1.1 The Bible

The Bible Comes from the Greek word for books, biblios. The Catholic canon contains 73 books. They are the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit, but written by humans. The bible has 2 divisions: The Old Testament (46 books) and the New Testament (27 books)

The Hebrew Scriptures make up most of the Old Testament (the story of God’s love for his people written over a thousand year period) Jesus, the apostles and the authors of the New Testament would have believed in these holy writings. Our Christian faith story is also rooted in these Scriptures. The New Testament is the story of how Jesus reveals God’s love for us through his life, death and resurrection.

Christians are split into 2 different groups: Literal readers Fundamentalist Take the Bible at face value They say it means exactly what it says They believe that all you need to do is read the text to understand it Contextual readers Take a less simplistic view than the fundamentalist. They consider the context and times in which the biblical authors wrote to find the meaning: the text is not enough

As children, we Catholics may first learn about God through a literalist approach because of our level of understanding at that age. As we become more mature, we are called to re-examine our understanding of Scripture in relation to faith in a more contextual sense to further develop our relationship and understanding of God.

Using a Bible e.g. Genesis 2:4-9 or Gen 2.4-9 Book – Genesis Chapter – 2 Verses – 4 to 9 Different editions of the Bible will have different page numbers so use the above referencing system to refer to a bible passage.