Bible. τὰ βίϐλία , plural of βιβλιον, book; that is to say, the writings or Book par excellence . See Scripture. This is the name that Christians give to the collection of sacred books, written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is generally divided into two parts; to wit, the Old and the New Testaments. We call books of the Old Testament those that were written before the birth of Jesus Christ, which contain, besides the law and the history of the Jews, the predictions of prophets concerning the Messiah, and various books or treatises on morality. The New Testament contains books written after the death of Jesus Christ by his apostles or his disciples.

Following the decision of the Council of Trent, sess. 4, the books of the Old Testament are the Pentateuch, which includes the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), then come the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the four books of the Kings, two of Paralipomenon [Chronicles], the First and the Second Esdras, those of Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job; the Psalter of David containing one hundred fifty psalms; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the Canticle of Canticles, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Baruch; Ezekiel, Daniel, the twelve minor Prophets, and the two books of the Maccabees: that makes a total of forty-five books.

The New Testament contains twenty-seven books, which are the Four Gospels, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the fourteen epistles of St. Paul, the epistle of St. James, the two epistles of St. Peter, the three epistles of St. John, the epistle of St. Jude, and the Apocalypse. Such is the current canon or catalogue of Scripture accepted in the Catholic Church, but which is not admitted by all the sects or societies that have separated from it. See Canon [Canon, Canon (Theology), Canon (Ecclesiastical History)].

With respect to the Old Testament, a great number of the books that it contains have been accepted as sacred and canonical by the Jews and by all the ancient Christians: but there are also some that the Jews have not recognized and which the first Christians have not always accepted as canonical, but which since have been placed by the Church within the canon of sacred Books. These last are the books of Tobit, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the two books of the Maccabees: some people have even doubted the authenticity of the books of Baruch and Esther. All these books were written in the Hebrew language, with the exception of those that the Jews do not recognize at all. The ancient characters [alphabet] were Samaritan: but after the captivity the new Chaldean characters were used. They were translated several times into Greek; the oldest and most authentic version is that of the Septuagint, which even the apostles themselves used See Septuagint and Version.

Although most of the books of the New Testament have also been accepted as canonical since the earliest times of the Church, still the authenticity of some of them has been doubted, like the epistle to the Hebrews, that of St. Jude, the second of St. Peter, the second and the third of St. John, and the Apocalypse. All the books of the New Testament were written in Greek, with the exception of the Gospel of St. Matthew and the epistle to the Hebrews, which are believed to have been originally written in Hebrew. This is the opinion of St. Jerome, against whom some modern critics have maintained that the whole New Testament was written in Syriac: but this opinion is also without proof or plausibility.

Copies of the Bible have multiplied extremely, either in relation to the original texts, or in relation to the versions made of it in most dead or living languages, this division being the most suitable for giving a clear idea to the reader. Thus one distinguishes among Bibles according to the language in which they are written—into Hebraic, Greek, Latin, Chaldean, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, Armenian, Persian, Moscovite, etc. —and those that are in common tongues: we are going to treat each in order and separately.

The Hebraic Bibles are either manuscript or printed. The best manuscript Bibles are those that were copied by the Jews of Spain; those that were done by the Jews of Germany being less exact, although more numerous. It is easy to distinguish them at a glance. The former are in beautiful, regular characters, like the Hebraic Bibles of Bomberg, Etienne, and Plantin. Others in similar characters are those of Munster and Gryphe. M. Simon observes that the most ancient Hebraic Bibles are not more than 600 or 700 years old. The Rabbi Menahem, who printed some works in Venice in 1618 on the Hebraic Bibles , cites a great number of them, however, of which the antiquity (counting back from his time) already went back beyond 600 years. One finds several of these manuscript Bibles in the King's library, in that of the Jesuits of Paris, and and that of the Fathers of the Oratory of the rue Saint Honoré.

The most ancient printed Hebraic Bibles are those that were published by the Jews of Italy, especially those of Pesaro and Brescia. The Jews of Portugal had begun to print some parts of the Bible in Lisbon before they were chased out of this kingdom. One notices in general that the best Hebraic Bibles are those that were printed under the eyes of the Jews themselves, so careful to observe even periods and commas that it is impossible for them to be surpassed in exactitude. At the beginning of the XVI century, Daniel Bomberg printed several Hebraic Bibles in folio and in quarto in Venice, of which a few are very esteemed by Jews and Christians. The first was printed in 1517: it bears the name of its publisher, Felix Pratenni and is the less exact. The second is from 1526; to it has been joined the periods of the Massoretes, the commentaries of various rabbis, and a Hebrew preface by Rabbi Jacob Benchahim. In 1548, the same Bomberg printed the Bible in - fol. of this latter rabbi; it is the best and the most perfect of all: it is distinguished from the first Bible of the same publisher in that it contains the commentary of Rabbi D. Kimchi on the chronicles, which is in no other. Based on this edition, [Johannes] Buxtorf the elder printed in Basel in 1618 his Bible Hébraïque des Rabbins : but he slipped in several mistakes, especially in the rabbis' commentaries, for Buxtorf altered a rather large number of their passages that were little favorable to the Christians. The same year appeared in Venice a new edition of the Rabbinic Bible of Léon of Modena, rabbi of this city, who claimed to have corrected a great number of mistakes disseminated in the first edition. But although this Bible is much inferior both in the paper and in the characters to other Bibles of Venice, it passed through the hands of the Inquisitors, who did not leave it in its entirety, with regard to the commentaries of the Rabbis.

The Hebraic Bible of R. Etienne is esteemed for the beauty of the characters, but it is too unfaithful. Plantin has also printed in Anvers various very beautiful Hebraic Bibles , of which the best is that of 1566 in - 4° . Manasseh Ben Israel, a Portugese Jewish scholar, did in Amsterdam two editions of the Bible in Hebrew, one in - 4° . and the other in - 8° . The first was in two columns and thereby the most convenient for the reader. In 1634, Rabbi Jacob Lombroso published in Venice a new edition in - 4°. with small literal notes at the bottom of the pages, where Hebrew words are explained by Spanish words. This Bible is esteemed by the Jews of Constantinople. Noted in the text by a small star are the places where one should read the point camés by a camés hatouph , that is to say, by an o and not by an a . Of all the editions of Hebraïc Bibles in - 8°, the most beautiful and the most correct are those of Joseph Athias, Jew of Amsterdam; the first of 1661, preferable for its paper; the other of 1667, more faithful; but Vander Hoogt published one in 1705 that is still better than either of the former.

After Athias, three Protestants who knew Hebrew endeavored to review and to make a Hebraïc Bible . These three authors were Claudius, Jablonski, and Opitius. The edition of Claudius was published in Frankfort in 1677, in - 4°. One finds at the bottom of the pages various lessons from the first editions, but the author does not seem experienced enough in the manner of accentuating, especially in the books of poetry; and in addition this edition was not supervised by him and is filled with mistakes. That of Jablonski appeared in Berlin, in - 4° in 1699. The printing was very clear, and the characters are very beautiful, but although the author claimed to have used the editions of Athias and of Claudius, several critics still found his too much resembling that of the edition in - 4°. of Bomberg as to suspect him of having followed it perhaps in overly servile fashion. That of Opitius was also printed in - 4°. in Keil in 1709, but the beauty of the paper does not match that of the characters; moreover the editor used only German manuscripts, overly neglecting those that are in France, a fault he had in common with Claudius and Jablonski. These Bibles still have this advantage, that apart from the divisions, either general or particuliar, into Paraskes and Pemkim , according to the manner of the Jews, they also have the divisions into chapters and into verses, following the method of the Christians, as well as the keri - ketib , or different ways of reading, and the summaries in Latin; which makes them very useful for Latin editions and Concordances. The small Bible in - 16° by Robert Etienne is very esteemed for the beauty of the characters: one must observe that there is another edition of it in Geneva that is comparable, except that the impression of it is poor and the text less correct. One might add to this catalogue some other Hebraïc Bibles without periods in - 8° and in - 24, very esteemed by the Jews, not because they are more exact but because the smallness of the volumes makes them more handy in their synagogues and in their schools. There are two editions of this sort, one by Plantin in - 8° in two columns, and the other in - 24, printed by Raphalengius in Leyden in 1610. One also finds an Amsterdam edition in large characters by Laurent in 1631; and another in - 12 from Frankfort in 1694 with a preface by Leusden, but it is full of mistakes.