63, as is common among Western churches. Like most people I find it simplest to accept my own tradition. I have no ambition to become a biblical scholar at this late stage in my life.
No doubt my Maker will reveal all to me soon enough..
How many books are in YOUR Bible? I have heard there are 81 in the Ethiopian Bible. Which Bible is the Word of God? How can you be sure?
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1- Those are the kind of questions I have asked individual Christians when they say that I should accept the Bible as the word of God.
2- As a student of Christianity I know that the Bible has a rich and varied history. If the book means anything to you then you might be interested in its history. Today we take it for granted that we have thousands of translations of the Bible in almost all languages and dialects but that itself has a rich history of its own; a history of struggles by individuals like John Wycliffe, John Huss and William Tyndale. They devoted their lives to translating the Bible and putting it in the hands of the ordinary people removing the monopoly of the church over access to the scripture. Wycliffe had his bones dug up from his grave, crushed, and scattered in the river, while the other two were burnt at the stake. Anyway, that’s just a tiny glimpse into the history of the translation of the Bible into English.
3- Long before that was the canonisation process, deciding what books should be in the Bible. This too has a colourful history. The Bible which started life as a Jewish scripture is believed to have been an open canon from about 400 BCE. That means books could be added to it and removed from it by almost anyone. The scripture came to be known among Jews by the three Hebrew letters, Ta-Na-Kha [the letter Ta for the Torah, or Law, the Na for Nevi’im, or Prophets and Kha for the Ketuvim, or Writings.] What should constitute the Torah was decided first, followed by decision around 200 BCE on what books should form the Prophets, while it was probably about 200 years AFTER Jesus that the part referred to as the Writings was finalised. Those familiar with the sayings of Jesus will remember that it was only the first two parts of the Tanakh that Jesus mentioned in his declaration at Matthew 5:17, “Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I came, not to destroy, but to fulfil” So scripture, or the Bible, to Jesus and his disciples at that time, and for the first 100 years of early Christianity was whatever parts of the OT that had been canonised - most probably the 24 or so books that formed the first two parts of the Ta-Na-Kha, the Torah or Law and the Prophets
4- What Christians call the NEW Testament took shape during the last years of the fourth century after Jesus. Most of its 27 books are the letters written by Paul. It also includes the four Gospels chosen from the many that were available at the time. Apparently it was Irenaeus of Lyons, c. 185 who insisted that there must be four gospels in the Bible, neither more nor less, because the earth had four corners. However, there were still disputes over the inclusion of certain books, in particular Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. This collection was officially approved in 393 in the west. It was the fifth century when the eastern churches accepted the NT however some still had reservations about the inclusion of Revelations.
5- We have thus ended up with 84-book Eastern Orthodox Bibles, 81-book Ethiopian Bibles, 73-book Catholic Bibles 66-book Protestant Bibles and, if the scriptures Jesus taught from was also a Bible then, there was a Bible with far fewer books than the Protestant Bibles. Even if we decide upon the Protestant Bibles to be the true Holy Bible we're faced with so many different versions all claiming to be The Bible. So having walked into a Bible store wanting to purchase a copy of The Bible, the word of God, which one do we buy?
Malizz 