The original Bible. What is the Bible? From clay tablets to modern printing

The Bible is the Word of God. It reveals the secret of the origin of the world, man and the meaning of existence. The most wonderful and at the same time the oldest book on earth is the Holy Bible. This is the Book of Books.

The knowledge that the Lord Himself revealed to people through the prophets and the Savior was passed on to each other orally. This - Sacred Tradition. But, passing on to each other what the Lord revealed to us, people could forget something or add something of their own. To prevent this from happening, everything had to be written down. God the Holy Spirit Himself invisibly helped to write the Holy Books, so that everything that is said about God in them would be correct and true. Such books are called Bible, or Holy Scripture.

The word "Bible" comes from the ancient Greek "byblos", which means papyrus reed, from which sheets of writing were made. It was only in the 4th century that this word became commonly used.

In the 9th century, Saints Cyril and Methodius translated the Bible from Greek into Old Church Slavonic. Fragments from the Bible appeared for the first time in Rus' after its baptism. The complete Slavic Bible was collected in Russia only in 1499. The translation of the Holy Scriptures into Russian was completed in 1877.

Until 1452, the art of printing was unknown to mankind and all books were copied by hand. For three thousand years, the weak human hand has copied and passed on the word of God from generation to generation!

Some of the first printed editions of the entire Bible are considered to be the 1488 edition in Italy and the 1517 edition in Spain. Famous Russian editions: Ostrog 1581, Moscow 1663 and Elizabeth 1751.

The Bible is a collection of Holy Scriptures, in the compilation of which over 1300 years about 40 authors took part - holy men of God, prophets and apostles, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is divided into two parts - the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament was written before the birth of Christ, and the New Testament was written during the first century after the birth of Christ.

The Bible consists of 74 books: the Old Testament - of 47 books, and the New Testament - of 27 books. These books are divided into canonical and non-canonical. Books that are sacred in their divine origin, containing the true word of God, are considered canonical, and non-canonical are those that do not have an inspired nature, although they were included in the Bible due to the importance of their content, edification and usefulness. The Bible includes 65 canonical books and 9 non-canonical books.

All books of Holy Scripture are divided into:

1) law-giving - the main books of the Old and New Testaments, contain the law of a godly life and the good news of Christ. These include the five books of the prophet Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (Pentateuch);

2) historical - this is the history of the Old Testament and New Testament Church. These include: the Books of Joshua, the Book of Judges, Ruth, the first and second Books of Kings, the third and fourth Books of Kings, the first and second Books of Chronicles, the first and second Books of Ezra, Esther;

3) educational books - these are books that reveal the basics of religious doctrine. These include: the Book of Job, the Psalter of King David, the Proverbs of Solomon, his Ecclesiastes, his Song of Songs;

4) prophetic - these are books that contain ancient predictions about the Savior and revelations about the future destinies of the church. These include: the books of the great prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and 12 minor prophets.

The books of the Old Testament were written long before the birth of the Savior. They tell how God created the world, how people sinned, how God expelled them from paradise, when the Son of God, our Savior Jesus Christ, comes to earth.

The books of the New Testament were written shortly after the death and resurrection of the Savior. The people who wrote them saw Him themselves or lived among those who remembered Him. There are four main books of the New Testament. They describe the Savior's life on earth, His teaching, His suffering, death and resurrection. This is the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John.

The word “Gospel” is Greek, and in Russian it means “good news,” i.e., good news that the Savior Jesus Christ came to earth to open the way for people to eternal life.

The Bible is the most widely read book in the world. It becomes a reference book both in the families of ordinary people and among intellectuals. The distribution of the Bible especially increased in the 20th century.

The Bible ranks first in the world in terms of translations into other languages. During the 19th century, the Bible was published in 400 languages, and during the 20th century, the Bible or its individual books were translated into more than 1,400 languages. By the end of the 20th century, the Bible had been translated into 1928 languages.

The Bible also ranks first in the world in terms of circulation. By the end of the 20th century, its circulation was about 40 million copies, and the circulation of the New Testament was about 60 million copies.

source http://www.plam.ru/

To the question “what is the Bible” there are two equivalent answers. For people of faith, these are, first of all, the words of God, written down and conveyed to the rest of humanity. For scientists, historians and cultural experts, atheists or adherents of other religious movements, the Bible is precisely a book. A literary work created by people and for people. It is in this fundamental difference that lies the fundamental dissimilarity in the work of theologians and scientists with the text of the Bible.

What is the Bible

Before discussing the secret meanings hidden in the text, or discussing the secondary nature of the mythological subjects used in it, it is necessary to clarify what the Bible is. The fact is that even representatives of different Christian denominations put different meanings into this concept. And Jehovah's Witnesses or Judaists, when speaking about the Bible, mean a book whose contents differ by more than half from the Orthodox or Catholic canon.

In ancient Greek, byblos means “book.” And “bible” is the plural formed from this word. Therefore, the literal answer to the question of what the Bible is is “many books.” Indeed, the canonical text of any Book of Life consists of dozens of books.

Old Testament

The Jewish Bible consists of 39 texts. They coincide with the books of the Old Testament, which are very familiar to all Christians. These texts were created by various authors between the 13th and 1st centuries. BC e. Although, of course, in reality much more such religious works were written than 39. But only these books were chosen by the ancient Indian sages from a huge number of other religious texts and considered worthy of canonization.

All these books were written in Hebrew and have been preserved in this form to this day, not a single word in them has been changed. It is with them that any translation of the Bible is checked to eliminate distortions or inaccuracies. The only thing that can be discussed regarding the coincidence or discrepancy of the texts of these books and the Old Testament is the original semantic content of the Hebrew words. What exactly did the ancient Jews mean when they said “heaven”, “earth”, “god”? Is the earth like a planet or like dry land? Is the sky like space, the universe, or like a blue dome above your heads? Or maybe it's just air? These are the questions that interest translators from ancient Hebrew. Often, such a difference in interpretation causes the meaning of the text to fundamentally change.

Catholic Bible

When answering the question: “What is the Bible?”, a Christian, unlike a Judaist, is more likely to remember the New Testament. This is precisely the deep contradiction between two religions, originating from a single source. Jews, unlike Christians, do not consider Jesus to be the messiah and, therefore, do not include his teachings among the canonical texts.

There are some other differences that give rise to different understandings of the same points in the Bible. Catholics, creating their own list of canonized texts, used not the Hebrew originals, but their translation into Greek - the so-called Septuagint. This is how the Vulgate was created. At the same time, the Septuagint did not coincide in everything with the original tests, and after translation into Latin, the number of discrepancies increased significantly. Later, the Catholic Church repeatedly edited the Vulgate, checking it with Hebrew manuscripts. Bible translations have become more and more accurate, but work is still underway, and discussions about the appropriateness of using certain sources do not stop.

Orthodoxy and Protestantism

Another problem with the Septuagint is that it includes points that are not confirmed by the original Hebrew sources. That is why other Christian denominations classified such sections of the “translation of the seventy elders” as undoubtedly spiritually useful, but not sacred, and do not consider them canonical.

Protestants, editing the text of the Bible, abandoned fragments of the text that did not have confirmation in the form of Hebrew texts. The Russian Bible, or rather the Orthodox Bible, gives the reader the opportunity to become familiar with such controversial details of the Holy Scriptures. But next to these fragments there is always a clarification warning about their non-canonical nature. Typically these include notes or highlighting text with square brackets.

How ancient theologians studied the Bible

Biblical interpretation has always been one of the cornerstones of theological study. The book, given to humanity by God, was supposed to hide more than it actually seems. Therefore, the sages and priests used many methods to discover the secret meaning hidden between the lines of the Holy Scriptures. As Stanislaw Lem wrote, you can find a secret code hidden in the text, but you cannot prove that it is not there. One of the countless decryption systems will provide a meaningful result even in the case where the author did not use any secret code. This is how the most innocent and easy-to-understand book can be “solved.” The Bible is no exception in this regard.

The most ancient attempts to find the secret meaning of the Holy Scriptures were made in Judea. Midrash Interpretation is an oral section of the Torah that deals exclusively with the interpretation of the books of the Old Testament. The principles underlying such research seem rather strange to contemporaries:

Giving exceptional meaning to insignificant details.
Analysis of words or text fragments outside the semantic context in which they were used.
Combining texts that are different in meaning and content into one logical segment based only on the fact that they contain similar words or phrases.

The first attempts to search for hidden meaning

Thus, theologians counted letters or their numerical values in words and, finding matches, drew conclusions about the identity of meaning in different passages of text. Examples of such research now seem naive and very far-fetched. So, the name of one of Abraham's servants is Eliezer. In Hebrew transcription, this word corresponded to the number 318. Abraham also had 318 slaves, and therefore, according to ancient researchers, the value of Eliezer as a servant corresponded to the value of all three hundred and eighteen slaves.

Naturally, being carried away by such studies, it is easy to lose sight of the literal, basic Testaments of the Bible, to neglect them as too obvious. Thus, the Song of Songs is interpreted as an allegorical love of the church for Jesus in the interpretation of Christians or love for Yahweh and his chosen people in the interpretation of Jews. At the same time, the literal meaning of this literary masterpiece - the glorification of the love of a man and a woman as the highest sacrament of life - is completely ignored by the clergy. It's too simple and therefore uninteresting. The essence of the Bible, the true content of its texts cannot be so simple and primitive.

Such allegorical searches are characteristic of apocalyptic interpretations. Ancient researchers following these trends also looked for hidden meaning in the simplest texts. But they focused on the predictions encrypted in the text of the Bible.

Reasons for the emergence of the allegorical method of interpretation

One of the reasons for the popularity of this method lies in the variability of cultural and moral norms. The Holy Scriptures are an ancient book. The Bible, in the eyes of the Jews and Greeks, already contained fragments that seemed to them immoral and unworthy of the divine text. To come to terms with this discrepancy, these sections were assigned a hidden meaning that had nothing to do with the actual one. Moreover, it was believed that the higher the level of dedication of the interpreter, the less similarity the result of his research will have with the source text.

Alas, each researcher found something different there, and there was no unanimity among Bible researchers on the issue of allegorical interpretations. And the degree of abstraction of such research exceeded the boundaries of reason.

Thus, the story of Abraham traveling to Palestine was understood by one of the interpreters as an allegory of the sage’s renunciation of the sensory perception of the world. And his subsequent marriage to Sarah, in his opinion, was a symbol of the comprehension of true, out-of-body wisdom, entering into a sacred union with her.

Jesus also interpreted the Bible

Interpreting the Bible is not just for clergy. Jesus also used the text of the Old Testament in his sermons, drawing his own conclusions from it. That is, in essence, he interpreted the Holy Scripture that existed before him. He turned to the examples of Cain and Abel, Isaac, David, Jacob and used them in an absolutely literal sense. He categorically rejected the complex, casuistic method of searching for hidden meaning, believing the Word of God to be an independent text that does not need additional processing.

At the same time, the Pharisees never reproached Jesus for his unusual interpretation of the Testament, unheard of at that time, although they had enough complaints on other points. They were surprised, disagreed, but did not condemn. Apparently, the religious doctrine of the ancient Jews assumed significant freedom of thought in this matter. Everyone had the right to their own opinion.

St. Augustine's position

Subsequently, the overly pretentious interpretation of the Bible was abandoned. The first to convincingly prove its uselessness and even harmfulness for theology was St. Augustine. He believed that when analyzing the Testaments of the Bible, one should in no case be divorced from the historical and cultural context. The basis for studying God-given texts should be, first of all, their literal meaning, and it is this that serves as the basis for building any logical construction.

The interpreter of the Bible, in addition to Latin, must know Hebrew, Ancient Greek, geography and other subjects necessary for understanding the realities of the text. Although Augustine believed that the Bible had a hidden, allegorical meaning, he especially warned about the danger of bringing the personality of the researcher into such studies.

And although St. Augustine himself often deviated from these rules, they all played a huge role in determining the further direction of Bible study.

New trends of the Reformation

The theologians of the Reformation times fully shared the opinion of St. Augustine about the inadmissibility of false interpretations that contradict the text of the book. But they went even further. Both Martin Luther and Calvin believed that biblical texts should be understood primarily literally. They did not share the position of the Catholic Church, which believed that the Word of God is extremely difficult to understand and requires explanations from a professional interpreter, that is, a priest. Protestants believed that God was wise enough to give people the knowledge that they were able to accept and understand. Thus, the Church of the Reformation abandoned the monopoly on truth that had existed for many centuries. The New Bible was written not in Latin, but in a language close and accessible to readers, with the simplification of some overly outdated phrases and replacing them with more modern word forms.

Modern students of the Holy Scriptures have gone even further. They not only do not deny the role of the human author in writing the text, but also consider it to be leading. Even under the assumption of divine inspiration, Scripture was created by people. That is, any knowledge bestowed by the Almighty passed through the prism of personal experience and perception, and this could not but leave its mark on the text of the Bible.

Research by scientists

Scientists, studying the Holy Scriptures, pay special attention mainly to historical and cultural realities. The language of the Bible, the factual accuracy of the events described, the authorship of individual books - all this constitutes a separate and very interesting area of study of the work.

Thus, speaking about the miracle of resurrection, one cannot ignore the fact that the motif of a dying and reborn deity was extremely widespread at that time. Osiris, Persephone, Mithra in the south and east, Balder in the north. It is no coincidence that Easter coincides with the active spring awakening of nature. And its date is arbitrary, it does not coincide with the real date of Christ’s death, but is calculated according to the lunar cycle. For a culturologist, the element of interpenetration of religious motives of different cultures is obvious.

Historians easily interpret some apocalyptic stories, pointing to real prototypes of mysterious descriptions. So, the Babylonian harlot sitting on a seven-headed beast is Rome, and for the Jew this analogy was obvious. The Seven Hills were already a stable association back then. And the further description confirms this assumption. The seven fallen kings are seven Caesars who had died at the time of writing the text, one existing one is Galba, who was ruling at that time, and the future ruler is a contender for the title, who was just conducting active military operations, seeking the throne.

Many miraculous predictions after a detailed study of the Bible turn out to be not predictions at all, but descriptions of events that have already occurred - simply because this fragment of text was written much earlier than thought. Thus, the prophecy about the successive succession of the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and then Roman empires, a detailed description of the events taking place in Palestine over many centuries, after careful research by historians turned out to be... chronicles. This text was written in the 2nd century. BC e., and its author only wanted to talk about events that he considered extremely important, and did not prophesy.

Such research may deprive the Bible of some of its supernatural flair, but it undoubtedly confirms its historical accuracy.

→ The essence of the Bible, its composition and structure

General characteristics of the Bible

In this article we will briefly look at the essence of the Bible, as well as the composition and structure of the Bible.

The word "bible" comes from Greek and means "books." Apparently, it is no coincidence that the book, which is undoubtedly one of the highest values acquired by humanity, is so simply named. For at least three thousand years, the word “bible” has inspired people, and the circle of those who connect with this source is constantly expanding.

However, there were other times. The Bible was actually banned by the Soviet government, it was not printed and was withdrawn from circulation and libraries, its images and words were carefully crossed out or lost hints of their source, or were simply ridiculed.

Therefore, in our historically Christian country, several generations of people have grown up who do not know the Bible at all or almost not, and have not read it. It should be noted that this is not only religious, but also cultural ignorance, since European culture, especially the culture of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Modern times, as well as modern culture, cannot be comprehended without knowledge of biblical characters, images, and events. The Bible can be viewed from at least three perspectives:

First‒ and the main thing ‒ is that it Holy Bible Christian religion. This statement, however, requires some clarification. On the one hand, a significant part of the Bible - the Old Testament - was written in pre-Christian times and is the property of the Jewish tradition. The Holy Scripture of the Jews - the Torah - is actually an integral part of the Bible. And Islam, which arose later than Christianity, widely uses biblical images as one of the sources of the Koran. On the other hand, some denominations of Christianity have different attitudes towards certain parts of the Bible, either excluding the so-called non-canonical books, or preferring the New Testament as a purely Christian revelation. But despite this, it is precisely as Holy Scripture that the Bible has its exclusive meaning, and it is from this point of view that it should be approached in the first place.

Secondly, The Bible can be perceived as historical source. It, indeed, contains evidence concerning the history of many peoples of the Ancient East from the 2nd millennium BC. before the beginning of a new era. Of course, using the Bible as a historical source requires scientific analysis and verification from other sources, but this should not be perceived as criticism and rejection of Holy history.

Third‒ The Bible can be seen as important literary or cultural monument. Many biblical texts can be noted for their literary excellence - not to mention the fact that this book has the value of any written monument of antiquity. By the way, in terms of the number of editions and translations into different languages, the Bible far exceeds any other works. But, again, this is a consequence of its influence not as a masterpiece of art, but as a Holy phenomenon.

Composition and structure of the Bible

The Bible is a fairly large book that has a complex structure and contains many relatively independent books. The main thing is its division into two components - the Old and New Testaments.

Old Testament- this is a pre-Christian, Jewish Bible (in fact, Jews do not perceive the Bible as a whole - the New Testament, naturally, is not recognized at all, and only the Holy Scripture is considered Torah ‒ Pentateuch of Moses). It was accepted by the Christian Church as an integral part of the Holy Scriptures, and Christianity grew to a large extent on Jewish soil; these books were recognized by Christ and used by him as the Word of God; after all, these books contain many prophecies about the appearance of Christ himself and his mission.

Part Two - New Testament‒ this is already our own Christian tradition, these are texts related to the life and work of Jesus Christ and his disciples.

There are discrepancies in different translations and editions of the Bible regarding the names of the books and the order in which they are placed. Moreover, there is disagreement about the number of books that make up the Bible. This applies only to the Old Testament and is connected with two circumstances: with the counting system and with the division into the so-called canonical and non-canonical books.

Thus, the Jewish tradition, which some Christian theologians adhered to, numbered 24 or even 22 books, which in modern Christian publications, as a rule, are divided into 39 books (due to the fact that they are presented as two instead of one book of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, as well as 12 books of minor prophets instead of one, etc.). Another was the grouping of books according to their content in Hebrew Bible (TaNaKha), which consists of Torah (Law), Neviim (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Scriptures).The Christian tradition identifies the following sections of the canon (the canonical composition of the Bible):

legislative books: The Pentateuch of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy;

history books, that is, those that present primarily the Holy History: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I and II books of Samuel (in Russian translation - 1 and 2 books of Kings), I and II books of Kings (3 and 4 books of Kings, respectively), 1 ta 2 books of Chronicles (or Chronicles), Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther;
educational poetry books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs (Proverbs of Solomon), Preacher (Ecclesiastes), Song of Songs;
prophetic books: great prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and small ones - Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

Regarding non-canonical books, then they appeared later than other books of the Old Testament and were not included in the Jewish canon or were excluded from it. Christian tradition accepted them, but with some prejudices. They were advised to be read by those who were preparing to join the Christian church, since they are distinguished by their instructive character (however, among them we also find historical and prophetic books).

The Catholic Church considers such books to be deuterocanonical (deuterocanonical), Orthodoxy continues to consider them non-canonical, but the Slavic and Russian Orthodox Bibles print them next to the canonical ones. Protestants, on the contrary, do not print these books in the texts of the Bible, not considering them divinely inspired.

There are 11 of these books: Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon), Sirach (Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach), Tobit, Judit, Epistle of Jeremiah, Baruch, 2 and 3 books of Ezra (Catholics consider them apocryphal), three books of Maccabees (Catholics have only two). This also includes passages that are added to some canonical books (for example, chapters 13 and 14 of the book of Daniel). New Testament contains 27 books, which church tradition also divides into groups:

Towards legislative equals four Gospels(from Greek - Good News) - from Matey (Matthew), from Mark, from Luke, from John (John). The first three Gospels, which are similar in content, are called synoptic; The Gospel of John is very different from them both in content and in character.
Historical considered a book Acts of the Apostles.
Educational books consist of 14 epistles of the Apostle Paul and 7 epistles of other apostles.
Finally, prophetic book The New Testament is Revelation of John the Evangelist (Apocalypse).

Thus, part of the canonical Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, include 66 books(39 + 27) - this composition is recognized by Protestants; A included in the complete Bible ‒ 77 books(50 + 27) for the Orthodox and 74 (47 + 27) for the Catholics, divided into canonical and not canonical (deuterocanonical) books.

References:

1. Religion: a handbook for students of advanced knowledge / [G. E. Alyaev, O. V. Gorban, V. M. Meshkov et al.; for zag. ed. prof. G. E. Alyaeva]. - Poltava: TOV "ASMI", 2012. - 228 p.

Almost every person, even someone who is not religious, has heard the word “bible”. However, in reality, few can give a clear answer to the question of whether what is the Bible. Some consider it a special book of Christians, some - the basis of all Abrahamic religions, some - a collection of parables, and for others it may be of exclusively historical interest. There are many options for naming the Bible, but the most unbiased and understandable for the common man would be to analyze several interpretations.

The Bible: Expanding the Concept

The Bible (βιβλίον translated from Greek as “book”) is a collection of certain texts that are sacred to Christians and Jews. At the same time, the word “bible” itself is not mentioned in the texts - it is a collective concept - and was first used in the fourth century by Archbishop Chrysostom and church father Epiphanius of Cyprus. Presumably these two religious figures called the Bible that is familiar to us now the bible (holy book).

In the context of religious literature, the Bible as a sacred text is recognized and used in all Christian denominations (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, etc.) and in Judaism. The Jews recognize that part of the Bible that is called the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible. It includes chapters such as the Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Scriptures. We also find these sections among Christians, where chapters of the Tanakh are included in the Old Testament.

The word “biblia” itself, more often used to designate sacred texts, can be used without connection with religion. In this case, the special importance of the document in a particular context is especially emphasized. For example, textbooks on musical harmony are called a musician's bible, and textbooks on light and shadow are called an artist's bible. Thus, the concept of the Bible denotes important texts, a reference book, even if it is used in a figurative sense.

What is included in the Bible?

Each denomination has its own specific set of canonical texts that are included in the Bible. Exactly 66 texts are canon for all official Christian denominations and movements. The biblical canon is unchanged in its composition and serves not only as an approved primary source in the study of religion, but also represents those books that are divinely inspired, or created by God, according to representatives of Christian denominations and churches.

For example, Protestantism only recognizes these 66 books. In Catholicism, 73 books of the Bible translated into Latin are considered reliable, and in Orthodoxy - 77, where the main biblical canon is supplemented by deuterocanonical books. Plus, each denomination has its own order in the presentation of texts. The order of presentation of the Bible texts among Catholics differs from the order among Orthodox Christians.

Old Testament

The composition of the Bible opens with the Old Testament, which includes the Tanakh, the very first part of the Bible to be created. The Jews traditionally have 22 or 24 texts, which are marked with the letters of the Hebrew or Greek alphabet. The Tanakh itself has 39 books, which include the Law, Prophets, and Scriptures. Each section is divided into even smaller sections and all of them are recognized as canons in Christianity.

Christian denominations add several more texts to the Tanakh. The basis for the canonical Old Testament was the Septuagint - the texts of the Old Testament translated into Greek. For Catholicism, 46 texts are canonical, and Orthodoxy adds eleven more non-canonical texts to the existing 39. No matter how the order of the Old Testament texts changes and no matter what is added to them, the Jewish canon is recognized by all confessions and is unchanged.

The texts of the Old Testament introduce the reader to the creation of the world, the Fall, the stories of Adam and Eve, as well as the first prophets and the fate of the Jewish people. Many of us have heard about Moses or Abraham. The Old Testament includes many descriptions of the traditions of the Jewish people, a chronicle of their fate from a religious point of view. It is in the Old Testament that we are introduced to the commandments, do not kill or deceive. The basics of the Christian faith, which will later be modified in the New Testament, originate from the Tanakh - the Hebrew Bible.

New Testament

Along with the Old Testament, in Christianity the New Testament is the same sacred collection of books. According to the canon, it includes 27 books: the Gospels, the Epistles of the Apostles and the Apocalypse of John the Theologian. The New Testament has a special historical continuity, which can be traced in four revelations from different authors: Matthew, Luke, Mark and John. The New Testament also included the writings of Peter, James, Paul and Jude.

The New Testament has its own order of presentation of the texts, which differs between denominations. It should be noted that one of the most important texts of the Bible - the Apocalypse - is not recognized by Jews, while it is fundamental for the Christian faith.

In general, the New Testament tells the reader about the virgin birth and birth of Christ, and then his life story. Christ, who is the son of God from the Old Testament, preaches throughout the world and tests his faith. The New Testament talks about how to pray correctly, about the temptation of Christ by the Devil, about his disciples and the betrayal of Judas. After the execution of Christ, the Bible tells of his Resurrection. From here we may be familiar with stories about turning water into wine, about miraculous healings, walking on water, and so on.

The Apocalypse - the latest New Testament text - describes the Last Judgment, the struggle of God with evil or the Beast, as well as the second coming of Christ, which will be accompanied not only by miracles and appearances of angels, but also by terrible cataclysms. Revelation is, as it were, a summary of everything that was described in the Bible, while the images used in the Apocalypse are equally borrowed from earlier parts. This indicates the establishment of a connection and continuity between two data collections of sacred texts, as if connected into one canon by a common Revelation.

— We Orthodox Christians are often reproached for not reading the Bible as often as, for example, Protestants do. How fair are such accusations?

- The Orthodox Church recognizes two sources of knowledge of God - Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. Moreover, the first is an integral part of the second. After all, initially the sermons of the holy apostles were delivered and transmitted orally. Sacred Tradition includes not only Holy Scripture, but also liturgical texts, decrees of Ecumenical Councils, iconography and a number of other sources that occupy an important place in the life of the Church. And everything that is said in the Holy Scriptures is also in the Tradition of the Church.

Since ancient times, the life of a Christian has been inextricably linked with biblical texts. And in the 16th century, when the so-called “Reformation” arose, the situation changed. Protestants abandoned the Holy Tradition of the Church and limited themselves to only studying the Holy Scriptures. And therefore, a special kind of piety appeared among them - reading and studying biblical texts. Once again I want to emphasize: from the point of view of the Orthodox Church, Holy Tradition includes the entire scope of church life, including the Holy Scriptures. Moreover, even if someone does not read the Word of God, but regularly attends the temple, he hears that the entire service is permeated with biblical quotations. Thus, if a person lives a church life, then he is in the atmosphere of the Bible.

— How many books are included in the Holy Scriptures? What is the difference between the Orthodox Bible and the Protestant Bible?

— The Holy Scriptures are a collection of books, different books according to the time of their writing, and by authorship, and by content, and by style. They are divided into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. There are 77 books in the Orthodox Bible, and 66 in the Protestant Bible.

—What causes this discrepancy?

— The fact is that in the Orthodox Bible, more precisely in the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament, in addition to 39 canonical books, there are 11 more non-canonical books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, Epistle of Jeremiah, Baruch, the second and third books of Ezra, three books of Maccabees. In the “Long Christian Catechism” of St. Philaret of Moscow it is said that the division of books into canonical and non-canonical is caused by the absence of the latter (11 books) in Jewish primary sources and their presence only in Greek, i.e. in the Septuagint (translation of 70 interpreters). In turn, Protestants, starting with M. Luther, abandoned non-canonical books, mistakenly assigning them the status of “apocryphal”. As for the 27 books of the New Testament, they are recognized by both Orthodox and Protestants. We are talking about the Christian part of the Bible, written after the Nativity of Christ: the New Testament books testify to the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ and the first decades of the existence of the Church. These include the four Gospels, the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles of the apostles (seven - conciliar and 14 - of the Apostle Paul), as well as the Revelation of John the Theologian (Apocalypse).

— How to study the Bible correctly? Is it worth starting knowledge from the first pages of Genesis?

— The main thing is to have a sincere desire to learn the Word of God. It's better to start with the New Testament. Experienced pastors recommend getting acquainted with the Bible through the Gospel of Mark (that is, not in the order in which they are presented). It is the shortest, written in simple and accessible language. Having read the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John, we move on to the book of Acts, the Apostolic Epistles and the Apocalypse (the most complex and most mysterious book in the entire Bible). And only after this can you begin to read the Old Testament books. Only after reading the New Testament, it is easier to understand the meaning of the Old. After all, it was not for nothing that the Apostle Paul said that the Old Testament legislation was a teacher to Christ (see: Gal. 3: 24): it leads a person, as if a child by the hand, to let him truly understand what happened during the Incarnation, What in principle is the incarnation of God for a person...

— What if the reader does not understand some episodes of the Bible? What to do in this case? Who should I contact?

— It is advisable to have books on hand that explain the Holy Scriptures. We can recommend the works of Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria. His explanations are short, but very accessible and deeply ecclesiastical, reflecting the Tradition of the Church. The conversations of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles are also classic. If any questions arise, it would be a good idea to consult with an experienced priest. It is necessary to understand that reading the Holy Scriptures is part of a spiritual achievement. And it is very important to pray, to cleanse your soul. Indeed, even in the Old Testament it was said: wisdom will not enter an evil soul and will not dwell in a body enslaved to sin, for the Holy Spirit of wisdom will withdraw from wickedness and turn away from foolish speculations, and will be ashamed of the approaching unrighteousness (Wisdom 1: 4-5) .

- So, you need to prepare for reading the Holy Scriptures in a special way?

— Experienced elders in monasteries gave the novice a rule: before studying the Holy Scriptures, you first need to familiarize yourself with the works of the holy fathers. Bible readings are not just studying the Word of God, they are like prayer. In general, I would recommend reading the Bible in the morning, after the prayer rule. I think it’s easy to set aside 15-20 minutes to read one or two chapters from the Gospel, the Apostolic Epistles. This way you can get a spiritual charge for the whole day. Very often, in this way, answers to serious questions that life poses to a person appear.

— Sometimes the following situation happens: you read it, understand what it’s about, but it doesn’t suit you because you don’t agree with what’s written...

— According to Tertullian (one of the church writers of antiquity), our soul is Christian by nature. Thus, biblical truths were given to man from the very beginning; they are embedded in his nature, his consciousness. We sometimes call this conscience, that is, it is not something new that is unusual for human nature. The main tenets of the Holy Scriptures are the voice of God, sounding in the nature of each of us. Therefore, you need, first of all, to pay attention to your life: is everything in it consistent with the commandments of God? If a person does not want to listen to the voice of God, then what other voice does he need? Who will he listen to?

— Saint Philaret was once asked: how can one believe that the prophet Jonah was swallowed by a whale with a very narrow throat? In response, he said: “If it were written in the Holy Scriptures that it was not a whale that swallowed Jonah, but Jonah a whale, I would believe that too.” Of course, today such statements can be perceived with sarcasm. In this regard, the question arises: why does the Church trust the Holy Scripture so much? After all, the biblical books were written by people...

— The main difference between the Bible and other books is revelation. This is not just the work of some outstanding person. Through the prophets and apostles, the voice of God Himself is reproduced in accessible language. If the Creator addresses us, then how should we react to this? Hence such attention and such trust in the Holy Scriptures.

— In what language were the biblical books written? How has their translation affected the modern perception of sacred texts?

— Most of the Old Testament books are written in Hebrew. Some of them survive only in Aramaic. The already mentioned non-canonical books have reached us exclusively in Greek: for example, Judith, Tobit, Baruch and the Maccabees. The third book of Ezra is known to us in its entirety only in Latin. As for the New Testament, it was mainly written in Greek - in the Koine dialect. Some biblical scholars believe that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew, but no primary sources have reached us (there are only translations). Of course, it would be better to read and study biblical books based on primary sources and originals. But this has been the case since ancient times: all books of Holy Scripture were translated. And therefore, for the most part, people are familiar with the Holy Scriptures translated into their native language.

— It would be interesting to know: what language did Jesus Christ speak?

— Many people believe that Christ used Aramaic. However, when talking about the original Gospel of Matthew, most biblical scholars point to Hebrew as the language of the Old Testament books. Disputes on this topic continue to this day.

— According to Bible societies, back in 2008, the Bible was translated in whole or in part into 2,500 languages. Some scientists believe that there are 3 thousand languages in the world, others point to 6 thousand. It is very difficult to define the criterion: what is a language and what is a dialect. But we can say with absolute confidence: all people living in different parts of the globe can read the Bible in whole or in part in their native language.

— Which language is preferable for us: Russian, Ukrainian or Church Slavonic?

— The main criterion is that the Bible must be understandable. Traditionally, Church Slavonic is used during divine services in the Church. Unfortunately, it is not studied in secondary schools. Therefore, many biblical expressions require explanation. This, by the way, applies not only to our era. This problem also arose in the 19th century. At the same time, a translation of the Holy Scriptures into Russian appeared - the Synodal Translation of the Bible. It has stood the test of time and had a huge impact on the development of the Russian language in particular and Russian culture in general. Therefore, for Russian-speaking parishioners, I would recommend using it for home reading. As for Ukrainian-speaking parishioners, the situation here is a little more complicated. The fact is that the attempt at the first complete translation of the Bible into Ukrainian was made by Panteleimon Kulish in the 60s of the 19th century. He was joined by Ivan Nechuy-Levitsky. The translation was completed by Ivan Pulyuy (after Kulish’s death). Their work was published in 1903 by the Bible Society. In the 20th century the most authoritative were the translations of Ivan Ogienko and Ivan Khomenko. Currently, many people are attempting to translate the entire Bible or parts of it. There are both positive experiences and difficult, controversial issues. So, it would probably be incorrect to recommend any specific text of the Ukrainian translation. Now the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is translating the Four Gospels. I hope that this will be a successful translation both for home reading and for liturgical services (in those parishes where Ukrainian is used).

— In some parishes, during the service, a biblical passage is read in their native language (after reading in Church Slavonic)...

— This tradition is typical not only for ours, but also for many foreign parishes, where there are believers from different countries. In such situations, liturgical passages from the Holy Scriptures are repeated in native languages. After all, spiritual food must be given to a person in a form in which it can bring spiritual benefit.

— From time to time, information appears in the media about some new biblical book that was allegedly previously lost or kept secret. It necessarily reveals some “sacred” moments that contradict Christianity. How to treat such sources?

— In the last two centuries, many ancient manuscripts have been discovered, which has made it possible to coordinate the view on the study of the biblical text. First of all, this concerns the Qumran manuscripts discovered in the Dead Sea area (in the Qumran caves). Many manuscripts were found there - both biblical and gnostic (that is, texts that distort Christian teaching). It is possible that many manuscripts of a Gnostic nature will be found in the future. It should be recalled that even during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The Church fought against the heresy of Gnosticism. And in our time, when we are witnessing a craze for the occult, these texts appear under the guise of some kind of sensation.

— By what criteria can one determine a positive result from regular reading of the Holy Scriptures? By the number of memorized quotes?

— We read the Word of God not for memorization. Although there are situations, for example in seminaries, when exactly this task is set. Biblical texts are important for spiritual life in order to feel the breath of God Himself. In this way, we become familiar with the grace-filled gifts that exist in the Church, we learn about the commandments, thanks to which we become better, and draw closer to the Lord. Therefore, studying the Bible is the most important part of our spiritual ascent, spiritual life. With regular reading, many passages are gradually memorized without special memorization.