Since we're on the subject of Sacred Texts, will post what I learned from a class on the
differing Christian Bibles around the world. The class was taught by a Biblical linguistics professor from Texas, back in the pre-Internet era in which it would have been considered to be a bit controversial, especially in that region of the country in which the contraindication in Revelation against "adding to or subtracting from" the Bible was assumed by many to pertain to the entire canon, and not just to that book.
This list in no way is intended to demean the Bible, in whatever form one may read it. It is a book that has helped to inform many of us on an Awakening path. Information presented here was up-to-date as of the late-1980's.
Please feel free to offer corrections, discussion, etc.
Western Canon:Catholic Bible:*73 books (39 OT + 7 Apocrypha + 27 NT)
*Baruch and Jeremiah's letter are condensed into one book
*The Apocrypha contains additional passages of Esther and Daniel
*Six texts are rejected from the Canon, but permitted at the back of the Bible for inspirational reading:
The Prayer of Manasseh, I and II Esdras, III and IV Maccabees and Psalm 151
*II Esdras was originally part of the Canon
*The longer ending of the book of Mark is included
*The Canon formed very slowly over more than 1,100 years (Revelation was rejected for a millennium)
*History:
200 A.D.: first translated from the Greek Septuagint ("LXX" = OT + Apocrypha) and Greek NT into a variety of Old Latin versions
383 A.D+. All of those existing versions were compared for translation into the Latin Vulgate. Origen's
Hexapla, LXX and the Hebrew Bible were also consulted.
8th Century: The oldest surviving manuscript used for the Catholic Bible dates back this far.
1456: The
Gutenberg Bible, a modern Latin version, was published, but only clergy were legally permitted to read from it
1522: Cardinal Cisneros from Spain published the 6-volume Complutensian Bible which included 9 languages: Hebrew, Samaritan, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Ethiopic, Syriac, Arabic, and Persian. The Cardinal managed to smooth over any controversy by funding the project with his own money, by being broadly inclusive of editors, and by publishing through a Spanish university instead of the Church. He died shortly before it was published.
1582: The Catholic Church authorized the
Rheims New Testament in English.
1609: The
Douay Bible, which is the version read by modern Catholics, was published.
Protestant:*66 books in most modern versions
History:
*7th Century A.D.: Anglo-Saxon England was Christianized, but had only fragments of the Bible available
*1380 A.D.: The
Wycliffe Bible was published as the first English translation of the Bible, based on the Latin Vulgate. It contained the entire Apocrypha except for II Esdras. Only clergy were permitted to read from it. Wycliffe was punished 44 years after his death when his body was exhumed, crushed and dumped in a river.
*1415: John Hus was burned at the stake for advocating that commoners be allowed to read the Wycliffe Bible, prophesying with his last breath that someone would come 100 years later to change the law. The kindling used to burn him was the Wycliffe Bible.
*1516: The Dutch scholar Erasmus published a side-by-side Bible consisting of Greek and re-translated Latin. At this point, the wealthy, educated and well-connected could get away with translating, publishing and public readings of the Bible, which were enormously popular with commoners.
1522: Martin Luther published a German translation of Erasmus' Bible and was exiled.
1526: Tyndale's Bible was published in England, for which he was strangled and burned at the stake, along with his Bible.
1535: Coverdale's Bible was published in England, for which he was forced to flee the country. His Bible was burned.
1537: John Rogers anonymously published a composite of Tyndale's and Coverdale's Bibles and got away with it.
1539: King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church so he could get a divorce. The Church of England hired Coverdale to publish a Bible approved by the Church, called "The Great Bible," and distributed it among parishioners.
1543: England passed a law reiterating that reading of the Bible by commoners was illegal, but the upper class was permitted to read it privately at home as long as all public speaking on the topic was done by clergy alone.
1555: "Bloody" Queen Mary burned John Rogers and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the stake, as well as several hundred others who supported them.
1560: The
Geneva Bible was published in English by those who went into exile from England to Switzerland (Coverdale, Knox, Calvin, Foxe, etc.).
1572: Phillip II of Spain published the
Antwerp Polyglot Bible in Belgium.
1611: The English Authorized King James Bible was published, containing the entire Apocrypha plus II Esdras.
1663: The first Bible was published in a Native American language, Algonquian, which was spoken by numerous tribes.
1841: An English Hexapla Bible (a polyglot) was published with 6 early English versions
1885: The Revised Version of the KJV Bible was published, containing 20,000+ revisions. The Apocrypha was left out until later in the 20th Century, which
Wikipedia attributes to the frugal printing budgets of charitable Bible societies that were springing up in the 19th Century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version1890:
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible was published after a lifetime of work by James Strong. It was intended to be an index of the Bible rather than a Bible commentary, but some remarkable information is included, such as a footnote saying that forgeries of Paul's letters were widely circulated in the First Century. The book also explains that numerous Chaldean words are embedded in the Hebrew portion of the Bible, which is intensely interesting given that the Chaldean Civilization just seemed to show up in the land that had once belonged to the Sumerian/Akkadian/Mesopotamian people, and is the origin of the Magi according to Greek history.
1901: The
American Standard version of the Bible was published, which was similar to the KJV.
1971: The
New American Standard version of the Bible was published, which was literally accurate but awkward in English.
1973: The
New International version of the Bible was published based on phrase-by-phrase translation rather than word-by-word, and became the best selling English Bible due to readability.
1976: The
Interlinear Bible was published, which paired up the Hebrew, Chaldean, Greek and Aramaic words with numbers coded to
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, allowing readers to discover numerous possible meaning choices for each word, and even more choices still by getting back to root-words. English approximations are given below each line.
Eastern Orthodox Bibles:*Includes many variations of Bibles preserved in different ethnic locales
*The Bible is regarded as a library or collection of books rather than as a single volume of canon
The
Syriac Bible:
* contains only part of the Apocrypha; uses the longer version of Mark
* contains a 3rd book of Corinthians
*originally rejected II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation.
*Matthew 1:16 shows Jesus as being descended from Joseph
*Barabbas' full name is given as Jesus Barabbas, meaning "Jesus, son of the Father"
The
Ethiopian Bible (4th Century A.D.):
* Adds 8 books to the New Testament:
4 Sinodos
2 Ethiopian Books of the Covenant
Ethiopic Clement
Ethiopic Didascalia
*Adds 3 books to the Old Testament:
Jubilees
I Enoch
Josippon
*Adds 2 books to the Apocrypha:
III Maccabees
The Wisdom of Solomon
*It is believed that the Ethiopian Bible managed to preserve the Ancient Hebrew text that was lost when the Jewish people went into captivity. If so, then this is important to both Jews and Christians, as this means the most ancient language of scripture was preserved free of Greek and Roman influence.
The
Armenian Bible (400 A.D.):
* Armenia was one of the few countries in the world that converted to Christianity prior to Constantine and Catholicism.
*called "The Queen of the Versions" due to its accuracy, clarity and literal rendering.
*The New Testament includes an extra book titled The Acts of Paul
The
Egyptian / Coptic Bible (2nd Century A.D.):
*Written in 7 different dialects
*Adds an extra New Testament book titled The Didache
*Coptic was the bridge language between the old Egyptian tongue and the newer Arabic tongue, but it used the Greek alphabet.
The
Slavonic Bible (9th Century A.D.):
*Belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church and all of the Slavic churches
*only rejects IV Maccabees
*The oldest whole Bible still in existence is a copy of this one dating to 1499, and located in Moscow.
The
Greek Orthodox Bible:
*Accepts all of the standard Apocryphal books
*In addition includes I Esdras, The Prayer of Manasseh, III and IV Maccabees, and Psalm 151
*Rejects II Esdras
