DEFINITIONS.
The word Bible is derived from the Greek
word biblos, which means book. Used as a title it means The
Book, so called by the way of pre-eminence. This title is not found in the
Bible itself; but it came into use among believers after the Bible was
completed.
The titles, Old Testament and New
Testament,
also came into use after the completion of the Bible. The books which pass
under the latter title contain a new covenant which God made with men, while
those under the former contain the old covenant which he made with Israel at
Mount Sinai (Heb. viii: 6-13; Jer. xxxi: 31-34). In the Latin Bible the word
for covenant is translated Testamentum; and from [17]
this, at a time when the Latin Bible was the most read in Europe, the title
Testament came into its present use.
The title Scriptures, sometimes with
the prefix Holy, is a New Testament title for the books of the Old
Testament. In II Peter iii: 16 it is also applied by implication to the
Epistles of Paul; and it some came into use as a title for the whole Bible.
The word means writings, and in its first sense it could be applied to any
writings; but as the expression, The Book, came to mean one particular book,
so the expression, The Scriptures, came to mean
The Writings in the Bible. When the term Holy is prefixed, this still
further distinguishes these writings.
The apostles Paul and Peter both use the
title "Oracles of God," for the Old Testament books, and Stephen calls them
"The Living Oracles" (Rom. iii: 2; Heb. v: 12; I Pet. iv: 11; Acts vii: 38).
By oracles is meant utterances of God; and these books were so called,
because they contain utterances of God through inspired men. They are called
living oracles; because of their abiding power in contrast with the deadness
of heathen oracles. But if the Old Testament books are worthy of this title,
still more are those of the New Testament; [18]
and consequently Papias, a Christian writer of the second century, applies it
to Matthew's book, saying, "Matthew wrote the Oracles." This is especially
true of Matthew, because more than half of his book is composed of speeches
made by Jesus. It is entirely proper then to speak of the whole Bible as The
Oracles of God, or The Living Oracles. [19]
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