DATE: Saturday, October 4, 1997             TAG: 9710040014

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E3   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: Issues of Faith 

SOURCE: Betsy Wright 

                                            LENGTH:   69 lines

IT'S A COLLECTION OF BOOKS - AND SO MUCH MORE

First in a series

FOR YEARS I'VE CARRIED an entire library in my purse. That library - 66 incredible books - is called ``The Bible.'' Most folks think of it as just one big book. It's been that way for a long, long time.

Nearly 3,000 years before the birth of Jesus, the Egyptians developed papyrus, a type of paper made from the pith of a native water plant. Years later, the Greeks called the papyrus plant biblos, and eventually folks began to use the word to mean any work written on a roll of papyrus.

Since the Scriptures were a collection of papyrus scrolls, it was natural for early believers to call these texts ta biblia, meaning ``the books.'' As time went on, people began to think of the library as one unit and the plural noun became the singular bible. Though used in common speech for centuries, ``The Bible'' wasn't formally labeled as such until 1382 by John Wycliffe on his first complete English translation of the Scriptures.

What ``books'' are in the Bible? That depends on whom you ask.

In the United States, two main religious groups use the Bible: Jews and Christians, including Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Pro-test-ants.

The Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, is made up of 24 books, classified in three groupings. The Torah - meaning ``The Teachings,'' but often translated as ``Law'' - consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The second grouping is the Nevi'im, meaning ``The Prophets.'' This group includes Joshua, Judges, Samuel (I,II), Kings (I,II), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and The Twelve (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi).

The third grouping in the Jewish Bible is the Kethuvim, meaning ``The Writings.'' It includes Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles (I,II).

Christians use all those books in the section of their Bible called the Old Testament, dividing some, which increases the number to 39. Christians also arrange them into four groups: Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy); History (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther); Wisdom (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs); and Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).

In addition, Christians list 27 books of the New Testament, or more precisely, the Christian Testament. These include four Gospels, Acts, 21 letters and The Revelation.

How do Protestant, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Bibles differ? The Protestant Bible contains only those above-mentioned 66 books. Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox, however, include other books and parts of books that were popular in ancient times but excluded from the Jewish Bible. These are called ``The Apocrypha,'' which means ``hidden,'' named so because they weren't read in public assemblies.

Apocryphal books contained in the Roman Catholic Bible are Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiaticus, I and II Maccabees, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, and three additions to Daniel. To these, the Greek Orthodox church adds I Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151 and III Maccabees.

Who decided which books would go in which Bible, and why are some considered more ``legitimate'' than others?

We'll discuss that next week with the topic: What is canon? MEMO: Responses will be published at the end of the series. Send your

responses to Issues of Faith, The Virginian-Pilot, 921 N. Battlefield

Blvd., Chesapeake, VA 23320; call 446-2273; FAX (804) 436-2798; or send

computer messages via bmw(AT)pilotonline.com. Please include name, city

and phone number. KEYWORDS: SERIES BIBLE

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