The Bible

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The Bible
The word Bible is derived from the Greek ta biblia, meaning "book." The bible is rightly a collection of books, many works by various authors from widely different epochs and cultural situations.  As we have it now, the Bible consists of the books of the Old and New Testaments, as well as other books called the Apocrypha or Deuterocanon.

To be sure, the Bible carries the spiritual heritage of a culturally specific group group of people from the ancient near east - namely, the Israelites or Jews from about the 10th century BCE to the 1 century CE. Nevertheless, the story is still relevant to millions of people around the world because, simply, we believe it bears the imprint of God. In other words, we accept that it is (somehow) the word of God that is God's self-revelation.

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God's Self-Revelation
All religion, in some fashion, seeks to make known divine communication to humanity. For Israel, as revealed in the Old Testament, their God became made manifestly known through creation, through the mighty acts by which the Lord God saved with Israel, and through the words spoken by the prophets. Indeed, it was by experiencing "the ways of God with men" that Israel came to know their God as "the one true and living God" (see Dei Verbum, 11, Second Vatican Council).

Finally, Jesus, the beloved Son, the Word made flesh, dwelt among us and revealed the fullness of God. This story is the content and message of the New Testament.

To fully understand the Bible as God’s revelation, however, it cannot merely be a book for people living two thousand years in the past. While it is a record of the understanding of a communal faith lived and witnessed and passed on by a culturally unique group, the Bible can still speaks to modern people. And so, we must discern when we read about the experience of Israel or of the early Christians how the living God still reveals God's self today.

When we say that the Scriptures are the Word of God we basically mean that they are inspired by God as a self-revelation. We would do well to remember, however, that the “Word of God” means a variety of overlapping concepts: creation, the events of salvation history, Jesus Christ, and the ongoing preaching of God’s message, among others. Moreover, while understood as inspired by God, the Scriptures are also clearly the work of human authors, and they contain human words with all the properties of human words, including that they are culturally and historically conditioned.

The Canon
The Greek word canon (derived from the Hebrew qaneh) means “rod” or “bar", a tool used for measuring. In the earliest days of the Christian movement, canon would primarily be used to describe the rule or norm of faith (regula fidei) by which faithfulness to the apostolic preaching was measured. By the 4th century, canon would also come to describe a collection of writings with common ecclesiastical usage and which were used a normative for the faith.

The canon as we now have it is a curated collection, selected and organized by a measure of expert knowledge and a recognized set of criteria. There are many layer of curation involved, including the storyteller(s) deciding which stories to retell, the import storytellers would impart to their stories, and the decisions by Jewish and Christian leaders about which books they would use (an informal process at first, but, one that became ever more official and formal).

For Anglicans, the canon of Scripture contains Old Testament, Apocrypha (deuterocanon), and New Testament books:

Old Testament * - indicates the Apocrypha	New Testament
Torah (Pentateuch) - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy	Gospels & Acts -  Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts of the Apostles
"Historical" Books - Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (incl. additions*), Judith*, 1-2 Maccabees*	Pauline Letters -  Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1-2 Thessalonians, Philemon, 1-2 Timothy, Titus
Prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel (incl. additions*), Baruch*, ​The Twelve: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi	Catholic Letters & Other Writing -  1-2 Peter, James, Jude, 1-2-3 John, Hebrews, Revelation (Apocalypse)​ ​
Wisdom Literature & Psalms -  Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Wisdom*, Tobit*, Sirach*	*

Translations
The Scriptures, being the work of human being in historical context, were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. A good number of solid English translations exist, a number of which have been authorized for use in the Episcopal Church. At Christ The King Episcopal Church, we use The New Revised Standard Version for Sunday Worship and, generally, for group Bible study.