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ChatterBank9 mins ago
The Bible
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I didn't really know where to put this but who decided to call the bible the bible? sorry if this is a thick question.
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Originally, the Greek word βιβλία [if that transcription was rendered as gobbledegook, then it is Beta Iota-Beta lamda Iota (with Tonos) Alpha] was the plural form of βιβλίον [Beta Iota Beta Lamda Iota (with Tonos) Omicron Nu] which roughly meant "paper" and later, "book". Biblia became the Latin for "Scriptures" particularly with regards to Christian and Jewish scriptures.
N.B. Biblia also became Bibliothēca ("the Scriptures") which you can still find used in modern French, German and Dutch (and no doubt other languages that I don't know) as biblioth�que, Bibliothek and bibliotheek respectively meaning "library" (where the Scriptures would have been stored!)
The French, German and Dutch words for "Bible" also remain similar: la Bible, die Bibel and de Bijbel.
The word "Bible" comes from the Greek word "biblia" meaning "books". In the 5th century sacred collections of books tended to be called "biblia". Although some portions of the Bible written in Anglo-Saxon, John Wycliff translated the whole Bible into English (the first English version) in the 14th century and called his version the Bible (the books) -as the Bible is made up of a collection of books.
Just as an addition to Indie's fine historical outline of the word, it first appeared in English - with a variety of spellings such as bibul, bibyle, bibel etc as well as bible - in the early 1300s.
The early Church Fathers clearly used it originally to mean "the books", in the sense of "holy books"
The origin of the word "Bible" is in the Greek word for the papyrus (pa-Pie-rus) plant that the Egyptians used to make paper. The Greeks called the plant biblos and eventually writing products derived from the plant such as scrolls became known as biblos. There is even an ancient Phoenician city named "Byblos" whose name is derived from its extensive manufacturer and trade in writing materials. To invent the word Bible, scholars borrowed the plural Greek word "biblia" meaning scrolls, or "little books" and created the English word Bible. Oddly enough, the word Bible doesn't appear in the Bible...
Good grief! When I first looked here, there were no answers at all. By the time I'd sorted my ideas out, Indie's one had magically appeared. Not only that, but there were three from Rev Shirls! What's going on? I can't believe so much changed in the course of a few seconds. Were we all involved in acts of synchrography?
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