Talk:Bible

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What the serpent said

In Genesis 3:1, the serpent questions what God said concerning the tree of life. "Com'on, Eve...did God really say you can't eat from that tree?" One can transliterate this verse any way they want, but the meaning remains the same: Satan did not attack God personally, but he attacked His word, questioning what He said, and trying to make Eve question it too, which she ultimately did.

Unfortunately, the situation today regarding the Bible is pretty much the same, and it caused some heated debates here. This article is about the description and history of the Bible, nothing more. Textual criticism belongs in a separate article. Karajou 19:00, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

La or Ta

Look, Karajou. Let's be reasonable about this. The fact is that la is not a definite article in Greek. Not in Ancient Greek, not in Koine Greek and not in Modern Greek. If you do a Google search of "definite article" Greek, you'll get dozens of pages that all show the exact same declension. Or go and look it up in a dictionary or grammar. Biblia is neuter plural, thus the correct article is ta - ton biblion, ta biblia.

This is not a question of doctrine or scripture or exegesis or anything. It is a simple question of what the definite article is in Greek. AKjeldsen 16:55, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

I agree with you as to the definite article in Greek, and I do agree with you on being reasonable. If the term ta biblia was used in the 2nd century AD to describe the books of the Bible as a whole, I most certainly will change the article to reflect that. I am going to hit the books tomorrow at MTSU, and I will go through many works by experts in ancient languages (the term has to be 2nd century Greek, not 20th century Greek); the results of which and where they came from will be posted. Karajou 22:28, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

That sounds like a lot of work for one entirely uncontroversial detail. Just look it up in in A Greek grammar of the New Testament and other early Christian literature by Friedrich Blass et.al., or A Grammar of New Testament Greek by James Hope Moulton et.al. AKjeldsen 11:36, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, since you researched it, I'm going to post the info immediately. All I need now is the page numbers of the books where they are located (as per MLA), plus publisher and date published for the reference section. Karajou 12:30, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

Very well, if you insist. They're in my office, and it's after hours here. I'll get them for you sometime tomorrow or the day after that. AKjeldsen 12:42, 16 April 2007 (EDT)

Still waiting on the page numbers. I found the publishers, and I used the American published version of the Blass work as the source. Karajou 22:24, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Here we go:

Moulton, James Hope. A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Wilbert Francis Howard, ed. Vol 2. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920. P. 117.

Blass, Friedrich and A. Debrunner. Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Griechisch. Friedrich Rehkopf, ed. 14th edition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976. §249-276.

Bauer, Walter. Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Scriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Litteratur. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, eds. 6th edition. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988. Heading βιβλίον, columns 281-82.

Moulton has an excellent table of the inflections of the definite article. If more information is needed, Blass contains more than anyone would ever want to know about articles in Κοινὴ. And in case there is still doubt, Bauer shows quite clearly that the correct article for βιβλίον is το, hence τα βιβλία. AKjeldsen 15:06, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Much appreciated; in fact, the German titles have been included as well in the reference section. Karajou 16:05, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Article Name

This name of this article should be The Holy Bible. Epicon 02:46, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

New American Standard Bible

Who created the NASB? The Catholic Church[1] or the Lockman foundation?Discussion on this matter. Hannibal ad portas 13:34, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

This also makes for interesting perusal Fox 13:40, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, I didn't realise there were 2 New American Bibles (Standard and Catholic). Hannibal ad portas 21:56, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Request SysOp

Would it be possible, and agreable, to add another translation/version to the list currently held on the page? The version I would like to propose adding is the Complete Jewish Bible, which is the version used by the majority of Messianic Jews. Some brief blurbs can be seen here and here. Fox 10:32, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

Concordia Self Study Bible

Please add Concordia Self Study Bible to version. FunnyBoy 23:50, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

Changes Needed

The article appears to be locked, so here's some changes that need to be made:

• Intro paragraph: Assumes every Bible adheres to the Palestinian canon; some do not. Some sects have three parts to their Bible: The OT, the Apocrypha, and the NT. Some have an OT, an NT, and an Appendix. Some have a larger OT than others.
• The Old Testament: Again, assumes Palestinian canon. The Tanakh is not the same thing as the Old Testament; it coincides with the OT of some sects, but it is a subset of the OT of other sets.
• Tyndale: Says that Tyndale's translation led "finally to the KJV." Since there have been many revisions/new translations using the KJV as a base, one might say that the Tyndale stream has not yet reached its end. Where it will finally lead, no one knows. Recent Bibles claiming a Tyndale genealogy include the NRSV and the ESV.
• KJV: The "Textus Receptus" was not a translation (except for a few portions of Rev backtranslated from Latin), and it is arguable whether a Textus Receptus even existed at that time.
• KJV: The possessive form of it should be its.
• KJV: Shakespeare did not use the KJV throughout most of his life, and it is doubtful that he used it very much near the end. He would've used the Geneva or Bishop's Bibles.
• KJV: Milton probably used the Geneva, not the KJV.
• KJV: Ref number 5 is a broken link. Suggest removing it until a source for the quote can be found.

--All Fish Welcome 09:59, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

Regarding your first two points, I think as it stands the current article is specifically about the Christian Bible. We Jews, of course also use the term the Bible to refer to our own scriptures (needless to say, exclusive of the NT).

It's a matter of terminology. Christians say the Bible meaning OT + NT. Jews say the Bible and mean a different, but mostly overlapping set of "books". The Judeo-Christian heritage is based heavily on the first five books of the Bible. Christian study materials for young children (see Sunday School) draw heavily on Old Testament stories: Creation, Garden of Eden, Noah and the flood, Moses in the bulrushes & leading the people of God to freedom, etc. --Ed Poor ^Talk 10:10, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

Requesting edit to summary

"The Bible, or the Holy Scriptures, is the collection of texts sacred to Judaism and Christianity... "

should be changed to

"The Bible, or the Holy Scriptures, is the collection of fictional texts sacred to Judaism and Christianity..."--Niffed 23:33, 21 October 2007 (EDT)