page_title: Bible
section_title: Development of the Christian canons
hierarchical_section_title: Bible / Christian Bibles / Development of the Christian canons
context_page_description: The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures sacred to Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Rastafari and others. They generally consider the Bible to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. The Bible appears in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they collectively contain the word of God. These texts include theologically-focused historical accounts, hymns, parables, didactic letters, erotica, sermons, poetry, and prophecies.
  Those books included in the Bible by a tradition or group are called canonical, indicating that the tradition/group views the collection as the true representation of God's word and will. A number of Biblical canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents from denomination to denomination. The Hebrew Bible overlaps with the Greek Septuagint and the Christian Old Testament. The Christian New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek.
context_section_description: The Old Testament canon entered into Christian use in the Greek Septuagint translations and original books, and their differing lists of texts. In addition to the Septuagint, Christianity subsequently added various writings that would become the New Testament. Somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity. In the 4th century a series of synods produced a list of texts equal to the 39, 46, 51, or 54-book canon of the Old Testament and to the 27-book canon of the New Testament that would be subsequently used to today, most notably the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE. Also c. 400, Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (see Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. With the benefit of hindsight it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon, although there are examples of other canonical lists in use after this time.
  The Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon – the number of books (though not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division – while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books (51 books with some books combined into 46 books) as the canonical Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 in addition to the Catholic canon. Some include 2 Esdras. The Anglican Church also recognizes a longer canon. The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books, while Catholics and Orthodox include additional texts that have not survived in Hebrew. Both Catholics and Protestants (as well as Greek Orthodox) have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.
  The New Testament writers assumed the inspiration of the Old Testament, probably earliest stated in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God".
  Some denominations have additional canonical holy scriptures beyond the Bible, including the standard works of the Latter Day Saints movement and Divine Principle in the Unification Church.
caption: St. Jerome in his Study, by Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1541. Jerome produced a 4th-century Latin edition of the Bible, known as the Vulgate, that became the Catholic Church's official translation.
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