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Our mission is to educate people about the various religions in our world. Understanding religious tenets fosters dialogue and open & honest conversations. That starts with an understanding of at least the fundamentals for each religion.
Christianity is a text-centered religious tradition. Its central sacred text is the Bible, a collection of writings produced, edited, copied, translated, interpreted, and preserved over many centuries. Christians do not all use the exact same biblical canon, meaning the official collection of books recognized as scripture. They also differ in how they interpret the Bible and how they understand its relationship to tradition, church authority, reason, and personal experience.
This lesson introduces the major parts of the Christian Bible, explains how Christian sacred texts developed, and explores how different Christian communities read and interpret scripture.
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
The Christian Bible is often treated as a single book, but it is more accurately understood as a library of texts. It includes narrative, law, poetry, prophecy, wisdom literature, biography-like writings, letters, sermons, and apocalyptic literature.
The Bible was written by many authors in different historical settings. Its texts reflect ancient Israelite, Jewish, Greek, Roman, and early Christian contexts. Because of this, the Bible is studied not only as a religious text but also as a historical, literary, and cultural document.
Most Christian Bibles are divided into two major sections:
Some Christian traditions also include additional books or sections often called the Deuterocanonical books or Apocrypha, depending on the tradition using the term.
The Old Testament contains texts inherited from ancient Israelite and Jewish tradition. These writings include stories of creation, covenant, law, monarchy, exile, prophecy, worship, wisdom, and national identity.
In Christianity, the Old Testament is usually read as the first major section of the Bible. Christians have historically interpreted these texts in relation to Jesus, the church, and Christian theology. However, from an academic perspective, these texts also need to be understood within their original ancient Israelite and Jewish settings.
The Old Testament includes several types of literature:
The Torah, also called the Pentateuch, refers to the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These texts include creation narratives, ancestral stories, the Exodus from Egypt, covenant laws, and instructions for worship and community life.
These books tell the story of ancient Israel’s settlement, monarchy, division, exile, and return. Examples include Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
These books include poetry, songs, prayers, philosophical reflection, and moral instruction. Examples include Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.
Prophetic books preserve messages associated with figures who addressed Israel and Judah during times of political, social, and religious crisis. Prophets often spoke about justice, covenant faithfulness, judgment, restoration, and hope.
The New Testament contains writings from the early Christian movement. These texts were written in Greek, the common language of much of the eastern Roman Empire during the first century CE.
The New Testament includes 27 books in most Christian traditions. These books are usually grouped into four categories:
The Gospels are four narrative accounts associated with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They describe the life, teachings, death, and resurrection traditions of Jesus of Nazareth.
The word “gospel” comes from a Greek term meaning “good news.” In Christian studies, it refers both to the message about Jesus and to the written accounts that present his life and significance.
The Gospels are not modern biographies in the strict sense. They combine narrative, teaching, interpretation, memory, and theology. Each Gospel has its own structure, themes, and audience.
Acts describes the spread of the early Christian movement after Jesus’ death. It focuses especially on figures such as Peter and Paul and presents the growth of Christian communities across parts of the Roman world.
Epistles are letters written to individuals or communities. Many address practical concerns, theological questions, moral disputes, leadership issues, and community identity.
Several letters are associated with Paul, an early Christian missionary and writer. Other letters are associated with figures such as Peter, James, John, and Jude.
The Book of Revelation is an example of apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature uses symbolic visions, heavenly imagery, cosmic conflict, and dramatic language to address suffering, judgment, hope, and divine justice.
The canon is the official collection of books recognized as scripture by a religious community. The Christian biblical canon developed gradually over time.
Early Christians inherited Jewish scriptures and also began preserving writings connected to Jesus and the apostles. These writings were read in worship, copied by communities, circulated among churches, and quoted by early Christian leaders.
Several factors influenced whether texts came to be recognized as scripture:
The process was not instant or uniform. Different communities sometimes used different collections of texts before broader agreement developed.
Not all Christian Bibles contain the same books.
Most Protestant Bibles contain 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. Protestant traditions generally do not include the Deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament canon, though some editions may print them in a separate section called the Apocrypha.
Roman Catholic Bibles include the 27 New Testament books and a larger Old Testament that contains Deuterocanonical books such as Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
Eastern Orthodox churches often use an Old Testament canon that is larger than the Roman Catholic canon. The exact list may vary among Orthodox traditions.
These differences reflect historical debates over which ancient Jewish and Christian texts should be regarded as scripture.
One important issue in Christian biblical history is the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint.
The Hebrew Bible is the collection of Jewish sacred writings, traditionally arranged as Torah, Prophets, and Writings. It is largely written in Hebrew, with some sections in Aramaic.
The Septuagint is an ancient Greek translation of Jewish scriptures. It was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews and early Christians. Many quotations of Jewish scripture in the New Testament resemble the Septuagint rather than the later standardized Hebrew text.
Because early Christianity spread in Greek-speaking regions, the Septuagint played a major role in Christian scripture, theology, and interpretation.
The Bible has been translated into many languages. Translation is not merely a mechanical process of replacing one word with another. Ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words often carry meanings shaped by historical, cultural, and literary context.
Translation choices can affect how readers understand doctrine, ethics, ritual, and history. For example, a single term may have multiple possible meanings, and translators must decide which meaning best fits the context.
Interpretation is also central to Christianity. Biblical texts are read in communities, preached in worship, studied academically, and applied to moral and theological questions.
Common approaches to interpretation include:
This approach asks what the text appears to say in its direct or ordinary meaning.
This approach studies the historical setting, authorship, language, sources, genre, and development of biblical texts.
This approach reads texts symbolically, often looking for deeper spiritual or theological meanings beyond the surface narrative.
This approach reads individual passages in relation to the whole biblical canon.
These modern approaches examine how biblical texts have been used in relation to power, oppression, gender, empire, justice, and social location.
No single interpretive method is used by all Christians. Different traditions and communities prioritize different methods.
Christian communities differ in how they understand the relationship between scripture and tradition.
In many Protestant traditions, scripture is often emphasized as the highest authority for belief and practice. This is sometimes associated with the Reformation principle known as sola scriptura, meaning “scripture alone.” The phrase does not always mean that tradition has no value, but it usually means that scripture has final authority.
In Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, scripture is understood within the broader life of the church. Tradition, liturgy, creeds, councils, and teaching authority are important for interpreting scripture.
These differences have shaped Christian debates about doctrine, worship, morality, leadership, and church structure.
Christian sacred texts are not only studied academically. They are also used in worship, prayer, music, preaching, education, and personal devotion.
In many churches, selected passages are read aloud during worship. Some communities follow a lectionary, which is a scheduled cycle of scripture readings used throughout the year.
Biblical language also appears in hymns, prayers, visual art, political speeches, literature, and public rituals. Because of this, the Bible has influenced both religious communities and broader cultural history.
Choose one biblical text or phrase you have encountered before, perhaps from a holiday service, public speech, song, film, or work of literature.
How might your understanding of that text change if you considered its original language, historical context, literary genre, and later use by religious communities?
Canon
The official collection of books recognized as scripture by a religious community.
Apocrypha
A term often used in Protestant contexts for books included in some Christian Old Testaments but not accepted as canonical by most Protestant traditions.
Septuagint
An ancient Greek translation of Jewish scriptures that strongly influenced early Christianity.
Epistle
A letter, especially one written to an early Christian community or individual and included in the New Testament.
Lectionary
A scheduled cycle of scripture readings used in worship across the church year.
