Bible Tidbits

B.C. and A.D. The date abbreviation  "A.D." stand for the Anno Domini dating system created by a Catholic monk. The starting point of the calendar system is the year of Christ birth with the years that occur AFTER Christ birth labeled "A.D.," which is a Latin term meaning "In the year of our Lord." The years occurring BEFORE Christ birth are "B.C.," which means before Christ.

B.C.E. and C.E. There is a movement that does not want to reference years with a "religious bias" toward Christianity, who instead of using A.D. to mark years after the birth of Christ, wish to use C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E., ( Before the Common Era) to replace B.C..

Why do some Bibles have more books than others? In the 16th century Martin Luther and other reformers decided that the Christian Bible should only include old testament books that were found in the Hebrew Canon. They placed the books not found in the Hebrew Canon in another combined book called The Apocrypha (meaning second or hidden works), it is also known as the Deuterocanonical Books of scripture. Some Bibles have retained these books.

Are there any other books? There are also the books of the Pseudepigrapha, which are ancient Jewish and Christian documents that where never canonized for what ever canonical reasons of the official leadership. Note that The Book of Enoch in the Pseudepigrapha is mentioned in the Bible. There are also the Dead Sea Scrolls that were found between 1947 and 1956 of which many are mere fragments. It is of interest that pages from the Pseudepigrapha have been found in these fragments. There is also the books mentioned in the Old Testament that have not been found yet, this is a list of The Lost Books of The Bible. We have available on this site many Ancient Writings that are highly recommended for reading.

What is the oldest complete copy of the Bible? The oldest complete Hebrew Bible is the Leningrad Codex (A.D. 1008). The Aleppo Codex is older (A.D. 900-950) but was partially destroyed during the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947.

What are the Synoptic Gospels? The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are regarded as synoptic because they present the life of Jesus in similar views and wording, for that reason they are referred to as synoptic which is taken from the Greek meaning viewed or viewing together.