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Encyclopedia entry: BIBLE
- Article from:
- Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language
- Author:
Copyright© Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language 1998, originally published by Oxford University Press 1998. (Hide copyright information)
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BIBLE
A collection of sacred texts usually regarded as a unified whole and published as a book consisting of a number of books. For Christians these are in two groups, an Old Testament (OT), whose original texts are
HEBREW
(and some Aramaic), and a New Testament (NT), whose original texts are GREEK. The first five OT books are known in Hebrew as the
Torah
(instruction, law) and in Greek as the
Pentateuch
(five scrolls). Tradition ascribes them to Moses. The first seven make up the
Heptateuch
(seven scrolls). The
TRANSLATION
of all OT writings into Greek, including the Apocrypha or non-canonical texts, is known by the Latinate name
Septuagint
(seventy), after the number of scholars believed ...