Bible, the Holy scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The last 27 books of the Bible, known as the New Testament. The New Testament focuses on the life, teaching of Jesus Christ and the early Christian Church.

These books are the foundations of the Jewish faith and central to Christianity. The arrangements of the Jewish and Christian canons differ considerably. 

When was it written and Who wrote it?

The origins of the Bible is still unidentified. The 66 books of the Bible were written over 1,500 years by more than 40 authors.

The last book of the first part, known as the Old Testament, was finished about 330 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity.

Old Testament

Hebrew Bible- A collection of 24 “books” (or large “scrolls”), traditionally called the Mikra in Hebrew. Most of the books in the HB were composed between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE.

Torah – often translated “Law”. “Torah” refers to the first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy),  they are sometimes also called the “Five Books of Moses” (due to the tradition that Moses himself wrote them). 

New Testament

The second part of the Bible – the New Testament . It was finished around 90AD. The structure of the Bible that we have today was finalised around 400 AD.

 The first was begun around 50AD; the last finished in 90AD. By the 2nd century, the Gospels, the book of Acts and Paul’s 13 letters were being circulated around Christian churches.

By around 200AD there was consensus about the list and it was finalised at church conferences around 400 AD. The oldest fragments of the New Testament manuscripts date back to 130AD; the oldest complete scripts are from 350AD. 

The Word of God has been the foundation for Judaism, Catholic Christianity and Protestant Christianity. These three each have a different canon or set of books:  the Tanakh containing 24 books, the Catholic Canon containing 73 books, and the Protestant Canon containing 66 books.