Good News Bible

Other Abbreviations

The Good News Bible is an easy-to-read translation of the Bible. It uses clear, readable, everyday English, which is why, over the years, thousands of churches and schools and millions of individuals have chosen the Good News Bible.

The Bible is an anthology

The Bible is not one book, but a collection of books bound into one volume. (In fact, thats where it gets its name from. The Bible is the English-language version of the Greek words ta biblia, which means the books.) Written over thousands of years, by many different authors, these books contain many different types of writing: poetry, history, laws, prophecy, proverbs and sayings, stories, letters and many more.

This Bible is in two parts

These books are arranged into two sections: the Old and New Testaments. Testament means promise. For Christians the Old Testament is the promise given by God to the Jews; the New Testament is the promise given through Jesus.

The Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament (39 books)

The first part of the Bible contains the sacred writings of Judaism. This tells the story of the people of Israel. The Jewish name for this is the Tanakh : the name is based on the first letters of the three main sections: Torah (The Law), Neviim (The Prophets) and Ketuvim (The Writings). TNK = Tanakh.

Christians call this section the Old Testament, which is arranged as follows:

The Law The first five books tell the story of the creation of the world, Gods promises to people like Abraham and Jacob, the beginnings of the Israelite nation, their slavery in Egypt and their escape. It also contains the Law which the Jewish people were supposed to obey.

Historical books Twelve books covering the history of Israel, from the conquest of the Promised Land, to the defeat, exile and eventual return.

Poetic books Six extremely varied books reflecting all the moods of human life. They address many fundamental and difficult issues of human existence such as suffering, joy, love, anger, despair, delight and everything in between!

Prophets Sixteen books, the first four of which are the major prophets (which really means long books) while the remaining twelve are the minor prophets (theyre shorter). They cover the time from the later kings into the exile. But they also contain prophecies of the future, and many statements which Christians believe were fulfilled in Jesus.

The Christian Scriptures or New Testament (27 books)

This is the collection of Christian Scriptures. These writings fall into three main groups:

The Gospels and Acts The four Gospels are a biographical and historical look at the life of Jesus, while the book of Acts tells the story of the first thirty years of the Early Church.

Letters of Paul, John, Peter and others. These were circulated among the first followers of Jesus. They give guidance, encouragement and sometimes a strong rebuke to the first communities of Christians.

Prophecy This was probably sent as a letter, but, with its visionary, apocalyptic language, stands alone.

Finding your way around

To help readers find their way around, each book of the Bible is subdivided into chapters and verses. So when people talk about a Bible reference, they are talking about this system. John 3.16 is like an address: it means the book of John, chapter 3 and then verse 16.

The books of the Bible did not originally include chapters and verses. These were added a lot later. The chapter numbering system we use today dates from the 13th century AD , and the verse subdivisions date from the 16th century.