{
  "id": "bible",
  "title": "Bible",
  "lang": "en",
  "source_lang": "en",
  "summary": "The Bible is the collection of sacred texts recognized by Christianity and Judaism, written over about a thousand years in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, with its canon and translations still varying among traditions.",
  "category": "philosophy",
  "subcategory": "religion",
  "type": "work",
  "aliases": [
    "Holy Bible",
    "Holy Scripture",
    "Scripture",
    "Christian Bible",
    "Hebrew Bible",
    "Tanakh",
    "Old and New Testaments"
  ],
  "generated_at": "2026-10-08",
  "model": "pro/claude-haiku-5-5",
  "url": "https://aiwiki.page/en/bible/",
  "translations": {
    "zh-Hans": {
      "url": "https://aiwiki.page/zh/bible/",
      "json": "https://aiwiki.page/zh/bible.json"
    }
  },
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "",
      "text": "The Bible is a collection of sacred scriptures recognized by Christianity and Judaism. The Christian Bible is usually divided into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), while the New Testament focuses on the life of Jesus, the history of the early church, and its letters. The Bible is not a single work composed at one time, but a collection written over roughly a thousand years by many authors in several languages—primarily Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—and gradually brought into its established form through copying, editing, and selection. Questions such as which books belong to the canon and which translations are reliable remain matters of disagreement among different religious traditions. Both Christianity and Judaism regard the Bible as their central religious text, while Islam also refers to earlier revealed scriptures within its system of belief.\n\nThe Bible's importance extends beyond religion. It has shaped language, literature, art, ethics, and concepts of law in the West and in many other parts of the world. It is also a major subject of study in ancient Near Eastern history, classical philology, textual criticism, and archaeology. Archaeological discoveries such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, together with comparisons of ancient translations—including the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate—allow scholars to trace early forms of the text.\n\nThis article will examine, in sequence, the Bible's name and structure; the contents of the Old and New Testaments; the formation of the two major canons; the original languages and manuscript transmission; ancient and modern translations; textual criticism and differences between versions; the spread of printing and vernacular translations; traditions of interpretation through the ages; the Bible's role in religious practice, literature, art, law, and ethics; modern historical research; and unresolved controversies."
    },
    {
      "heading": "名称与词源",
      "text": "The English word Bible comes from Greek ta biblia, literally \"the books,\" the plural of biblion, a diminutive of byblos, the word for papyrus. That root may have been named after the Phoenician seaport of Byblos, from which Egyptian papyri were shipped to Greece. The grammar shifted over time. In ancient Latin, \"biblia\" was a neuter plural, but by the Middle Ages it was treated as a feminine singular. That shift helps explain why a multi-volume anthology is now printed and read as one book.\n\nThe collective sense developed early. Greek-speaking Christians came to call the whole body of Old and New Testament writings ta biblia. The earliest known use of the phrase to designate the Holy Scriptures is generally dated to around AD 150, in 2 Clement. Latin rendered the Greek ta biblia ta hagia (\"the holy books\") as biblia sacra. In English, the word was not fixed at once: Old English had its own term for Scripture, but the shorter Old French word bible replaced it in the early fourteenth century.\n\nTerminology: Tanakh, Old Testament, Hebrew Bible\n\nJudaism and Christianity do not label the same texts in the same way. In Jewish usage, the standard name is Tanakh, an acronym built from the initial Hebrew letters of the three traditional divisions: Torah (\"Teaching,\" also known as the Five Books of Moses), Nevi'im (\"Prophets\") and Ketuvim (\"Writings\"). Christians apply the word Bible to both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, while Jews use it only for the Hebrew Bible.\n\nChristians call the Hebrew collection the Old Testament, a label that presumes a later \"new\" covenant. The New Testament is a body of writings about the new covenant that God is said to have promised in the Old Testament or Tanakh. Because \"Old Testament\" carries Christian theological connotations, many scholars prefer the neutral term Hebrew Bible. Biblical studies scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible (or Hebrew Scriptures) as a substitute for less-neutral terms with Jewish or Christian connotations. The terms are close but not interchangeable. Torah, Pentateuch, and Hebrew Bible are often used as if they were equivalent to Tanakh, but they are not synonyms. The Pentateuch covers only the first part of the Tanakh, and the Christian Old Testament differs from the Tanakh in arrangement and, for Catholic and Orthodox churches, in some books as well.\n\nCanon: from measuring rod to authoritative list\n\nThe word canon comes from Greek kanōn, meaning a measuring rod or straight edge. It derives from the Hebrew term qaneh and the Greek term kanon, both of which refer to a measuring rod. Architects and craftsmen used a kanon to draw straight lines. From this physical sense, the word came to mean a rule or standard, and its application to scripture follows that extension. Early Christians came to see scripture as the rule against which the Church's proclamation of the Gospel is measured.\n\nIn the modern sense, a biblical canon is a collection of sacred texts viewed as authoritative within Judaism and Christianity. It is a closed list rather than a loose body of religious writing. Church Fathers of the fourth century CE were the first to use the term for the definitive, authoritative body of Christian scripture. The idea of a fixed list, however, took a long time to form. Even the idea of a fixed and final list came about only after a long evolution. The canon is therefore best understood as a historical result, not a single decision taken at one moment.\n\nOther names and related concepts\n\nSeveral terms overlap with Bible. English speakers also use Scripture, Holy Scriptures, and Holy Writ, which means \"sacred writings.\" Jewish tradition uses the Hebrew name Miqra, meaning \"that which is read,\" derived from the verb meaning to read aloud. Chinese 圣经 (shèngjīng) combines \"holy\" with 经, a word for a standard text, and European languages mostly derive their terms from Latin biblia.\n\nThe concepts are related but distinct. \"Scripture\" (圣典) refers to texts regarded as sacred and authoritative; \"canon\" refers to the bounded list of such texts; \"classic\" (经典) names a work of lasting authority that need not have any religious claim. The overlap is visible in the word canon itself, which can also denote works of a writer that have been accepted as authentic. In Islam, earlier revealed books are referred to collectively as the \"People of the Book,\" a term that places the Jewish and Christian scriptures within a broader category of revelation."
    },
    {
      "heading": "正典的结构与规模",
      "text": "Protestant Bibles conventionally contain 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. Roman Catholic Bibles add seven Old Testament books (Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch) along with Greek additions to Esther and Daniel. Most Eastern Orthodox canons are larger still, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo canon is the broadest of the major traditions. The deuterocanonical books are the main source of these differences, and the Old Testament is where they arise. The New Testament is essentially the same across Christian churches.\n\nThe Hebrew Bible, known in Judaism as the Tanakh, has 24 books arranged in three divisions. The Torah (Law) comprises five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Nevi'im (Prophets) contains eight books: the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, with each pair of Samuel and Kings counted as one book) and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets, counted as one book). The Ketuvim (Writings) contains eleven books, including Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah and Chronicles. The total of 24 depends on how books are counted. The first-century historian Josephus, for example, reckons 22 books for the same material.\n\nChristian Bibles keep the same text but reorganize it into more books. Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are each divided into two, Ezra and Nehemiah are separated, and Ruth is set apart from Judges. Lamentations and Daniel are moved among the prophets, and the Christian order follows the Greek tradition rather than the Hebrew one. The result is 39 Old Testament books: five of law, twelve of history, five of wisdom and poetry, and seventeen of prophecy. The Old Testament is far longer than the New. By the usual chapter divisions it has 929 chapters against the New Testament's 260, and it accounts for roughly three-quarters of the text of a Protestant Bible.\n\nThe two parts also differ in language and genre. Most of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, with Aramaic passages in Daniel, Ezra and a few other places. The New Testament is written in Koine Greek. The Old Testament contains law codes, narrative history, poetry, wisdom literature and prophecy, while the New Testament consists of four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, letters attributed largely to Paul and others, and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation. Christian theology reads the two as a single story in which the Old Testament anticipates and the New Testament fulfils it. The New Testament cites Hebrew scripture extensively for this purpose, and the letter to the Hebrews speaks of a \"new\" covenant that makes the older one obsolete, echoing Jeremiah 31. A formula often attributed to Augustine captures the idea: the New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New. Judaism does not accept this framework. The Tanakh is complete in itself, and the term \"Old Testament\" implies a supersession that Jewish tradition rejects.\n\nThe differences among Christian canons have their roots in the textual sources and in later church decisions. Protestant churches generally adopted the Hebrew canon for the Old Testament, following the Jewish canon and the preference of Jerome, and treated the deuterocanonical books as valuable for reading but not as authoritative for doctrine. The Council of Trent in 1546 affirmed the deuterocanonical books as canonical for Catholics, while Eastern Orthodox churches drew on the broader Greek Septuagint, which contains these books in a more integrated form. The Septuagint is itself a Greek translation, and its scope was never identical to the Hebrew collection. Local traditions, liturgical use and different text-critical judgments further shaped these canons. The historical details of these disputes are treated later in this entry, but the structural differences described here form the basis for that discussion."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Content and Genres of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)",
      "text": "The Pentateuch (Books of the Law)\n\nThe Old Testament opens with five books, known in Greek as the Pentateuch and in Hebrew as the Torah (meaning “teaching” or “law”). Jewish tradition calls these five books the Torah because the Sinai covenant and the laws conveyed through Moses occupy a central place in them.\n\nTheir contents can be divided into several broad sections. Genesis begins with creation, the Garden of Eden, and the Flood, followed by the repopulation of the earth after the Flood. It then develops the patriarchal narratives through the calling of Abram (Abraham) and the stories of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Genesis describes creation, the destruction brought by the Flood, and the subsequent repopulation of the world. Exodus recounts the enslavement of Jacob’s descendants in Egypt, Yahweh’s remembrance of his covenant with them, and his leading them out of Egypt, followed by the establishment of the covenant and the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. Leviticus contains very little narrative and consists mainly of regulations concerning sacrifices, purification, festivals, and moral and ritual conduct. Leviticus is characterized by its limited narrative and extensive laws, covering festivals, sacrifices, and purification, as well as the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Numbers recounts the Israelites’ forty years of wandering in the wilderness, while Deuteronomy is framed as Moses’ speeches before his death, reviewing their history and urging the people to keep the covenant. Traditionally, Judaism identifies 613 commandments in the Torah, including the Ten Commandments.\n\nHistorical Books, Wisdom Books, and Prophetic Books\n\nThe remainder of the Old Testament falls broadly into three categories. In the Christian Old Testament, the historical books run from Joshua to Esther; in the Hebrew Bible, their principal counterparts are the “Former Prophets” (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings). These books are primarily narrative but also incorporate chronological records, court stories, genealogies, and passages of law. Chronicles retells the history of the monarchical period from a different perspective.\n\nThe wisdom books include Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs; Psalms is also often placed in this category. Job consists of lengthy poetic dialogues enclosed within a prose framework. Proverbs comprises numerous short sayings, often expressed in parallel lines. Ecclesiastes has a skeptical and reflective tone, while the Song of Songs is love poetry. Psalms contains songs of praise, lament, and thanksgiving and is a major collection of Hebrew poetry.\n\nApart from the “Former Prophets,” the prophetic books comprise the “Latter Prophets,” including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the “Twelve Minor Prophets.” Their contents consist largely of oracles and sermons criticizing social injustice, hypocrisy in ritual worship, and rulers’ failures to fulfill their duties. They also include oracles concerning the nations, visions, and eschatological hopes. The Hebrew Bible places Daniel among the “Writings,” whereas the Christian Old Testament includes it among the prophetic books. This difference also reflects the two traditions’ differing approaches to the classification of biblical books.\n\nLanguages and Literary Style\n\nThe Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew. The vast majority of its passages are in Hebrew, but Daniel 2:4b through chapter 7, portions of Ezra, Jeremiah 10:11, and certain other passages are in Aramaic. The Aramaic sections of Ezra consist chiefly of letters and documents that the author chose to preserve in their original language rather than translate into Hebrew. The Aramaic sections of Daniel have long been a subject of debate: some scholars date them to the Hellenistic period on linguistic grounds, while others maintain that language cannot establish a precise date. Aramaic texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as the Genesis Apocryphon, have also been used for comparative dating.\n\nDates of Composition and Questions of Editing\n\nThe books of the Old Testament were composed over a long period. The books of the Hebrew Bible are generally thought to date roughly from the eighth or seventh century BCE to the second or first century BCE. Their chronological range is approximately the eighth/seventh century BCE through the second/first century BCE. Early material may have circulated orally; for example, several poetic passages in Exodus 15 are often regarded as among the oldest portions. Scholars are nevertheless cautious about whether oral traditions can be traced to specific periods. It is difficult to determine when an oral narrative’s form or motifs became associated with a particular figure, such as Abraham, and this association may well have arisen only when the narrative was first written down.\n\nRegarding the editing of the Pentateuch, the Documentary Hypothesis, developed from the nineteenth century onward, proposed four sources: J, E, D, and P. J was dated to the reign of Solomon, around 950 BCE; E to the ninth century BCE; D to a period shortly before King Josiah, in the seventh or eighth century BCE; and P generally to the time of Ezra, in the fifth century BCE. Today, however, this hypothesis is no longer the only mainstream model. There is no single scholarly consensus on the Documentary Hypothesis. Some scholars reject the distinction between J and E as independent sources, while others argue for additional sources or propose different chronological sequences. By contrast, traditional Jewish and Christian views hold that Moses was the principal author, though scholars generally approach this claim with reservations. Most scholars believe that the Pentateuch largely acquired its present form in the post-exilic period.\n\nInfluence on Later Judaism and Christianity\n\nThe laws, rituals, prophetic traditions, and wisdom literature of the Old Testament profoundly shaped later religious life. The laws of the Pentateuch—including ethical regulations, ritual observances, the Sabbath, and festivals—became the foundation of Jewish law (Halakha), and subsequent rabbinic tradition, Midrash, and the Talmud all took them as a starting point for interpretation. The prophetic books’ calls for justice, mercy, and faithfulness to the covenant influenced Jewish ethical discourse and were also inherited by Christianity. New Testament authors frequently quoted the Old Testament and interpreted Jesus’ life as the fulfillment of prophetic predictions. Wisdom literature provided Christianity and Judaism with ways to express everyday ethics, family order, and trust in God, while Psalms became an enduring source of texts for worship and prayer. These influences also extended into later concepts of Law, practices of Ritual, and traditions of Poetry."
    },
    {
      "heading": "第二正典与次经",
      "text": "Protestant churches generally call the group of books found in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible the \"Apocrypha,\" a word whose Greek root suggests \"hidden.\" Roman Catholic scholarship prefers the term \"deuterocanonical,\" meaning \"second canon,\" which came into use only after the 16th century. The standard Catholic list includes Judith, Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon), Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Baruch, the Greek additions to Esther, and the additions to Daniel: the Prayer of Azariah with the Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon. Eastern Orthodox Bibles usually contain these texts too, along with several further works such as 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151, although the exact contents differ between Greek, Slavic and other Orthodox traditions.\n\nThe Council of Trent took up the question in 1546. At its fourth session, in April of that year, it issued a decree on the scriptures and attached an anathema to those who rejected the books it affirmed. The decree tied its list to the traditional Latin text, \"as contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition.\" Reported tallies put the vote at 24 in favour, 15 against, with 16 abstentions. Catholic apologists argue that Trent merely reaffirmed a Western consensus, and they point to earlier lists at the Councils of Rome (382 AD), Hippo (393 AD), Carthage (397 AD and 419 AD), Florence (1442 AD) and Trent (1546 AD). Critics, especially in the Reformation polemic of the time, read Trent as a reaction against Luther that formalized a disputed corpus. Historians generally regard the Western acceptance of these books as older than Trent, while agreeing that the council was the first decision to make their status a matter of defined doctrine.\n\nMartin Luther's position developed gradually. In his 1519 disputation with Johann Eck he weakened the proof text Eck had drawn from 2 Maccabees 12, the passage used to support prayers for the dead, by downgrading the books as a group. He argued that the New Testament authors had never quoted from the seven books, so they belonged to a different class than the rest of the Bible. Luther also had little regard for 2 Maccabees in particular. Yet his own 1534 German Bible included these texts. He placed the Apocrypha in a separate section after the Old Testament, rather than interspersing them among the other books as Catholic Bibles did. In his view they were \"useful and good to read,\" but not of the same status as the Hebrew scriptures. Many later Protestant Bibles kept the same separate section, and the King James Version of 1611 printed them as well. The exclusion from Protestant Old Testaments became common only over the following century. Protestant confessions differed here: the Church of England's Sixth Article, for example, allowed these books to be read for instruction in life and manners but not to establish doctrine.\n\nJudaism never accepted these books into its canon. They were excluded from the Masoretic Text, and rabbinic Judaism did not regard them as authoritative. The Septuagint, however, is where they entered the Christian Old Testament. This Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures was produced in the Hellenistic world, with dating usually placing its composition between about the third and second centuries BCE. Early Christians read the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and it included the seven deuterocanonical books. The Protestant historian J.N.D. Kelly observed that the Old Testament accepted in the early church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the later Protestant one. The New Testament itself leans toward this tradition. One Catholic tally holds that at least two-thirds of the approximately 300 Old Testament quotations in the New Testament follow the Septuagint rather than what would later become the Masoretic Hebrew text, although the precise proportion depends on how quotations are counted.\n\nIn the early church, the books' standing was not uniform. Regional councils at Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419) endorsed a canon that included them, while Jerome, who translated the Old Testament from Hebrew for the Latin Vulgate, raised doubts about their status. The Vulgate itself, completed around 400, carried them alongside the other Old Testament books, and this combination of Greek usage, Latin transmission and conciliar endorsement shaped the Western tradition. The different treatment of these texts across traditions therefore rests on distinct questions: what the Jewish canon was at the time of Christ, which Greek or Latin witnesses carried authority, and what the Reformation was entitled to change."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Contents and Genres of the New Testament",
      "text": "Books and Language\n\nThe New Testament usually contains 27 books. Most Christian traditions divide them into several groups: the four Gospels, the separate book of Acts, the letters circulated under Paul's name, a group of letters known as the “Catholic Epistles,” and Revelation. Thirteen of the letters claim to have been written by Paul, but scholars generally distinguish among them. Seven are usually regarded as authentic: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. The authorship of Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians is disputed, while most scholars consider 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus—the “Pastoral Epistles”—to have been written later.\n\nThe New Testament was written in Koine Greek, the common language of the eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It differs from Classical Attic Greek in its simpler vocabulary and syntax, and the language of many of its authors also reflects Hebrew and Aramaic influences. The use of Koine Greek varies in style: the Gospels and Acts are narratives, the epistles respond to particular churches or individuals, and Revelation takes the form of visions and prophecy.\n\nThe Gospels and the Synoptic Problem\n\nThe word “gospel” comes from the Greek euangelion, meaning “good news.” The Gospels are thus understood as narratives of the “good news” of Jesus' life, Passion, and resurrection. In some respects, they are partly biography, partly history, and partly theology. This mixed genre gives them a biographical character while also incorporating historical narrative and theological interpretation. None of the four Gospels names its author in the text. Their attribution to particular authors gradually became established around the second century CE, traditionally linking them to the disciples Matthew and John and to the apostles' companions Mark and Luke.\n\nThe Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke share extensive similarities in content, sequence, and wording, and are therefore known as the “Synoptic Gospels,” meaning “seen from the same perspective.” The question of how to explain these similarities and differences is the Synoptic problem. The most common explanation today is the two-source hypothesis: Mark was written first, and Matthew and Luke independently drew on Mark as well as a shared, now-lost collection of sayings known as Q, from the German Quelle, meaning “source.” In 1838, another German scholar, Christian Hermann Weisse, accepted Schleiermacher's proposal of a sayings source and combined it with the view that Mark was the earliest Gospel. This framework was further established by Holtzmann and others in the late nineteenth century. The hypothesis also faces challenges, such as certain “minor agreements” between Matthew and Luke that are absent from Mark. Other scholars have proposed alternatives, including the Griesbach hypothesis, which places Matthew first, and the Farrer hypothesis, which does not posit Q. The Gospel of John differs markedly in structure, theological language, and its portrayal of Jesus, and is generally not central to discussions of the Synoptic problem.\n\nThe Pauline Epistles and Revelation\n\nThe Pauline Epistles are, broadly speaking, the earliest surviving writings in the New Testament, with 1 Thessalonians usually dated to the early 50s CE. These letters address problems in particular churches, dealing with faith, ethics, communal discipline, and church order. They supplied foundational vocabulary for later theological development, including concepts such as “justification,” “grace,” and “the body of Christ,” and profoundly influenced Augustine, Luther, and many other reformers. As early as the late first century, 2 Peter referred to Paul's letters alongside “the other scriptures,” indicating that these letters quickly acquired authoritative status in the early church.\n\nRevelation is the only explicitly apocalyptic work in the New Testament. Its genre is multifaceted: among other elements, it contains letters to seven churches in Asia in chapters 2–3. The book spans three literary genres: epistolary, apocalyptic, and prophetic. Its author calls the work “prophecy” (1:3; 22:7, 10, 18, 19), while scholars also commonly use the term “apocalyptic literature” to describe its visions, angels, symbolic numbers, and depictions of the end times. Its symbolic language draws heavily on Old Testament imagery, giving rise to several interpretive traditions over the centuries. The ancient church generally favored allegorical and typological interpretations; from the medieval period onward, historicist interpretations emerged that linked its various symbols to church history; and from the seventeenth century, futurist interpretations assigned most of its symbols to the end of the world. This debate remains unresolved and currently concerns mainly the opening and closing portions of Revelation. Modern scholars generally regard Revelation as a first-century apocalyptic work intended to warn early Christian communities against assimilating into the cultural and political order of the Roman Empire."
    },
    {
      "heading": "希伯来圣经正典的形成",
      "text": "Jewish scripture did not receive its final boundaries in one act. Scholars generally describe a process in which some collections were treated as authoritative early and others remained open to debate for a long time. The Torah and the Prophets seem to have stabilized relatively early, probably by the late Second Temple period (around the 4th century BCE), while the third division, the Writings (Ketuvim), was more fluid. The Tanakh as it is known today divides its 24 books into the Torah, the Nevi'im (eight books) and the Ketuvim (eleven books). (Judaism)\n\n从律法书与先知书到圣卷\n\nThe earliest stage is usually reconstructed from rabbinic discussions and from the Qumran and other Judean Desert manuscripts. Some scholars hold that by about 200 BCE a broad consensus already existed on the core of the Torah and the Prophets, and that the Writings were added later. Some Writings, such as Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, had their status questioned in rabbinic circles, and some other books, such as Esther, were debated for other reasons. The question was less about adding new books than about confirming those already in use. Second Temple manuscripts also show that several textual forms of the same books circulated side by side, so the stabilization of the canon and the stabilization of the text were related but not identical processes.\n\n雅内会议的争议\n\nThe \"Council of Jamnia\" (Yavneh, Jabneh) is often cited as the decisive moment, dated to about 90 CE. The idea was introduced by Heinrich Graetz in 1871 and became widely accepted, partly because it resembled the church councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon. Its basis is a small number of rabbinic passages, such as Mishnah Yadayim 3:5–4:4 and Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 28a, which use the phrase \"on that day\" when discussing the status of certain books. Many later readers took this to describe a single formal session. Since the 1960s, however, many scholars have questioned this reconstruction. They argue that the sources show at most a discussion of a few disputed books, mainly Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, and not a binding decision about the entire collection. Others, including some Jewish and Christian historians, still treat Yavneh as an important center in which rabbinic authority was consolidated after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The size and effect of the gathering therefore remain disputed, and the term \"council\" should be read as a modern label rather than a documented event.\n\n希伯来正典与《七十士译本》\n\nThe Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures made from the 3rd century BCE onward in Alexandrian Jewish circles, contains a wider range of books than the Hebrew Bible, including several texts that were never accepted into the Hebrew canon. Its text also differs from the Masoretic tradition in many places. Comparisons show that about 2,000 of the roughly 6,000 places where the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Masoretic text differ are matched by the Septuagint, which indicates that the Greek translation sometimes preserves readings from a different Hebrew textual tradition. Early Christians inherited the Septuagint as their Old Testament, and the New Testament authors quoted it extensively. This meant that for many early communities the boundaries of \"scripture\" were defined by the Greek collection rather than by the narrower Hebrew list. Later Jewish and Christian debates about the Apocrypha and deuterocanonical books, discussed elsewhere in this entry, grew directly from this difference. (Translation)\n\n群体立场：法利赛人与撒玛利亚人\n\nThe rabbinic movement that became normative Judaism grew out of Pharisaic circles. The sources suggest that Pharisaic and proto-rabbinic teachers, such as Yohanan ben Zakkai, were active in Yavneh after the Temple fell, while the Sadducean leadership had been associated with the Temple. The rabbinic tradition ultimately recognized three divisions of scripture, and its definition became standard in later Judaism. The Samaritan community took a different path. It accepts only the Five Books of Moses as scripture and rejects the Prophets and the Writings. Its Pentateuch is written in the Samaritan alphabet and includes distinctive readings, most notably the elevation of Mount Gerizim as the chosen place of worship, and it also contains a number of expansions and harmonizations. The Samaritan case shows that the Torah was recognized as authoritative in more than one community well before the Hebrew canon as a whole was fixed."
    },
    {
      "heading": "基督教新约正典的形成",
      "text": "In the second century, Christian writers already treated some gospels and Pauline letters as authoritative, but no closed list existed. Irenaeus, writing around 180, argued for a fourfold gospel and quoted Paul, 1 Peter, and 1 John as scripture. Scattered citations of this kind show that a core of texts was in common use, while the outer boundary remained open.\n\n早期的多样性\n\nMarcion, active in Rome around 140, rejected the Hebrew Scriptures altogether. He accepted an edited form of Luke and a collection of ten Pauline letters, and he regarded the God of the Old Testament as a different being from the God revealed by Jesus. His challenge pushed proto-orthodox writers to define their own collection more precisely. The Muratorian Fragment, a Latin copy of a Greek original usually dated to about 170 to 200, is the oldest surviving list of New Testament books. It accepts the Apocalypse of John and, notably, the Apocalypse of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas. It omits Hebrews, James, and the letters of Peter, and it rejects works associated with Marcion and Valentinian teachers. Origen, in the early third century, reportedly knew all 27 books now in use, yet he noted that some were disputed, and later Eusebius sorted the writings into recognized, disputed, and spurious categories. The result was a canon that was broadly similar in different regions but not uniform.\n\n亚大纳修的书目（367年）\n\nThe first explicit enumeration of exactly the 27 books now used comes from Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, in his Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter of 367. Its Greek portion uses the verb form kanonizomena for the listed books, which is one of the earliest uses of the canon vocabulary for scripture. Athanasius also listed 22 Old Testament books in line with the Hebrew count, and he named the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache as useful for catechumens but not canonical. He presented the list as closed, rejecting additions as the inventions of heretics. Although his letter addressed the churches under his authority, it became a reference point for later councils and for the church of Alexandria's wider influence.\n\n北非会议（393年、397年、419年）\n\nCouncils gave the list wider institutional backing. The Synod of Hippo in 393 included a canon listing the scriptures and forbidding anything else to be read in church under the name of divine scripture. The acts of Hippo are largely lost, and its canons survive in later abstracts. The Third Council of Carthage in 397 reaffirmed the Hippo list, and a Council of Carthage in 419 did so again. These councils were regional, and the Carthage decisions were sent to Rome for ratification. Augustine of Hippo was prominent in these councils and influenced their outlook on scripture, but the councils did not create authority from nothing. They ratified a list that was already largely accepted in Latin Africa and elsewhere.\n\n认定标准与争议\n\nEarly church figures generally judged books by three criteria: whether they were connected to an apostle or to an apostolic associate, such as Mark or Luke; whether they were widely read in the churches; and whether their teaching agreed with the rule of faith. Apostolicity was the most commonly invoked test, but it was applied flexibly, and wide use often mattered more than strict authorship. Hebrews raised questions about authorship; it was accepted in the East early but was long doubted in the West, and Pauline authorship was contested. James, Jude, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John were slower to gain acceptance in some regions, and the Syriac tradition omitted several of them. Revelation was the most contested. Eastern churches were cautious about it for centuries, partly because of its popularity with millenarian readers and partly because doubts about its apostolic authorship were raised as early as the third century. Its inclusion in the 27-book list reflects a Western consensus that prevailed over regional hesitation."
    },
    {
      "heading": "原文语言与古代抄本",
      "text": "旧约的语言与书写\n\nThe Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is written mainly in Biblical Hebrew, a Northwest Semitic language written in the consonantal script that descends from the alphabet tradition. The early script recorded consonants, with some consonant letters doubling as vowel indicators. Full vowel notation was added much later, through the Tiberian system of the Masoretes. Several passages are in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Near East, including parts of Daniel, Ezra, and a few verses in Jeremiah, which reflects the wider linguistic setting of the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Aramaic was written in a related alphabetic script, and the square letter forms later used for Hebrew developed from it.\n\n新约的希腊文\n\nThe New Testament was composed in Koine Greek, the common Greek of the Hellenistic and Roman eras, written with the 24-letter Greek alphabet. The earliest copies were typically written in continuous uppercase letters, usually without word spacing or punctuation. Scribes abbreviated certain sacred names, such as those for Jesus and God, a practice known as nomina sacra. A small number of Aramaic words are preserved in Greek transliteration in the Gospels, such as \"Talitha koum\" and the cry from the cross, which show the Aramaic-speaking background of Jesus' followers.\n\n死海古卷\n\nThe Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near Qumran between 1947 and 1956, in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran, on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea. They are dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, and they include the oldest surviving copies of many books later counted in Jewish and Christian canons. Most of the Hebrew texts are written in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic and Greek. The manuscripts are largely made of parchment, with some papyrus and copper, and the vast majority hold only small scraps of text. Counts of the texts vary with how fragments are grouped; one reference gives almost 850 ancient Jewish documents, while another lists 981 texts.\n\nThe most significant biblical manuscript from the caves is the Great Isaiah Scroll. It is the largest and best preserved of all the biblical scrolls, and the only one that is almost complete, and its text is generally in agreement with the Masoretic or traditional version. Because the scrolls predate the medieval codices by roughly a thousand years, they allowed scholars to test how stable the Hebrew text had been over that span.\n\n马所拉文本\n\nThe Masoretic Text is the standard form of the Hebrew Bible used in Judaism and in most modern Hebrew editions. The term \"masora\" refers to the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts that record spelling and other details. The Masoretes, who worked mainly between the 7th and 10th centuries CE, primarily copied, edited, and distributed the text. Their vowel and accent system, known as Tiberian vocalization, is the basis of the reading tradition that became authoritative.\n\nThe most important witness is the Leningrad Codex. According to its colophon, it was made in Cairo in AD 1008 (or possibly 1009). It is written on parchment and bound in leather, and it preserves the full text with vowels, accents, and marginal notes. It is considered the basis of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and other editions. The older Aleppo Codex, which would have been a closer witness to the Tiberian tradition, has been missing parts since 1947, which makes the Leningrad Codex the oldest complete Tiberian copy that survives intact. Hebrew manuscripts from before the 13th century are otherwise very rare, and most of them have survived in a fragmentary condition.\n\n新约希腊文抄本\n\nGreek New Testament manuscripts fall into several main types. Papyri, written on papyrus, are the oldest group and are cited with the letter P followed by a number. Uncials, written in capital letters on parchment, have numbers that begin with 0. Minuscules, written in smaller, connected cursive letters, have their own numbering system. Papyri are more ancient than minuscules, and minuscule copies of New Testament books go back as early as the early 800s. Lectionaries, which contain readings for worship, form a separate group. The earliest papyri, such as P52, a fragment of John's Gospel, are generally dated to the second century, and papyri were preserved mainly in Egypt's dry climate.\n\nThe oldest near-complete parchment codices are Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, both believed to date from the early fourth century. Surviving Greek manuscripts from before the ninth century are relatively rare, in part because most Greek uncial manuscripts were recopied in this period and their parchment leaves typically scraped clean for re-use. Minuscules gradually replaced uncials, and by the 1000s, minuscule script became dominant. Paper came into use in the 12th century, although most minuscules were still written on parchment."
    },
    {
      "heading": "古代译本",
      "text": "The Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian writings were rendered into other languages very early, and these versions are now used as witnesses to how the original texts were read. The most influential is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Its name and tradition derive from the legendary account in the Letter of Aristeas, a work whose legend describes a royal commission in Alexandria. In that account, the High Priest in Jerusalem sends seventy-two elders to Alexandria, where they finish rendering the Torah into Greek in seventy-two days. Scholars generally do not accept this story as history. The Letter has no historical value as a witness to the origins of the Septuagint, and its date is debated, with majority opinion dating the book to 150–100 B.C. The actual translation was made over several generations, with the Pentateuch probably first, and the Greek texts of the other books following later.\n\nThe Septuagint's reception shaped the church's Bible. Most of the early Church relied on the Greek Septuagint as its translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Because the Septuagint has been preserved only in Christian sources, its text survives in Christian manuscripts that were copied and revised over the centuries, and the variant readings in those copies complicate any reconstruction of the original Greek.\n\nThe Syriac Peshitta represents a separate line of transmission. The consensus within biblical scholarship, though not universal, is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD, and that the New Testament was translated from the Greek. The location most often proposed for this work is Edessa. Because the Syriac-speaking church used the Peshitta, which was translated from the Hebrew independently of the Septuagint, it offers an independent check on the Hebrew text. Its New Testament originally excluded certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), and the five books were later added in a separate version. From the 5th century onward the Peshitta had a wide circulation in Asia, and the Armenian and Georgian versions, as well as the Arabic and the Persian, owe much to the Syriac.\n\nJewish Aramaic translations, known as Targumim, arose when Aramaic had become the everyday language of many Jews while Hebrew remained the language of the synagogue reading. These works are paraphrases as much as translations: they render the sense of a passage in Aramaic and often include interpretive expansions. The Samaritan community's Torah is a different kind of witness. Its text differs from the Masoretic text in 6,000 instances, but in about 2,000 of those instances the Septuagint agrees with the Samaritan text. A well-known case involves Exodus 12:40, where the Samaritan and Septuagint readings place the sojourn in the land of Canaan and in Egypt, while the Masoretic text refers only to Egypt. Deuteronomy 27:4 is a more theologically charged example, where the Samaritan Pentateuch replaces Mount Ebal with Mount Gerizim in accordance with the view that the site of God's temple should be Mt. Gerizim. The Samaritans preserved an older-looking script style and used it exclusively for their Torah manuscripts.\n\nThe Latin tradition culminated in Jerome's Vulgate. Earlier Latin versions, collectively called the Old Latin, circulated widely in North Africa and Europe, and were of uneven quality. Around the late fourth century, Jerome undertook a revision of the Latin Gospels and then translated much of the Old Testament from Hebrew, not from the Septuagint. The name \"Vulgate\" reflects a practical purpose: the name suggests that the text was in common use. In medieval Western Europe it became the standard Bible, and the Council of Trent in 1546 affirmed its authority for the Catholic Church.\n\nThese versions are valuable but limited as evidence. Each translator worked from a particular Hebrew or Greek manuscript and made interpretive decisions, so a translation shows what its makers read, not always what the earlier original said. Harmonization is a recurring problem: the Samaritan tradition often brings parallel laws or narratives into closer alignment, and the Peshitta and Septuagint may reflect similar tendencies. Dating and provenance are also uncertain. For the Peshitta, there is no full and clear knowledge of the circumstances under which the Peshitta was produced. For these reasons, scholars compare the versions against the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts rather than treating any one translation as decisive."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Textual Criticism and Differences Between Versions",
      "text": "Basic Methods\n\nTextual criticism—often called “lower criticism” in biblical studies to distinguish it from “higher criticism,” which examines authorship and dates of composition—studies differences that arise as texts are copied and transmitted, with the aim of reconstructing, as far as possible, an earlier form closer to the original. The discipline begins with a simple fact: none of the original manuscripts, or autographs, of the biblical books survive. Researchers have only manuscripts, ancient translations, and quotations by other authors, all of which may differ from one another. Textual critics must first record all variants and then weigh them individually. External evidence concerns which witnesses are older, more widely distributed geographically, and independent of one another; internal evidence concerns which reading best explains how the other readings arose. The two kinds of evidence are generally used together.\n\nTextual criticism also relies on certain rules of thumb: for example, a more difficult reading is often more likely to be original, and scribes are more inclined to add clarifying words than to remove them. These principles are widely cited, but scholars generally agree that they cannot be applied mechanically. Scholars such as Emanuel Tov argue that common sense provides better guidance than abstract theory. It is also important to note that textual criticism addresses differences arising during scribal transmission; literary additions and revisions made during a book’s composition fall outside its direct scope.\n\nCase Study: Deuteronomy 32:8\n\nThis passage has been repeatedly discussed in scholarship. In the Masoretic Text, Deuteronomy 32:8 speaks of setting the boundaries of nations according to the number of the “children of Israel,” whereas the fragmentary manuscript 4QDeut^j found at Qumran and the Septuagint preserve readings close to “sons of God.” Most witnesses to the Septuagint, however, actually read “angels of God,” which many researchers regard as an interpretive rendering of “sons of God.” The Greek revisions associated with Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion agree with the Masoretic Text.\n\nExplanations of this difference vary. Scholars such as Ronald Hendel argue that the reading “sons of God” has polytheistic overtones and was therefore altered by later scribes for monotheistic reasons. Other scholars, such as Michael Heiser, maintain that the textual evidence more strongly supports “sons of God” and that defenses of the Masoretic Text rest on misunderstandings of textual history and methodology. Both sides invoke the principle of choosing the reading that best explains how the others arose, yet reach different conclusions. Notably, in the passages in Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5 concerning the number of members of Jacob’s family who entered Egypt—seventy-five people—the Septuagint and the Qumran manuscripts likewise differ from the Masoretic Text, but scholars consider the Masoretic reading preferable in Exodus 1:5. This illustrates why no textual tradition can be assumed in advance to be more reliable.\n\nThe Urtext Hypothesis\n\nThe “Urtext”—a German term meaning “original text”—is the hypothetical single, unified original form of the Hebrew Bible, presumed to predate both the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text and to be their common source. Paul de Lagarde proposed this view in the nineteenth century, and scholars subsequently spent many years attempting to reconstruct such a text through comparative methods. Today, however, scholars generally question whether a unified text of this kind ever existed. The Qumran scrolls support these doubts: some agree with the Masoretic Text, others with the Septuagint, while many agree with neither of these nor with any other known tradition. The Samaritan Pentateuch and divergent manuscripts from the medieval Cairo Genizah display similar diversity.\n\nScholarly assessments of the Urtext hypothesis are therefore divided. Supporters consider the recognition of some common source a necessary premise for reconstructing earlier texts and have used it as the basis for critical editions such as Biblia Hebraica Quinta. Critics argue that the hypothesis presupposes a single starting point while overlooking the prolonged fluidity and development of texts within oral and written traditions, as well as the editorial activities of different communities. Other models, such as the “archetype,” “fluid text,” and “textual convergence,” seek to replace this linear picture. Tov observes that scholars who assume a single original text attempt to reconstruct it, whereas those who reject that premise rarely undertake reconstruction.\n\nVariants in the New Testament Text\n\nThe Greek New Testament survives in an enormous number of manuscripts, with textual variants numbering in the hundreds of thousands. A frequently cited figure is approximately 400,000 variants, while a complete Greek New Testament contains only about 138,000 words; hence the widespread statement that there are “more variants than words.” The vast majority of variants, however, are extremely minor, and it is estimated that fewer than one percent could affect meaning.\n\nScholars generally divide variants into two broad categories. Unintentional errors include confusion between letters similar in appearance or sound, skipping a line because of identical endings (homoioteleuton), copying words twice, and mistakenly incorporating marginal notes into the main text. Intentional changes occur when scribes believe that a text needs “correction,” with motives including improvements to grammar and style, harmonization with parallel passages, clarification of meaning, and theological considerations. In evaluating readings, scholars generally consider such criteria as manuscript age, geographical distribution, genealogical relationships among manuscripts, transcriptional probability, and intrinsic probability.\n\nThese judgments remain disputed. Bart Ehrman argues that intentional changes were fairly common during the first two centuries of copying and that some had clear doctrinal motivations. For example, the passage concerning the “three heavenly witnesses” in 1 John 5:7–8, known as the Comma Johanneum, is absent from early Greek manuscripts and is generally regarded as a later addition. Ehrman, Mark Plunkett, and others also consider Luke 22:43–44—the account of prayer in Gethsemane and sweat like blood—to be a later addition. Other scholars, such as Michael Holmes and J. Harold Greenlee, maintain that intentional theological changes were limited in number and that most variants amount to stylistic polishing. Because scribal intentions cannot be verified directly, many conclusions can only be judgments of probability."
    },
    {
      "heading": "印刷术与方言译本",
      "text": "Before the mid-fifteenth century, all Western manuscripts had to be hand-copied, which could take years and cost the wages of an entire lifetime. Because of that cost, books were rare and limited to very wealthy individuals, churches or monasteries, or universities. Hand copying also introduced errors, so Bibles of the period differed from one another in ways that were hard to control.\n\nPrinting with movable type changed this. Around 1450, the Bible was printed in Latin at Mainz by Johannes Gutenberg and his financial partner Johann Fust, a book now known as the Gutenberg Bible. The edition was completed in 1455 and was printed in roughly 160 to 180 copies, and today, 48 Gutenberg Bibles survive in whole or in part. Gutenberg's system combined several elements: the mass-production of movable type, the use of oil-based ink for printing books, adjustable molds, mechanical movable type, and a wooden press. The press was not an isolated invention, since China and Korea had been using the technology for more than a hundred years. What distinguished Gutenberg's work was its practicality and cost. Printed Bibles were identical from copy to copy, which reduced the variation that had marked scribal transmission, and they made printing a commercial enterprise within a few decades. The effects spread quickly. The technology set off the so-called \"Gutenberg Revolution,\" which made books and knowledge available to almost all literate people.\n\nThe Reformation made vernacular Bibles central. A German translation of the Bible already existed before Luther: fourteen High German and four Low German translations of the Latin Vulgate had already been published by 1518. Luther's work differed because it was made from the original languages. His German Bible was the first based on the original languages (i.e., Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). His New Testament appeared in 1522, and Martin Luther had translated the New Testament in less than one hundred days while hiding out in the Wartburg. It was printed in time for the Frankfurt book fair, where it sold thousands of copies within weeks. Luther followed the humanist practice of translating a text's sense (i.e., ad sensum) rather than its mere letter (ad litteram). The Old Testament was completed in 1534, with reference to the Hebrew. The Luther Bible is widely credited with shaping German. Luther's German Bible and its widespread circulation facilitated the emergence of a standard, modern German language across German-speaking lands. Scholars often compare its effect on German with the effect of the King James Version on English.\n\nThe King James Version (KJV) followed a different path. Earlier English Bibles had appeared, including the first complete English Bible (Coverdale's Bible) was published in 1535, and this was soon followed by several other versions, principally the Geneva Bible in 1560. The Authorized Version was produced under royal sponsorship. It resulted from a project set up by King James VI in 1604, the year after the Union of the Crowns; there were about 50 translators. It was published in 1611, and this book gave English-speaking peoples a Bible they did not even propose to revise for 270 years. Its literary influence on English is widely noted. The language and imagery of the King James translation has had a remarkable influence on English-speaking cultures and literature, from John Milton's Paradise Lost to the poetry of Phillis Wheatley. Many idioms and phrases in everyday English, such as \"let there be light,\" derive from its wording.\n\nPrinting and vernacular translation were closely linked to literacy. Translations could only shape a reading public where people had the ability to read and the means to buy a book. One historian of religion has noted that the translation into English, the language of the land, made it accessible to all those people who could read English, and who could afford a printed Bible. Historians still debate the direction of causality. Some argue that Protestant emphasis on personal Bible reading encouraged schooling and reading ability, as in parts of northern Europe; others stress that literacy rose for many reasons and that the Bible was often read aloud or memorized rather than read silently. The relationship therefore varied by region, social class, and gender, and it should not be treated as a simple cause.\n\nModern translators also disagree about method. Broadly, the most faithful and scholarly approach aims to keep the original's wording and structure, which is often called formal equivalence. The alternative, dynamic equivalence, associated with Eugene Nida, aims to produce the same effect on modern readers that the original produced on its first audience. Formal translations such as the Revised Standard Version and the English Standard Version aim to preserve the grammar and word patterns of the original, which helps close study. Dynamic translations such as the New International Version and the Good News Bible prioritize natural idiom in the target language, which improves readability but requires interpretive decisions. Most translations fall between the two poles. Luther's approach, which privileged sense over the letter, already anticipated many dynamic principles, and debates over these methods continue in every major language today."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Interpretive Traditions and Hermeneutics",
      "text": "Midrash and Talmud in the Rabbinic Tradition\n\nJewish readings of the Hebrew Bible rely heavily on methods that continually expand the meaning of the text. The Hebrew word midrash means “inquiry” or “interpretation” and refers both to a set of exegetical methods and to collections recording such interpretations. In its earlier sense, midrash refers to the interpretive practices through which oral tradition explains and elaborates on scripture, adding new meanings to biblical material and reconciling apparent contradictions. Scholars generally classify midrash in two ways: by content, oral law can be divided into halakhah (law) and aggadah (narrative and exhortation); by literary form, it can be divided into midrash and Mishnah. The former chiefly derives rules from legal provisions, while the latter chiefly opens up scripture through stories, parables, and moral instruction.\n\nThe rules of reasoning also differed among rabbinic schools. The creativity of midrash reached its height in the schools of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva, which adopted different interpretive approaches: the former relied primarily on logical inference, drawing on similarities in content and analogies, while the latter placed greater emphasis on textual details. This latter approach depended on close scrutiny of wording, on the assumption that apparently redundant words and letters must convey something not explicitly stated in the text. The school of Ishmael developed a set of inferential tools known as the “rules of the Torah” (middot), whereas the school of Akiva favored localized interpretations grounded in specific texts and made less use of such comparative tools.\n\nThe Talmud provides the broader framework for this tradition. It is a compilation of law covering a wide range of subjects, written in a dialectical style that encourages active interpretation of the text. Its way of interpreting the Mishnah is itself an extension of midrashic methods: the Talmud treats the Mishnah much as midrash treats the Bible, resolving contradictions through reinterpretation. The openness of midrash therefore does not imply arbitrariness; rather, it is disciplined by rules, debate, and ongoing commentary.\n\nEarly Patristic Exegesis: Literal Meaning, Allegory, and Typology\n\nEarly Christian readings of scripture developed along different lines. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian emphasized a literal understanding of the Bible. By contrast, the Alexandrian school was known for allegorical interpretation, with Origen as its leading representative. In On First Principles, Origen proposed interpreting both the Old and New Testaments allegorically on three levels: “body,” “soul,” and “spirit.” His reasoning was that certain narratives would appear impossible or absurd if read literally, making it necessary to seek their underlying meaning.\n\nTypology, meanwhile, treats figures or events in the Old Testament as foreshadowings of events in the New Testament. For example, Tertullian, Cyril of Jerusalem, and John Chrysostom all associated the dove released by Noah with the descent of the Holy Spirit, since the Spirit descended in the form of a dove after Jesus’ baptism. Another frequently cited example is Moses raising his hands in prayer during the battle against the Amalekites, a scene that Tertullian interpreted as a type of Christ on the cross. Scholars disagree over the boundary between allegory and typology. Some note that typology was regarded as continuing the interpretation practiced in the apostolic age, whereas allegory, though valuable, lacked direct authorization from the New Testament. Others argue that drawing a clear distinction between allegory and typology in early Christian writings is virtually impossible.\n\nIn contrast to the Alexandrian school, the Antiochene school placed greater emphasis on literal meaning and historical foundations. Theodore of Mopsuestia, a representative of the Antiochene school, specifically criticized “allegorists” for neglecting the plain meaning of scripture. In the West, patristic exegesis was generally more conservative than in the East and closer to the Antiochene position.\n\nMultiple Levels of Meaning in the Middle Ages\n\nMedieval Western Europe developed a systematic fourfold interpretation of scripture, known as the quadriga. Its four senses were the literal (or historical), the allegorical (or doctrinal), the moral (or ethical), and the anagogical (or ultimate), and they were summarized in a Latin mnemonic verse. This framework was associated with the three virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The Church did not undervalue the literal or historical sense but took it as the starting point for further inquiry into the relationship between scripture and Christian virtues.\n\nScholastic theologians particularly emphasized the foundational status of the literal sense. Thomas Aquinas maintained that spiritual interpretation must be grounded in literal interpretation and should not introduce hidden meanings that scripture had not made explicit. The monastic tradition, meanwhile, placed greater emphasis on scripture’s spiritual and moral purposes. Monastics in Gaza, including Barsanuphius, John the Prophet, and Dorotheus, regarded the Bible as a text that guides people toward Christ. This approach influenced monastic practices of repeatedly reading scripture, meditating on it, and translating it into daily life. On the other hand, this framework was also susceptible to misuse. Medieval scholars generally employed it to ensure that every meaning of scripture had a literal basis elsewhere in the Bible, particularly in the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the New, but the method was also sometimes abused.\n\nHistorical Criticism after the Enlightenment\n\nAfter the Enlightenment, the underlying assumptions of biblical scholarship changed fundamentally. Previously, most interpreters regarded scripture as divine revelation and focused on its allegorical meanings and significance for faith; subsequently, scholars began treating the Bible as an ancient document, investigating its authors, dates of composition, language, literary sources, and editorial processes. In his Theological-Political Treatise (1670), Spinoza questioned whether Moses alone had written the Pentateuch. Richard Simon discussed the compilation of the biblical text in his Critical History of the Old Testament, published in 1678, and in 1753 Jean Astruc proposed distinguishing documentary layers on the basis of differences in the use of divine names. In the nineteenth century, Julius Wellhausen systematically developed the documentary hypothesis, dividing the Pentateuch into distinct source layers. These studies made the question of whether scripture could be examined historically a central issue.\n\nAcceptance of these methods varied greatly among religious denominations. The Catholic Church experienced the so-called “Modernist crisis” in the early twentieth century, and decrees issued in 1907 expressed reservations about historical criticism. The 1943 encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, however, recognized the literary genres of scripture and ancient conventions of writing, allowing room for historical-critical research; the 1965 constitution Dei verbum further affirmed this position. Within Protestantism, the historical-grammatical method has been widely used in mainstream seminaries, but debates over inspiration and inerrancy remain intense among conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists. The Eastern Orthodox tradition has generally been more cautious. Judaism has likewise been divided: Reform Judaism embraced historical scholarship relatively early, while Orthodox Judaism has generally remained more reserved."
    },
    {
      "heading": "宗教实践与礼仪中的作用",
      "text": "Judaism: synagogue reading and the calendar\n\nIn Jewish worship, the Torah is read aloud in a fixed rotation. There are 54 parshas, or parashiyot in Hebrew, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Biblical year. The cycle is closed by Jewish festival of Simchat Torah, when many Jews celebrate the completion of the year's cycle of readings. The weekly portion is followed by a reading from the Prophets, called the haftarah, which usually no longer than one chapter, and has some relation to the Torah portion of the week.\n\nThe annual cycle was not always the norm. Ancient Israel is generally thought to have read the Torah in a three-year sequence, and by the Middle Ages, the annual reading cycle was predominant, although the triennial cycle was still extant. Maimonides' codification in the twelfth century helped establish the annual pattern, and the current practice in Orthodox synagogues follows the annual or 'Babylonian' cycle. Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist congregations, by contrast, adopted a triennial schedule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which each weekly portion is divided into thirds.\n\nSpecial readings are assigned to Jewish holidays (including Hanukkah and Purim as well as the periods known as Chol HaMoed), Rosh Chodesh, and ta'anit (fast days). Public reading takes place from a handwritten scroll, but private study usually relies on a printed edition. The word \"chumash\" comes from the Hebrew word meaning five, and refers to the five books of the Torah, and such editions often insert the haftarah after each week's portion. Study of the weekly portion extends beyond the synagogue: it is also the subject of much individual and group study. Home observance, such as the Sabbath meal and the Passover seder, which retells the Exodus, carries the text into family life.\n\nChristianity: lectionaries, preaching and worship\n\nMost Christian churches organize scripture reading through a lectionary, a calendar of set passages. The Roman Catholic lectionary issued after the Second Vatican Council introduced a three-year cycle of readings (designated as Years A, B, and C) for Sundays, and a two-year cycle for weekdays. Its Sunday readings were reorganized so that the cycle begins with the first Sunday of Advent.\n\nMany Protestant churches use the Revised Common Lectionary, which is a three-year cycle of weekly lections used to varying degrees by the vast majority of mainline Protestant churches in Canada and the United States. Each Sunday normally includes a reading from the Hebrew Bible, a Psalm, a reading from the Epistles, and a Gospel reading during most of the year. In Ordinary Time, one track of Old Testament readings moves through the narratives of the Patriarchs, the monarchy and the prophets, while a second track selects Hebrew Bible readings thematically to match the Gospel. The Roman tradition of pairing Old Testament and Gospel passages often typologically—a sort of foretelling of Jesus Christ's life and ministry, which is one reason typological reading is so visible in the liturgy.\n\nPreaching usually grows out of these readings. The sermon, or homily, normally explains a passage from the day's set texts, and the Eucharist (Mass or Divine Liturgy) includes scripture as an integral part of the service. Eastern Orthodox churches follow their own cycles of Gospel and Epistle readings tied to the Byzantine calendar, and read the Psalms and hymns extensively in daily offices. Scripture is therefore encountered in worship repeatedly, rather than through private reading alone.\n\nScripture, creeds and authority\n\nChristian traditions differ on how scripture relates to creeds, councils and ecclesial teaching. Roman Catholic teaching, as restated in the Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum (1965), holds that Scripture and Tradition are not separate sources, but together make up a single sacred deposit of the word of God entrusted to the Church. Tradition is understood as the living transmission of the faith, and the magisterium is described as the authoritative interpreter of that word. Dei Verbum also states that the Church looks to Tradition as a protection against errors that could arise from private interpretation. The same document is often read as an answer to the sixteenth-century dispute over the relationship between Scripture and Tradition, and Catholic authors note that it is Tradition that defined the canon of the sacred books.\n\nMany Protestant churches, following the Reformation emphasis on sola scriptura, treat Scripture as the final norm of faith. Creeds such as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are usually accepted as faithful summaries of biblical teaching, but not as independent sources of revelation. Anglican and Lutheran churches generally combine this with liturgy and confessional texts, while Eastern Orthodox churches see Scripture as read within the continuing life of the Church, including councils, the fathers and iconography. The debate turns on whether the Church's teaching authority is subordinate to Scripture, equal to it, or its interpreter.\n\nIslam: earlier scriptures in the Quran\n\nIslam regards the Torah and the Gospel as earlier revelations. The Quran refers to the <i>Tawrat</i> (Torah) given to Moses, the <i>Zabur</i> (Psalms) given to David, and the <i>Injil</i> (Gospel) given to Jesus, and it describes Jews and Christians as \"People of the Book\" (<i>Ahl al-Kitab</i>). It presents itself as confirming the message of earlier prophets while restating it in a final form. Quranic narratives of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other figures overlap with biblical accounts, but often differ in detail and emphasis.\n\nClassical Muslim scholars have debated how the earlier scriptures relate to the texts available to Jews and Christians. Many have held that the surviving texts were altered (<i>tahrif</i>), while others understood the charge as one of misinterpretation or concealment. This question shaped Muslim engagement with the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and it remains a central point in comparative discussions of the three Abrahamic traditions."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Influence on Literature, Art, and Music",
      "text": "Narrative, Figurative Language, and Literary Genres\n\nThe Bible’s influence on Western literature is evident first and foremost in narrative. Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are among the most prominent examples: their plots, characters, and ideas draw extensively on the Bible. Milton reworked the story of the Fall in Genesis into an epic, adding the war in heaven and Satan’s inner monologues. Even when plots are not taken directly from the Bible, scripture supplies a widely understood repertoire of symbols and themes. The literary critic Northrop Frye argued that students of English literature who are unfamiliar with the Bible miss a great deal.\n\nShakespeare’s plays likewise draw heavily on biblical frameworks. Macbeth is often read as a tragedy shaped by the motif of the Fall, The Merchant of Venice as an allegory of Christian mercy triumphing over rigid law, and The Tempest as a vision of redemption and grace. In Macbeth, the concept of hell is also transformed into a psychological expression of inner conflict, markedly different from the external depictions of hell prevalent since the Middle Ages. In the realm of allegorical representation (Allegory), John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, structured around a Christian’s pilgrimage, likewise continues the tradition of biblical narrative. Critics have identified biblical influences in the works of Milton, Dante, and Bunyan, in Melville’s Moby-Dick, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and in the writings of Faulkner and Toni Morrison.\n\nBiblical poetry and prophetic writing have also left a lasting mark. The language of denunciation and judgment in the prophetic books, together with the forms of lament and praise found in the Psalms, provided models for later satire (Satire), lyric poetry, and Metaphor. The situation began to change in the twentieth century. As Western societies became increasingly secular, the Bible’s standing as a central cultural force in Britain and the United States gradually declined, and many writers came to regard it primarily as a literary text. Christian writers such as T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis, however, continued to view the Bible as both a sacred authority and a literary classic.\n\nPainting, Sculpture, and Architecture\n\nThe Bible has long been a source of subject matter for Western visual art. For more than two thousand years, it has supplied Western art with narratives, symbols, and spiritual meaning, making it one of its most important sources of inspiration. From Byzantine mosaics and Giotto’s frescoes to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling and Rembrandt’s portraits of biblical figures, scripture has shaped the subjects, iconography, and emotional depth of artworks. Modern artists such as Chagall and Dalí have also returned repeatedly to biblical themes.\n\nIn architecture and sculpture, biblical scenes initially served the purposes of worship and instruction. Sculptures on the portals of medieval churches often centered on scenes such as the Last Judgment, while stained-glass windows presented creation, the life of Christ, and the stories of saints to congregations with limited literacy. These images thus came to be regarded as a “Bible of the poor.” Altarpieces and church domes of the Renaissance and Baroque periods continued this tradition. Today, biblical motifs also appear in mass culture: Hollywood frequently adapts biblical stories, and popular culture continues to draw on biblical imagery.\n\nMusic\n\nThe use of biblical texts in music can be traced back to the chanting of psalms in the early Church; much of the Gregorian chant repertoire is based on psalms and liturgical texts. The fixed portions of the medieval Mass and various motets brought biblical language into the rhythms of everyday worship. During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, composers created large-scale works based on biblical narratives. Bach’s St Matthew Passion (1727) takes the Passion narrative in the Gospel of Matthew as its framework, while Handel’s Messiah (1741) brings together passages from Isaiah, the Psalms, and the Gospels. Sacred choral works, oratorios, and Mass settings from the eighteenth century onward continued this tradition. In African American spirituals, the Exodus narrative became an important symbol of resistance to oppression; Verdi’s opera Nabucco used the Babylonian captivity to express national sentiment. These examples show that biblical subjects have served not only religious worship but also political and emotional expression in secular art.\n\nThe King James Version and the English Language\n\nThe King James Version of 1611 has had a particularly notable influence on English. According to the linguist David Crystal’s count, approximately 250 idioms and set phrases are associated with it, so its influence should not be overstated. More importantly, most of these expressions did not originate in the King James Version itself but had already appeared in earlier translations. The Wycliffite Bible (1388), Tyndale’s translation, the Geneva Bible, and the Douay–Rheims Bible, for example, all contain many expressions that later became widespread. The translators were instructed to be as conservative as possible, retaining the wording of existing translations wherever suitable and producing new translations only when necessary. The King James Version’s role was therefore largely to bring these expressions together, establish their wording, and disseminate them. Counts indicate that only a small number of expressions are unique to it.\n\nThe King James Version became deeply embedded in English because it was read aloud repeatedly. It was designated for reading in churches, and people not only quoted its expressions but also began to adapt and parody them. Even seemingly unfamiliar Hebrew turns of phrase, such as “skin of your teeth” (a narrow escape) and “sour grapes,” gradually became part of everyday language. Similar developments occurred in other languages: Luther’s German Bible played an important role in the development of written and standard German, while religious translations in Greek, Russian, and Slavic languages also exerted a lasting influence on their respective written forms.\n\nComparison with Ancient Near Eastern Literature\n\nThe comparison between the biblical flood narrative and Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the most widely discussed examples in Near Eastern studies. The two narratives are highly similar in structure, including a divine warning, the rescue of a family, a boat, the release of birds, and a sacrifice after the flood. Scholars generally agree that these similarities are not coincidental. The flood account in the Epic of Gilgamesh was compiled from Akkadian texts and drew on earlier Sumerian and Akkadian flood traditions; it appears in Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian version. Scholars disagree about the direct relationship between the two narratives: some hold that Genesis was influenced by Mesopotamian traditions, while others emphasize that their structural similarities attest to a shared cultural memory.\n\nTheir theological differences are equally noteworthy. In the epic, the gods arbitrarily send the flood and later regret doing so; in Genesis, the flood is a moral judgment by the supreme God, who preserves a small group of people through a covenant. One of the reasons for the flood in the epic is that human noise disturbs the gods’ sleep. The epic presents a polytheistic worldview, whereas Genesis is monotheistic. These contrasts show that comparative study examines not only similarities in narrative but also the reworking of the same motif within different theological frameworks. Research in this field is also closely connected with the archaeology of Mesopotamia, the history of translation, and questions of literacy."
    },
    {
      "heading": "近代历史研究与考古学",
      "text": "Historical criticism\n\nQuestions about when biblical books were written and by whom were not new, but they became a systematic field in the eighteenth century. The French priest Richard Simon (1638–1712) is often called the first to treat general biblical questions both comprehensively and scientifically, though his views were condemned and attracted no school of followers. A continuously developing higher criticism was not to begin till the middle of the eighteenth century. Some historians instead place the real start in nineteenth-century Germany, where philologists (usually Protestant ministers) applied the tools of classical scholarship to Bible studies. The label itself is usually traced to Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, whose 1787 edition of his Introduction first used it.\n\nMethod came from outside the Bible. Source criticism originated with Jean Astruc, who adapted the methods already developed for investigating the texts of classical antiquity, in particular Homer's Iliad, to his investigation into the sources of the Book of Genesis. Johann Salomo Semler is widely regarded as the father of the historical-critical approach. He was primarily interested in critical work on the canon of biblical writings. Earlier, Benedict Spinoza had treated the Bible as a social document, which cost him his standing in the Jewish community.\n\nThe Reformation created the conditions for this shift. After the divisions of the sixteenth century, the Church was no longer a unified body able to claim the Bible as its own. Because both Roman Catholics and Protestants claimed it in different ways, the Bible could no longer function unproblematically as Scripture. Historical-critical methods then examined the time and place in which a text was written, its sources, and the events, dates, persons, places, and customs mentioned or implied in it. Applied to the Pentateuch, this produced the documentary approach: the Documentary Hypothesis is based on source criticism.\n\nArchaeology and its limits\n\nArchaeology supplies physical evidence about the places, rulers, and material culture that the texts describe, including inscriptions and cuneiform records from the ancient Near East (see archaeology, cuneiform). Its bearing on the Bible is contested. Archaeological evidence supports few Old Testament events and challenges many others. Some conclusions have shifted in both directions. The conquest of Canaan under Joshua, for example, has been doubted because many historians believe it would have occurred in the thirteenth century B.C., more than a century later than biblical chronology indicates, and no evidence of destruction in that area had been uncovered for that period. Archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have argued that there is little evidence that Jerusalem, David's capital according to the Bible, was more than a typical hill country village in David's and Solomon's time.\n\nCorroboration is also partial. Cuneiform texts from Babylon that refer to a Judean community in the sixth century B.C. seem to correspond to prophetic books like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, yet these texts make no mention of why the people were in Babylon. Archaeology also cannot settle theological questions, and its interpretation depends on the interpreter's assumptions. How archaeological evidence is understood depends on the interpreter's presuppositions and worldview. Coverage is thin as well: it is estimated that less than two percent of surveyed sites have been worked on. (This estimate comes from an evangelical source and should be read as an approximation.)\n\nThe Dead Sea Scrolls\n\nThe Qumran discoveries, beginning in 1947, changed the field. Fragmentary remains of about a thousand scrolls were found at Qumran, of which about a quarter were copies of biblical books, almost all in Hebrew. Their age gives them particular weight: the Dead Sea Scrolls are roughly 1,000 years older than the earliest complete edition of the Masoretic Text. The scrolls show that around the time of Jesus, the text of the Old Testament varied slightly from one Hebrew manuscript to another. Over time, the Jewish rabbinical tradition, culminating in the work of the Masoretes, settled on a standard form of the text, which was one of several forms in circulation.\n\nThe scrolls also affected the Septuagint question. The Scrolls clarified that the Septuagint translators had, for the most part, translated the Hebrew in front of them straightforwardly. The more significant differences between portions of the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text were due to differences in the Hebrew editions, not the activity of the translators. For the second-canon debate, the significance is indirect. Qumran yielded copies of works such as Tobit and Sirach that never entered the Hebrew canon, which has encouraged scholars to see the boundaries of scripture as more fluid in the Second Temple period. Some of these works were nonetheless transmitted in Greek and Latin Christian Bibles, so the scrolls mainly clarify how widely such texts circulated, not whether they were authoritative. Overall, the Dead Sea Scrolls did change the way scholars understand the development of the Hebrew text of the Bible, but they have not fundamentally changed the translations in use among modern believers.\n\nCurrent research approaches\n\nContemporary scholarship works along several lines. Textual criticism compares manuscripts, translations, and quotations to recover earlier forms of the text; in the older vocabulary, the lower criticism. Since the sacred Scriptures have come down in a great variety of copies and ancient versions, the textual or lower criticism studies these documents to arrive at the purest possible text. Literary analysis examines genre, structure, and sources, while social-historical work asks how communities produced and used the texts. Comparative study places the Bible alongside other ancient Near Eastern literature, as in comparisons with the Epic of Gilgamesh. Historical-critical method itself is a cluster of techniques, not a single doctrine, and it is applied by scholars from differing religious and secular commitments, which keeps its conclusions open to dispute."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Influence on Law, Ethics, and Public Life",
      "text": "Biblical Laws in Legal Traditions\n\nThe Ten Commandments (Decalogue) in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 are the best-known legal provisions in the Bible. Many scholars regard their prohibitions against murder, adultery, theft, and false testimony as important sources of later criminal law. Historians also point out, however, that most of these prohibitions had parallels in ancient Near Eastern law, so the Ten Commandments are better understood as one of several sources rather than the sole origin. The influence of biblical law spread through several principal channels: Jewish diaspora communities took the Torah as the foundation of law and ethics; Christianity incorporated the Hebrew Bible into the Old Testament, making it a shared resource for European canon law and secular law; and medieval canon lawyers frequently cited Mosaic law in discussions of compensation, oaths, and judicial procedure.\n\nExodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy contain numerous specific regulations, including provisions for compensation for injuries, restrictions on retaliation expressed in the formula “an eye for an eye” (often interpreted by legal historians as a principle limiting excessive retaliation), and requirements that judges act impartially, favoring neither the rich nor the poor. Leviticus 19:15 and Deuteronomy 16:18–20 both contain judicial principles of this kind. In his eighteenth-century Commentaries on the Laws of England, the English jurist William Blackstone discussed Mosaic law alongside natural law, helping bring biblical sources into the theoretical discourse of Anglo-American Common Law. It should be noted that scholars continue to debate how far biblical law “directly” shaped modern Legislation: some emphasize continuity, while others regard Roman law, Germanic customary law, and modern rationalism as more direct sources.\n\nEthical Ideas and Human Rights Discourse\n\nOne of the central ideas of biblical ethics is that human beings were created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). Many commentators argue that this idea provides a foundation for inherent human dignity and supports the view that people should not be treated differently on the basis of status. The Bible also emphasizes protection for resident foreigners, orphans, widows, and the poor (for example, Exodus 22:21 and Deuteronomy 15:7–11), while the prophetic books repeatedly criticize unjust courts and powerful elites. The “Golden Rule” in the New Testament (Matthew 7:12) and Jesus’ teaching about “the least of these my brothers” (Matthew 25:40) are also frequently cited as evidence of the universalist tendencies of biblical ethics.\n\nMedieval church scholars discussed the right to take another person’s property in circumstances of extreme poverty, with Thomas Aquinas among the important contributors to this discussion. In the sixteenth century, Dominican scholars associated with Salamanca, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de las Casas, invoked natural law and the dignity shared by all human beings to criticize violence in the conquest of the Americas. The development of modern conceptions of human rights was more closely associated with Enlightenment thought: Immanuel Kant, for example, grounded dignity in rational autonomy rather than in the image of God. The drafters of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights came from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, and the text itself is not based on the Bible.\n\nScholarly interpretations of this historical relationship differ markedly. Some Christian thinkers and historians of theology argue that the central concepts of modern human rights have deep biblical and theological roots. Other scholars emphasize the roles of Enlightenment thought, the natural law tradition, and secularization, treating religious sources as only one factor among many. Orthodox theology, meanwhile, tends to ground human rights in the revelation of the triune God rather than accept secular accounts of human rights. Biblical texts themselves also offer evidence pointing in the opposite direction: regulations concerning slaves (such as those in Exodus 21) and narratives of warfare against the Canaanites have been used in different periods to justify slavery or violence. Supporters of abolition likewise cited biblical passages concerning human brotherhood and liberation. The historical influence of biblical ethics therefore often depends on which passages readers select and how they understand their contexts.\n\nPolitical Thought, Social Institutions, and Education\n\nIn the history of European political thought, the Bible has frequently supplied material for arguments about royal authority, political compacts, and the right of resistance. In seventeenth-century English political debates, Robert Filmer invoked Adam’s dominion to defend absolute monarchy, while John Locke drew extensively on biblical passages to refute that argument in the First Treatise of Government. The concept of “covenant” in the Calvinist tradition also influenced the Puritans and later republican thought, with the Israelites’ covenant often viewed as an early example of a political compact. These arguments derived their force from the authoritative language they supplied, but their conclusions varied from reader to reader.\n\nThe Bible’s influence on society and education has been similarly complex. The Reformation linked the ability to read the Bible with personal faith. Luther and others promoted the spread of the German Bible, and many Protestant communities consequently established schools to teach basic literacy. This tendency helped raise literacy rates and encouraged the expansion of Education systems. Medieval monastic and cathedral schools, meanwhile, used Latin, the Psalms, and the Gospels as teaching materials. From the nineteenth century onward, however, the relationship between religion and public education became a focus of intense debate. A succession of French laws initially permitted religious content in schools, but subsequently removed religious instruction from public schools around 1882; Britain’s Elementary Education Act 1870, by contrast, recognized the place of religious schools within the education system. The Bible was thus both a text that helped advance widespread education and a focus of competition between church and state over curricula.\n\nBiblical References in Contemporary Public Debate\n\nIn contemporary society, the Bible continues to feature frequently in public discussions of abortion, marriage, assistance for the poor, immigration, the death penalty, courtroom oaths, and religious symbols in public spaces. Supporters and opponents often invoke the same passages, such as those concerning resident foreigners or the poor, yet reach different policy conclusions. In the United States, disputes over displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings and public schools have been especially persistent. In a 1980 case, the Supreme Court ruled that posting the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms was unconstitutional. The Ten Commandments Defense Act (H.R. 2045), introduced in Congress in 2003, sought to permit states to display the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Supporters invoked the theological language of the Declaration of Independence, while opponents emphasized the principle of separation of church and state.\n\nEveryday language also retains numerous biblical expressions. For example, “Good Samaritan” has become the familiar name for legal provisions protecting people who provide assistance in good faith in many countries, and many idioms in English and other languages derive from the Bible. Such usages have a broad influence, but their meanings have often become detached from their original religious contexts. Assessing these influences therefore requires distinguishing among cultural memory, legal provisions, and religious belief."
    },
    {
      "heading": "争议与未解问题",
      "text": "The most visible open question concerns the canon itself. Catholics have 46 books, while Protestants have 39 in the Old Testament, and the New Testament is common ground: the 27 books are shared across these churches. Orthodox lists run longer still, with totals that Orthodox Bibles reach 76+ depending on the church. The gap is rooted in a textual question: whether the Old Testament boundary should follow the Hebrew collection or the Greek Septuagint, which contained additional writings. Catholics and Orthodox kept the LXX-extended list, while Protestant Reformers returned to the Hebrew canon. Early Christian evidence supports several readings. Christians were clearly copying and reading these books, and by the third century some began to cite the deuterocanonical books as \"scripture.\" Others valued them mainly for edification rather than doctrine. The Orthodox Church includes them because they were part of the Septuagint, which was in use at the time of Jesus and the New Testament authors. Protestant defenders of the narrower list, by contrast, stress the Hebrew manuscripts as the earlier witness, and each side's position rests on its view of authority, ecclesial reception, and the original language of the Old Testament.\n\nThe origin of the Pentateuch is a second area of unresolved debate. The documentary hypothesis holds that the first five books were assembled from several earlier written sources. Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians usually reject the theory, but its basic outline remains widely accepted by contemporary biblical scholars. Its classic form is associated with Julius Wellhausen, who in 1886 argued that the Bible is an important historical source that cannot be taken literally. Dating is less settled. The traditional view places Moses' writing at about 1200 to 1400 B.C., while the hypothesis dates its earliest sources to around 900 BCE. Even within the critical camp there is no single model: it is impossible to speak about a single scholarly opinion about the Documentary Hypothesis today. Some scholars reject the separate J and E sources, and others argue that none of the sources was produced before the Babylonian exile in the 6th century.\n\nWhether the narratives describe real events is a third dispute. The patriarchs, the Exodus, and the united monarchy either lack strong archaeological evidence or reflect a smaller-scale historical reality than the biblical narrative suggests. Minimalist scholars have pressed this case since the 1970s, arguing that archaeology and comparative sociology convinced most scholars in the field that there was little historical basis to the biblical stories of the Exodus and the Israelite conquest of Canaan. Defenders reply that Egyptian material fits the memories described in the text. One Biblical Archaeology Society article argues that the Bible recounts accurate memories from the 13th century B.C.E. Others note that there is no archaeological evidence against the historicity of an exodus if it was a smaller group who left Egypt. Jericho is a test case: radiocarbon dating of the city's sacking puts it much earlier than the generally accepted dates for the exodus, and one 2024 proposal argues for an early sixteenth-century date for the biblical exodus. Historians are more confident about the New Testament's central figure: most historians accept that Jesus was a historical figure who was crucified under Pontius Pilate.\n\nThe relationship between the Bible and natural science depends largely on how Genesis is read. Young-earth creationists take its early chapters as a literal account of creation in six days and reject common descent. Old-earth creationists accept an ancient universe but usually reject Darwinian accounts of human origins. Advocates of theistic evolution accept that God works through the natural processes studied by biologists, while some proponents of intelligent design argue that certain biological features require an intelligent cause, a claim most biologists reject. Many scholars of Genesis read it as an ancient theological and literary text rather than a scientific one. The conflicts traditionally cited, such as the reception of Galileo's astronomy and Darwin's theory of evolution, are often simplified; historians emphasize institutional, political, and interpretive factors alongside the scientific content. Philosophers of science also distinguish methodological naturalism, which guides research, from metaphysical claims about whether nature is all there is.\n\nThe disagreements therefore turn less on the text alone than on prior commitments: whether scripture is read as a historical record, a theological witness, or a literary work, and whether its claims are considered compatible with the methods of archaeology and the natural sciences. Different traditions answer these questions in different ways, and the answers shape the canon, the chronology, and the interpretation of the text itself."
    }
  ],
  "links": [
    "christianity",
    "judaism",
    "islam",
    "law",
    "ritual",
    "poetry",
    "translation",
    "alphabet",
    "papyrus",
    "parchment",
    "printing",
    "literacy",
    "protestant-reformation",
    "metaphor",
    "mesopotamia",
    "archaeology",
    "epic-of-gilgamesh",
    "common-law",
    "legislation",
    "immanuel-kant",
    "universal-declaration-of-human-rights",
    "education",
    "galileo-galilei",
    "charles-darwin",
    "evolution"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is the origin of the word 'Bible'? - Christian Today",
      "url": "https://www.christiantoday.com/news/what-is-the-origin-of-the-word-bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "What does the word bible mean?",
      "url": "https://www.gotquestions.org/what-does-word-Bible-mean.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Tanakh",
      "url": "https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Tanakh"
    },
    {
      "title": "Tanakh: Meaning and Books Included in the Jewish Bible",
      "url": "https://www.bartehrman.com/tanakh/"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is the Hebrew Bible? (Torah, Tanakh, or Old Testament) - The Torah Guide",
      "url": "https://thetorahguide.com/the-torah-the-tanakh-the-hebrew-bible-and-the-old-testament/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Hebrew Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bible, Canon of the - Bible Meaning & Definition - Baker's Dictionary",
      "url": "https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/the-bible-canon-of.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Canon (canon law)",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_(canon_law)"
    },
    {
      "title": "Early Church #9 Canon",
      "url": "http://individual.utoronto.ca/hayes/earlychurch/9_Canon.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Biblical canon",
      "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-canon"
    },
    {
      "title": "canon - Wiktionary, the free dictionary",
      "url": "https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/canon"
    },
    {
      "title": "Where does the word “Bible” come from?",
      "url": "https://sites.tyndale.com/tyndalebibles/article/where-does-the-word-bible-come-from/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Tanakh",
      "url": "https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Tanakh"
    },
    {
      "title": "Introduction - Hebrew Bible / Old Testament - Libraries at Boston College",
      "url": "https://libguides.bc.edu/HBOT"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bible - Wiktionary, the free dictionary",
      "url": "https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Pentateuch, THE PENTATEUCH",
      "url": "https://bible.usccb.org/bible/thepentateuch/0"
    },
    {
      "title": "Pentateuch",
      "url": "https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/bible/old-testament/pentateuch"
    },
    {
      "title": "What Language Was the Bible Written In? Hebrew, Aramaic & Greek",
      "url": "https://www.theoscriptura.com/blog/what-language-was-the-bible-written-in"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ministry Magazine",
      "url": "https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2021/02/The-last-word-of-the-book-of-Daniel"
    },
    {
      "title": "Abraham in History and Tradition",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_in_History_and_Tradition"
    },
    {
      "title": "Documentary hypothesis",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis"
    },
    {
      "title": "Modern Views of the Authorship of the Pentateuch - The Bart Ehrman Blog",
      "url": "https://ehrmanblog.org/modern-views-of-the-authorship-of-the-pentateuch/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dating the Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Torah",
      "url": "https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/torah/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Deuterocanonical Books",
      "url": "https://stfrncis.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/The-Deuterocanonical-Books-min.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Canon of Trent",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_of_Trent"
    },
    {
      "title": "Which Books Are Deuterocanonical and How Did the Counc...",
      "url": "https://factually.co/fact-checks/religion/roman-catholic-deuterocanonical-books-council-of-trent-8211cc"
    },
    {
      "title": "Today in Catholic History",
      "url": "https://catholicunderthehood.com/2010/04/08/today-in-catholic-history-the-bible-canon-and-council-of-trent/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Deuterocanonical books",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterocanonical_books"
    },
    {
      "title": "How to Defend the Deuterocanonicals",
      "url": "https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-defend-the-deuterocanonicals"
    },
    {
      "title": "Protestant Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Deuterocanonical Books: Number and Why They Were Removed from the Bible",
      "url": "https://www.bartehrman.com/deuterocanonical-books/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Luther and The Apocrypha/Deutercanonical Books",
      "url": "https://www.alpb.org/Forum/index.php?topic=7916.0"
    },
    {
      "title": "Deuterocanonical Books (Apocrypha): A Catholic Reference",
      "url": "https://garrettham.com/deuterocanonical-books/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Chapter 1 Summary - A Brief Introduction to the New Testament, 5e Student Resources - Oxford Learning Link",
      "url": "https://learninglink.oup.com/access/content/ehrman_briefnt5e-student-resources/ehrman_briefnt5e-chapter-1-summary"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Books of the New Testament — Power of Change",
      "url": "https://www.powerofchange.org/blog/2007/8/21/the-books-of-the-new-testament.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Q source",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source"
    },
    {
      "title": "Book of Revelation",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation"
    },
    {
      "title": "Interpretations of the Book of Revelation",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_the_Book_of_Revelation"
    },
    {
      "title": "Books of the New Testament: The Complete List - Alabaster",
      "url": "https://alabasterco.com/blogs/education/books-of-the-new-testament-the-complete-list"
    },
    {
      "title": "Two-source hypothesis",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis"
    },
    {
      "title": "Understanding What Is Synoptic Problem: A Clear Guide",
      "url": "https://www.thebibleseminary.edu/post/what-is-synoptic-problem"
    },
    {
      "title": "Synod of Jamnia",
      "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/Synod-of-Jamnia"
    },
    {
      "title": "Council of Jamnia and Old Testament Canon (by Peter Shirokov and Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) - Israel Institute of Biblical Studies",
      "url": "https://israelbiblicalstudies.com/blog/category/jewish-studies/jamnia/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Was the Hebrew Bible Really Canonized at Jamnia?",
      "url": "https://www.pshir.com/hebrew-bible-really-canonized-jamnia/"
    },
    {
      "title": "IBRI Research Report #13 - THE COUNCIL OF JAMNIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON",
      "url": "https://www.ibri.org/RRs/RR013/13jamnia.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Old Testament Canon: The council of Jamnia: 90 AD",
      "url": "https://www.bible.ca/b-canon-council-of-jamnia.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Biblical canon",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon"
    },
    {
      "title": "Development of the Old Testament canon",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Old_Testament_canon"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is the Samaritan Pentateuch?",
      "url": "https://www.bartehrman.com/samaritan-pentateuch/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Samaritan and Jewish Versions of the Pentateuch: A Survey",
      "url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/2/85"
    },
    {
      "title": "Samaritan Pentateuch - New World Encyclopedia",
      "url": "https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Samaritan_Pentateuch"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Samaritan Torah",
      "url": "https://samaritantorah.com/samaritan-pentateuch"
    },
    {
      "title": "Athanasius' 39th Festal Letter Explained",
      "url": "https://www.scribd.com/document/99554418/Athanasius-of-Alexandria"
    },
    {
      "title": "367 Athanasius Defines the New Testament",
      "url": "https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/athanasius-defines-new-testament"
    },
    {
      "title": "A New Fragment of Athanasius's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon",
      "url": "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231856044_A_New_Fragment_of_Athanasius's_Thirty-Ninth_Festal_Letter_Heresy_Apocrypha_and_the_Canon"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is the Earliest Complete List of the Canon of the New Testament? - Canon Fodder",
      "url": "https://michaeljkruger.com/what-is-the-earliest-complete-list-of-the-canon-of-the-new-testament/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Athanasius Lists the New Testament Writings - Grace Communion International",
      "url": "https://www.gci.org/articles/athanasius-lists-the-new-testament-writings/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Easter letter",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_letter"
    },
    {
      "title": "Athanasius Records the Process of Canonization of the ...",
      "url": "https://historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1612"
    },
    {
      "title": "Muratorian fragment",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muratorian_fragment"
    },
    {
      "title": "Muratorian fragment - New World Encyclopedia",
      "url": "https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Muratorian_fragment"
    },
    {
      "title": "JETS 57/2 (2014) 231–64 THE MURATORIAN FRAGMENT: THE STATE OF RESEARCH",
      "url": "https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/files_JETS-PDFs_57_57-2_JETS_57-2_231-64_Schnabel.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Muratorian Fragment",
      "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/muratorian-metzger.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Synod of Hippo",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Hippo"
    },
    {
      "title": "Councils of Carthage",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Councils_of_Carthage"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Development of the Canon of the New Testament - The Canon approved by the third Synod of Carthage",
      "url": "http://www.ntcanon.org/Carthage.canon.shtml"
    },
    {
      "title": "Development of the New Testament canon",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_New_Testament_canon"
    },
    {
      "title": "The African councils of Hippo and Carthage on the Biblical Canon",
      "url": "https://historicalchristian.faith/doctrine/doctrines/canon/african-councils.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Hippo Regius",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippo_Regius"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Dead Sea Scrolls",
      "url": "https://www.imj.org.il/en/wings/shrine-book/dead-sea-scrolls"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dead Sea Scrolls",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dead Sea Scrolls",
      "url": "https://cojs.org/dead_sea_scrolls/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Great Isaiah Scroll in the Israel Museum's",
      "url": "http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah"
    },
    {
      "title": "Masoretic Text",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_Text"
    },
    {
      "title": "Leningrad Codex",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Codex"
    },
    {
      "title": "List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hebrew_Bible_manuscripts"
    },
    {
      "title": "Leningrad Codex — A. P. Manuscripts",
      "url": "https://www.apmanuscripts.com/special-collection/leningrad-codex"
    },
    {
      "title": "New Testament minuscule",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_minuscule"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Text of the Gospels: Video Lecture: Kinds of Greek NT Manuscripts",
      "url": "https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2020/05/video-lecture-kinds-of-greek-nt.html?m=1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Alexandrian text-type",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrian_text-type"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dead Sea Scrolls",
      "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dead-Sea-Scrolls"
    },
    {
      "title": "Leningrad Codex : Samuel ben Yaakov : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive",
      "url": "https://archive.org/details/leningradcodexcomplete"
    },
    {
      "title": "Septuagint — Grokipedia",
      "url": "https://grokipedia.com/page/Septuagint"
    },
    {
      "title": "scholarworks.iu.edu",
      "url": "https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/16507"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is the Letter of Aristeas? - Reading Acts",
      "url": "https://readingacts.com/2021/01/19/what-is-the-letter-of-aristeas/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Peshitta",
      "url": "https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Peshitta"
    },
    {
      "title": "250 B.C.E. The Septuagint and the Library of Alexandria",
      "url": "https://cojs.org/250-b-c-e-septuagint-library-alexandria/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Peshitta",
      "url": "https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/28378"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Syriac Peshitta: Origin, Character, and Role in Old Testament Textual Criticism - Updated American Standard Version",
      "url": "https://uasvbible.org/2025/05/25/the-syriac-peshitta-origin-character-and-role-in-old-testament-textual-criticism/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Peshitta",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshitta"
    },
    {
      "title": "Samaritan Pentateuch",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan_Pentateuch"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is the Samaritan Pentateuch?",
      "url": "https://www.gotquestions.org/Samaritan-Pentateuch.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "Samaritan Pentateuch — A Divergent but Ancient Torah - Updated American Standard Version",
      "url": "https://uasvbible.org/2025/12/08/samaritan-pentateuch-a-divergent-but-ancient-torah/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Peshitta",
      "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peshitta"
    },
    {
      "title": "Letter of Aristeas",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Aristeas"
    },
    {
      "title": "Letter of Aristeas",
      "url": "https://www.sefaria.org/Letter_of_Aristeas"
    },
    {
      "title": "Letter of Aristeas - the Legendary Origin of the Septuagint - Early Church History",
      "url": "https://earlychurch.org.uk/blog/letter-of-aristeas-the-legendary-origin-of-the-septuagint/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Bible in the Language of Jesus",
      "url": "https://textandcanon.org/the-bible-in-the-language-of-jesus/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Deuteronomy 32:8 - The BAS Library",
      "url": "https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/sidebar/deuteronomy-328/"
    },
    {
      "title": "DEUTERONOMY 32:8 AND THE SONS OF GOD",
      "url": "https://drmsh.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Heiser-Deuteronomy-32-8-and-the-sons-of-God.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "In Deuteronomy 32:8, how do we reconcile the phrase “sons of God” or “sons of Israel” with other ancient texts, and why do historical records not clarify this discrepancy?",
      "url": "https://biblehub.com/q/how_does_deut._32_8_align_with_ancient_texts.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Urtext (biblical studies)",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtext_(biblical_studies)"
    },
    {
      "title": "Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible by Emanuel Tov",
      "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1770612.Textual_Criticism_of_the_Hebrew_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "(PDF) Urtext, Archetype, Fluidity, or Textual Convergence: The Quest for the Texts of the Hebrew Bible (Conference Program, Metz 2019)",
      "url": "https://www.academia.edu/40798102/Urtext_Archetype_Fluidity_or_Textual_Convergence_The_Quest_for_the_Texts_of_the_Hebrew_Bible_Conference_Program_Metz_2019_"
    },
    {
      "title": "(PDF) Philosophies of Textual Criticism for the Hebrew Bible",
      "url": "https://www.academia.edu/144779564/Philosophies_of_Textual_Criticism_for_the_Hebrew_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Biblical studies",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_studies"
    },
    {
      "title": "Textual criticism of the Old Testament",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism_of_the_Old_Testament"
    },
    {
      "title": "Terrified of 400,000 errors in the New Testament? — Embrace the Truth",
      "url": "https://embracethetruth.org/explore/terrified-of-400000-errors-in-the-new-testament"
    },
    {
      "title": "10 Key Textual Variants in the New Testament",
      "url": "https://www.bartehrman.com/textual-variants-in-the-new-testament/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Some Famous Textual Problems: 1 Tim 3:16 and John 1:18 - Daniel",
      "url": "https://www.biblicaltraining.org/learn/institute/nt605-textual-criticism/nt605-31-some-famous-textual-problems-1-tim-3-16-and-john-1-18"
    },
    {
      "title": "Why Intentional Changes of the Text Might Matter - The Bart Ehrman Blog",
      "url": "https://ehrmanblog.org/why-intentional-changes-of-the-text-might-matter/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Were the New Testament Manuscripts Copied Accurately?",
      "url": "https://defendinginerrancy.com/were-nt-mss-copied-accurately/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Gutenberg Bible Published",
      "url": "https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/gutenberg-bible-published/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Gutenberg Press: The Invention of the Printing Press",
      "url": "https://www.printivity.com/insights/gutenberg-press"
    },
    {
      "title": "JOHANNES GUTENBERG (1400–1468) The Man Who Introduced the Printing Press to Europe In 1455 - Updated American Standard Version",
      "url": "https://uasvbible.org/2022/02/26/johannes-gutenberg-1400-1468-the-man-who-introduced-the-printing-press-to-europe-in-1455/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Martin Luther’s September Testament (1522): The German New Testament",
      "url": "https://lutheransentinel.els.org/2022/09/27/martin-luthers-september-testament-1522-the-german-new-testament/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Luther's German Bible",
      "url": "https://www.1517.org/articles/luthers-german-bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bible translations into German",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_into_German"
    },
    {
      "title": "Luther Bible German Bible - Salem Media",
      "url": "https://salemmedia.com/websites-and-apps/luther-bible-german-bible/"
    },
    {
      "title": "1611 - The King James Bible",
      "url": "https://digital.nls.uk/scotlandspages/timeline/1611.html"
    },
    {
      "title": "The King James Bible: Its History and Influence",
      "url": "https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/2012/king-james-bible/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Why the King James Bible of 1611 Remains the Most Popular Translation in History",
      "url": "https://www.history.com/articles/king-james-bible-most-popular"
    },
    {
      "title": "Gutenberg Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "055. The Gutenberg Bible",
      "url": "https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/online/imperial-splendor/gutenberg-bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Luther Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "1522 in literature",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1522_in_literature"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Authorised Version of the English Bible 1611",
      "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/bibles/bible-versions/king-james-version/text-editions/authorised-version-english-bible-1611"
    },
    {
      "title": "Talmud and Midrash",
      "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/Talmud"
    },
    {
      "title": "Midrash",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash"
    },
    {
      "title": "Scripture and Tradition in the Early Church: Tradition As Interpretation: The Formal Sufficiency of Scripture",
      "url": "https://christiantruth.com/articles/formalsufficiencyofscripturefinal/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Allegorical interpretation of the Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretation_of_the_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "57 Typology and Allegory: Is There a Distinction? A Brief Examination",
      "url": "https://cf.sbts.edu/equip/uploads/2017/05/SBJT-21.1-Typology-and-Allegory-Parker.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "Allegory vs Typology in Patristic Exegesis",
      "url": "https://www.austinwduncan.com/exegetica/allegory-versus-typology-the-use-and-misuse-of-scripture-in-patristic-exegesis"
    },
    {
      "title": "Brief survey of the history of hermeneutics",
      "url": "https://cbtseminary.org/brief-surv-hist-of-herm-9-mid-ages-ii/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Anagoge",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagoge"
    },
    {
      "title": "Four senses of Scripture",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_senses_of_Scripture"
    },
    {
      "title": "Midrash - Chabadpedia",
      "url": "https://chabadpedia.com/index.php?mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop&title=Midrash"
    },
    {
      "title": "Weekly Torah portion",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Torah_portion"
    },
    {
      "title": "Torah reading",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah_reading"
    },
    {
      "title": "Weekly Torah Readings / Torah 101 / Mechon Mamre",
      "url": "https://mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/readings.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Triennial cycle",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triennial_cycle"
    },
    {
      "title": "A Beginner's Guide to Studying the Weekly Torah Portion",
      "url": "https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/503077"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ordo Lectionum Missae",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_Lectionum_Missae"
    },
    {
      "title": "Lectionary",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectionary"
    },
    {
      "title": "FAQ - Revised Common Lectionary - Vanderbilt University",
      "url": "https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/faq/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Lectionary Page",
      "url": "http://lectionarypage.net/"
    },
    {
      "title": "‘Dei Verbum’ ‘Moved the Bible to the Center of Catholic Life’| National Catholic Register",
      "url": "https://www.ncregister.com/news/dei-verbum-moved-the-bible-to-the-center-of-catholic-life"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dei verbum",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dei_verbum"
    },
    {
      "title": "Vatican II 40 Years Later: Dei Verbum",
      "url": "https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/vatican-ii-40-years-later-dei-verbum-9806"
    },
    {
      "title": "Simchat Torah",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simchat_Torah"
    },
    {
      "title": "Revised Common Lectionary",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Common_Lectionary"
    },
    {
      "title": "Church Year & Observances",
      "url": "https://www.elca.org/worship-with-us/church-year-and-observances"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dei Verbum: What Catholics Believe About the Bible - Verbum Blog",
      "url": "https://blog.verbum.com/2024/11/dei-verbum/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Bible in Literature",
      "url": "https://aiblinc.myshopify.com/pages/the-bible-in-literature"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Story Behind the Stories: Unlocking Western Literature and History",
      "url": "https://www.southwestledger.news/opinion/story-behind-stories-unlocking-western-literature-and-history"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Bible as Literature in the West - Leland Ryken",
      "url": "https://www.lelandryken.com/library/the-bible-as-literature-in-the-west/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Bible's Influence on Western Civilization",
      "url": "https://www.biblexika.com/bible-influence"
    },
    {
      "title": "How the Bible shaped (and shapes) Western culture - Aleteia",
      "url": "https://aleteia.org/2025/03/08/how-the-bible-shaped-and-shapes-western-culture/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The King James Bible and the English Language",
      "url": "https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/node/4036"
    },
    {
      "title": "The influence of the Bible on the English language",
      "url": "https://www.newman.org.uk/files/upload/The%20influence%20of%20the%20Bible.pdf"
    },
    {
      "title": "How The King James Bible 'Begat' English Idioms - VPM",
      "url": "https://www.vpm.org/npr-news/2010-12-22/how-the-king-james-bible-begat-english-idioms/"
    },
    {
      "title": "How Similar Is the Gilgamesh Flood to Noah's Story?",
      "url": "https://otincontext.com/learn/context/gilgamesh-flood-parallel-genesis"
    },
    {
      "title": "How would you compare the Book of Genesis and the flood of the epic of Gilgamesh? - Quora",
      "url": "https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-compare-the-Book-of-Genesis-and-the-flood-of-the-epic-of-Gilgamesh"
    },
    {
      "title": "Noah",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is the Difference Between Gilgamesh and Genesis Flood Story - Pediaa.Com",
      "url": "https://pediaa.com/what-is-the-difference-between-gilgamesh-and-genesis-flood-story/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The King James Bible and the English Language",
      "url": "https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/opeds/begat358014"
    },
    {
      "title": "King James Bible affects the English language--many English idioms are Hebrew sayings the KJV translates literally - Beliefnet",
      "url": "https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/bible/how-the-bible-brought-a-fly-in-the-ointment-to-english.aspx"
    },
    {
      "title": "The King James Bible And The English Language - KJV Bibles",
      "url": "https://www.kjvbibles.com/the-king-james-bible-and-the-english-language"
    },
    {
      "title": "Comparative Essay on Flood Narratives: Gilgamesh vs. Genesis - Studocu",
      "url": "https://www.studocu.com/en-us/document/columbus-technical-college/introduction-to-humanities/comparative-essay-on-flood-narratives-gilgamesh-vs-genesis/129805360"
    },
    {
      "title": "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Biblical Criticism (Higher)",
      "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04491c.htm"
    },
    {
      "title": "Historical criticism",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism"
    },
    {
      "title": "Source criticism (biblical studies)",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_criticism_(biblical_studies)"
    },
    {
      "title": "Historical Criticism and the Bible - Probe Ministries",
      "url": "https://probe.org/historical-criticism-and-the-bible/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The End(s) of Historical Criticism",
      "url": "https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/legaspi357930"
    },
    {
      "title": "Higher criticism - New World Encyclopedia",
      "url": "https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Higher_criticism"
    },
    {
      "title": "Criticism of the Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Biblical Archaeology",
      "url": "https://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible/is-the-bible-true/how-do-we-know-the-bible-is-true/biblical-archaeology/"
    },
    {
      "title": "10 Times Archaeology Has Disagreed with the Biblical Narrative",
      "url": "https://www.bartehrman.com/conflicting-archaeology-and-the-bible/"
    },
    {
      "title": "4 Reasons Archaeology Cannot Prove the Bible",
      "url": "https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/4-reasons-archaeology-cannot-prove-the-bible/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Archaeology and the Old Testament",
      "url": "https://bible.org/article/archaeology-and-old-testament"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Dead Sea Scrolls - St. Paul Center",
      "url": "https://stpaulcenter.com/posts/the-dead-sea-scrolls"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls - Biblical Archaeology Society",
      "url": "https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-versions-and-translations/the-masoretic-text-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Biblical law",
      "url": "https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/biblical-law"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Ten Commandments and Western Legal Foundations - Bible's Influence",
      "url": "https://www.biblexika.com/bible-influence/ten-commandments-western-law"
    },
    {
      "title": "Sources of Law, 1: The Bible",
      "url": "https://users.ssc.wisc.edu/~rkeyser/?page_id=540"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ten Commandments - World History Encyclopedia",
      "url": "https://www.worldhistory.org/Ten_Commandments/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ten Commandments",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments"
    },
    {
      "title": "Christianity and Human Rights - Journal of Lutheran Ethics",
      "url": "https://learn.elca.org/jle/christianity-and-human-rights/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Christian Explorations in the Concept of Human Dignity",
      "url": "https://www.cbhd.org/dignitas-articles/christian-explorations-in-the-concept-of-human-dignity"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Bible’s Impact on Human Rights - Christianity Today",
      "url": "https://www.christianitytoday.com/2019/06/not-what-you-think-michael-lauren-mcafee/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The genesis of human rights - CPX - Centre for Public Christianity",
      "url": "https://publicchristianity.org/video/the-genesis-of-human-rights/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Divine Dignity: How the Bible Forged Human Rights",
      "url": "https://lostpine.com/home/shadows/divine-dignity-how-the-bible-forged-human-rights/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Religions and education in Europe (nineteenth to twenty-first century)",
      "url": "https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/education-teaching-and-professional-training/religions-secularism-and-education/religions-and-education-in-europe-nineteenth-twenty-first-century"
    },
    {
      "title": "How Protestant Reformation Shaped Modern Education",
      "url": "https://www.thecollector.com/how-protestant-reformation-shaped-modern-education/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Education - Medieval, Monastic, Literacy",
      "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/Europe-in-the-Middle-Ages"
    },
    {
      "title": "Why Are Protestant and Catholic Bibles Different? by John Meade",
      "url": "https://textandcanon.org/why-the-catholic-bible-has-more-books-than-the-protestant-bible/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Catholic vs Protestant vs Orthodox Bibles: what's different? — Bible Expert",
      "url": "https://www.bible-expert.app/en/blog/catholic-vs-protestant-vs-orthodox-bibles"
    },
    {
      "title": "Apocrypha - OrthodoxWiki",
      "url": "https://orthodoxwiki.org/Apocrypha"
    },
    {
      "title": "Documentary hypothesis - New World Encyclopedia",
      "url": "https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Documentary_hypothesis"
    },
    {
      "title": "Pentateuch Authorship and Date - Miles Van Pelt",
      "url": "https://www.biblicaltraining.org/learn/institute/ot501-survey-of-the-old-testament/ot501-08-pentateuch-authorship-and-date"
    },
    {
      "title": "Historicity of the Bible",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible"
    },
    {
      "title": "Biblical minimalism",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_minimalism"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Exodus: Fact or Fiction? - Biblical Archaeology Society",
      "url": "https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/exodus-fact-or-fiction/"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Exodus Is Not Fiction",
      "url": "https://reformjudaism.org/exodus-not-fiction"
    },
    {
      "title": "A Reassessment of Scientific Evidence for the Exodus and Conquest",
      "url": "https://journal.iscast.org/cposat-volume-3/a-reassessment-of-scientific-evidence-for-the-exodus-and-conquest"
    },
    {
      "title": "Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis - Dialogue Journal",
      "url": "https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/reflections-on-the-documentary-hypothesis/"
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}