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Bible, the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament, with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions of the Old Testament being slightly larger because of their acceptance of certain books and parts of books considered apocryphal by Protestants. The Hebrew Bible includes only books known to Christians as the Old Testament. The arrangements of the Jewish and Christian canons differ considerably. The Protestant and Roman Catholic arrangements more nearly match one another.
A brief treatment of the Bible follows. For full treatment, see biblical literature.
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Bible, the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament, with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions of the Old Testament being slightly larger because of their acceptance of certain books and parts of books considered apocryphal by Protestants. The Hebrew Bible includes only books known to Christians as the Old Testament. The arrangements of the Jewish and Christian canons differ considerably. The Protestant and Roman Catholic arrangements more nearly match one another.
Traditionally, the Jews have divided their scriptures into three parts: the Torah (the βLaw,β or Pentateuch), the NeviΚΎim (βProphetsβ), and the Ketuvim (βWritings,β or Hagiographa). The Pentateuch, together with the Book of Joshua (hence the name Hexateuch), can be seen as the account of how the Israelites became a nation and of how they possessed the Promised Land. The division designated as the βProphetsβ continues the story of Israel in the Promised Land, describing the establishment and development of the monarchy and presenting the messages of the prophets to the people. The βWritingsβ include speculation on the place of evil and death in the scheme of things (Job and Ecclesiastes), the poetical works, and some additional historical books.
In the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, various types of literature are represented; the purpose of the Apocrypha seems to have been to fill in some of the gaps left by the indisputably canonical books and to carry the history of Israel to the 2nd century BCE.
The New Testament is by far the shorter portion of the Christian Bible, but, through its associations with the spread of Christianity, it has wielded an influence far out of proportion to its modest size. Like the Old Testament, the New Testament is a collection of books, including a variety of early Christian literature. The four Gospels deal with the life, the person, and the teachings of Jesus, as he was remembered by the Christian community. The Acts of the Apostles carries the story of Christianity from the Resurrection of Jesus to the end of the career of St. Paul. The various Letters, or Epistles, are correspondence by various leaders of the early Christian church, chief among them St. Paul, applying the message of the church to the sundry needs and problems of early Christian congregations. The Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) is the only canonical representative of a large genre of apocalyptic literature that appeared in the early Christian movement.
S.E.K. Mqhayi (born Dec. 1, 1875, near Gqumahashe, Cape Colony [now in South Africa]βdied July 29, 1945, Ntabβozuko, S.Af.) Xhosa poet, historian, and translator who has been called the βfather of Xhosa poetry.β
Mqhayi, who was born into a family of long Christian standing, spent several of his early years in rural Transkei, a circumstance that is reflected in his evident love of Xhosa history and his mastery of the praise poem. He taught school and helped to edit several Xhosa-language journals. In 1905 he was appointed to the Xhosa Bible Revision Board, and he later helped codify Xhosa grammar and standardize Xhosa orthography. After completing this work, Mqhayi devoted most of his time to writing.
His first published book, U-Samson, was a version of the biblical story of Samson. In 1914 his Ityala lamawele (βThe Lawsuit of the Twinsβ) appeared. Inspired by another biblical story, Ityala lamawele is a defense of Xhosa law before European administration. In the 1920s Mqhayi wrote several biographies and Imihobe nemibongo (1927; βSongs of Joy and Lullabiesβ), the first published collection of Xhosa poems, many of which celebrate current events or important figures. A work of fiction, U-Don Jadu (1929), describes a utopian multiracial state that combines elements of Western society and Xhosa culture. Mqhayiβs autobiography, U-Mqhayi wase Ntabβozuko (1939; βMqhayi of the Mountain of Beautyβ), gives a vivid picture of late 19th-century Xhosa life.
Mqhayiβs collected poems, Inzuzo (βRewardβ), were published in 1942. A short autobiography and two works, βThe Death of Hintsaβ and βThe Dismissal of Sir Benjamin DβUrban,β were published in Mqhayi in Translation (1976).
Methuselah, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), patriarch whose life span as recorded in Genesis (5:27) was 969 years. Methuselah has survived in legend and tradition as the longest-lived human. His prodigious age has been taken as literally 969 solar years, as a possible mistranslation of 969 lunar months or tenths of years (with his age then ranging from about 78 years to almost 97 years), and as a myth intended to create an impression of a distant past between Adam and Noah, as well as any number of other interpretations.
Genesis tells nothing about Methuselah beyond sparse genealogical details: according to Genesis 5, he was the great-great-great-great-grandson of Seth, the child of Adam and Eve begotten more than a century after Cain. He was the father of Lamech and the grandfather of Noah. According to the biblical account, he came of hardy stock: all his forebears lived to an age between 895 and 962 years except his father, Enoch, who lived to be 365. (In the genealogy of Cain in Genesis 4, there is a Methushael who also fathers a Lamech. Given this and certain other similarities, some scholars have proposed that the genealogies of Seth and Cain were possibly one list that became two at some point.)
The enumeration of Methuselah in Genesis is his only appearance in the Hebrew Bible save for a mention in 1 Chronicles 1:3, where he is cited in the lineage of Saul. In the New Testament he is mentioned once in the Gospel of Luke. There, at 3:23β38, the lineage of Joseph, husband of Mary and earthly father of Jesus, is traced back 75 generations, through David and Saul, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Methuselah and thence to Seth and Adam.
Charles Hodge (born Dec. 27, 1797, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.βdied June 19, 1878, Princeton, N.J.) conservative American biblical scholar and a leader of the βPrinceton Schoolβ of Reformed, or Calvinist, theology.
Hodge graduated from Princeton University in 1815. He became professor of biblical literature at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1822 and professor of theology in 1840. From 1826 to 1828 he traveled in Europe, where he met the prominent theologians of the day, though he remained firmly resistant to newer trends of thought. Hodge continued to teach at the seminary until his retirement in 1877. In 1846 he served for one year as moderator of the βOld Schoolβ Presbyterian Church. This body, like the βPrinceton Schoolβ of orthodox Calvinist theology, in which Hodge was a major figure, stressed the verbal infallibility of the Bible and asserted other generally conservative views.
Hodge constructed an influential Systematic Theology, 3 vol. (1871β73), and wrote numerous biblical commentaries. For 46 years he edited the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, a journal that he founded in 1825 and to which he contributed nearly 150 articles.
Abel, in the Old Testament, second son of Adam and Eve, who was slain by his older brother, Cain (Genesis 4:1β16). According to Genesis, Abel, a shepherd, offered the Lord the firstborn of his flock. The Lord respected Abelβs sacrifice but did not respect that offered by Cain. In a jealous rage, Cain murdered Abel. Cain then became a fugitive because his brotherβs innocent blood put a curse on him.
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Bible
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Moses and the Israelites
Moses and the Israelites
Moses leading the children of Israel through the Red Sea, 15th century; illustration from a German Bible.
Bible
Bible
The first printing (1663) of the Bible in the American colonies; it was translated by Christian missionary John Eliot into Massachuset (also known as Wampanoag), an Algonquian language.
Philip II; Bible
Philip II; Bible
A Bible (1569)βwritten in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latinβthat was subsidized by Philip II of Spain.
Bible, the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament, with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions of the Old Testament being slightly larger because of their acceptance of certain books and parts of books considered apocryphal by Protestants. The Hebrew Bible includes only books known to Christians as the Old Testament. The arrangements of the Jewish and Christian canons differ considerably. The Protestant and Roman Catholic arrangements more nearly match one another.
Category: History & Society
On the Web: Christianity.com – “Bible” (Dec. 31, 2023)
A brief treatment of the Bible follows. For full treatment, see biblical literature.
mosaic: Christianity
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Christianity: Biblical foundations
Consider the Bible’s Old Testament as a literary masterpiece dramatized by paintings, music, and sculpture
Consider the Bible’s Old Testament as a literary masterpiece dramatized by paintings, music, and sculpture
The Bible As Literature, Part One: Saga and Story in the Old Testament. Treating the Bible as a collection of literary masterpieces, this film, produced in 1974 by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation, skillfully weaves together paintings, sculpture, music, and drama to renact the stories of the Bible.
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Examine the Old Testament’s The Book of Proverbs and other books through a literary lens
Examine the Old Testament’s The Book of Proverbs and other books through a literary lens
The Bible As Literature, Part Two: History, Poetry, and Drama in the Old Testament. The second part of an examination of the Bible as literature, this film examines the books of Joshua, Samuel, and Kings as historical documents, the Book of Proverbs as lyric poetry, and the prophetical books as protest literature. It was produced in 1974 by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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Traditionally, the Jews have divided their scriptures into three parts: the Torah (the βLaw,β or Pentateuch), the NeviΚΎim (βProphetsβ), and the Ketuvim (βWritings,β or Hagiographa). The Pentateuch, together with the Book of Joshua (hence the name Hexateuch), can be seen as the account of how the Israelites became a nation and of how they possessed the Promised Land. The division designated as the βProphetsβ continues the story of Israel in the Promised Land, describing the establishment and development of the monarchy and presenting the messages of the prophets to the people. The βWritingsβ include speculation on the place of evil and death in the scheme of things (Job and Ecclesiastes), the poetical works, and some additional historical books.
In the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, various types of literature are represented; the purpose of the Apocrypha seems to have been to fill in some of the gaps left by the indisputably canonical books and to carry the history of Israel to the 2nd century BCE.
Bible
Bible
St. Mark, illuminated manuscript page from the Gospel Book of the Court school of Charlemagne, c. 810; in the Stadtbibliothek, Trier, Germany.
scripture
scripture
Le Miroir de humaine saluation (βThe Mirror of Human Salvationβ) by Ludolf of Saxony (supposed author), c. 1455; the French manuscript is an example of western European Christian scripture written in the vernacular.
The New Testament is by far the shorter portion of the Christian Bible, but, through its associations with the spread of Christianity, it has wielded an influence far out of proportion to its modest size. Like the Old Testament, the New Testament is a collection of books, including a variety of early Christian literature. The four Gospels deal with the life, the person, and the teachings of Jesus, as he was remembered by the Christian community. The Acts of the Apostles carries the story of Christianity from the Resurrection of Jesus to the end of the career of St. Paul. The various Letters, or Epistles, are correspondence by various leaders of the early Christian church, chief among them St. Paul, applying the message of the church to the sundry needs and problems of early Christian congregations. The Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) is the only canonical representative of a large genre of apocalyptic literature that appeared in the early Christian movement.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray.
S.E.K. Mqhayi
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S.E.K. Mqhayi
South African poet and novelist
Also known as: Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi
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S.E.K. Mqhayi (born Dec. 1, 1875, near Gqumahashe, Cape Colony [now in South Africa]βdied July 29, 1945, Ntabβozuko, S.Af.) Xhosa poet, historian, and translator who has been called the βfather of Xhosa poetry.β
Category: Arts & Culture
In full: Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi
Born: Dec. 1, 1875, near Gqumahashe, Cape Colony [now in South Africa]
Died: July 29, 1945, Ntabβozuko, S.Af. (aged 69)
Notable Works: βItyala lamaweleβ
Subjects Of Study: Xhosa language grammar orthography syntax
Mqhayi, who was born into a family of long Christian standing, spent several of his early years in rural Transkei, a circumstance that is reflected in his evident love of Xhosa history and his mastery of the praise poem. He taught school and helped to edit several Xhosa-language journals. In 1905 he was appointed to the Xhosa Bible Revision Board, and he later helped codify Xhosa grammar and standardize Xhosa orthography. After completing this work, Mqhayi devoted most of his time to writing.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:
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Poetry: First Lines
His first published book, U-Samson, was a version of the biblical story of Samson. In 1914 his Ityala lamawele (βThe Lawsuit of the Twinsβ) appeared. Inspired by another biblical story, Ityala lamawele is a defense of Xhosa law before European administration. In the 1920s Mqhayi wrote several biographies and Imihobe nemibongo (1927; βSongs of Joy and Lullabiesβ), the first published collection of Xhosa poems, many of which celebrate current events or important figures. A work of fiction, U-Don Jadu (1929), describes a utopian multiracial state that combines elements of Western society and Xhosa culture. Mqhayiβs autobiography, U-Mqhayi wase Ntabβozuko (1939; βMqhayi of the Mountain of Beautyβ), gives a vivid picture of late 19th-century Xhosa life.
Mqhayiβs collected poems, Inzuzo (βRewardβ), were published in 1942. A short autobiography and two works, βThe Death of Hintsaβ and βThe Dismissal of Sir Benjamin DβUrban,β were published in Mqhayi in Translation (1976).
Methuselah
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Methuselah
biblical figure
Also known as: Methushael
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Methuselah
Methuselah
Methuselah, stained-glass window by the Methuselah Master; in Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, England.
Methuselah, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), patriarch whose life span as recorded in Genesis (5:27) was 969 years. Methuselah has survived in legend and tradition as the longest-lived human. His prodigious age has been taken as literally 969 solar years, as a possible mistranslation of 969 lunar months or tenths of years (with his age then ranging from about 78 years to almost 97 years), and as a myth intended to create an impression of a distant past between Adam and Noah, as well as any number of other interpretations.
Genesis tells nothing about Methuselah beyond sparse genealogical details: according to Genesis 5, he was the great-great-great-great-grandson of Seth, the child of Adam and Eve begotten more than a century after Cain. He was the father of Lamech and the grandfather of Noah. According to the biblical account, he came of hardy stock: all his forebears lived to an age between 895 and 962 years except his father, Enoch, who lived to be 365. (In the genealogy of Cain in Genesis 4, there is a Methushael who also fathers a Lamech. Given this and certain other similarities, some scholars have proposed that the genealogies of Seth and Cain were possibly one list that became two at some point.)
The enumeration of Methuselah in Genesis is his only appearance in the Hebrew Bible save for a mention in 1 Chronicles 1:3, where he is cited in the lineage of Saul. In the New Testament he is mentioned once in the Gospel of Luke. There, at 3:23β38, the lineage of Joseph, husband of Mary and earthly father of Jesus, is traced back 75 generations, through David and Saul, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Methuselah and thence to Seth and Adam.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Mindy Johnston.
Charles Hodge
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Charles Hodge
American scholar
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Last Updated: Dec 23, 2023 β’ Article History
Charles Hodge (born Dec. 27, 1797, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.βdied June 19, 1878, Princeton, N.J.) conservative American biblical scholar and a leader of the βPrinceton Schoolβ of Reformed, or Calvinist, theology.
Hodge, Charles
Hodge, Charles
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Category: History & Society
Born: Dec. 27, 1797, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.
Died: June 19, 1878, Princeton, N.J. (aged 80)
Subjects Of Study: Bible Calvinism
Hodge graduated from Princeton University in 1815. He became professor of biblical literature at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1822 and professor of theology in 1840. From 1826 to 1828 he traveled in Europe, where he met the prominent theologians of the day, though he remained firmly resistant to newer trends of thought. Hodge continued to teach at the seminary until his retirement in 1877. In 1846 he served for one year as moderator of the βOld Schoolβ Presbyterian Church. This body, like the βPrinceton Schoolβ of orthodox Calvinist theology, in which Hodge was a major figure, stressed the verbal infallibility of the Bible and asserted other generally conservative views.
Hodge constructed an influential Systematic Theology, 3 vol. (1871β73), and wrote numerous biblical commentaries. For 46 years he edited the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, a journal that he founded in 1825 and to which he contributed nearly 150 articles.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
Abel
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Abel
biblical figure
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Abel, in the Old Testament, second son of Adam and Eve, who was slain by his older brother, Cain (Genesis 4:1β16). According to Genesis, Abel, a shepherd, offered the Lord the firstborn of his flock. The Lord respected Abelβs sacrifice but did not respect that offered by Cain. In a jealous rage, Cain murdered Abel. Cain then became a fugitive because his brotherβs innocent blood put a curse on him.
Eyck, Jan van: Cain killing Abel, detail from the Ghent Altarpiece
Eyck, Jan van: Cain killing Abel, detail from the Ghent Altarpiece
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Category: History & Society
Notable Family Members: brother Cain
The storyteller in Genesis assumes a world of conflicting values, and he makes the point that divine authority backs self-control and brotherhood but punishes jealousy and violence. Cain had not mastered sin (v. 7); he had let it master him. The narrator takes a somber look at the human condition, seeing a dangerous world of Cains and Abels. Nevertheless, God is on the side of the martyrs; he avenges their deaths in the ruin of the Cains. In the New Testament the blood of Abel is cited as an example of the vengeance of violated innocence (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51).
Deborah, prophet and heroine in the Old Testament (Judg. 4 and 5), who inspired the Israelites to a mighty victory over their Canaanite oppressors (the people who lived in the Promised Land, later Palestine, that Moses spoke of before its conquest by the Israelites); the βSong of Deborahβ (Judg. 5), putatively composed by her, is perhaps the oldest section of the Bible and is of great importance for providing a contemporary glimpse of Israelite civilization in the 12th century BC. According to rabbinic tradition, she was a keeper of tabernacle lamps.
The two narratives of her exploit, the prose account in Judg. 4 (evidently written after Judg. 5) and the martial poem comprising Judg. 5 (a lyric outburst showing a high standard of poetic skill in ancient Israel), differ in some important details. The most obvious discrepancy is in the identity of the chief foe of the Israelites. Judg. 4 makes the chief enemy Jabin, king of Hazor (present Tell el-Qedah, about three miles southwest of HΜ±ula Basin), though a prominent part is played by his commander in chief, Sisera of Harosheth-ha-goiim (possibly Tell el-ΚΏAmr, approximately 12 miles [19 kilometres] northwest of Megiddo). In the poem Jabin does not appear, and Sisera is an independent king of Canaan. Other important contradictions include the action sites (Mount Tabor in Judg. 4 is not found in Judg. 5, for example); which Israelite tribes joined Deborah and her chief commander, the Naphtalite Barak (only Zebulun and Naphtali in Judg. 4, additional tribes in Judg. 5); and the manner of Siseraβs death (in Judg. 4 he is murdered in his sleep, in Judg. 5 he is struck down from behind while drinking a bowl of milk).
Assuming that the account preserved in Judg. 5 is the older (probably written in 1125 BC), the reader can reconstruct the actual history of the events. Israel holds the wilder parts of the country, the hills and the forests, but the Israelite settlements in the central range are cut off from those in the northern hills by a chain of Canaanite (or possibly Egyptian) fortresses down the Plain of Esdraelon (between Galilee and Samaria). At the instigation of Deborah, a charismatic counselor (or judge) and prophet (she predicts that the glory of war will fall to a woman, which it doesβto Jael), Barak gathers the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir (Manasseh), Zebulun, Issachar, and his own tribe of Naphtali. Asher, Dan, Gilead (Gad), and Reuben remain aloof. Judah and Simeon are not mentioned (attesting to the antiquity of the poem). The Israelite clans fall on the enemy at Taanach; a thunderstorm, in which Israel sees the coming of God from Mount Sinai, strikes terror into the Canaanites; their fabled 900 chariots of iron are useless on the sodden ground; and the Kishon River, swollen by torrential rains, sweeps away the fugitives. Sisera escapes on foot, pursued by Barak, taking refuge in the tent of Heber the Kenite (the Kenites, a nomadic tribe, were supposedly at peace with Canaan); he is offered protection by Heberβs wife, Jael; as he drinks a bowl of milk, she pierces his head with a tent peg and kills him (thus fulfilling Deborahβs prophecy).
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