Bible Basics
Learn how Bible scholars think through these longer essays that answer significant and broad questions about biblical studies.
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Why Does the Bible Look the Way It Does?
It is more accurate to speak of many Bibles rather than one, as religious traditions have different views of order and canonical status.
Why (and How) Are Bible Chapters and Verses Numbered?
The conventions used to subdivide and number sections of the Bible have developed over millennia into the modern book-chapter-verse system, allowing for maximum precision.
Who Wrote the Bible?
Legends about the authorship of the Hebrew Bible notwithstanding, it is likely that most
of the books had many writers and editors.
What Was the Original Language of the Bible?
The Bible’s singular authoritativeness seems to be uncompromised by the many translations that have been created in the past few millennia.
What Role Has Faith Played in Scholars’ Reading of the Bible?
Today the Bible is no longer studied only through the lens of faith or doctrine but has become firmly planted in the humanities as a legitimate object of academic inquiry.
What Is the Function of Place in the Hebrew Bible?
Place is of central concern in the Hebrew Bible, and biblical authors used place to make sense of the past, present, and future as well as their relationship to God and neighbor.
What Does Archaeology Tell Us about the Hebrew Bible?
Scholars have used archaeology in different ways to understand the history of ancient Israel.
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel assumed a significant role in biblical thought as territorial boundaries changed over centuries of history.
What is the Difference between the Old Testament, the Tanakh, and the Hebrew Bible?
The (Protestant) Old Testament and the (Jewish) Tanakh share the same books, but our readings differ in language, punctuation, canonical order, and emphases.
What Is Source Criticism?
Source criticism is a scholarly method for detecting written sources behind the biblical text.