Talk:Books of the Bible

Table source

Well I gave up on building this complex table from scratch, and copied verbatim everything from the Wikipedia equivalent at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Bible. ----Tim McCully 00:09, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

I'm not so sure WP can claim credit for the contents of this table, Tim. ;-) The intro is another matter. --Stephen Ewen 01:43, 16 May 2007 (CDT)

Stephen, you seem to say someone else may deserve credit for this table. What should I do about that concern? What is the next step to getting this ready for approval? I am in the process of checking the external links for function and content. --Tim McCully 03:10, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

No one need be attributed with the table mechanics, and the book names themselves are all in the Public Domain. I'd love to see some history of how the canons were selected by the varied Judaeo-Christian branches. Stephen Ewen 01:03, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

IMO the history of the canons belongs in a linked article. That last link to the UMC Book That Bridges Millenia site has a lot of material that could be used for such an article. Maybe that should indeed come next.--Tim McCully 03:10, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

New testament is missing. I understand that all denominations have the same books in the New testament, but this should be stated explicitly. Andries 03:56, 26 May 2007 (CDT)

This article so far is about the books which make up the original scriptures (the Tanakh, Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament) and how they are referred to in the various denominations. I have also gotten ahead of the content by putting in some of the links at the end which include some at least partly about the New Testament. As some of the links in this article are about, there are some significant differences between denominations about what books belong in the New Testament. There is largely agreement on the books which the Protestant Bible includes I believe, but some denominations have additional books. You are therefore correct in that we need a New Testament section to make this complete of course, Thanks !--Tim McCully 20:44, 28 May 2007 (CDT)

I've added a table about the Books of the New Testament. Very much the same as Wikipedia now has.--Tim McCully 19:29, 17 June 2007 (CDT)

Bible?

Before we talk about Books of the Bible, should we have an article on Bible first? I'm not going to write it because I'm not an expert in religion. Yi Zhe Wu 21:44, 17 June 2007 (CDT)

Tanakh

As far as I know, this term always refers to the Hebrew scriptures only, & never includes the deuterocanonical books. It's therefore inappropriate as a heading for the current section. Peter Jackson 11:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed Michael Yates 13:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Catholic titles

The titles given here are out of date. They're found in old Catholic Bilbles (Douai, Knox) translated from the Vulgate, which in turn followed Septuagint spellings. However, in 1943 the Pope (in Divino Afflante Spiritu, I think) said future translations should be made from the originals. A side effect of this was the adoption of Protestant spellings & book titles in recent Catholic Bibles (New American, (New) Jerusalem), except sometimes Sirach for Ecclesiasticus. So the table needs to be seriously redone by someone with the technical knowhow, or else replaced by something else. Peter Jackson 11:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've got rid of the pointlessly complicated table. There are over 200 different orders found in manuscripts of the Vulgate. We really don't need to cover all minor variations. Peter Jackson 11:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Subpage

This should actually be a subpage of Bible. Peter Jackson 11:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Role of Constantine?

I am surprised that the article doesn't mention the Emperor Constantine. My understanding is that, prior to Constantine, all Roman Emperors, were pagans, and Christians were an underground group. My understanding is that, during this underground period, when communication between scattered underground cells was difficult, doctrinal differences cropped up.

Constantine, however, was a convert to Christianity, who saved Christianity from underground status. My understanding is that when Constantine became emperor he told the leaders of his adopted church, that he would lift Christianity from underground status, but the leaders of the proponents of the various interpretations had to meet, and present a unified interpretation, for his approval. So, didn't the Council of Nicea agree on a list of books? George Swan 18:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The history section of the article does mention that there's a tradition to that effect, but that such a list doesn't survive.

More generally, that's not really what the Council was about. It wasn't a meeting of leaders of different interpretations. The main point was the teaching of Arius, who I think wasn't there, and was only an ordinary priest, not a bishop. The Council agreed unanimously to condemn his doctrine, and eventually only one bishop, at least in the Roman Empire, rfused to sign up to the Council's ruling.

Also, persecution is often exaggerated. In theory Christianity was illegal until 312, but in practice the law was only sporadically enforced. Peter Jackson 10:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)