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The History of the Bible
by
Katherine Corry
The Bible is the collection of sacred writings of
the Christian religion. It is comprised of the Old and New Testaments.
The Old Testament is recognized by Jews and as well as Christians. The
New Testament consists of books recognized by the Christian Church from
the 4th century. The Roman Catholic Bible also includes the Apocrypha.
The first English Translation of the Bible was by Miles Coverdale ( a
priest) in 1535. The Authorised or King James Version followed in 1611.
The Authorised Bible was revised in 1959 by The British and Foreign
Bible Society. This was named The Revised Standard version and was
widely used and very popular because of the more simple written form.
The language in The King James version although beautiful and poetic was
at times difficult to understand especially for children. Another
revision was taking place around the same time. This was to be known as
The New English Bible. The New Testament part of The New English Bible
first appeared in 1961 and The Old Testament and the Apocrypha was
published in 1970.
Since the publication of these translations many others have appeared on
the market. Amongst them are The Living Bible, The Good News Bible and
The New International Version. The latter first appeared in 1973 and was
later revised in 1983. The choice of Bibles today is extensive and is
very much a matter of personal choice. There are study Bibles,
Children's Bibles, Large Print Bibles, Teenage Bibles, Reference
Bibles, Devotional Bibles and many others. The members of the study
group I attend use a great variety of translations. We often share
readings and compare the text from them. We feel that by doing this we
gain better insight and a richer understanding of the passage under
discussion. We have preferences for different translations which works
well in our group. My preference at this stage is The New International
Version but I use other translations as well. We study many different
materials in our group. Some of our recent studies have been "Forty Days
of Purpose" by Rick Warren from the Saddleback Bible Study series. We
have studied several of the Disciple Studies. I have been involved with
two. "Under the Tree of Life" and "Remember who you are". These studies
have been excellent. We have also studied two books by Philip Yancey
"Soul Survivor" and "What's so amazing about Grace?" Both of these books
have been stimulating and interesting to study. Another worthwhile book
to study is "Praying our Goodbyes" by Joyce Rupp. We have also done a
series of studies on Intercessory Prayer. All of these studies plus many
others used over the years have produced stimulating conversations, soul
searching and a greater degree of knowledge of the scriptures. Through
this I have gained strength which has enabled me to cope better through
some difficult situations My faith continues to grow as we share.
Katherine Corry has a strong Christian faith which
has helped her through many difficult times in her life. Refer to
http://www.bible7.com
for further information
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