Holy Scripture of Orthodox Christians. Holy Scripture of the Old Testament. Division into chapters and verses

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The main source of knowledge about God and guidance in life for any Christian is the Holy Scripture. All the books of the Holy Scriptures are collected into one large book - the Bible (translated from Greek biblia - “books”).

The Bible is called the book of books. This is the most widespread book on earth; it ranks first in the world in terms of circulation. The Bible is needed by peoples speaking different languages, so by the end of 1988, it had been translated in whole or in part into 1,907 languages. In addition, the contents of the Bible are distributed on records and cassettes, which is necessary, for example, for the blind and illiterate.

The Bible is recognized throughout the world as the greatest monument of history and culture. However, for believers it is something incomparably greater: it is the written Revelation of God, the message of the Triune God addressed to humanity.

The Bible consists of two large parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The word “Covenant” means “an agreement with God, a testament of the Lord, according to which people will find salvation.”

The Old (that is, ancient, old) Testament covers the period of history before the birth of Christ, and the New Testament tells about events directly related to the mission of Christ.

Most of the books of the Old Testament were written in the 7th-3rd centuries BC, and by the beginning of the 2nd century the books of the New Testament were added to the Old Testament.

Different people and at different times contributed to the writing of the Bible. There were more than 50 such participants, and the Bible is not a collection of different teachings and stories.

Saint John Chrysostom interprets the word “Bible” as a collective concept: “The Bible is many books that form one single book.” What these books have in common is the idea of ​​the Divine salvation of humanity.

(http://www.hrono.ru/religia/pravoslav/sv_pisanie.html)

The Holy Scripture or Bible is a collection of books written by prophets and apostles, as we believe, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The word “Bible” (ta biblia) is Greek and means “books”.

The main theme of Holy Scripture is the salvation of mankind by the Messiah, the incarnate Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament speaks of salvation in the form of types and prophecies about the Messiah and the Kingdom of God. The New Testament sets forth the very realization of our salvation through the incarnation, life and teaching of the God-man, sealed by His death on the cross and resurrection. According to the time of their writing, the sacred books are divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament. Of these, the first contain what the Lord revealed to people through the divinely inspired prophets before the coming of the Savior to earth; and the second is what the Lord Savior Himself and His apostles discovered and taught on earth.

The Old Testament books were originally written in Hebrew. Later books from the time of the Babylonian captivity already have many Assyrian and Babylonian words and figures of speech. And the books written during Greek rule (non-canonical books) are written in Greek, while the 3rd book of Ezra is in Latin.

The Old Testament Holy Scripture contains the following books:

The books of the prophet Moses or the Torah (containing the foundations of the Old Testament faith): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Historical books: the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, the book of Ruth, the books of Kings: 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, the books of Chronicles: 1st and 2nd, the first book of Ezra, the book of Nehemiah, Second Book of Esther.

Educational (edifying content): the book of Job, the Psalter, the book of Solomon's parables, the book of Ecclesiastes, the book of Song of Songs.

Prophetic (books of predominantly prophetic content): the book of the prophet Isaiah, the book of the prophet Jeremiah, the book of the prophet Ezekiel, the book of the prophet Daniel, the Twelve books of the minor prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

The book of the Bible is Holy Scripture, a collection of books written by God's people, inspired by the Holy Spirit, inspired by God. The Bible consists of two main sections - the Old and New Testaments.

In total, the Old Testament consists of 39 books, written in Hebrew, at different times, by different people.

The New Testament consists of 27 books written in Greek. These are 4 Gospels: the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of John. The New Testament also includes the Acts of the Apostles, 21 Apostolic Epistles and the Apocalypse. The teachings of the holy apostles, prophets and teachers of the church contain not just wisdom, but we are given the truth, which was given to us by the Lord God himself. This truth lies at the basis of all life, both ours and those of those people who lived in those days. Modern preachers, theologians and pastors of the Church convey to us the interpretation of the Bible, the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, what was revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ of Nazareth was born much later than the Old Testament was written. Stories about him were first transmitted orally; later, the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote 4 Gospels. All the main events of the life of Jesus Christ, his birth in Bethlehem, his life, miracles and crucifixion are described in the Gospels by the evangelists. All 4 Gospels are based on the same oral traditions about the life of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul and his disciples wrote letters, many of which were included in the collection of books of the New Testament. The earliest complete copy of the New Testament dates back to 300 AD. During this time, the New Testament was translated into several languages, including Latin and Syriac.

The first copies of the Bible were written in Latin in beautiful, elegant handwriting. Later, the pages of the Old and New Testaments began to be decorated with patterns, flowers and small figures.

Over time, the languages ​​of peoples and nationalities change. The presentation of the Bible in the Old and New Testaments also changes. The Modern Bible is written in a modern language that we understand, but it has not lost its main content.

The Holy Scriptures are books written by Prophets and Apostles with the help of the Holy Spirit of God, revealing to them the secrets of the future. These books are called the Bible.

The Bible is a historically established collection of books that covers - according to the Biblical account - an age of about five and a half thousand years. As a literary work, it has been collected for about two thousand years.

It is divided in volume into two unequal parts: the larger one - the ancient one, that is, the Old Testament, and the later one - the New Testament.

The history of the Old Testament prepared people for the coming of Christ for about two thousand years. The New Testament covers the earthly period of the life of the God-man Jesus Christ and his closest followers. For us Christians, of course, the history of the New Testament is more important.

The books of the Bible are divided into four parts.

1) The first of them talks about the law left by God to the people through the prophet Moses. These commandments are dedicated to the rules of life and faith.

2) The second part is historical, it describes all the events that took place over 1100 years - until the 2nd century. ad.

3) The third part of the books includes moral and edifying ones. They are based on instructive stories from the lives of people famous for certain deeds or a special way of thinking and behavior.

It should be noted that of all the Old Testament books, the Psalter was the main one for the formation of our Russian worldview. This book was educational - in the pre-Petrine era, all Russian children learned to read and write from it.

4) The fourth part of the books are prophetic books. Prophetic texts are not just reading, but revelation - very important for the life of each of us, since our inner world is always in motion, striving to achieve the pristine beauty of the human soul.

The story about the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ and the essence of his teaching is contained in the second part of the Bible - the New Testament. The New Testament consists of 27 books. These are, first of all, the four Gospels - a story about the life and three and a half years of preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then - books telling about His disciples - the books of the Acts of the Apostles, as well as books of His disciples themselves - the Epistles of the Apostles, and, finally, the book of the Apocalypse, telling about the final destinies of the world.

The moral law contained in the New Testament is more strict than that of the Old Testament. Here not only sinful deeds are condemned, but also thoughts. The goal of every person is to eradicate evil in himself. By defeating evil, man conquers death.

The main thing in the Christian faith is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who conquered death and opened the way for all humanity to eternal life. It is this joyful feeling of liberation that permeates the New Testament narratives. The word “Gospel” itself is translated from Greek as “Good News.”

The Old Testament is the ancient union of God with man, in which God promised people a Divine Savior and, over many centuries, prepared them to receive Him.

The New Testament is that God really gave people a Divine Savior, in the person of His Only Begotten Son, who came down from heaven and became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and suffered and crucified for us, was buried and resurrected on the third day according to the Scriptures.

(http://zakonbozhiy.ru/Zakon_Bozhij/Chast_1_O_vere_i_zhizni_hristianskoj/SvJaschennoe_Pisanie_BibliJa/)

FROM VASILIEV:

The entire history and theory of Judaism, so closely connected with the life and destinies of the ancient Jews, are reflected in the Bible, in its Old Testament. Although the Bible, as a sum of sacred books, began to be compiled at the turn of the 11th-1st millennia BC. e. (its oldest parts date back to the 14th-13th centuries, and the first records - approximately to the 9th century BC), the main part of the texts and, apparently, the edition of the general code dates back to the period of the Second Temple. The Babylonian captivity gave a powerful impetus to the work of writing these books: the priests taken away from Jerusalem no longer had concerns about maintaining the temple” and were forced to concentrate their efforts on rewriting and editing the scrolls, on composing new texts. After returning from captivity, this work was continued and ultimately completed.

The Old Testament part of the Bible (most of it) consists of a number of books. First, there is the famous Pentateuch, attributed to Moses. The first book (“Genesis”) tells about the creation of the world, about Adam and Eve, the global flood and the first Hebrew patriarchs, and finally, about Joseph and the Egyptian captivity. Book two (“Exodus”) tells about the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, about Moses and his commandments, about the beginning of the organization of the cult of Yahweh. The third (“Leviticus”) is a set of religious dogmas, rules, and rituals. The fourth (“Numbers”) and fifth (“Deuteronomy”) are devoted to the history of the Jews after the Egyptian captivity. The Pentateuch (in Hebrew - Torah) was the most revered part of the Old Testament, and subsequently it was the interpretation of the Torah that gave rise to the multi-volume Talmud and formed the basis for the activities of rabbis in all Jewish communities of the world.

Following the Pentateuch, the Bible contains the books of judges and kings of Israel, the books of the prophets and several other works - the collection of psalms of David (Psalter), Song of Solomon, Proverbs of Solomon, etc. The value of these books varies, and sometimes their fame and popularity are incommensurable. However, they were all considered sacred and were studied by many hundreds of millions of people, tens of generations of believers, not only Jews, but also Christians.

The Bible is, first of all, a church book that instilled in its readers blind faith in the omnipotence of God, in his omnipotence, in the miracles he performed, etc. Old Testament texts taught Jews humility before the will of Yahweh, obedience to him, as well as to the priests and prophets speaking on his behalf . However, the content of the Bible is far from exhausted by this. Its texts contain many deep thoughts about the universe and the fundamental principles of existence, about relationships between people, about moral norms, social values, etc., which is usually found in every sacred book that claims to set out the essence of a particular religious doctrine.

The Holy Scriptures belong to those books that humanity has always read and will continue to read. Moreover, among these books it occupies a very special place due to its exceptional influence on the religious and cultural life of countless human generations, both past and present, and therefore the future. For believers, it is the word of God addressed to the world. Therefore, it is constantly read by all who seek to come into contact with the Divine Light and meditated on it by all who wish to deepen their religious knowledge. But at the same time, those who do not try to penetrate into the divine content of Holy Scripture and are content with its external, human shell continue to turn to it. The language of Scripture continues to attract poets, and its characters, images, and descriptions continue to inspire artists and writers today. At the moment, scientists and philosophers have turned their attention to the Holy Scriptures. It is in connection with the Holy Scriptures that those painful questions about the relationship between religious and scientific contemplation, which sooner or later every thinking person must face, arise with the greatest urgency. Therefore, the Holy Scripture, which has always been and continues to be a modern book, has even turned out to be a topical book in our era of upheavals and all kinds of searches.

But here it must be noted that, despite all its significance, the Holy Scriptures, precisely in our era of decline in church culture, began to be less read and disseminated among wide circles of believers. This is especially true for us, Orthodox Russian people. Of course, we have never stopped trying to live according to the Holy Scriptures, but in rare cases we live directly by them. Most often, we are content to listen to the Holy Scriptures in the temple and almost never turn to the sacred text itself in home reading. Nevertheless, the latter continues to remain that inexhaustible treasury, always accessible to everyone, from which any believer can continually draw for himself the innumerable spiritual riches necessary for his growth in the knowledge of God, in wisdom and in strength. Therefore, the Orthodox Church persistently calls everyone to read the Holy Scriptures and reflect on them, comprehending more and more fully the divinely revealed truths contained in them.

This essay, without claiming to be complete, aims to remind the Russian reader what the Holy Scripture is, according to the teachings of the Church of Christ, and also to outline how the perplexing questions raised in our time around the Holy Scripture are resolved for the believing consciousness, and to show how These are the spiritual benefits that reading and meditating on the Holy Scriptures give a Christian.

I. Holy Scripture, Its Origin, Nature and Meaning

About the Names of Holy Scripture. The Church's view of the origin, nature and meaning of the Holy Scriptures is revealed primarily in the names with which it is customary to call this book both in the Church and in the world. Name Sacred, or Divine Scripture taken from Holy Scripture itself, which more than once applies it to itself. Thus, the Apostle Paul writes to his disciple Timothy: “from childhood you have known the sacred scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (). This name, as well as these words of the Apostle Paul, explaining the meaning of the Holy Scriptures for everyone who believes in Christ, emphasize that the Holy Scriptures as Divine are opposed to all purely human writings, and that it comes, if not directly from God, then through the sending down of a special human writer gift, inspiration from above, that is, inspiration. It is he who makes Scripture “useful for teaching, reproof and correction,” since thanks to him Scripture does not contain any lies or delusions, but testifies only to the immutable Divine truth. This gift makes everyone who reads the Scriptures more and more perfect in righteousness and faith, turning him into a man of God, or, as one might say, sanctifying him... Next to this first name there is another name of the Holy Scripture: Bible. It is not found in Scripture itself, but arose from church usage. It comes from the Greek word bi blia, which was originally neuter, being the plural of the term meaning 'book'. Subsequently, it turned into a feminine singular word, began to be written with a capital letter and was applied exclusively to the Holy Scriptures, becoming its kind of proper name: Bible. In this capacity it has passed into all languages ​​of the world. It wants to show that the Holy Scripture is a book par excellence, that is, it surpasses all other books in its significance due to its Divine origin and content. At the same time, it also emphasizes its essential unity: despite the fact that it includes numerous books of the most varied nature and content, written either in prose or in verse, representing either history, or collections of laws, or sermons, or lyrics , then even private correspondence, it is, nevertheless, a single whole due to the fact that all the heterogeneous elements included in its composition contain the revelation of the same basic truth: the truth about God, revealed in the world throughout its history and building our salvation... There is also a third name for Holy Scripture as a Divine book: this name is Covenant. Like the first name, it is taken from Scripture itself. It is a translation of the Greek word diathe ke, which in the 2nd century BC was transmitted in Alexandria, in the translation of the Jewish sacred books into Greek, the Hebrew word takes. The people of Israel firmly believed that several times during their history God had deliberately appeared to them and assumed various obligations towards them, such as multiplying them, protecting them, giving them a special position among the nations and a special blessing. In turn, Israel promised to be faithful to God and fulfill His commandments. That's why takes means primarily ‘contract, agreement, alliance’. But since the promises of God were directed to the future, and Israel was to inherit the benefits associated with them, the Greek translators in the 2nd century BC translated this term as diaphics- testament or testament. This last word took on an even more definite and precise meaning after the Apostle Paul, referring to the death of the Lord on the cross, pointed out that it was the death of the Divine Testament that revealed to the children of God the right to eternal inheritance... Based on the prophet Jeremiah and the Apostle Paul, the Church divides The Bible for the Old and New Testaments, based on the writing of the sacred books included in it before or after the coming of Christ. But applying the name to the Holy Scriptures as to a book Covenant, The Church reminds us that this book, on the one hand, contains the story of how the promises given by God to man were communicated and how they received their fulfillment, and on the other hand, indicates the conditions for our inheritance of the promised benefits. This is the Church’s view of the origin, character and content of Holy Scripture, revealed in the names with which it designates it. Why does the Holy Scripture exist and why and how was it given to us?

On the Origin of Holy Scripture. The Holy Scripture arose for the reason that God, having created the world, does not abandon it, but provides for it, participates in its history and arranges its salvation. At the same time, God, relating to the world as a loving Father to His children, does not keep Himself at a distance from man, and man in ignorance of Himself, but constantly gives man the knowledge of God: He reveals to him both Himself and what constitutes the subject of His divine will. This is what is commonly called Divine Revelation. And since God reveals himself to man, the emergence of Holy Scripture becomes completely inevitable. For often, even when God speaks to one person or to one group of people, He is in reality speaking to all human generations and speaking to all times. Go and “tell the children of Israel,” God says to Moses on Mount Sinai (). “Go, teach all nations” (), says the Lord Jesus Christ, sending the Apostles to preach in the world. And since God wished to address some words of His Revelation to all people, in order for these words to be best preserved and transmitted, He providentially made them the subject of a special inspired record, which is the Holy Scripture. But before we talk about what the gift of inspiration given to the authors of sacred books carries and what it gives to their writings, let us ask ourselves how we know that among the countless books that exist in the world, only those that were included in the Bible are should be considered divinely inspired? What makes us believers see them as Holy Scripture?

We could, of course, refer here to the absolutely exceptional role and influence of the Bible in history. We could point out the power of the Holy Scriptures on human hearts. But is this enough and is it always convincing? We know from experience that often, even on ourselves, other books have a greater influence or effect than the Holy Scriptures. What should make us, ordinary believers, accept the entire Bible as a collection of inspired books? There can be only one answer: this is the testimony of the entire Church. The Church is the Body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit (see). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, guiding to all truth (see), due to which the Church that has received Him is the house of God, the pillar and affirmation of the truth (). It is given to her by the Spirit of God to judge the truth and doctrinal usefulness of religious books. Some books were rejected by the Church as containing false ideas about God and His actions in the world, others were recognized by her as useful, but only edifying, and still others, very few in number, were retained by her as inspired by God, because she saw that these books contain the truth entrusted to her in all its purity and completeness, that is, without any admixture of error or lies. The Church included these books in the so-called canon Holy Scripture. “Canon” in Greek means a standard, pattern, rule, law or decree that is binding on everyone. This word is used to designate a set of books of the Holy Scriptures, since the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, especially singled out these books into a completely separate collection, which it approved and offered to believers as books that contain a model of true faith and piety, suitable for all times. New books cannot be added to the canon of Holy Scripture and nothing can be taken away from it, and all this is based on the voice of the Holy Tradition of the Church, which has rendered its final judgment on the canon. We know the history of the entry into the canon of some books of the Holy Scriptures, we know that sometimes this “canonization” of individual books was both lengthy and complex. But this was because the Church sometimes did not immediately realize and reveal the truth entrusted to it by God. The very fact of the history of the canon is a clear confirmation of the attestation of the Holy Scriptures by the Holy Tradition, that is, by the entire teaching Church. The truth of the church's testimony about the Bible and its contents is indirectly confirmed by the undeniable influence of the Bible on culture and its impact on individual human hearts. But this same church testimony is a guarantee that the Bible can, both in the past and in the future, have an impact and influence on the life of every individual believer, even if the latter does not always feel it. This impact and influence increases and strengthens as the believer enters into the fullness of church truth.

The place of Holy Scripture as a source of knowledge of God. This connection between Holy Tradition and Holy Scripture shows the place in the Church of Holy Scripture as a source of knowledge of God. It is not the first source of knowledge about God, neither chronologically (for before the existence of any Scripture, God was revealed to Abraham, and the Apostles preached Christ to the world before the compilation of the Gospels and Epistles), nor logically (for the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, establishes the canon of Holy Scripture and approves his). This reveals the entire inconsistency of Protestants and sectarians who reject the authority of the Church and its traditions and rely on Scripture alone, although it is attested by the very church authority that they reject. Holy Scripture is neither the only nor the self-sufficient source of knowledge of God. The Sacred Tradition of the Church is its living knowledge of God, its constant entry into the Truth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, expressed in the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, in the works of the great fathers and teachers of the Church, in liturgical successions. It both testifies to the Holy Scripture and gives its correct understanding. Therefore, we can say that Holy Scripture is one of the monuments of Holy Tradition. Nevertheless, this is his most important monument due to the gift of inspiration that the authors of the sacred books were granted. What is this gift?

On the Nature of Holy Scripture. We can deduce the essential content of the gift of inspiration from the view of Holy Scripture itself on its authors. This view is most clearly expressed in where the Apostle Peter, speaking about the word contained in Scripture, identifies it with prophecy: “For prophecy was never uttered by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke it, being moved by the Holy Spirit” (v. 21). The Old Testament Church also held the same view of the authors of the sacred books as prophets. Until now, the Jews include our so-called historical books, that is, the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2, 3 and 4 Kings, in the category of writings of the “early prophets”, which in the Hebrew Bible exist along with the writings of the “later prophets”, that is books inscribed with the names of the four great and twelve minor prophets, or “prophetic books,” according to the terminology adopted in the Christian Church. This same view of the Old Testament Church was reflected in the words of Christ, dividing the Holy Scriptures into the law, the prophets and the Psalms (see), as well as directly identifying all Scripture with the sayings of the prophets (see). What are the prophets with whom ancient tradition so persistently identifies the authors of the sacred books, and what conclusions follow from this regarding the nature of the Holy Scriptures?

A prophet, according to Scripture itself, is a person to whom, through the Spirit of God, Divine plans for the world become available in order to testify about them to people and proclaim to them the will of God. The prophets recognized these plans through visions, through insights, but most often through contemplation of the actions of God, revealed in the events of history directed by God. But in all these cases they were directly initiated into the Divine plans and received the power to be their heralds. It follows from this that all the sacred authors, like the prophets, by the will of God, directly contemplated the Divine secret secrets in order to tell them to the world. And their writing of books is the same prophetic preaching, the same testimony of Divine plans to people. It does not matter what facts or events the inspired writers or, what is the same, prophets wrote about: about the present, about the past or about the future. The only important thing is that the Holy Spirit, Who is the Creator of all history, initiated them into its hidden meaning. From here it becomes completely clear that the authors of historical books, who wrote in the 6th or 5th century BC about the sacred past of ancient Israel, turned out to be the same prophets as those unbookish prophets Gad, Nathan, Ahijah and others, through whom God once revealed to people the meaning of the events of this past. Also, the disciples and followers of the great prophets, the inspired editors of some prophetic books (and we clearly see from the sacred text itself that, for example, the book of the prophet Jeremiah was not all written by the prophet himself) are themselves the same prophets: the Spirit of God dedicated them to those the same secrets that were revealed to their teachers, in order to continue their prophetic work, at least through the written recording of their preaching. Turning to the New Testament, we must say that the sacred writers, who did not recognize Christ during His earthly life, were nevertheless later directly initiated by the Holy Spirit into the mysteries revealed in Christ. We have absolutely clear and direct evidence of this from the Apostle Paul (see; ; etc.). This is undoubtedly a prophetic phenomenon. Therefore, summing up everything that has been said about the nature of inspired Scripture as a type of prophetic preaching, we must conclude that if Scripture turns out to be the most authoritative source of doctrine in the Church, this is explained by the fact that it is a record of the direct revelation of Divine truths, which the compilers of Scripture contemplated in the Holy Spirit, and the same Spirit testified to the authenticity of their contemplations.

On the doctrinal authority of Holy Scripture in the Church. So, if the Holy Scripture, through its dependence on the Holy Tradition, does not constitute the only and self-sufficient source of our knowledge of God and about God, then it is, nevertheless, the only source of religious doctrine, about which we can say with all confidence that it is in no way sins against the fullness of the Divine Truth available to us. It is this that most fully and perfectly shows the image of God’s saving action in the world. Therefore, theology, which tries to substantiate its conclusions on the most solid authorities, referring to Sacred Tradition, constantly tests itself with the help of Scripture. In this, it only follows the above instruction of the Apostle Paul: all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof (that is, for irrefutable evidence) and for correction (). Moreover, it can be shown that all church prayers and all liturgical texts seem to be entirely woven from the words and sayings of the Holy Scripture, since in worship the Church wants to express the truths of Revelation in the same words in which they were captured by the inspired witnesses who directly contemplated them . And finally, for the same reason, the Church always strives to clothe in the words and expressions of Holy Scripture its confessions of faith and its dogmatic definitions. Thus, our Nicene Creed of Constantinople was composed of words that, all but one, were borrowed from Holy Scripture. Only one of its words is not found in the Holy Scriptures: Consubstantial, which is why disputes arose in the Church after the First Ecumenical Council, which lasted almost a century. These disputes ceased when, as a result of the exploits and labors of the great fathers of the Church, saints, and, it became obvious to everyone that, despite the fact that this word is not found in Scripture, nevertheless it corresponds to his entire teaching about the eternal relations of God Father and God the Son and about God's realization of our salvation in Christ.

So, thanks to the providential, God-inspired recording of the Divine truths revealed to the world, the Church of Christ always has at its disposal every available infallible source of knowledge of God. The authority of Scripture as a book compiled by prophets is the authority of direct, unfalse testimony. However, modernity has raised a whole series of doubts and disputes around this source of knowledge of God. We will now turn to their consideration.

II. Holy Scripture and the Confusions It Concerns

On the possibility of the very fact of Holy Scripture. The first and main bewilderment can be caused by the very fact of the existence of inspired Scripture. How is such Scripture possible? We saw above that the existence of Holy Scripture is due to the fact that God reveals himself and acts in the world. Therefore, doubts about the possibility of the fact of Holy Scripture ultimately come down to doubts about the existence of God and the truth of statements about God as Creator, Provider and Savior. To prove the possibility and truth of the Scriptures is to prove the truth of all these statements. In this area, evidence from reason does not prove, but the decisive thing is the experience of faith, which, like any experience, is given the power of direct vision. And in this regard, modern humanity, strange as it may seem at first glance, finds itself in more and more favorable conditions. For, if the 19th century was a century of doubt and departure from faith, if the beginning of the 20th century was an era of intense search for a worldview, then our era is increasingly defined as an era of conscious choice between God and the struggle with Him. Among those historical catastrophes and upheavals that have occurred in our days, humanity has felt, if it has not yet fully realized, that God is truly active in the world, and that this is the most vital truth. This can be seen from the fact that among people who are thoughtful, knowledgeable and generally trying to do something big and significant in this world, there are fewer and fewer people who are lukewarm and indifferent to God. Those who reject Him do so not for doctrinal reasons, but only because they fight with Him because of the place He occupies in the human heart, and those who accept Him accept Him not because of inherited habits and attitudes, but because they seek living fellowship with him. And undoubtedly, many of those who are destined to read these lines, many who have gone through various trials, dangers and troubles, Orthodox Russian people, can confirm that they are really looking for communication with the One whom they have known in their personal experience as the true one who is revealed in their lives. Savior from sin and Deliverer from all kinds of troubles, sorrows and trials. The Holy Scriptures must therefore be read with the firm intention of finding through this reading the Living God acting in the world He created for the salvation of His creation. And anyone who begins to read the Scriptures in order to meet God and know Him more perfectly will never go unrewarded for his efforts. Sooner or later, he himself will be convinced from personal experience of the truth of the testimony of the Holy Scriptures about the Divine action revealed in the world: he will perfectly understand that the saving and providential influence of God on the world is not subject to any human or natural laws, which is why the biblical testimony about it is in no way may be the fruit of human invention, but it is a matter of direct revelation from above. This will constitute the best and most certain proof that in the Bible we are dealing with genuine Divine Scripture.

Let us now move on to two questions that sometimes confuse believers: the first concerns the relationship between the Bible and science, and the second concerns the very content of the Bible.

On the relationship between the Bible and science. Each of us has more than once heard statements according to which the facts given in the Bible do not correspond to the data and conclusions of modern science. In defense of the Bible, one can, of course, point to the temporary nature of scientific conclusions and theories, to the latest discoveries in various scientific fields, which seem to confirm some biblical facts. But first of all, we must keep in mind that biblical testimony is religious testimony: its subject is God and His action in the world. Science explores the world itself. Of course, there is no doubt that scientific knowledge and scientific discoveries are from God, in the sense that He providentially advances them further and further. But all this is not religious knowledge, which has God Himself as its subject and is possible only in the order of revelation. Religious and scientific knowledge belong to completely different areas. They have nowhere to meet and therefore there is simply no opportunity for them to contradict each other. Therefore, the discrepancies between the Bible and science are imaginary discrepancies.

This is true especially in the relationship of the Bible to the natural sciences. The latter have nature as their subject, that is, the physical world. Revelation concerns the relationship of the world with God, that is, what is beyond the physical world: its invisible basis, its origin and its final destination. All this is not subject to scientific experience and, as such, constitutes the field of metaphysics, that is, the philosophical discipline that asks about what is beyond the boundaries of the natural world. But philosophy only asks about this area, while religion has Revelation about it. The revelation here was given by God because for man, for his eternal salvation, it is necessary to know where he came from and where he is destined. This revelation is captured in the Bible and therefore the latter, according to the apt words of the metropolitan (19th century), speaks not about how heaven is structured, but about how a person should ascend to it. And if we turn to what expresses the Bible’s basic view of the world and man, we will immediately be convinced that it is in no way subject to the judgment of natural science and, therefore, cannot contradict it. This is how the biblical view of the world and man is defined: 1) the world and man are the creation of God, and man was created in the image and likeness of God; 2) the world and man, as a result of the ancestral Fall, are in an improper, fallen state: they are subject to sin and death and therefore need salvation; 3) this salvation was given in Christ, and the power of Christ is already active in the world, but will be revealed in all its fullness only in the life of the next century. Natural science cannot make any judgments regarding the creation of the world and man, because it studies only the substance of which the already existing natural world and the human body are composed, and the metaphysical reason why this substance began to exist in time is simply inaccessible to its experience and thus outside the scope of her study. Of course, the question may arise about how we should understand the days of creation, but no matter how we understand them, the very truth about God as the Creator of everything can neither be confirmed by natural scientific experimental knowledge nor refuted by it. It is also obvious that the truths about the image of God in man, about the Fall, about the coming transformation of the world are not subject to verification by natural science, for all this is not the realm of the “visible” world, cognizable with the help of the five senses. In essence, natural science deals with only a very narrow sector of reality: the laws of world matter in its current state. Everything else, that is, precisely the area of ​​philosophy and religious revelation, is beyond his jurisdiction, because it is inaccessible. It is true that sometimes the invisible breaks into the realm of the visible, and the Bible insists on the fact of a miracle. The miracle for her lies in the abolition of natural laws in the world. She views a miracle precisely as a manifestation of the action of God the Savior in the world. It is known that science is ready to stop before a miracle and establish facts of violation of natural laws. However, she states that, despite the inability to explain them in her current condition, she hopes to find an explanation for them in the future. She, of course, will be able, through new discoveries, to increase the number of causes and circumstances known to the mind, the combination of which caused this or that miracle, but the invisible First Cause is forever hidden from her field of vision and therefore will always remain knowable only in the order of religious revelation. So, there cannot be and is not a conflict between the Bible and natural science. The same must be established in relation to the Bible and the historical sciences.

The Bible is criticized for the fact that the historical information it gives sometimes differs from what we know from history. The Bible allegedly often presents historical events differently, does not say much, or cites facts unconfirmed by historical science. Of course, we still have not found out much about the historical past of the peoples of the ancient East, who formed the environment in which the Bible arose. In this regard, the continuous archaeological discoveries in Palestine, Syria, Egypt and Mesopotamia are extremely valuable, shedding more and more new light on this past. But, however, we should never lose sight of the fact that the authors of the Bible, as religious witnesses, tried to see mainly the religious side of history, that is, God working through events and revealing himself in them. This explains all the so-called discrepancies between the Bible and history. Sacred writers, naturally, could remain silent about facts and events or about some of their aspects that were not of religious significance. After all, it is well known how often the testimony of different eyewitnesses of the same fact or incident does not coincide with each other, for everyone observes and judges from his own point of view, which does not coincide with the point of view of his neighbor. Therefore, it should be assumed that secular history often did not pay attention and did not testify to facts that were of no importance to statesmen, diplomats or military leaders, but were paramount from a religious point of view. In this regard, a classic example is how the witnesses of secular history passed by Christ and, one might say, did not notice Him. Contemporary historians and thinkers of the Greco-Roman world do not talk about Him at all, for they were in no way captivated by His appearance on the distant outskirts of the empire, in provincial Palestine. Information about Christ, although extremely distorted, began to appear in Greco-Roman authors only when Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire. We must simply recognize in advance that in the absence of parallel historical documents, in many cases the Bible can only be verified in the light of the Bible itself. Therefore, all attempts by historical science leading to the restructuring of the traditional biblical scheme of the sequence of events are only scientific hypotheses, and not certification of unshakable historical truth. The Bible is also a document of history, but only the history of God's implementation of our salvation.

On the composition of the Bible (question about the Old Testament). We have come to a question that even believers sometimes ask - about the presence of certain parts in the Bible to which modern knowledge, divorced from doctrinal sources, often attaches only archaeological significance. Since the Bible (some people think) is a document of history, like a book written in history, should not some parts of it be considered as belonging exclusively to the historical past? These questions refer mainly to the Old Testament part of the canon. Here, of course, the fruit of modern political influences and prejudices that are by no means of a religious nature often comes into play. But, one way or another, in circles that consider themselves ecclesiastical, even a hostile attitude towards the Old Testament was expressed. And where there is no such attitude, bewilderment still prevails about the Old Testament: why do we need the Old Testament, since Christ came? What is his religious use when his spirit so often falls short of the spirit of the Gospel? Of course, the Old Testament only in the messianic places of some of its books reaches the New Testament heights, but, nevertheless, it is Holy Scripture, containing genuine Divine Revelation. Christ and the Apostles, as we see from the countless references to the Old Testament found in the New Testament books, constantly cited the words of the Old Testament as containing the word of God spoken for all times. And indeed, already in the Old Testament such primary truths were revealed to humanity as the truths about the creation of the world, about the image of God in man, about the Fall and the improper state of the natural world, which were accepted and confirmed almost without addition in the New Testament. It is the Old Testament that speaks of those promises of God that Christ fulfilled and by which the New Testament Church lives to this day and will live by them until the end of the age. The Old Testament provides divinely inspired examples of prayers of repentance, petition and praise, which humanity still prays to this day. The Old Testament most perfectly expressed those eternal questions addressed to God about the meaning of the suffering of the righteous in the world, which we also think about; True, we are now given the answer to them through the Cross of Christ the Savior, but it is precisely these Old Testament questions that help us realize all the riches of Revelation given to us in Christ. We have thus come to the main reason why the Old Testament remains necessary for our salvation to this day: it leads us to Christ. The Apostle Paul, speaking about the Old Testament law and meaning by it the entire religious state of the Old Testament man, defines him as a teacher, or teacher to Christ. It is known that what is essential for salvation is not the knowledge about God that we receive by hearsay or from books, but the knowledge of God, which is the fruit of religious experience in a living meeting with God. And only having received the Old Testament revelation and having gone through the Old Testament religious experience, as through preliminary preparation, was humanity able to recognize and meet the Christ of God as its Savior and Lord. What constituted the path of humanity as a whole lies on the path of each individual person. Each of us must necessarily go through the Old Testament. In order for us, like the Apostles, to have our spiritual eyes opened, so that we truly know that Christ is the Son of God and our personal Savior, it is necessary that we also first go through that true knowledge of God that the patriarchs, prophets and other witnesses of God in the Old Testament. This necessity follows from the teaching of the Apostle Paul about the Old Testament as a teacher to Christ. Christ speaks about the same thing, emphasizing that the great New Testament truth about the Resurrection is available only to those who listen to Moses and the prophets (see). And He directly conditions faith in Himself by faith in the words of Moses (see). It follows from this that at some point in his spiritual growth, every person living in God in an unknown way passes through the Old Testament in order to move from it to the New Testament knowledge of God. How and when this happens is a mystery known only to God. Obviously, this transition occurs differently for each individual person. But one thing is certain: the Old Testament is inevitable in the matter of our personal salvation. Therefore, the Old Testament sacred books, in which the Old Testament religious experience we need are captured for us, find their natural place in the canon of Scripture, which contains the word that God was pleased to deliberately address to all humanity through His specially chosen inspired writers-prophets. How is this word perceived by believers and what does it bring to them?

III. Holy Scripture and Religious Life

Sacred Scripture and the prayer life of the Church. We saw above that the Church tries to base all its theological experience on the Holy Scriptures. But while doing theology, the Church also prays. We also noted that she also strives to clothe her prayers in words borrowed from Scripture. Moreover, she reads Scripture itself during her services. Here it is necessary to point out that during the annual liturgical cycle the Church reads the entire Four Gospels, the entire book of Acts and all the Apostolic Epistles; At the same time, she reads almost the entire book of Genesis and the prophet Isaiah, as well as significant passages from the rest of the Old Testament canon. As for the Psalter, this book is normally read in its entirety during each seventh (that is, weekly) circle as containing divinely inspired examples of our petitionary, repentant and doxological prayers. In addition, we note that church legislation requires clergy to preach the word of God daily in church. This shows that the ideal of church life includes unceasing listening to the Holy Scriptures in church and the same unceasing disclosure of its content in the living preaching word. But, at the same time, through the mouth of its teachers and pastors, the Church calls believers to constantly read the Holy Scriptures at home. These persistent pastoral calls, as well as the church rules on the daily preaching of the word of God, and the entire nature of the liturgical use of the Holy Scriptures, clearly show that the latter is spiritual food of absolutely exceptional importance for every believer. What can constant reading of the Holy Scriptures reveal to the spirit of each of us?

Sacred Scripture is first and foremost a record of sacred history. As such, it conveys to us those facts and events through which God revealed Himself in the world He created and fell away from Him and brought about its salvation. It speaks of how God spoke “many times and in various ways” from ancient times in the Old Testament prophets and how He then revealed, when the due dates arrived, the fullness of salvation in His Son (see). Therefore, first of all, the Holy Scriptures are given to us in order to constantly revive in our consciousness everything that God has done “for our sake and for our salvation.” However, constantly renewing in our memory the history of the implementation of our salvation, Scripture is not limited to one reminder of the past - although sacred, but still the past. We must not forget that our religious present is based on this past. Moreover, the entire eternity that opens before us is based on it. Speaking about the salvation of the world accomplished in history, Holy Scripture simultaneously reveals to us our own position before God, as it was created in Christ. It testifies to us that through the redemptive feat of the Lord Jesus Christ, we all became children of Abraham according to the promise, the chosen people, people taken by God as an inheritance. True, Christ also filled with new, that is, New Testament content, these Old Testament images that determine our attitude towards God, but fundamentally, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, they testify to the same abiding truth: God Himself, exclusively in His own initiative, he descended into the world for the sake of man who had fallen away from Him. Only after the coming of Christ is there no longer only Israel, but none of us, despite our sins, are rejected before Him. And, of course, understanding, even if only purely rationally, this truth through constant reading of the Holy Scriptures already instills in us the courage, hope and confidence we need to travel the path of our personal salvation.

Salvation is a gift that is not enough just to know, but which must be accepted and realized, that is, made into a living reality, for if the descent of God into the world and our redemption in Christ were not caused by any merit on our part, but are exclusively a matter of Divine love, then our assimilation of the fruits of Christ’s saving feat is left to our will. God, who created us without our consent, created us free, and therefore, without our consent, cannot make valid for each of us the salvation that He granted in Christ. We must therefore strive to acquire righteousness through prayer and struggle with our sinfulness. This is the path of our salvation. It must first of all be found, since each human person is assigned his own path to God. But, in addition, a person, due to his weakness and his sinfulness, is often mistaken about the correct path leading to the realization of the salvation given to him. The history of the Church knows not only heresies about God, about the God-man Christ, but also heresies about the essence and nature of salvation, as well as about the ways of acquiring it. Therefore, a person needs to have some kind of book for guidance in walking the path of salvation. Such a book is the same Holy Scripture, for in it, inspired by God, that is, in full accordance with the truth, the main milestones of the path to God for every human soul are attested: “that the man of God may be perfect, equipped for every good work” (). It is in Scripture that each of us finds an indication of those virtues that he must seek and achieve, working on himself and asking for them from God. It is in Scripture that we find promises addressed to each of us about those gracious means that we can count on to realize our salvation. And those heroes of faith through whom God acted and built sacred history, those whose exploits are narrated by the Holy Scriptures, patriarchs, prophets, righteous men, apostles, etc., remain for us living images of the path of salvation and therefore are our eternal companions in walking before God.

However, God not only gives us correct instructions in Scripture regarding the way of our salvation. He Himself, through His Providence for us, leads us along this path. He gives us grace through the sacraments of the church, as well as in other ways known to Him alone. By cooperating with our freedom, He Himself directs us to receive this grace. In other words, although salvation has already been given in Christ, its construction by God continues now, in the life of each of us. Therefore, even now the same revelation and the same action of God continues through the events that were witnessed in Scripture. There, by the Spirit of God, through sacred history, Christ was, as it were, pre-incarnated; Now, through the Holy Spirit, Christ, who has already become incarnate and completed His saving work, enters into the life of the world as a whole and each of us individually. But the very principle of Revelation through events or, what is the same, through history, remains the same for us. Various images and, one might say, laws of this Revelation were established and recorded by the authors of the sacred books. Based on them and by analogy with what happened in the past, we can recognize the present and even the future. At the same time, Holy Scripture itself calls us to comprehend through the sacred past the same sacred present and sacred future. So, for example, the Apostle Paul, referring to the relationship between the two sons of Abraham, establishes the fact of the existence in the world of a law according to which “just as then he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now”; but, the Apostle continues, “what does Scripture say? Cast out the slave and her son, for the son of the slave will not be an heir along with the son of the free woman” (). In other words, the Apostle, on the basis of one long-ago fact, shows that people who are free in spirit will always be persecuted in this world, but that, despite this, the final victory belongs to them. The same Apostle Paul, asking God about the fate of Israel who had fallen away from Him in the flesh and peering into sacred history, comprehends, on the one hand, that if God chose only Isaac and Jacob from the descendants of Abraham, then it is quite clear that He could leave in the New Testament almost the entire Jewish people (see), and that, on the other hand, if through the prophet Hosea He announced mercy to the Northern Kingdom, rejected because of its sins, then it is clear that in Christ He called the pagans who had previously been abandoned (see. ). Considering then the action of God throughout sacred history, the Apostle Paul predicts the conversion in the future to Christ of the same fallen Israel according to the flesh and proclaims the general principle: “God has imprisoned all in disobedience, in order to have mercy on all. Oh, the abyss of wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God” (). We are all called upon, on the basis of the same Scripture, to continue these and similar insights of the Apostle Paul and other inspired writers. Through constant reading of the Holy Scriptures, a Christian learns to understand the will of God as revealed in the events of his personal life and the life of the whole world. The Holy Scriptures, once compiled by the prophets and apostles in the distant historical past, turned out to be given to all of Christ's humanity forever, as an instrument for recognizing times.

But that is not all. Holy Scripture can also turn out to be a tool for the ascent of a Christian person to the heights of spiritual experience. It contains a record of the word of God for transmission to all human generations. But more than just the verbal shell of Divine Revelation is transmitted. The most religious experience can be transmitted, that is, the direct knowledge that the prophets—the authors of the Holy Scriptures—had, as initiates into the mysteries of God. The Church, as Christ's conciliar humanity, has a grace-filled conciliar consciousness, in which direct contemplation of everything that has ever been given by God to man in the order of Revelation takes place. This direct, grace-filled contemplation by the Catholic Church of the entirety of Divine Revelation constitutes, as we have seen, the basis of Holy Tradition. The latter is therefore not, as is often believed, some kind of archive of documents, but a living, grace-filled memory of the Church. Thanks to the presence of this memory, in the consciousness of the Church the boundaries of time are erased; therefore, the past, the present, and the future form for her one ever-present present. By virtue of this miracle of grace-filled conciliarity, those same Divine realities that were once contemplated by all God’s witnesses, in particular the inspired compilers of the books of Holy Scripture, become immediately accessible to the Church. Therefore, as he becomes familiar with what constitutes the mystical depth of the Church, every Christian, at least if possible, receives direct access to those Divine truths that were once revealed to the spiritual gaze of the prophets and apostles, who recorded these insights in the Holy Scriptures. And, of course, constant reading of the latter is one of the surest means of familiarization with both what constitutes the spiritual essence of the Church and the religious vision of the sacred writers.

But you can go even further. By leading us to Christ, reading the Holy Scriptures can in some cases enable the Christian to complete in the Holy Spirit the religious knowledge of the sacred authors. First of all, we see in Christ the fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic prophecies. But along with the messianic prophecies in the Old Testament there are also so-called prototypes of Christ. Their existence is noted in the New Testament writings. The latter, using examples of the interpretation of prototypes, show us how, in the light of the New Testament experience, the religious experience of the Old Testament writers is completed for believers. It is known that the New Testament books constantly refer to Christ not only the predictions of the Old Testament prophets, but also various events of the Old Testament law. All these religious facts, according to the teachings of the New Testament books, mysteriously predicted Christ, namely prefiguring His. With regard to the interpretation of types, the epistle to the Hebrews is especially characteristic. It shows that the Old Testament Aaronic priesthood and sacrifices received their fulfillment in the redemptive feat of Christ, who made a one-time perfect sacrifice and appeared for us as the True Intercessor before God. At the same time, the Apostle Paul in this letter says that the entire Old Testament sacrificial ritual and the entire Old Testament priesthood in relation to the sacrifice of Christ is a canopy, that is, a shadow of future benefits, and not the very image of things (). As the letter of the book of Leviticus, which contains the laws of the Old Testament priesthood and sacrifices, shows, its compilers did not even think of talking about Christ, whom they did not know, since He had not yet appeared in the world. Nevertheless, what they spoke about still represented Christ.

This is explained by the fact that it was partly involved in those religious benefits that were given to the world in their entirety in Christ. The Old Testament authors, without knowing it themselves, often mysteriously came into contact with the spiritual reality that God only slightly revealed in the Old Testament and which He gave in its entirety only through Christ. These partial revelations of the truth about the coming Christ and His exploits explain the presence of both types and messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. The Old Testament sacred writers therefore only partially penetrated this truth. But the New Testament authors, seeing in Christ “the very image of things,” understood that the Old Testament, in essence, speaks about Christ, and therefore clearly saw manifestations of the power of Christ where the very letter of the text did not allow and still does not allow this to be seen those who have not yet known Christ. But we have seen that, containing Divine Revelation, Holy Scripture has the wonderful property of introducing believers into the religious experience of its authors. Therefore, for believers, the Old Testament continually reveals the testimony of Christ. The Fathers of the Church undoubtedly had such a vision of Christ in all of Holy Scripture, as their interpretations of Scripture show. But for each of the modern readers of Scripture, the latter can become, by the will of God, the same always living and each time sounding new book about Christ.

Summing up all of the above about the meaning and effect of Scripture in the religious life of a Christian, we are convinced that reading it is something much more than ordinary religious reading. Of course, there were cases when people came to God through reading other religious books. But in all Scripture, for each of us, God Himself laid down the objective possibility of meeting Christ, and it will remain inherent in this book, even if it is not used by those for whom it is intended. Holy Scripture shows us Christ working throughout sacred history. In addition, starting from Scripture, we come to know Christ in the life of our contemporary world and in our personal lives. Therefore, the Bible, as a book about Christ, gives us the living Christ and continually improves us in His knowledge. This brings us back to the same words of the Apostle Paul about the purpose of Holy Scripture: “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Of course, every Christian’s reading into the Holy Scripture depends on his integration into the rest of the grace-filled reality of the Church. Holy Scripture is given to the Church, and in it it receives its revelation. But we must not forget that the religious state of the historical Church in each era depends on the religious life of its constituent members: “if one member suffers, all members suffer with it; If one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it” (). It is precisely because of this that we will be saved with the whole Church, and not each individual. Therefore, in our era of various upheavals and unrest, which have had such a profound impact on the life of the Church, God Himself undoubtedly shows us the path to the revival of Christ’s witness in the world and especially makes it the duty of every believer to penetrate into the meaning of the Holy Scriptures.

See 58th Apostolic Rule and 19th Rule of the VI Ecumenical Council.

In order to preserve the revelation of God and convey it to descendants, the holy men, having accepted the inspiration from the Lord, wrote it down in books. They were helped to cope with this difficult task by the Holy Spirit, who was invisibly present nearby, showing the right path. The numerous collections of all these books are united by one common name - the Holy Scriptures. Written by the Spirit of God through chosen people, among whom were kings, prophets, and apostles, it has become sacred since ancient times.

The second name that is used to characterize the Holy Scriptures is the Bible, which is translated from Greek as “books.” This is an accurate interpretation, since the correct understanding here lies precisely in the plural. On this occasion, Saint John Chrysostom noted that the Bible is many books that form one single one.

Structure of the Bible

The Holy Scriptures are divided into two parts:

• The Old Testament is those books that were written before the appearance of Jesus Christ in the world.
• The New Testament was written down by the holy apostles after the coming of the Savior.

The word “covenant” itself is literally translated as “command,” “teaching,” “instruction.” Its symbolic meaning is the creation of an invisible union between God and man. Both of these parts are equivalent and together form a single Holy Scripture.

The Old Testament, representing a more ancient union of God with man, was created immediately after the fall of the ancestors of mankind. Here God gave them a promise that the Savior would come to the world.

The Holy Scripture of the New Testament is based on the fact that the Savior promised by the Lord appeared to the world, taking on human nature, and became in everything like people. Throughout his short life, Jesus Christ showed that she can be free from sin. Having resurrected, he gave people the great grace of renewal and sanctification by the Holy Spirit for the continuation of life in the Kingdom of God.

Structure of the Old and New Testaments. Holy books

They are written in ancient Hebrew. There are 50 of them in total, of which 39 are canonical. However, it should be noted here that, according to the Jewish code of the Holy Scriptures, some groups of books are combined into one. And therefore their number is 22. That is the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

If we organize them according to content, we can distinguish four large groups:

• legislative - this includes the five main books that form the basis of the Old Testament;
• historical - there are seven of them, and they all tell about the life of the Jews, their religion;
• teaching - five books containing the teaching of faith, the most famous is the Psalter;
• prophetic - all of them, and there are also five of them, contain a foreshadowing that the Savior will soon come to the world.

Turning to the New Testament sacred sources, it should be noted that there are 27 of them, and all of them are canonical. The Old Testament division into groups given above is not applicable here, since each of them can be assigned to several groups at once, and sometimes to all of them at once.

The New Testament, in addition to the four Gospels, includes the Acts of the Holy Apostles, as well as their Epistles: seven conciliar letters and fourteen from the Apostle Paul. The story ends with the Revelation of John the Theologian, also known as the Apocalypse.

Gospels

The New Testament, as we know, begins with the four Gospels. This word means nothing more than the good news of the salvation of people. It was brought by Jesus Christ himself. It is to him that this high gospel - the Gospel - belongs.

The task of the evangelists was only to convey it, telling about the life of the Son of God Jesus Christ. That is why they say not “the Gospel of Matthew”, but “from Matthew”. It is understood that all of them: Mark, Luke, John and Matthew have one gospel - Jesus Christ.

1. Gospel of Matthew. The only one written in Aramaic. It was intended to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting for.
2. Gospel of Mark. Greek is used here for the purpose of conveying the sermon of the Apostle Paul to Christian converts from paganism. Mark focuses on the miracles of Jesus, while emphasizing his power over nature, which the pagans endowed with divine properties.
3. The Gospel of Luke was also written in Greek for former pagans who had converted to Christianity. This is the most detailed description of the life of Jesus, which touches on the events preceding the birth of Christ, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to legend, Luke was personally acquainted with her and became the author of the first icon of the Most Holy Theotokos.
4. Gospel of John. It is believed that it was written in addition to the previous three. John cites those words and deeds of Jesus that are not mentioned in the previous Gospels.

Inspiration of Holy Scripture

The books that together form the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are called inspired because they were written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In other words, we can say that their only and real author is none other than the Lord God himself. It is he who, defining them in a moral and dogmatic sense, enables man to realize God’s plan through creative work.

That is why the Holy Scripture has two components: divine and human. The first contains the Truth revealed by God himself. The second expresses it in the language of people who lived in one of the eras and belonged to a certain culture. Man, who is created in the image and likeness of God, is endowed with the unique opportunity to enter into direct communication with the Creator. God, being all-wise and omnipotent, has all the means to communicate his revelation to people.

About Sacred Tradition

Speaking about the Holy Scriptures, we should not forget about another way of disseminating divine revelation - Holy Tradition. It was through him that the doctrine of faith was transmitted in ancient times. This method of transmission exists to this day, for under Sacred Tradition is conceived the transmission not only of teaching, but also of sacraments, sacred rites, and the Law of God from ancestors who correctly worship God to the same descendants.

In the twentieth century, there was some change in the balance of views on the role of these sources of divine revelation. In this regard, Elder Silouan says that Tradition covers the entire life of the church. Therefore, that very Holy Scripture is one of its forms. The meaning of each of the sources is not contrasted here, but the special role of Tradition is only emphasized.

Bible Interpretation

It is obvious that the interpretation of Holy Scripture is a complex matter and not everyone can do it. Acquaintance with a teaching of this level requires special concentration from a person. Because God may not reveal the meaning inherent in a particular chapter.

There are several basic rules to follow when interpreting the provisions of Holy Scripture:

1. Consider all the events described not in isolation, but in the context of the time when they occurred.
2. Approach the process with due reverence and humility so that God allows the meaning of the biblical books to be revealed.
3. Always remember who the author of the Holy Scripture is, and when contradictions arise, interpret it based on the context of the entire message as a whole. Here it will be important to understand that there can be no contradictions in the Bible, since it is complete and its author is the Lord himself.

Sacred Scriptures of the World

In addition to the Bible, there are other inspired books that representatives of other religious movements turn to. In the modern world there are more than 400 different religious movements. Let's look at the most famous ones.

Jewish Scripture

We should start with the scripture that is closest in content and origin to the Bible - the Jewish Tanakh. It is believed that the composition of the books here practically corresponds to the Old Testament. However, there is a slight difference in their location. According to the Jewish canon, the Tanakh consists of 24 books, which are divided into three groups. The criterion here is the genre of presentation and the period of writing.

The first is the Torah, or, as it is also called, the Pentateuch of Moses from the Old Testament.

The second is Neviim, translated as “prophets” and includes eight books covering the period from the arrival of the promised land to the Babylonian captivity of the so-called period of prophecy. There is also a certain gradation here. There are early and late prophets, the latter are divided into small and large.

The third is Ketuvim, literally translated as “records.” Here, in fact, the scriptures are contained, including eleven books.

The Koran is the holy book of Muslims

Just like the Bible, it contains revelations that were spoken by the Prophet Muhammad. The source that conveyed them into the mouth of the prophet is Allah himself. All revelations are organized into chapters - suras, which, in turn, are composed of verses - verses. The canonical version of the Koran contains 114 suras. Initially they had no names. Later, due to different forms of transmission of the text, the suras received names, some of them several at once.

The Koran is sacred to Muslims only if it is in Arabic. Translation is used for interpretation. Prayers and rituals are pronounced only in the original language.

Content-wise, the Quran tells stories about Arabia and the ancient world. Describes how the Last Judgment and posthumous retribution will take place. It also contains moral and legal standards. It should be noted that the Koran has legal force because it regulates certain branches of Muslim law.

Buddhist Tripitaka

It is a collection of sacred texts that were written down after Shakyamuni Buddha died. The name is noteworthy, which is translated as “three baskets of wisdom.” It corresponds to the division of sacred texts into three chapters.

The first is the Vinaya Pitaka. Here are texts that contain rules governing life in the monastic community of the Sangha. In addition to the edifying aspects, there is also a story about the history of the origin of these norms.

The second, the Sutra Pitaka, contains stories about the life of the Buddha, written down by him personally and sometimes by his followers.

The third - Abhidharma Pitaka - includes the philosophical paradigm of teaching. Here is a systematic presentation of it, based on in-depth scientific analysis. While the first two chapters provide practical insights into how to achieve a state of enlightenment, the third strengthens the theoretical foundation of Buddhism.

The Buddhist religion contains a considerable number of versions of this creed. The most famous of them is the Pali Canon.

Modern translations of the Holy Scriptures

A teaching of such magnitude as the Bible attracts the attention of a huge number of people. Humanity's need for it is undeniable. However, at the same time, there is a danger of inaccurate or deliberately distorted translation. In this case, the authors can promote any of their interests and pursue their own goals.

It should be noted that any translation of the Holy Scriptures existing in the modern world has been subject to criticism. Its validity was confirmed or refuted by the strictest judge - time.

Today, one of these widely discussed Bible translation projects is the New World Scripture. The author of the publication is the religious organization Jehovah's Witnesses. In this version of the presentation of the Holy Scriptures there is much that is new and unusual for admirers, people who truly believe and know it:

• some well-known words have disappeared;
• new ones appeared that were not in the original;
• the authors abuse paraphrase and actively add their own interlinear comments.

Without entering into the controversy created around this work, it should be noted that it can be read, but preferably accompanied by the synodal translation accepted in Russia.

Cover of a modern edition of the Russian Orthodox Bible from 2004.

The word "Bible" does not appear in the holy books themselves and was first used in relation to the collection of holy books in the east in the 4th century by John Chrysostom and Epiphanius of Cyprus.

Composition of the Bible

The Bible is made up of many parts that come together to form Old Testament And New Testament.

Old Testament (Tanakh)

The first part of the Bible in Judaism is called the Tanakh; in Christianity it was called the “Old Testament”, in contrast to the “New Testament”. The name " Hebrew Bible" This part of the Bible is a collection of books written in Hebrew long before our era and selected as sacred from other literature by Hebrew teachers of the law. It is the Holy Scripture for all Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - however, it is canonized only in the first two named (in Islam its laws are considered ineffective, and also distorted).

The Old Testament consists of 39 books, in the Jewish tradition artificially counted as 22, according to the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet, or as 24, according to the number of letters of the Greek alphabet. All 39 books of the Old Testament are divided into three sections in Judaism.

• "Teaching" (Torah) - contains the Pentateuch of Moses:

• “Prophets” (Neviim) - contains books:
  • 1st and 2nd Kings, or 1st and 2nd Samuel ( are considered one book)
  • 3rd and 4th Kings, or 1st and 2nd Kings ( are considered one book)
  • Twelve Minor Prophets ( are considered one book)

• “Scriptures” (Ketuvim) - contains books:
  • Ezra and Nehemiah ( are considered one book)
  • 1st and 2nd Chronicles, or Chronicles (Chronicles) ( are considered one book)

Combining the Book of Ruth with the Book of Judges into one book, as well as the Lamentations of Jeremiah with the Book of Jeremiah, we get 22 books instead of 24. The ancient Jews considered twenty-two sacred books in their canon, as Josephus Flavius ​​testifies. This is the composition and order of the books in the Hebrew Bible.

All these books are also considered canonical in Christianity.

New Testament

The second part of the Christian Bible is the New Testament, a collection of 27 Christian books (including the 4 Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of the Apostles and the book of Revelation (Apocalypse)), written in the century. n. e. and those that have come down to us in ancient Greek. This part of the Bible is most important for Christianity, while Judaism does not consider it divinely inspired.

The New Testament consists of books belonging to eight inspired writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James and Jude.

In the Slavic and Russian Bibles, the books of the New Testament are placed in the following order:

• historical

The books of the New Testament are placed in this order in the most ancient manuscripts - the Alexandrian and Vatican, the Apostolic Rules, the Rules of the Councils of Laodicea and Carthage, and in many ancient Fathers of the Church. But this order of placement of the books of the New Testament cannot be called universal and necessary; in some Bible collections there is a different arrangement of books, and now in the Vulgate and in editions of the Greek New Testament, the Council Epistles are placed after the Epistles of the Apostle Paul before the Apocalypse. When placing books in one way or another, they were guided by many considerations, but the time of writing the books did not matter much, which can most clearly be seen from the placement of Pavlov’s Epistles. In the order we indicated, we were guided by considerations regarding the importance of the places or churches to which the messages were sent: first, messages written to entire churches were delivered, and then messages written to individuals. The exception is the Epistle to the Hebrews, which comes last not because of its low importance, but because its authenticity has long been doubted. Guided by chronological considerations, we can place the Epistles of the Apostle Paul in this order:

• to the Thessalonians
  • 1st
• to the Galatians
• to the Corinthians
  • 1st
• to the Romans
• to Philemon
• Philippians
• to Titus
• to Timothy
  • 1st

Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament

Apocrypha

Jewish teachers of the law, starting from the 4th century. BC e., and the Church Fathers in the II-IV centuries. n. BC, they selected books for the “Word of God” from a considerable number of manuscripts, writings, and monuments. What was not included in the selected canon remained outside the Bible and constituted apocryphal literature (from the Greek ἀπόκρυφος - hidden), accompanying the Old and New Testaments.

At one time, the leaders of the ancient Jewish “Great Assembly” (the administrative-theological scientific synclite of the 4th-3rd centuries BC) and subsequent Jewish religious authorities, and in Christianity - the Fathers of the Church, who formalized it on the initial path, worked a lot, cursing, banning as heretical and divergent from the accepted text, and simply exterminating books that did not meet their criteria. Relatively few apocrypha have survived - just over 100 Old Testament ones and about 100 New Testament ones. Science has been especially enriched by recent excavations and discoveries in the area of ​​the Dead Sea caves in Israel. The Apocrypha, in particular, helps us understand the paths through which Christianity was formed and what elements its dogma was composed of.

History of the Bible

page from the Vatican Codex

Writing Books of the Bible

• Codex Alexandrinus (lat. Codex Alexandrinus), kept in the British Museum Library
• Vatican Codex (lat. Codex Vaticanus), kept in Rome
• Codex Sinaiticus (lat. Codex Sinaiticus), kept in Oxford, formerly in the Hermitage

All of them are dated (palaeographically, that is, based on the “style of handwriting”) to the 4th century. n. e. The language of the codes is Greek.

In the 20th century, the Qumran manuscripts, discovered beginning in the city, in a number of caves in the Judean Desert and in Masada, became widely known.

Division into chapters and verses

The ancient Old Testament text did not have divisions into chapters and verses. But very early (probably after the Babylonian captivity) some divisions appeared for liturgical purposes. The oldest division of the Law into 669 so-called parashas, ​​adapted for public reading, is found in the Talmud; The current division into 50 or 54 parashas dates back to the time of the Masorah and is not found in ancient synagogical lists. Also in the Talmud there are already divisions of the prophets into goftars - final divisions, this name was adopted because they were read at the end of the service.

The divisions into chapters are of Christian origin and were made in the 13th century. or Cardinal Hugon, or Bishop Stephen. When compiling a concordance for the Old Testament, Hugon, for the most convenient indication of places, divided each book of the Bible into several small sections, which he designated by letters of the alphabet. The currently accepted division was introduced by the Bishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton (died in the city). In the city he divided the text of the Latin Vulgate into chapters, and this division was carried over into the Hebrew and Greek texts.

Then in the 15th century. Rabbi Isaac Nathan, when compiling a concordance in the Hebrew language, divided each book into chapters, and this division is still retained in the Hebrew Bible. The division of poetic books into verses is already given in the very property of Jewish versification and therefore of very ancient origin; it is found in the Talmud. The New Testament was first divided into verses in the 16th century.

The poems were numbered first by Santes Panino (died in the city), then, around the city, by Robert Etienne. The current chapter and verse system first appeared in the 1560 English Bible. The division is not always logical, but it is already too late to abandon it, much less change anything: over four centuries it has settled in references, comments and alphabetical indexes.

The Bible in the world's religions

Judaism

Christianity

If the 27 books of the New Testament are the same for all Christians, then Christians have major differences in their views on the Old Testament.

The fact is that where the Old Testament is quoted in the books of the New Testament, these quotes are most often given from the Greek translation of the Bible of the 3rd-2nd centuries. BC e., called, thanks to the legend of 70 translators, the Septuagint (in Greek - seventy), and not according to the Hebrew text accepted in Judaism and called by scientists Masoretic(named after the ancient Jewish biblical theologians who organized the sacred manuscripts).

In fact, it was the list of books of the Septuagint, and not the later “purified” collection of the Masoretes, that became traditional for the Ancient Church as a collection of the books of the Old Testament. Therefore, all the Ancient Churches (in particular, the Armenian Apostolic Church) consider all the books of the Bible that the apostles and Christ himself read as equally grace-filled and inspired, including those called “deuterocanonical” in modern biblical studies.

Catholics also, trusting the Septuagint, accepted these texts into their Vulgate - the early medieval Latin translation of the Bible, canonized by Western ecumenical councils, and equated them with the rest of the canonical texts and books of the Old Testament, recognizing them as equally inspired. These books are known among them as deuterocanonical, or deuterocanonical.

The Orthodox include 11 deuterocanonical books and interpolations in the remaining books in the Old Testament, but with the note that they “came down to us in Greek” and are not part of the main canon. They put insertions into canonical books in brackets and specify them with notes.

Characters from non-canonical books

• Archangel Sariel
• Archangel Jerahmiel

Sciences and teachings related to the Bible

see also

• Tanakh - Hebrew Bible

Literature

• Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg: 1890-1907.
• McDowell, Josh. Evidence of the reliability of the Bible: a reason for reflection and a basis for decision-making: Trans. from English - St. Petersburg: Christian Society “Bible for Everyone”, 2003. - 747 p. - ISBN 5-7454-0794-8, ISBN 0-7852-4219-8 (en.)
• Doyel, Leo. Testament of Eternity. In Search of Biblical Manuscripts. - St. Petersburg: “Amphora”, 2001.
• Nesterova O. E. The theory of the plurality of “meanings” of Holy Scripture in the medieval Christian exegetical tradition // Genres and forms in the written culture of the Middle Ages. - M.: IMLI RAS, 2005. - P. 23-44.
• Kryvelev I. A. A book about the Bible. - M.: Publishing house of socio-economic literature, 1958.

Footnotes and sources

Links

Bible Texts and Translations

• More than 25 translations of the Bible and its parts and quick search for all translations. Ability to create hyperlinks to places in the Bible. Possibility to listen to the text of any of the books.
• Literal translation from Greek of some books of the New Testament into Russian
• Review of Russian translations of the Bible (with the ability to download)
• “Your Bible” - Russian Synodal translation with search and comparison of versions (Ukrainian translation by Ivan Ogienko and English King James Version
• Interlinear translation of the Bible from Greek into Russian
• Text of the Old and New Testaments in Russian and Church Slavonic languages
• Bible on algart.net - online Bible text with cross-references, including the complete Bible on one page
• Electronic Bible and Apocrypha - repeatedly verified text of the Synodal Translation
• Superbook is one of the most comprehensive Bible sites with non-trivial but very powerful navigation

Divine revelations came from the hands of sacred authors and were originally written on thin papyrus or parchment scrolls. Instead of pens, they used a pointed reed stick, which was dipped in special ink. Such books looked more like a long ribbon that was wound around a shaft. At first they were written on only one side, but later they began to be sewn together for convenience. So over time, the sacred scripture “Hagakure” became like a full-fledged book.

But let's talk about that collection of sacred texts that is known to all Christians. Divine revelations or the Bible speak of the salvation of all mankind by the messiah who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Based on the time of writing, these books are divided into Old Testament and New Testament. In the first, the sacred scriptures contain information that the Almighty God revealed to people through divinely inspired prophets even before the coming of the Savior himself. speaks of the realization of salvation through teaching, incarnation and life on earth.

Initially, with God’s help, he discovered the first sacred scripture - the so-called “Law” of 5 books: “Genesis”, “Exodus”, “Leviticus”, “Numbers”, “Deuteronomy”. For a long time, the Pentateuch was the Bible, but after them additional revelations were written: the Book of Joshua, then the Book of Judges, then the writings of Kings, the chronicles of Chronicles. And finally, the Maccabees books complete and bring to the main goal the history of Israel.

This is how the second section of Divine Scripture appears, called “Historical Books.” They contain separate teachings, prayers, songs and psalms. The 3rd section of the Bible dates back to a later time. And the fourth compiled the sacred scripture about the creation of the Holy Prophets.

Inspiration of the Bible

The Bible differs from other literary works in its divine illumination and supernaturalism. It was divine inspiration that elevated the book to the highest perfection, without suppressing the natural forces of humanity and protecting it from mistakes. Thanks to this, revelations are not simple memoirs of people, but a real work of the Almighty. This fundamental truth awakens us to recognize the sacred scriptures as divinely inspired.

Why are Scripture so precious to people?

First of all, it contains the foundations of our faith, which is why it is so dear to all humanity. Of course, it is not easy for a modern person to be transported to the era of that time, because millennia separate the reader from that situation. However, by reading and getting acquainted with that era, with the peculiarities of the language and the main tasks of the Holy Prophets, we begin to more deeply understand the entire spiritual meaning and richness of what was written.

Reading Biblical stories, a person begins to see the specific problems that concern modern society in religious and moral concepts, the primordial conflicts between evil and good, unbelief and faith, which are inherent in humanity. Historical lines are still dear to us because they accurately and truthfully present the events of past years.

In this sense, the sacred scriptures cannot in any way be equal to modern and ancient legends. The correct solutions to moral problems or errors outlined in the Bible will provide guidance for solving social and personal difficulties.