About Bible
What books does Bible consist from?
Bible consists from 66 books of The Old Testament and The New Testament. Simply it's possible to tell that The Old Testament contains time from creation of world until Jesus Christ's coming and The New Testament contains about first hundred years of our era when Jesus Christ lived and after his Ascension primarly Christian (Catholic) Church has been formed.The Old Testament
Deutero-canonical books
The New Testament
How Bible came into us?
Why the text is inhomogenous, divided within a sentence by numbers
What is the meaning of references-links?
The Old Testament
Jews divides The Old Testament to three parts: Law (Tora), Prophets and Documents.- Tora contains first five Moses's books (Genesis (creation), Exodus (escape from Egypt), Leviticus (orders), Numbers (counts) and Deuteronomy (recapitulation))
- Prophets are divided to front (Joshua, Judges, 1st Samuel, 2nd Samuel, 1st Kings, 2nd Kings and rear (3 big: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel; and 12 small: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi)
- Documents then are 3 big (Job, Psalms, Proverbs), 5 festal (Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations) and others (1st Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel)
Deutero-canonical books
The Old Testament is being received both by Christians and by Jews in all those books. Especially Catholics has end of The Old Testament extended for so called Deutero-canonical books that are accepted only by Catholics. These are nine books which are written by same style as canonical ones, even they tell about era close before Christ's birth (Macabea wars) about what other books mute, but their authorship is not verified at all or there is another reason, though other churches did not agree upon these books.The New Testament
The New Testament is being received by Christians only (Catholics and also Protestants between which belongs Evangelics, Hussites, Baptists, Adventists and others.).It consists from four Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke, John) - which reports similar message about life and death of Jesus Christ by sights of four Apostles and followers. Gospels are followed by Acts of Apostles about miracles of Apostles after Jesus Christ's Ascension and by Letters to churches from Jesus's followers (mainly by) Paul, Peter and John.
The New Testament is being finished by book which is exceptional compared to other books - John's Revelation or Apocalypsa.
While The Old Testament is talking about "the past, The New Testament about Jesus's (and also our) "presence", Revelation is talking about "the future" - horror vision of Apostle John about future End of the World.
How Bible came into us?
Bible started to expand in about 2nd. century a.C. (after Christ; or we remember from school labeling o.e. (our era, it is the same by time)).Bible originaly written Hebraic and Arameic was translated into at that time world languages, mainly to Greek and Latin, best-known are greek translation Septuaginta (that means "seventy" because according a tradition it was translated by 70 scholars in 70 days and their translations were identical) from the 3rd. century b.C. (before Christ; or we remember from school labeling b.o.e. (before our era, it is the same by time)) and latin Vulgata from 4th. century a.C. (after Christ, o.e.). From those books originated translations to other languages which were unified to "authorized versions" responding to english King James Version from 1611 or to czech Bible Kralicka from 1613.
Those Bibles are being considered as best translations of all times. Unfortunately regarding to language development those Bibles became unintelligible to some today's people and hence today are done so called "modern translations - in Czech it is primarily Ekumenicka Bible from 1985, which were translated together by most Churches, in eglish speaking world it is f.e. New English Bible from 1970. Those modern Bibles which gathered not only from Septuaginta or Vulgata but also from some extant scrolls are usually more intelligible for readers-beginners but advanced readers often receive that Kralicka/King James translations is more apposite.
Why the text is inhomogenous, divided within a sentence by numbers, why are somewords written by italic or are in brackets?
The original texts which was Bible translated from was not complete - it was not found one complete jewish Bible which was "only" translated. Individual books or even their fragments was written on more or less damaged scrolls placed in libraries all over world. They were written in different languages - Hebraic, Arameic, Greek a.s.o. There were also other grammatical specialities - f.e. hebraic letters didn't use any vowels, all words were only groupage of consonant. Sentence building was strange regarding to european languages, so translator comparing tests from different scrolls got text that could be misguided or badly intelligible. Because of it, translators inserted into those test new words not existing in original text for easier understanding of the thought. Those words however as derived ones were set by different typeface, most often by italic or in brackets.Particular verses are enumerated because of easy searching and marking of particular text passages. This verses enumerating was not present in original books, it was set additionally (as far as in Middle Ages).
Direct speech (somebody speaks), which we mark by quotation marks, Middle Age Bibles didn't impeache and they didn't use any quotation marks. Ekumenicka Bible according current czech grammar uses quotation marks. Indirect speech (somebody is talking about that f.e. God said this:) is being marked there by more/less symbols (facing to text, so f.e. Paul says, that "God said: >This<")
Like an idea then, taken from some version of Bible, there is used marking by red color of anything what Jesus said.
What is the meaning of references-links?
References to verses are black links in the end of some verses. These links are written in bookish Kralicka Bible directly after verse (same as it is here), in bookish Ekumenicka they are written as far as bellow under line on every page. So even if there is more such links in Ekumenicka, reader usually passed them not even searching for them. In Kralicka Bible verses are though better visible, however nor most readers is not willing to read a verse and then search for references into three different books to find what other verse does the original one link to.Withal for systematic man, how I'm feeling to be, right those links are very important telling us where in Bible similar was mentioned - f.e. same event is described in Mathew's and Luke's Gospel - that's why after Mathew's verse there is a link to similar verse in Luke.
So nothing revolutionary, wanted be said. But sometimes the second description of same event happen more understable for us.
But what I consider as the most important are references from Gospels to The Old Testament - to Prophets. The Prophets already as far as 500 to 1000 year before Christ predicted his comming. It is important to remind that some Gospel event was predicted hundreds years in advance - as far as we are able to accept that possibility.
If not - having not such imagination and being able to accept only what we can touch, how can we that way believe that America exists if we were not there, how can we believe that stars are existing - that are not only sticked up on high, who of us was so high to see that the Earth is rounded? Are we believing to what was said on TV but not believing to what is written in Book?
So, let's rather go back to links - the sense for us, comfortable non-listers is in it that when I'll read a verse and I'm interested of reference, then I can by only one click get there. Also there can be other reference link there to other place - don't it remind you a begining of internet surfing?
I would like to make this possibility accessible all over Bible. Unfortunately, it's not possible - for that I really don't have neither server capacity nor ability to re-write all Bible. Reference linking namely increases with verse number not by arithmetical but by geometrical progression. I don't really have so much time in my life. In addition if there was whole Bible there, then the original sense - to make accessible selected verses - would be lost. That one who would not like to surf on links, that would be discouraged by long text that can be read in bookish Bible.
Now I have here selected 3000 verses from 64 books in one file of amount over two megabytes - I apologize to them who has slow connection and who had to wait so long to download - all Bible would have amount of 20 megabytes - so 10 times more. Certainly, I could divide (f.e.) books to particular files, but if we are still in one file then we can search also by windows way (Ctrl^F) in all books at once! - in that other way I would have to repeat searching in each of 66 books.
So I decided we will operate only with selected verses and in selected links. Because I don't feel being so desirable to decide what is important in Bible and what not, I'm open also to your opinions, I can according of your wishes to add or to take away some verses and to "cultivate" selection that way. But, of course, still I keep Veto power.
