Edward D. Gravely - Bible 101: From Genesis and Psalms to the Gospels and Revelation, Your Guide to the Old and New Testaments

Perhaps the best-known book of all time, the Bible is a beloved text the world over. It tells one grand story of Gods love for humankind in many different ways, including moral teachings, sacred stories, and classic doctrines that have endured for thousands of years. But reading the Bible can be overwhelming at timesthere are perplexing words and phrases, countless important figures, and locations that may be unfamiliar to modern readers. Bible 101 simplifies the process for you with easy-to-read summaries of all the key parts.

Whether youve been studying the Bible for years or are newly interested, Bible 101 will help you better understand its people, lessons, and teachings. Youll find important historical context and background, learn about the principal authors of the Bible, and better appreciate the meaning of the many parables and stories. Reading this book as a companion to your Bible will ensure you understand important chapters and verses. As you read through each section, youll become familiar with key biblical moments, including:

• How God created the world, explained in Genesis
• Gods covenant of laws, revealed in Exodus
• The poetic story of how God will redeem His people, told in the book of Psalms
• The theological history of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, detailed in the Gospel of Matthew
• The story of the early days of the Christian church, described in the book of Acts
• One of the earliest records of Christian thinking about the philosophies and religions of the ancient world, outlined in Colossians

Whether youre reading the word of God as a source of spiritual fulfillment, moral teachings, or historical knowledge, youll find explanations, inspiration, and analysis in Bible 101. Get ready to dive intoand truly understandall the trials and triumphs in this captivating volume.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Psalms 119:105

At its most basic, the Bible is a collection of religious texts that are considered sacred Scripture primarily by Christians and Jewish people. The Bibles message about God, His people, and salvation has endured for millennia to become the book that guides the lives of billions of human beings on planet Earth.

The Bible is made up of two major sections: Christians call them the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jewish people recognize only the first section (the Old Testament) as sacred Scripture, and they call it the Tanakh. After some early Jewish people came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish man, was the Savior Messiah that was promised in the Tanakh, they came to recognize the writings of Jesus original disciples as Scripture as well, and thus the New Testament was born.

The Origin of the Word Tanakh

The word Tanakh (sometimes spelled Tanak) is an acronym for the three parts of the Jewish Scripture in Hebrew: the Law (the Torah), the Prophets (the Neviim), and the Writings (the Ketuvim)TNK (Tanakh). The word testament in the context of the Bible means covenant. Christians, what the followers of Jesus of Nazareth came to be called, saw what is now called the New Testament as the fulfillment of the covenants God made in the Old Testament, and named the testaments accordingly. Christianity quickly spread beyond the ethnic borders of Judaism, and the New Testament spread with it.

There are thirty-nine books in the Old Testament and twenty-seven books in the New Testament, for a total of sixty-six different books, or texts. Though the contents of the Old Testament have remained constant for millennia, various editions of the Old Testament have not always counted the books the same way, nor have the books always been presented in the same order. Some ancient sources claim as few as twenty-two books in the Old Testament, but they are not missing any books. Rather, they are counting the books differently. For example, 12 Samuel in modern Bibles is two books, but is simply Samuel (one book) in the Tanakh, and what modern Bibles list as the twelve minor prophets (minor for their length, not their significance) were often included as one book, the Book of the Twelve in ancient Hebrew Bibles.

What Does the Word Bible Mean?

The English word Bible comes from a Greek word that means the books (