Page 20 - Doctrine and History of the Preservation of the Bible revised

Chapter 3: Terms which Reference the Bible

Connect…

Do you have a nick name? Sometimes people will call someone else a name that is not their given
name, but a name that describes something about them. For example, I had an uncle who had red hair
and everyone called him “Red!” They called my dad, “BJ” because no one could pronounce his last
name. I call my wife “Gorgeous” because even though she is getting up there in age, she is still beautiful
to me (She calls me “Honey”). So, nick names often tell us something about the person to which we are
referencing. Well, in the same sense, the Bible has several “nick names.” These names tell us some
characteristic of the Bible. So, let’s examine some of the Bible’s nicknames…

Objectives…

1. The student should be able to list reference words that are used in place of the word Bible but
describe the same book.

2. The student should be able to explain why the Bible is unique among all the other ancient books ever
written.

The Lesson ...

Terms which Reference the Bible

Bible or Biblios

Early books were written on a paper made of papyrus, a reed grown in the Nile River Basin in Egypt. The
reed was harvested and shipped to a Phoenician seaport city called Byblos (also called Gebal). A
Codex(books) was then created by binding pages together, with both sides of the paper used. Writing
material was made from the papyrus plant by cutting the pith of the plant in one-foot strips and setting
it in the sun to dry. The strips were then laid in horizontal rows with rows of vertical strips glued to the
horizontal rows in a crisscross fashion similar to the way plywood is constructed today. The horizontal
rows were smoother and became the writing surface. A book, therefore, became known as byblos. The
Latin word, biblia, was a derivative of the original word. The French
translated the word, Bible, which means, “the books.” Eventually, the plural
form biblia was used by Latin-speaking Christians to denote all the books of
the Old and New Testaments.

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