The Bible is a library (Latin blblia) of books written by some 40 men on three separate continents over a period of 1500 years in three different languages, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic.

The Bible is still a world best seller and has been read by more people than any other book . It has been translated into more languages than any other book and survived many attempts throughout history to destroy it.

The Bible is a sacred and holy book for Christians. It calls itself 'God's Word' as though God is speaking, but through written rather than spoken words. God spoke at certain periods of history into a specific culture and situation and this was recorded. These writings teach us about God, oursleves and issues relating to all life and death.

Christians believe that the Bible is given to guide them in all matters of life and faith. The Bible is complete but human understanding of it is not, that is never final. Faith is not a rigid, static or inflexible affair, there is more light to come forth from the Bible so Christians read it and study it at home and in church. In this life we never arrive at knowing the whole truth. We know only in part, as through a cloudy mirror.

The most profound truth about the Bible is that it is a living the book. The Holy Spirit speaks through these texts, His voice is the ultimate thing we hear when we look at the Bible.

The Old Testament contains 39 books many also used by the Jewish faith as holy books. The first five books (Pentateuch) are traditionally said to be written by Moses. The collection was completed around 300BC, and Jesus is recorded as quoting from most of the 39 books. The Old Testament books were mostly written in the Hebrew language, though a small portion is written in Aramaic.

The Old Testament of a Catholic Bible is larger than those used by Protestant Christians. It contains 6 extra complete books, making 45 in all, and some of the other books have additions. These Jewish books were written between 300 BC and 100 AD. Although Jews did not include these in their own collection of Holy books (canon of scripture) Christians had been using them from the earliest times.

The word "apocrypha" means “hidden”. The Christian scholar Jerome (died 420 AD) thought these books should be "hidden" from people and not have the same authority as the rest of the Bible though at the time few Christians agreed with him.

Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant (non Catholic or Orthodox) churches removed these apocryphal books from his German translation of the Bible, and put them in a separate section. He said "These are books which are not held equal to the Sacred Scriptures and yet are useful and good for reading".

The 27 books of the New Testament are holy to all Christians. They include four books of eyewitness accounts about Jesus life. These are called the "Gospels". Gospel means "good news"). The book of "Acts" continues the story of the first Christians, and it is followed by a large collection of letters called the Epistles written by Apostles of Christ. The last book in the Bible is the book of "Revelation". The New Testament was first written in the language used throughout the Roman Empire Greek.

The Canon is the name given to the officially accepted books that make up the Bible. This was decided at the 3rd Council of carthage in AD397. To be canonical the books had to be:

The Inspiration of the Bible is that God breathed on human writers who recorded original manuscripts.