So ALL the major religions of the world have a separate article for the textual basis of the religion, except Christianity, which also happens to be the "largest" religion in the world. What's the hidden agenda? Dynasteria (talk) 15:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

well, as I see it, Bible could be a disambiguation page, but that is hardly satisfactory. The problem is, there is on Hebrew Bible and one Qur'an, but almost as many Christian Bibles as there are Christian denominations. You can always expand the "Christian canons" section and {{split}} it into a main Christian canons of the Bible article, and have Christian Bible point there. This would not be controversial, I think, it's just a matter of somebody sitting down and doing the work. Also, the Christian Bible is simply Old Testament+New Testament. So there are already two articles dedicated to the two parts of the Christian Bible alone. You can also try making "Christian Bible" a disambiguation between the two, but there is hardly a point in just creating a redundant Christian Bible article which does nothing but copy information from Old Testament and New Testament.

The general idea of parallelism ("there is a Qur'an article, therefore there must be a Christian Bible article") is a terrible guide. --dab (𒁳) 17:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems the article missed the existence of the Christian biblical canons article. As it stands now, this article is vastly redundant and both the Christian and the Jewish sections should be trimmed to meet WP:SS. --dab (𒁳) 17:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

To answer Dynasteria's question, the explanation is pretty simple. Christians and non-Christians alike refer to the "Christian Bible" as simply "The Bible," with only Jews being expected to refer to something else. Given that the entire Jewish Bible is part of the Christian Bible, there's no need to separate them, really. -- Blanchardb -- timed 19:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

so you are saying that this is the Christian Bible article? That's not the case. This article is clearly divided in a "Jewish" and a "Christian" part (and not an "OT" vs. a "NT" part. You will also note that Hebrew Bible and Old Testament are two separate articles).

I have now pointed Christian Bible to the article that actually focuses on the Christian canons.

most of this article is content duplication anyhow. We seriously need to ask ourselves, what is the point of this article as it stands. --dab (𒁳) 20:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I would think that anyone who bothers to type "Christian" in the search box would indeed be looking for the contents of the Christian biblical canons article, so I support the redirect you made. As for the OT being "Jewish" as opposed to the "Christian" NT, perhaps a cleanup of the section titles is in order, given that the OT is considered authoritative in Christian circles. No article on the "Christian Bible" would be complete without a detailled discussion of the OT. -- Blanchardb -- timed 20:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood. I was saying that "OT" is Christian while it is Tanakh that is Jewish. --dab (𒁳) 12:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit to having gotten into this out of ignorance. Frankly, where I come from when people say "The Bible" they mean only one thing. Nor did I know that the word bible could refer to the text of any other religion. Thanks, all, for addressing this. Dynasteria (talk) 03:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

You still bring a point to the table. In every other context other than wikipedia, the word "Bible" has a roughly 95% chance of meaning "a modern translation of the Christian Bible". If for instance you google the word "Bible" how long would you have to look down the list to see an article that takes the meaning of the Tanakh. Even in virtually every dictionary the first definitaion reflects the same. Several issues I notice here are that the Tanakh seems to be given a closer treatment here and even has it's own main page. Seeing as how there are multiple definitions of "Bible", how do most articles deal with that? This article seems unique in it's attempt to mash the two definitions into one discussion when I don't think both perspectives are given proper treatment. It would be ideal for clarity's sake to have a "(Christian) Bible" page and a "Tanakh" page in my opinion, but I'm sure that won't happen. Not exactly what to propose as a solution. 0nonanon0 (talk) 23:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Authors of the Bible

I would appreciate it if anyone interested in the authorship of the Bible weighed in on the contents of this article. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

39 books

Someone wrote:

"The Hebrew Bible contains 24 books that were rearranged into 39 by Christian denominations."

Really? As the arrangement the 24 segments were scrolls rather than books and 39 book division predates modern Christian denominations this seems most unlikely! How about the Hebrew Bible contained 24 scrolls which were divided and re-aranged to make the modern 39 books at the time of the Reformation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.207.42.7 (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to improve this. --dab (𒁳) 11:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI "book" is the traditional translation of the Hebrew, sefer and the Hebrew Bible is traditionally diided into 24 books. I think this anonymous user is confused about the difference between a book and a codex. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Epistle to the Hebrews

Epistle to the Hebrews is not of Paul —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fra4481 (talk • contribs) 07:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 70.67.3.135, 26 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} An updated knowledge of the Old and New Testaments. They are also recognized as the Hebrew Scriptures(old Testament) and Christian Greek Scriptures(new testament). A more accurate description removing the idea that the old testament has the old laws and the new testament has new laws that veto the old ones. 70.67.3.135 (talk) 19:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 22:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Source about bible translation

I found a source about Biblical translations:

• Silver, Alexandra. "What the Bible Has to Say About Sex." TIME. Wednesday October 27, 2010. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:28, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

We have a Sex in the Bible article. It needs cleanup. Please take it there. --dab (𒁳) 08:22, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Authenticity of the bible

I think there should be an section that discusses the historical inaccuracies of the bible. 74.90.233.6 (talk) 18:44, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Could you say anything more specific than that, perhaps with some links to reliable sources? Dylan Flaherty (talk) 18:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

we already have plenty of such content, obviously not under the "Bible" title, but at the articles about the respective topics (all time favourites are Genesis creation narrative, Noah's flood, The Exodus, etc., take your pick). These aren't "historical inaccuracies" though, as the Torah doesn't pretend to be a work of historiography to begin with. The actual historical books of the Bible (Kings, Chronicles etc.) as far as I am aware are reasonably accurate, even if clearly propaganda written from the point of view of one faction. --dab (𒁳) 08:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

CE vs AD

Is there any consensus to which form to use on Misplaced Pages: Bible. There seem to be many back and forth changes that are happening across the pages within the Christianity/Bible series with regards to how we date things. While this is minor it would make sense to stop the editing war and use our time to have meaningful discussions on how to make meaningful edits. Policy states "Use either the BC–AD or the BCE–CE notation, but not both in the same article. AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).", I would recommend we choose one so that it can be done with. Not trying to open a can of worms, just trying to find consensus and create uniformity for the Bible series.Preston A. Vickrey (humbly) (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

In articles like these the lingstanding custom has been to use BC/AD when talking about the Christian Bible or Christianity, and BCE/CE when talking about the Jewish Bible/Judaism. It seems to be a stable compromise, that signals to our readers that there is no one single system. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:56, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

"Myth"

Pardon if this sounds like a perennial topic, but I was wondering if there was a way to fix the complete absence of the word "myth" from the article. Please mind, I am using myth in the sense of story or sacred narrative not as a binary switch for factual. I am under the impression that this is the majority scholarly view on how the term myth is properly used. With that understanding of myth, the Bible (both of them, really) is unambiguously full of them.--Tznkai (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the only way around this is to follow our policies closely - if a reliable source says that the Bible or parts of it are myths, then we quote that source.

I think the problem in the past has not only been the binary thinking you aver, but also editors trying to make a POINT about the whole Bible. The problem is, most Bible scholars do not write about the whole Bible, they write about books or parts of books, which are presumed to have been written by different people at different times. The way to handle the problem you bring up is by writing about it with nuance, but that can only be done with detail, and with hundreds of thousands of analysis and interpretation of "the Bible," no Wp article can do this well for the entire Bible.

I think the solution is to address this through much better articles on individual books of the Bible. There are thousands of pages written just on Genesis, and at least half a dozen books taking diferent critical positions on just this one book - one can write quite a bit just on the analysis of chapter 1 or chapter 2. I think it is in the context of such an article, that really goes into detail on the questions raised by different critical historians on a chapter, or one narative, within a book, that you will find reliable sources not just using the word myth but explaining how exactly the chapters operated as myth. Slrubenstein | Talk

If I understand your proposition correctly, Tznkai, you are proposing the addition of a section/paragraph that in essence states "The Bible is a collection of myths." While this may be technically true, unless accompanied by an explination of the scholarly meaning of the word (and, frankly, even if accompanied by such) the average reader is going to read "myth" with exactly the binary switch you mention. Other than to make the article contentious, what point would there be for such an inclusion? Prtwhitley (talk) 04:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The ensuing lulz. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.75.11.96 (talk) 20:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Bible Versions and Translations

In the 3rd paragraph, especially the sentence: "The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX)", is problematic. This sentence not factually correct, as evidenced by the lack of soucre citation for the claim. There were so many different versions of Christianity in the first 2-3 centuries AD that to state that there was ONE primary text for all Christians is simply nonfactual. In Jewish Christian groups, certainly, the Jewish holy texts continued to be used, but non-Jewish Christians differed on whether the Tanakh applied to them or not. Each Christian community had it's own holy texts. For some, a single copy of a Gospel (and not limited to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) was all they had. Others had letters from various leaders of the early church (some of these letters, most attributed to Paul, made their way into canon). Sources : The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament, and The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader by Bart D. Ehrman; The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels; A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong

In sum, this entire section needs reworking and specifically so that it is not misleading about the texts available to the early Christian communities. I'd be happy to write something, but it's not something I can do quickly (or work on right now), especially since I would want to review sources so that I can provide quotes and specific facts and not just a general summary. I do recognize that there is already a separate article on the development of the NT, but what is this section is not congruent with the information in the sep. article. Prtwhitley (talk) 05:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the intended meaning was just that the primary Old Testament text for Early Christians was LXX (as opposed to the Hebrew). But of course this holds only for the first and maybe second century. After that, we have the Peshitta and Vetus Latina versions. So perhaps it will be best to just lose the claim. Or make it refer to the apostles and their early congregations of the 1st century exclusively. --dab (𒁳) 08:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Islam

The lead opens by saying that the bible is a collection of sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity, but is there some reason why Islam is ommitted from this list? (See Islamic holy books.) This fact seems notable enough to warrant inclusion, since Islam is not some small cult but rather is the religion of nearly a quarter of all humankind and plays a major role in current world affairs. Cesiumfrog (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The fact is, when it comes to sacred books of Islam, the Quran comes to mind, not the Bible. I don't know how much importance Muslims attach to the Bible and to Bible reading, but in forums, whenever I see a Muslim quoting a holy scripture to make a point, it's always from the Quran. Anyone has anything else to say on this matter? -- Blanchardb -- timed 03:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

As I understand it, for all significantly large religions, some understanding of The Bible is held sacred in and of its own right, by Judaism and Christianity depending on what exactly you mean by bible. Other religions, such as the Ba'hai faith and Islam hold the bible sacred because Judiasm and/or Christianity hold it sacred. So, roughly, "The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books") is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity" is more correct than "The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books") is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity, Islam, Ba'hai faith, and certain other religions" but less correct than "The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books") is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity.... The Bible is also believed to be sacred by Ba'hai faith, and certain other religions"--Tznkai (talk) 03:35, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Seems fair. Islam is an offshoot from early Christianity after it was exported to the middle east ca. 700 AD if memory serves me right. 82.95.25.120 (talk) 12:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 112.202.45.97, 25 January 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} The oldest Jewish Bible is the Isaiah and it is in Hebrew. The oldest surviving manuscript of Isaiah was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls: dating from about a century before the time of Jesus, it is substantially identical with the Masoretic version which forms the basis of most modern English-language versions of the book.:pp.22-23 (Isaiah was the most popular prophet among the Dead Sea collection: 21 copies of the scroll were found in Qumran.)

112.202.45.97 (talk) 13:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. It's unclear what exactly you want us to do with the info. Furthermore, there are what look like reference numbers, but you didn't give us the actual reference. Is this copied from somewhere else? In any event, please state more specifically what you want changed in the article, and provide full reliable sources to support those changes. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Typo

In the section on New Testament, the bishop of Durham is N T "Wright" - not N T "Knight" --Steveames (talk) 21:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done--Tznkai (talk) 03:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Themerryman, 6 February 2011

The Bible {{edit semi-protected}} This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events are not real and are depicted with exaggerations. Themerryman (talk) 13:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Not going to happen by any standard. The Bible has many historical and factual truths, even if not everyone believes in the spiritual ones.--Jojhutton (talk) 13:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Logan _Talk 21:41, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you serious Jojhutton? There is nothing truthful about the bible at all. And my source is below:

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/false.html

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/proph/long.html

http://www.worldagesarchive.com/Reference_Links/False_Testament_(Harpers).htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6154787/It-Is-Easy-To-Prove-The-Bible-Is-False

http://www.illuminati-news.com/fraud-in-the-bible.htm

http://www.deism.com/bibleproblems.htm

Etc, etc, etc 74.216.44.7 (talk) 03:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

• We could look at those websites, of course, or we could stop feeding the trolls. Drmies (talk) 03:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Layout problems

I don't know about other browsers, but in IE there is a layout problem here: an ugly white space at the top of the page. It would be good to fix this, especially since it is such a high profile article. 86.179.112.201 (talk) 03:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Opening description of the Christian bible

Current article reads: "The Christian Bible (sometimes known as the Holy Bible) is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament, containing the 39 books of Hebrew Scripture, and the second portion is called the New Testament, containing a set of 27 books."

Since different sects of Christianity have different Old Testament cannons, it really shouldn't read "the 39 books of Hebrew scripture." --75.39.23.117 (talk) 00:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Definition of "Bible"

The current definition of the Bible, i.e., the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity, seems vague. Why do we need "various" twice in the same sentence? I vote that we change it to something like that in the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, which says, "Bible, the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament, with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions of the Old Testament being slightly larger because of their acceptance of certain books and parts of books considered apocryphal by Protestants. The Jewish Bible includes only the books known to Christians as the Old Testament. The arrangements of the Jewish and Christian canons differ considerably. The Protestant and Roman Catholic arrangements more nearly match one another..." It is much simple, I think. Joshuajohnson555 (talk) 01:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Ahh, the virtues of not writing by committee. I agree this is better written (although I think "Hebrew Bible" is used more than "Jewish Bible"). So the problem now is we cannot plagiarize. But if you think you can improve the intro, go ahead! Slrubenstein | Talk 17:27, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Article Survey

To anyone who's interested in keeping things current on the page Talk:Bible/Article_survey, The article Torah redactor no longer exists. The information it contained has been merged to Documentary hypothesis. Specifically this section. 134.29.231.11 (talk) 21:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 27 March 2011

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Some Jackass put The Bible (from Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books"), sometimes referred to as the Holy Bible, is the various collections of sacred scripture of the various branches of Judaism and Christianity. It is A FAIRY TALE. The Bible, in its various editions, is the best-selling book in history.

i mean really no one noticed? someone fix it and take it out the immaturity of some people is amazing. Duranu (talk) 07:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting it, and registering an account to inform us. That edit survived an hour an a half. John Vandenberg 07:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, even if it was spotted, there was no need to remove a statement of acceptable accuracy for which surely numerous reliable sources could have been referenced. ♆ CUSH ♆ 19:30, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Opening Paragraph was lacking

The word 'various' was used 3 times in the first 2 sentences. It seemed unnecessarily wordy. Also added 6+ billion copies fact, as I think it's important to know the scope of how popular the book is. Could also say published in 2,000+ languages. Here's one of the many fact pages where info can be found: http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/King-James-Bible-Anniversary/ Hope that helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam00 (talk • contribs) 07:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikilink from this article REDIRECT to new article

For anyone with their settings "watching" this article, and therefore the Talk Page, they may wish to be aware of the discussion on Talk:canonical gospels. That wikilink, which is linked from this article, used to REDIRECT from this article to Gospel#Canonical gospels but now REDIRECTs to new article written over the REDIRECT by a single editor. The new article appears to have several issues including:

• 1. Misplaced Pages:Content forking (which qualifies among Misplaced Pages:Deletion_policy#Reasons_for_deletion)
• 2. to be counter to two of Misplaced Pages's "three core policies", namely (A) Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, (B) Misplaced Pages:No original research.
• 3. to actually be 30% duplicate of material at Gospel#Canonical gospels and 70% about the noncanonical gospels

There is discussion at Talk:canonical gospels of how to proceed and whether to restore the REDIRECT as follows:

• canonical gospels as original REDIRECT to Gospel#Canonical gospels
• noncanonical gospels REDIRECTS to New Testament apocrypha
• apocryphal gospels REDIRECTS to New Testament apocrypha

In ictu oculi (talk) 20:01, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

"Holy Bible"

I have a quibble with the opening sentence, "The Bible , often called the Holy Bible in English-speaking regions ".

This seems to imply that the name "Bible" is common to many languages, while "Holy Bible" is a preferred general-purpose term in English. Neither of these things is true. In most (all?) other languages the word is not "Bible", while amongst English speakers it is only called the "Holy Bible" by Christians or sympathetic people going out of their way to accord it respect. Most ordinary non-Christian or disinterested English speakers would never call it the "Holy Bible". 86.181.204.160 (talk) 01:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Bible is in almost all languages called "bible" or anything else derived from either the sound of the greek "biblia" (books) or the word's meaning (scripture).

The "Holy" thing is derived from the way the KJV has been published with the title "Holy Bible". That says nothing about the work or the book being sacred in any way. In fact it is rather not (just read it). ♆ CUSH ♆ 07:48, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The anon IP is right, of course the word "bible" is used only in English-speaking countries!PiCo (talk) 11:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I never claimed that the word in many languages is not similar to "Bible" or derived from the same source, I said it is not "Bible". If the statement about "Holy Bible" is meant to be explaining that the words "Holy Bible" are often printed on the cover, then that needs to be clarified. At the moment, it reads, as I explained, as if "Holy Bible" is a general-purpose preferred English-language term, which is not the case. Perhaps "called" could be changed to "titled"? 86.179.115.141 (talk) 11:42, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the reference to "Holy Bible" should be dropped altogether, because the article is about the Bible as the literary or theological work, and not about in what format or with which title it has been published (although a section for that would be ok). ♆ CUSH ♆ 12:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe the expression Holy Bible should be found in the opening paragraph, but perhaps there should be a mention of it somewhere in the article. A few years ago, there was an edit war between the regulars who almost unanimously wanted the word Holy dropped and IPs with few or no other edits who performed a drive-by addition of said word. To put an end to that nonsense, I had inserted a comment to the effect that the word Holy wasn't welcome, but my comment had somehow disappeared during my wikibreak, so I've just put it back in. -- Blanchardb -- timed 14:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I have heard people (probably Christians) in Spanish-speaking countries call the Bible "Santa Biblia." Since Bible (or Biblia) just means "book" I understand why people would call it "the holy book" to distinguish it from all those other books. Of course, simply calling it "the book" or "the Bible" serves the exact same function of singling this particular book out from among other books. My point is that one could just as accurately write, "The Tanakh, often called 'the Bible,'" or "The Old and new Testaments, often called 'the Bible.' "I do think it is silly to say "often called the Holy Bible in English-Speaking regions." Slrubenstein | Talk 14:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Heavens opening, seeing God

I'D LIKE SOMEONE TO HELP ME KNOW ..FROM THE BIBLE, HOW MANY TIMES DO WE SEE THE HEAVEN OPENING AND GOD SEEN/ AND WHO ARE THE PEOPLE WHO SEE HIM? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.202.214.228 (talk) 14:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Made this into a new section because it's not connected with the previous thread.

Answer: An awful lot.

Sensible answer: I doubt anyone has ever bothered to count. But it's interesting that God gets scarcer and scarcer as the bible goes on. In Genesis he's forever chatting with humans - Adam and Eve, Abraham, Jacob. Then in the next four books only Moses sees him. After that, a few prophets get to hear him but not see him. Then in the NT it goes back and starts over again - Jesus=God and people of the time can see him every day, then Paul sees him, and then nobody else till Revelation. PiCo (talk) 00:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Section heading rename

I renamed the section titled "Development". I understand some people might be upset with that. My concern was that an average lay person looking for information on the history of the book itself, how it was put together from many separate disparate texts and why, won't easily find the three separate pages for that on wikipedia. Hopefully this made it easier. I also re-purposed a redirect of History of Bible to this section as opposed to the much more "Biblical events in history"-ish page The Bible and history. By no means is this a perfect solution, but let's not make[REDACTED] strictly for very knowledgeable academics who know to search for "development of" instead of "history of" bible. The average person will likely type in "origin of bible" or "history of bible" instead of "development of new testament canon". Feel free to improve on the section heading, maybe scrap the "/" or something, just get the word 'history' in there and make it clear it's about the origins of the book itself, not about things depicted in the book. Pär Larsson (talk) 19:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Kabbalah is not part of the Oral Law

The section on "The Oral Torah" contains the following statement: "The Oral Torah has different facets, principally Halacha (laws), the Aggadah (stories), and the Kabbalah (esoteric knowledge)." This statement is false. While the term "Kabbalah" has several meanings - it can, for example, mean "received knowledge" in a very broad sense, so broad as to include the Chumash itself - it specifically refers to the eponymous mystical tradition that evolved hundreds of years after the Oral Torah had been written down. In the quoted statement, the word "Kabbalah" links to a page which describes precisely this mystical tradition. Also, the section on "Torah" contains the following statement: "These commandments provide the basis for Halakha (Jewish religious law)." This statement is inaccurate. It would be more accurate to state that the Torah and the Oral Law (the Written Torah and Oral Torah) together provide the bass for Halakha. 194.90.167.111 (talk) 21:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Dr. Daniel Rohrlich (rohrlich@bgu.ac.il)

I see your point. And welcome your contributions to Misplaced Pages. Therefore I urge you to consult our core content policies WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V. I hope after reading them carefully you will still want to contribute to Misplaced Pages. You can pretty much make any edit that does not violate these policies without worry that someone else will delete them.

However, I should warn you that you cannot delete the views you single out as problematic. According to some, important Kabbalistic texts are part of the Talmud and thus part of the Oral Law. Many of our Judaism articles (like many of our articles on other religions) suffer from the fact that in some cases there are strong disagreements between Orthodox (or fundamentalist) editors and those who favor critical scholarship ... and sometimes between religious and atheist editors. Our NPOV policy is meant to provide a framework for including all significant views. NOR makes sure that we never put in our own views, and V makes sure that the views that we DO put in come from reliable sources. But the inevitable consequence is that our best articles include multiple, conflicting views, and often views we believe (know) to be wrong.

If why I have wrote does not make sense, I ask that you bear it in mind and just read the three core policies and see if it then makes sense. Then, please consider actually editing. (But, be aware of HTML formatting rules that govern these pages ... you do NOT need to be a computer wiz to edit, you just need to learn some basic tricks like, you have to use combinations of text (like the colon) to achieve formatting, not the tab key or multiple spaces for indenting, Slrubenstein | Talk 18:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Input requested

Regarding the overlength of the Textual criticism article, time to break out the subsections? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Factual error in introduction, re: the Samaritans

There is a problem with the claim that the Samaritans are "a minority stream of Judaism." The fact of the matter is that they are not. Though being very very closely related to the Jews, they are distinct ethnic and social group, a fact accurately represented in the article on the Samaritans. The conflation of the Jews and Samaritans is rooted not in the most up-to-date research, but in antiquated research from at least 70 years ago when there was a shift in understanding who and what the Samaritans are.

64.215.241.197 (talk) 13:39, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 777Truth, 27 August 2011

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

In the first sentence for the description of the "Bible", it is stated that the Christian Bible is mythology. I find this extremely offensive, as I'm sure Christians who read this will agree. This statement that the Bible is mythology is not a fact, it is an opinion. I feel very strongly that the word "mythology" should be stricken as this is not a neutral or unbiased point of view.777Truth (talk) 08:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC) 777Truth (talk) 08:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

A mythology is a collection of (sacred) stories about the divine and its interactions in the world. There are Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Hindu mythologies and many more. The Bible represents a mythology just as other texts do. WP is not here to give special treatment to one religion (extinct or present) over others.

BTW, playing the "I'm offended" card is the default reaction of a fundamentalist. WP does not endorse fundamenatlism of any kind. ♆ CUSH ♆ 09:24, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

then wikilink the word 'mythology' to explain it: "In a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story". Would 777 object to the Bible being described as a collection of traditional stories? I recognise that the word 'myth' could imply that it is all just a fairy tale. - Lugnad (talk) 10:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I of course agree with Cush and Lugnad. Still, I would feel a whole lot more comfortable about this if The Federalist Papers were identified as an important part of American mythology or La Marseillaise as a key text in French mythology. Myths as Malinowski pointed out function as "charters." The key point is not that the myth is a story, although it usually is, but that it has a certain function - in this sense we could even suggest that the US constitution is a myth. Now, try to add this to one of these articles about so-called modern societies and see how editors respond. My point: I am not sure WP is truly consistent about this point. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The lead sentence would be fine just saying that the bible is the primary religious text of those major religions. Adding the subphrase "that convey the mythology" is not necessary in introducing this topic. Rather than argue over some esotericly understood meaning of myth, why not drop those four words from the lead and instead focus on a section of the article about the truth and otherwise of the texts (and explaining their mythological significance, as understood by independent scholars)? Cesiumfrog (talk) 01:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

_{Marking as answered for discussion. --Jnorton7558 (talk) 03:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)}

Actually, I am no longer so sure I agree with Cush and Lugnad - especially if we add the subphrase and do not, as Cesiumfrog puts it, introduce the topic. The term "mythology" comes from comparative religion, and it makes sense to use it if we are comparing (comparing the Jewish mythology to the Christian to the Newtonian). If we are not putting these stories in a comparatrive framework, then we are not really looking at them as myths. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, of course there should be a section that compares the biblical stories with other stories from the ANE, and that demonstrates how other (older) myths were incorporated into the biblical mythology and how the personas of other deities were merged into the modern biblical deity. This article must of course deal with the literary contents of the texts contained in the Bible. ♆ CUSH ♆ 18:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

What should that section be named? Cesiumfrog (talk) 03:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Good question. Maybe "Narrative influences from other traditions" or so ... ♆ CUSH ♆ 12:02, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request - possible vandalism in section Biblical Criticism

I would like to request deletion of the second paragraph in the section Biblical Criticism and it associated references. It may be vandalism. It does not seem to add anything necessary to the article and the references seem to be bogus (not reliable - Portuguese language blogs?) i.e., please delete "Roger Bacon proved in 1251 ... fruit Adam and Eve would have bitten.." and the associated references 25 - 29. Also, please check Reference 24: it does not look like a reliable reference either. If it is intended to be serious, there must surely be a reliable English language source? HIXIH (talk) 00:57, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

This is not an area in which I usually edit. However you are correct. These references are most inappropriate. The references cannot stand. Without them the paragraph cannot stand. The next paragraph also lacks references. Nonetheless there needs to be some coverage of translation errors and critics such as Spinoza. So, delete para 2, as requested and seek refs for the 'higher criticism' paragraph - Lugnad (talk) 01:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Lugnad, thanks for checking and making the changes.

I am not an expert in the subject matter, but as you have drawn my attention to the rest of the section I tried to find references. I could not find the specific material from Hobbes, but did find something for Spinoza. There is perhaps more to be said about translation errors, but for the moment I would like to propose the following changes to the section Biblical criticism:

Delete the last clause of the first paragraph, i.e., delete "or the observation that the bible may have translation errors" and the associated reference 24. The motivation for the deletion is that investigation of Bible translation errors seems in fact to be part of the field of 'Biblical criticism', 'not of criticism of the Bible'. It also seems to me that reference 24 may make interesting reading but does not qualify as a reliable source, and is limited to a specific example (the NIV).

I have also drafted a replacement for the paragraph under the sub-heading "Higher criticism". The references and links are not formatted (I still need to learn how to do it), but in the meantime I would like to seek opinion whether the proposed replacement is more satisfactory than what is there now. Given that the sub-section is short and fairly described by the section heading (Biblical criticism) I think that said sub-heading (Higher criticism) is probably superfluous.

Paragraphs to replace the paragraph "In the 17th century... acceptance amongst scholars.":

Higher criticism deals with the matters of who wrote the texts and the integrity of the texts . Lower criticism, also known textual criticism, is the study of the various copies of the biblical documents in their original languages for the purpose of arriving at a version that closely approximates the wording used by the original author. .

Until the 18th century the Christian church accepted the view that the Pentateuch (Torah) had been written by Moses, a historical figure from the 5th century BCE. In 1670 CE, Spinoza argued that Moses could not have written the Torah, based on evidence he took from the text itself. He attributed it instead to the priest Ezra . In the 19th century German theologians Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen formulated a documentary hypothesis that posits that the Torah was written by a variety of authors over a period of several centuries. .

HIXIH (talk) 04:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Spinoza is widely viewed by critical Bible scholars as one of the fathers of critical scholarship. Within traditional Judaism, Ibn Ezra is frequently cited as a scholar who recognized the evidence Biblical critics would later use, without sharing their conclusions. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

HIXIH, you should consider making this change yourself. That the the whole idea of wikipedia. It is good that you have identified suitable references. So make that change. It would be preferable if you used the drop-down in the edit box to format your references. I know that I could make this change for you - and in my opinion that change would improve the article. However If I were to change it then I would feel obliged to check those references for myself. A final minor point, most articles use Bc/AD while some use the CE/BCE. An article should be consistent within itself. This one uses BC/AD. If you need further guidance then I'm sure that SlRubenstein - or others who edit here - would advise you. Nonetheless do feel free to contact me. Regards Lugnad (talk) 22:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Articles that are on both Jewish and Christian topics are often not internally consistent. We use BC/AD for the Christian parts and CE/BCE for the Jewish parts. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

How confusing for your readers - 'bye Lugnad (talk) 17:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the guidance and encouragement, Lugnad & Slrubenstein. I will prepare the change properly and either make a fresh Edit Request, or if I accumulate sufficient edits elsewhere on Misplaced Pages to allow me to edit a protected article, I'll go ahead and just make the changes direct. - HIXIH (talk) 11:23, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The Bible's Claim to be God's Word in the Lead

Hi everyone, I believe this is right for the Bible to be quoted in its own article with sources about a major characteristic about it: that it is God's Word. Please let it stand even if you don't believe. God bless you. WalkerThrough (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

No. We have been down this road too many times. You are conducting OR and SYN and you have no RS. The Bible is not a reliable source for many reasons, and especially not for claims made in itself. The Bible cannot "speak for itself". We will not discuss this all over again and we will not allow religious fundamentalism mess up articles on this encyclopedia. If you do not stop this kind of editing I will take this matter to ANI. ♆ CUSH ♆ 20:35, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The Bible is all true and is as reliable a source as any in the world, even though you are not a believer. This is my Holy Book, not yours, so please don't bring unbelieving bias against it. You are covering up what the Bible says in its own article, please stop, please. I do have RS, which apparently you didn't check, otherwise you wouldn't accuse me of OR. Now there are three sources, so please don't delete sources. This is the Bible's page, and I am a believer in the Bible. May God bless you. I suggest that you read the Bible more (KJV recommended). WalkerThrough (talk) 20:47, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Both of you are at or over 3RR so you need to stop editing now and work this out. WalkerThrough, you don't have consensus to move that material from the section where it was originally, and as you don't, you shouldn't do it without consensus. Including me, three editors have reverted you. And don't bring editors' religious beliefs into this discussion. Dougweller (talk) 20:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Doug, thanks for your help. I was the original author of that material and I put it in the lead where I think it should go. One other editor reverted someone who reverted me. Is there not freedom of religion in Misplaced Pages? Why do editors have to keep quiet about their religious beliefs? Faith in the Bible is very related to the discussion and page. Thanks again Doug, and I hope Cush and I can work this out. WalkerThrough (talk) 21:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

• • Hi everyone, could we have some other people's input? Does anyone else think it is appropriate to put the statement about the Bible affirming itself as the Word of God with a Bible verse in the lead? Before someone reverted my last edit, I had 3 sources to back up that claim with the clear and relevant verse from God's Holy Word. I would appreciate some help by my brothers and sisters in Christ. Cush is a nonbeliever who doesn't want religion on the planet, clearly showing his bias against the Bible. (Seems like Doug is his acquaintance, because Cush asked him personally for help against my edits after Cush said he couldn't revert me anymore.WalkerThrough (talk) 21:22, 23 September 2011 (UTC)) Someone please help. WalkerThrough (talk) 21:19, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree it belongs in the lead, if anywhere. Misplaced Pages doesn't favor any religion over another. OhNoitsJamie 21:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

This isn't about favoring a religion, it's about quoting from the Book Itself. This is the Bible's article. How can anyone not allow a quote from the Book on what It primarily claims to be (i.e. God's Holy Word)?? Anyone else besides OhNoJamie?? WalkerThrough (talk) 22:11, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the history of Bible, I see four other editors disputing your changes as original research (in addition to my opinion expressed here). You're planning to keep asking the question over and over again until someone says what you want to hear? See WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. OhNoitsJamie 22:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jamie, just because some people don't like my edits, doesn't mean there aren't some people out there who agree with me. Only the revertors are seen, those who may agree could be staying silent. I'm asking for discussion. I hope that's ok with you. Not only that, before Doug changed everything I had 3 sources backing up the claim that the Bible is the Word of God. Two of those specifically addressing the verse "All scripture is given by inspiration of God," meaning God's Word. True they called it OR to smear it (they also apparently didn't look to see if there were sources, because Cush was still saying there were no RS after I added one.) Are there any believers in WP who want to help me out here?? I hope WP doesn't have a rule that forbids believers to edit. I am strongly sensing religious discrimination by Administrator nonbelievers including Dougweller, JamesBWatson, and OhNoitsJamie. WalkerThrough (talk) 22:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

1. http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-the-bible/what-is-the-bible/what-is-the-bible-2/
2. ^ Ash, Russell (2001). Top 10 of Everything 2002. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0789480433, 9780789480439. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) See also Google Link
3. http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-the-bible/what-is-the-bible/what-is-the-bible-2/
4. "The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church". Ethiopianorthodox.org. Retrieved 2010-11-19.
5. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/which

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