Bible

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The sacred book of Judaism and Christianity, containing a collection of sacred writings (scriptures). The Old Testament, recognized by both Jews and Christians, is called the Hebrew Bible in Judaism. The New Testament comprises books recognized by the Christian church as sacred doctrine from the 4th century. The Roman Catholic Bible also includes the Apocrypha.

Bible reading
Christians believe that the Bible is the revealed ‘Word of God’; it is a written source of authority, passing on both spiritual and moral truth. In Christian church services, the Bible may be read by a Christian minister or by someone from the congregation. It is usually placed on a lectern (stand), which is often carved in the form of an eagle with outstretched wings. Sermons (religious lectures) are often based on a theme from the Bible.

Translations
It was only in the 13th century that single-volume Bibles with a fixed content and order of books became common, largely through a Paris-produced Vulgate of 1200 and the Paris Bible of 1230. The first English translation of the entire Bible was by a priest, Miles Coverdale, in 1535; the Authorized Version, or King James Bible (1611), was long influential for the clarity and beauty of its language. A revision of the Authorized Version carried out in 1959 by the British and Foreign Bible Society produced the widely used US translation, the Revised Standard Version. A conference of British churches in 1946 recommended a completely new translation into English from the original Hebrew and Greek texts; work on this was carried out over the following two decades, resulting in the publication of the New English Bible (New Testament in 1961, Old Testament and Apocrypha in 1970). Another recent translation is the Jerusalem Bible, completed by Catholic scholars in 1966.

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