Together books recognized like “Word of God” by the Jews (the “Old Testament” except Deutérocanoniques) and by the Christians.

By this name, those underline the unit of all the biblical books and the unit of the revelation in the two Wills. One says also the Writing (holy) or the Writings.

Translated besides 1500 languages, often preserved instead of honor in the libraries or within reach in the hotel rooms, the book most widely diffused in the world is work founder of the Judaeo-Chistian culture: the scenes of the history of the Jewish people, the Passion of Jesus and the apocalyptic visions of Jean saint, unceasingly revisited by art and the literature, were essential like universal testimonies of the destiny of the man. The laws of the Old Testament and the moral message of New Testament are components of Western civilization.

The word “Bible” recovers different realities according to the users. The Jews, by which the book was written and transmitted to humanity, often speak about Thorah (“Law”) to indicate the Writings as a whole. But they also make use of the first letter of three great divisions: the Torah (the Law), Nebiim (Prophets), and Kétoubim (writings) to form the word “Taanak”. For them, the Bible is made up of 34 pounds. This figure is relatively weak because the Jews gather several books in one (thus all the minor prophets are entered like only one book). Two names “Old Testament” and “New Testament” come from the Paul apostle, and even if some prefer speech of the “first” and the “second” Will to dissipate any misunderstanding, these traditional terms seem to be imposed. The Protestant Bible comprises 66 pounds and the catholic Bible 73. The two communities are of agreement on the 27 pounds of New Testament. On the other hand, the Protestants, because they refuse the 7 writings transmitted in Greek (and not in Hebrew), count only 39 pounds for the Old Testament.

The Greek word biblia (“books”) was borrowed by Latin then heard like female singular. If the Bible indicates a true library, this one, made up over several centuries, was gradually transformed into a unit.

The Bible consists of three great parts: Pentateuque (or Torah), Prophets and writings.

Pentateuque

The first five books bear the name of Pentateuque (“five rollers”). Their unit of direction is due to an author (Brace, according to the Jewish tradition) and to a history (that of a Promised land whose gift is done more and more near). According to rabbinical theology, the Torah lights all, and a Jewish tradition teaches that if Israel had not sinned, it would not have needed other books, because those do nothing but reveal at the great day what is already contained in it. Pentateuque, they are the beginnings founders, i.e. the events and the words which generate the history of Israel and the Christian fact. For the believers, the account of the revelation of true God with Brace on the mountain of the Sinai (Exodus 3) constitutes the originality of the Torah. From this experiment will leave all Pentateuque: the Exodus, key book of the passage of the constraint towards the service of God, and the books which supplement it, like Lévitique, Numbers and Deutéronome. The beginnings and the course of the Fathers are the subject of the Genesis, which was written under the lighting of the historical experiment of the Exodus. In a word, the experiment of the Sinai makes it possible to go back upstream to the birth of the patriarchs and at the beginning of world, and to follow downstream all the posterior history of Israel fertilized by this experiment.

God of the Sinai gives his name: YHWH. These four letters were from time immemorial pronounced by the Jews: “Adonaï” (it is to have been unaware of it that some believed to read “Jéhovah”). This name marks a rupture with God of the beginnings, God of nature or the temples. It is defined as God in alliance, present at the history of its people.

Birth of Pentateuque

For a long time, Jews and Christians believed that Pentateuque had been transmitted by God to Brace on the Sinai. Questioned starting from the XVI ^E century, this religious vision was isolated with the profit of a theory which was essential on the XIX ^E century. The basic assumption is that at the origin of the book there are four documents. The first, called Yahviste (indicated by the letter J), would come from the time of Solomon (towards 950 before J. - C.) and from the intellectual and religious medium of the Temple: it would have presented a first holy history, by taking again the old traditions of Israel and by adapting them to the new situation created by the recent appearance of the royalty. The second, called Élohiste (E), would have been designed in the kingdom of North in years 900, after the rupture between Juda and Israel. The third document, Deutéronome, would have been inspired by a reform project legislative, is found in the Temple hundred years later, into 621. Lastly, the fourth document would be the work of priests (it is indicated by the letter P) who tried, during the Exile, to answer the multiple interrogations born of the loss of the ground, of the destruction of the Temple and the disappearance of the royalty. They are these priests who would have given a certain unit to these four traditions and compose, towards the IV ^E century, the final work.

This theory reigned during nearly one century. However, for about twenty years, of new assumptions have seemed to carry it. Thus, the specialists relativize the importance of Yahviste and delay the dating of it. The existence of Élohiste is questioned in a radical way. Lastly, all the specialists agree to underline the role of the traditions deuteronomists and the sacerdotal school, which produced great theological syntheses during and after the Exile. However, the total synthesis bringing the solution to all the questions was not born yet. Consequently, it is preferable to refer to the last state of Pentateuque, such as it was fixed around the IV ^E century, rather than to privilege its prehistory, doubtful and discussed. In spite of the persistence of many interrogations, the critic can affirm with certainty which the Bible was written over one long life. In fact, between Brace (around 1250) and the final drafting of the book, it occurred nearly eight hundred years.

Prophets

The Hebraic Bible divides the prophets into three categories: former prophets (Josué, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings), posterior prophets (Isaïe, Jérémie and Ézéchiel) and minor prophets (the epithet returns to their restricted number). The Christians adopt only the two last categories.

The prophets profited from an institutional statute in Israel. But already in Mésopotamie existed “indicators” who lived close to the temples and announced the future as a practitioner the divination by the oil or the examination of the entrails of animals. In Phénicie, close to Israel, of the prophets drew their inspiration in the music, the dance, and sometimes resorted even to physical mutilations.

In Israel, this kind of prophecy very quickly gives place to the emergence of the charismatic figures, charged to take care of the message of the Sinai in its purity. Called by God, these prophets become the spokesperson about it. “Said God”, such is the formula which often returns in their mouth. They are witnesses of their time, men of God, inhabited by the Spirit, who appear in general in crisis period. Their word, often badly received but preserved by the writings of their disciples, resisted time and became word of God thanks to the Jewish communities and Christian women who did not cease reading them and to be inspired some.

Other writings or literature of wisdom

Gathered under the name of “literature of wisdom”, the books of Job, the Song of Songs, Ecclésiaste (or Qohelet), of the Proverbs, the Ecclesiastic (or Siracide), of Wisdom (the two last absent from the Hebraic Bible) relate to art to lead its life towards happiness, without losing sight of the fact the limited destiny of the man and the standards drawn from the experiments of old and his clean.

The biblical books known as of wisdom, except for some passages, are all postexilic. The reflections and recommendations which are gathered there nourish at the same time sapientielles traditions of old Israel and other nonbiblical literatures, in particular Egyptian woman and Babylonian.

Psalms

This whole of 150 poems, divided into five parts, evokes the faith of Israel and his report with God. The collection of the psalms - Greek word psalmoi (“to grip a cord of quadrant or arc”), translation of the Hebrew term tehillim (praise) - has a long story which finishes during the III ^E century before J. - C., at the time when it was translated into Greek in the Seventy. It is difficult to go back the psalms not only because of the absence to chronological indications, but also because their drafting sometimes extended over one long period and that they knew successive adaptations. Some go back to king David, but the fastening of the majority of the psalms at that time moved back, which concern a current practice in Antiquity (pseudepigraphy), is abusive. Actually, much of them were written during and after the Exile. The psalms are the trace of the prayer of Israel. Among the literary kinds most important, let us note the anthems, the lamentations or collective supplications, the psalms royal, the individual lamentations or the individual thanksgivings.

New Testament is made of 27 writings: four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Letters of Paul, the Letter with the Hebrews, seven letters called “catholic Epistles”, and Apocalypse.

Gospels

The Gospels all are centered on the character and especially on the teaching of Jesus, but each one with his print. On their origin, which remains always obscure, the assumptions are multiple. The three Gospels of Matthieu, Marc and Luc - called synoptic Gospels because their resemblance makes it possible to read them under “the same glance” - are distinguished however from the Gospel of Jean.

For the three first, the theory the most current place two sources at the beginning (from where its name of “theory of the two sources”). The first corresponds to the Gospel of Marc. The second - called source “Q” (of the first letter of the German word Which meaning “source”) - is lost today, but one can reconstitute it partially, in particular by gathering the words common to Matthieu and Luc and absent at Marc.

The Gospel of Marc, with 661 verses, is shortest of all. It contains only 30 verses which are personal for him. That of Matthieu has almost 1 100 verses (of which 300 are clean for him). That of Luc is made of 1 150 verses of which 600 are absent from all the other Gospels. The three follow an identical screen: initially preparation of the mission of Jesus, followed by the ministry as a Galileo, then rise towards Jerusalem, finally passion and resurrection.

Jean had at his disposal of the clean documents. Apart from passion/resurrection, where it follows the same screen as the other evangelists, it makes very personal work starting from accounts known for most him only. Clement of Alexandria indicates his Gospel like “spiritual” in opposition to the three others, “material”. However, the historical claim is not completely absent there. The current critic admits more and more that Jean is well informed, that he knows the geography of Palestine, and that he lays out, concerning the stays of Jesus in Judaea, of first hand information. But the Jesus whom it puts in scene is a glorious, main Jesus events and characters, leading his destiny with the sovereign freedom of a lord. Between the Jesus with the very human accents of Marc and the glorious Christ of Jean, one measures the difference between two christologies. There one can see the effect of the creative second reading of the evangelist wanting to offer at his community a reference founder.

Single creations in their kind, the Gospels are not documents of history strictly speaking. Born from the faith of the disciples in the resurrection of their Master, they contain authentic memories of Jesus, but selected and described to meet the needs for the Christian communities, in particular in the liturgy and curricular area. Moreover, as an authentic writer, each evangelist made work of personal creation.

Epistles

On the 27 pounds of New Testament, 21 consists of letters (epistle comes from the Greek épistolè, “letter important”). Seven among them are called “catholic” because they do not have particular recipients, but are addressed to the Christians in general (the Greek katholikos means “universal”): they are the letters of Pierre, Jacques, Jean and Jude (the author is not clearly identified for that of Jude). The letter with the Hebrews, whose Paul attribution remains dubious, is rather regarded as an homily. The order of presentation in the Bible is done according to the length: longest, the letter with the Romans, opens the epistles; the letter with Philémon, shorter, encloses the whole of the letters of Paul; then the letter comes to the Hebrews followed by the catholic letters.

One knows especially the letters of Paul, which constitute a true theological treaty, even if all his teaching is not entirely exposed. Paul, passed of the Judaism to Christianity following a spiritual experiment which has occurred on the road from Jerusalem to Damas, played a decisive part in the expansion of the new religion.

The apostle surrounded himself by many collaborators, it sets up stable institutions in the Churches which it founded. To help these multiple communities to solve the problems which they encountered, he addressed himself to them in writing: such is the origin of the letters of Paul.

From 52 to 67, i.e. during the fifteen years which separate its first letter and its martyrdom in Rome, Paul multiplies his writings, of which only one part was preserved. Apart from the Letter with Philémon, none resembles the private letters that Roman Antiquity bequeathed to the posterity per thousands. It is possible that the three last letters, known as “pastoral” (two Letters with Timothée and Tite), are pseudépigraphes. The letters of Paul are rather preachings which are addressed to rather broad circles and tackle subjects of doctrines and morals Christian women. For the majority, they are written with particular Churches (Churches of Rome, Galatie, Corinth, etc). But this private correspondence very quickly became a reference for the very whole Church. According to the second letter of Pierre (II Pierre III, 15-16), they made already authority at the end of I ^er century. The letters of Paul will be often at the origin of crises and revivals in the history of the Church. Thus, it is by reading the Letter with the Romans that Luther will become aware of the importance of the faith compared to “works”.

The book of the Apocalypse

The Apocalypse is the last book of New Testament. It was undoubtedly written by Jean saint the Evangelist - towards 95 at the time of its exile on the island of Patmos during the bloody persecution ordered by Domitien - to revive the faith of the Christians of Asia, terrified by the massacres whose they faisient the object. This book of esoteric interpretation had a considerable influence on the art of the Middle Ages. The Apocalypse was often represented with the tympanums of the churches.

These books written as of I ^er S, imitate the Writings. They were born from eager popular piety from more on the life and the entourage of Christ (cycle of the childhood of Christ) but also on the apostles. They were composed with an aim of construction. Their authenticity having been questioned, the Church rejected them. The catholic gun includes certain books, called deuterocanonic (book of Wisdom or books of Maccabées) which rejects the Protestant gun.

Whereas one listed on the whole approximately 15' 000 alternatives in the manuscripts of the Old Testament, there are some more than 50' 000 for the New one. Two reasons explain this difference: the admirable fidelity of the Hebrew scribes in their forwarding of text, and the limited number of the manuscripts for the Hebraic Bible. To the XX ^E century, Hebrew manuscripts of X ^E and XI ^E century apr. J. - C. were quasi non-existent. Before this period, there did not exist any witness. Happily, the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls made it possible the criticism of the Old Testament to make a jump of 1 000 years. Indeed, one discovered biblical texts former to the Christian era. The most impressive document is a complete roller of Isaïe, dated from I ^er front century J. - C., which comprises some differences with our manuscripts, but seldom significant. All the originals of the Bible are obviously lost and, during centuries, the book was recopied manually (with the inevitable risks of errors).

Of New Testament, we lay out of more than 50 000 manuscripts, not counting the hundreds of copies of the old translations, the few 8 000 copies of the Vulgate - the Latin translation most known since the Early middle ages - and the many quotations in the Church Fathers. There do not exist two identical manuscripts.

The text of New Testament reached us through papyruses (approximately 85), old parchments called “capital letters” (268) and nearly 2 800 more recent parchments known as “tiny” (these names come from the use of capital letters or tiny) like 2 193 lectionnaires, intended to be read with the mass. Most these manuscripts only fragments contain; it is the case of all the papyruses. Some date from the II ^E century apr. J. - the C., oldest being gone back to 120. Among the manuscripts, more than 50 contain the totality of New Testament. Four parchments capital letters of the IV ^E and O C centuries contained in the beginning all the Greek Bible. Most famous is Vaticanus, from which most translations are established. The forwarding of biblical texts is thus of a higher quality. For the whole of the profane literature of Antiquity, it is necessary to await X ^E century to find the first manuscripts. For the Hebraic Bible, there exist witnesses former to I ^er front century J. - C., and for New Testament, of the copies of the II ^E century a. J. - C.

The complete Bible (Old and New Testament) were translated into 310 languages; New Testament in 695 languages; the Bible, in the form of pieces chosen, in 902 languages. In Africa, there exist 119 integral translations and 424 translations of New Testament. Asia counts 476 translations including 93 integrals, Europe, 187 translations including 58 integrals. This phenomenon continues still today: thus, in 1988 - 1989.23 new translations had appeared including 7 complete (in Ethiopia, in Kenya, in Malawi, in Namibia, in Indonesia and in Peru).

This practice is old since as of the III ^E front century J. - C. the Jews of Alexandria for the first time dared to leave the language crowned for other linguistic universes by translating the Bible into Greek. During the II ^E century apr. J. - C., three other translations Greek of the Hebraic Bible will be carried out by Jews. There exists also a translation of the Hebraic Bible into Syriac. The Christians will tend to use the Greek version known as of the Seventy: much in the first centuries will forget the Hebrew originals. It will be the merit of Jerome saint, as from year 389, to let themselves seize because it called “the Hebraic truth” and to undertake the Latin translation directly starting from Hebrew. He continued his company by proposing a new Latin version which corrected the preceding ones. The unit, called Vulgate, will be essential like the reference obliged for all the Christians of Occident to the XVI ^E century, and for the catholics to the XX ^E century.