The Bible is the collection of writings that constitute the sacred Scriptures of Christianity. The word “Bible” comes from the Greek biblia, meaning “books,” reflecting the fact that the Bible is not a single work written by one author but a library of individual writings produced over many centuries. These writings differ considerably in genre, historical setting, language, and literary form, yet together they form the scriptural foundation of Christian belief and practice.^[1]

Christian Bibles are divided into two principal parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains the Scriptures inherited by Christianity from ancient Israel, including the Law, historical narratives, poetry and wisdom literature, and the writings of the prophets. The New Testament contains writings produced within the early Christian movement, including the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, apostolic letters, and the Book of Revelation.

The books of the Bible were written in different periods and circumstances rather than being produced as a single volume. The Old Testament was composed primarily in Hebrew, with portions in Aramaic, while the New Testament was written in Koine Greek.^[2] The authors and writers represented different historical settings and literary traditions. The biblical collection therefore preserves a range of voices and forms, including narrative, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, biography, correspondence, and apocalyptic literature.

The Bible as Christians possess it today is the result of a long process of composition, preservation, transmission, collection, and recognition of particular writings as authoritative Scripture. The individual books existed independently before being gathered into larger collections, and different Jewish and Christian communities did not always possess identical collections of scriptural books.^[3] This is why the study of the Bible requires attention not only to its contents, but also to the history of its canon and textual transmission.

The Old Testament is closely connected with the Hebrew Scriptures of Judaism, although the number, arrangement, and classification of its books differ between Jewish and Christian traditions. Christian traditions also differ among themselves in the number of books included in the Old Testament. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles therefore do not all contain exactly the same collection of Old Testament writings.^[4]

The New Testament contains twenty-seven books in the standard Christian canon. These include the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—the Acts of the Apostles, twenty-one epistles, and Revelation. Although these writings were composed within the early Christian period, they were not all written at the same time, nor were they originally circulated as one unified volume. Their recognition and eventual collection as the New Testament formed part of the wider historical development of the Christian canon.^[5]

For Christians, the Bible is Scripture: it is regarded as authoritative for faith, doctrine, worship, and Christian life. The precise understanding of how Scripture possesses this authority, however, differs among Christian traditions. Questions concerning divine inspiration, revelation, biblical inerrancy and infallibility, the relationship between Scripture and church tradition, and the proper interpretation of biblical texts have therefore played a major role in Christian theology.

The Bible must consequently be studied on several levels. It is a collection of religious writings, a body of ancient literature, a historical source for the study of Israel and early Christianity, and the central scriptural authority of Christianity. Understanding it fully requires examining not only what its books say, but also when and where they were written, their languages and literary forms, how their texts were transmitted, which writings became canonical, and how different Christian communities have interpreted them.