The Bible
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts that are central to Judaism and Christianity, composed over approximately 1,500 years across multiple languages, literary genres, and historical contexts. It is divided into two major sections: the Old Testament (also known as the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) and the New Testament. The Old Testament traces the history, laws, and prophecies of ancient Israel, while the New Testament records the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the formation of the early Christian church.[^c1] The Bible comprises diverse literary genres including law, historical narrative, wisdom literature, poetry, prophecy, gospels, epistles, and apocalyptic writings, each requiring careful interpretation within its original context.[^c2]
The Old Testament was written primarily in Biblical Hebrew, with portions in Aramaic, spanning from approximately the 12th century BCE to the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible contains 24 books, organized into the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Protestant Old Testament contains the same content divided into 39 books, while the Catholic and Orthodox canons include additional deuterocanonical books.[^c3][^c10][^c11] The New Testament was written in Koine Greek during the first century CE — with a few books, notably 2 Peter, sometimes dated to the early second century — and contains 27 books, including four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, epistles, and the Book of Revelation. The relationship between the two testaments involves both continuity and discontinuity, with the New Testament presenting the life of Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies while also establishing a new covenant that extends God's promises to all nations.[^c4]
The theological framework of the Bible centers on God's relationship with humanity through covenants. Key covenants include the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant prophesied by Jeremiah and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.[^c5] These covenants form the backbone of the biblical storyline, tracing God's plan for creation, redemption, and restoration. Major themes that run throughout the Bible include monotheism, sin and atonement, justice and mercy, faith and obedience, and the coming kingdom of God.
The Bible's interpretation has been a subject of careful study throughout history. Hermeneutics, the art and science of biblical interpretation, provides principles such as attention to historical and literary context, authorial intent, and the unity of Scripture.[^c6] Different Christian traditions vary in their understanding of the canon, with Catholic and Orthodox canons including deuterocanonical books not found in the Protestant canon.[^c7] The Bible has profoundly influenced Western art, literature, law, and moral philosophy, and continues to be the most widely read and translated text in human history. By 2026 the Bible had been translated in full into its 800th language, with the pace of translation accelerating dramatically: it took nearly 2,000 years to translate the Bible into 400 languages, but the next 400 took just 28 years.[^c34] It has also been engaged by Islam, whose scripture, the Quran, references the Bible frequently, acknowledging it as a significant revelation from God while offering a distinct perspective on its contents and authenticity.[^c17]
Ongoing scholarship and archaeological discovery continue to illuminate the biblical world. In 2026, multispectral imaging recovered 42 lost pages from [[Codex H]], a 6th-century Greek manuscript of Paul's Letters, revealing the earliest known chapter divisions for the Pauline corpus.[^c8] Excavations at Judahite sites such as Tel Arad, Lachish, and Tel 'Eton have provided material evidence for religious reforms described in the books of Kings, demonstrating the interplay between textual and archaeological evidence.[^c9] The Dead Sea Scrolls, first found in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd near Qumran,[^c15] include the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the books of the Hebrew Bible[^c14] and have reshaped understanding of the biblical text's history. The Gospel of Thomas, rediscovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945, has prompted renewed scholarly debate about the earliest forms of Jesus' teaching.[^c16] Dead Sea Scrolls research has also advanced: radiocarbon dating and AI-assisted handwriting analysis have refined the dating of scrolls such as the Daniel manuscript 4Q114,[^c12] and the cryptic Qumran script known as Cryptic B was deciphered for the first time in a 2026 study.[^c13] In 2026, researchers at the University of Manchester revealed that four of 51 fragments long considered blank contain previously invisible Hebrew and Aramaic text, uncovered through advanced multispectral imaging technology.[^c36] In 2026 the complete Great Isaiah Scroll was placed on full display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for the first time since 1968,[^c27] and a five-year project funded by the European Research Council began investigating where the Dead Sea Scrolls were written.[^c26] Recent research has also focused on the Assyrian invasion of Judah in 701 BCE: the ancient historian Stephen Compton has identified Sennacherib's siege camp outside Lachish[^c18] and has proposed that a scene carved into the throne-room wall of the Assyrian king Sennacherib preserves the earliest known depiction of Jerusalem.[^c19] Epigraphic finds—the Mesha Stele and the inscribed altar from the Khirbat Ataruz temple—have corroborated the Moabite king Mesha's conquest of Ataroth as recounted in his own inscription.[^c20] The [[Tel Dan Stele]], fragments of which were discovered in 1993 and 1994, provides the first known and earliest undisputed extra-biblical textual attestation of the House of David.[^c25] The [[Megiddo Mosaic]], a floor mosaic dated to 230 CE from a Christian worship hall at Kfar Othnay, bears the earliest known inscription identifying Jesus as God, an early confirmation of Christ's divinity written a century before the Council of Nicaea,[^c28][^c30] while excavations beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have uncovered evidence of an ancient garden consistent with the burial account in John 19:41.[^c29] Study of the Book of Revelation's letters to the seven churches of Asia—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea—has been enriched by the archaeology of the cities themselves; the letter to Sardis warned a congregation that had "a reputation for being alive, but in fact you are dead."[^c21][^c22] In Jerusalem, storage jars from buildings destroyed and preserved by the Babylonian destruction of 586 BCE testify to the city's provisioning and trade on the eve of the disaster, while the Temple Mount Sifting Project has recovered thousands of artifacts from debris removed from the contested site.[^c23][^c24] In July 2026, archaeologists announced the recovery of massive wooden beams charred by the fire that destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple, preserved under collapsed plaster in the City of David and offering the potential to date the destruction to within as little as ten years.[^c35] Historical Jesus studies continue to evolve, with new methodological approaches moving beyond traditional criteria of authenticity toward interdisciplinary engagement with social history, memory studies, and ancient media.
Archaeological debate also continues over the location of New Testament-era sites: the town of Bethsaida, the hometown of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip, is claimed by excavators at both the inland mound of et-Tell and the shore-side site of el-Araj.[^c31] The search for the landing place of Noah's Ark has likewise continued, with ground-penetrating radar surveys of the Durupınar Formation near Mount Ararat, which most geologists regard as a natural geological feature.[^c32] In the history of the printed Bible, the Library of Congress completed the digitization of its copy of the Ostroh Bible, printed in 1581 as the first printing in one volume of the Old and New Testament in Church Slavic, the liturgical language of the Eastern Orthodox Church.[^c33]