Christian culture is the cultural practices common to Christianity. With the rapid expansion of Christianity to Europe, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Egypt and India and by the end of the 4th century it had become the official state church of the Roman Empire. Christian culture has influenced and assimilated much from the Greco-Roman Byzantine, Western culture, Middle Eastern, Slavic and from Indian. Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, many of the population of the Western hemisphere could broadly be described as cultural Christians; the notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom" many attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity. Historian Paul Legutko of Stanford University said the Catholic Church is "at the center of the development of the values, science and institutions which constitute what we call Western civilization."Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman Empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.
Until the Age of Enlightenment, Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, art and science. Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature etc. Art and literature, law and politics were preserved in the teachings of the Church, in an environment that, would have seen their loss; the Church founded many cathedrals, universities and seminaries, some of which continue to exist today. Medieval Christianity created the first modern universities; the Catholic Church established a hospital system in Medieval Europe that vastly improved upon the Roman valetudinaria. These hospitals were established to cater to "particular social groups marginalized by poverty and age," according to historian of hospitals, Guenter Risse. Christianity had a strong impact on all other aspects of life: marriage and family, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy, the arts. Christianity had a significant impact on education and science and medicine as the church created the bases of the Western system of education, was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world as the university is regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.
Many clerics throughout history have made significant contributions to science and Jesuits in particular have made numerous significant contributions to the development of science. The cultural influence of Christianity includes social welfare, founding hospitals, natural law, architecture, personal hygiene, family life. Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagan societies, such as human sacrifice, slavery and polygamy. Christians have made a myriad contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields, both and in modern times, including the science and technology, fine arts and architecture, literatures, philanthropy, ethics and business. According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of Nobel prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference. Eastern Christians have contributed to the Arab Islamic Civilization during the Ummayad and the Abbasid periods by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards to Arabic.
They excelled in philosophy, science and medicine. Cultural Christians are secular people with a Christian heritage who may not believe in the religious claims of Christianity, but who retain an affinity for the popular culture, music, so on related to it. Another frequent application of the term is to distinguish political groups in areas of mixed religious backgrounds The architecture of cathedrals and abbey churches is characterised by the buildings' large scale and follows one of several branching traditions of form and style that all derive from the Early Christian architectural traditions established in the Constantinian period. Cathedrals in particular, as well as many abbey churches and basilicas, have certain complex structural forms that are found less in parish churches, they tend to display a higher level of contemporary architectural style and the work of accomplished craftsmen, occupy a status both ecclesiastical and social that an ordinary parish church does not have. Such a cathedral or great church is one of the finest buildings within its region and is a focus of local pride.
Many cathedrals and basilicas, a number of abbey churches are among the world's most renowned works of architecture. These include St. Peter's Basilica, Notre Dame de Paris, Cologne Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Prague Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, the Basilica of St Denis, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of San Vitale, St Mark's Basilica, Westminster Abbey, Saint Basil's Cathedral, Washington National Cathedral, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, Gaudí's incomplete Sagrada Familia and the ancient church of Hagia Sophia, now a museum; the earliest large churches date from Late Antiquity. As Christianity and the constru
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of many carols or songs may employ lyrics whose subject matter ranges from the nativity of Jesus Christ, to gift-giving and merrymaking, to cultural figures such as Santa Claus, among other topics. Performances of Christmas music at public concerts, in churches, at shopping malls, on city streets, in private gatherings is an integral staple of the Christmas holiday in many cultures across the world. Music associated with Christmas is thought to have its origins in 4th-century Rome, in Latin-language hymns such as Veni redemptor gentium. By the 13th century, under the influence of Francis of Assisi, the tradition of popular Christmas songs in regional native languages developed. Christmas carols in the English language first appear in a 1426 work of John Awdlay, an English chaplain, who lists twenty five "caroles of Cristemas" sung by groups of'wassailers' who would travel from house to house.
In the 16th century, various Christmas carols still sung to this day, including "The 12 Days of Christmas", "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", "O Christmas Tree", first emerged. The Victorian Era saw a surge of Christmas carols associated with a renewed admiration of the holiday, including "Silent Night", "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "O Holy Night"; the first Christmas songs associated with Saint Nicholas or other gift-bringers came during 19th century, including "Up on the Housetop" and "Jolly Old St. Nicholas". Many older Christmas hymns were translated or had lyrics added to them during this period in 1871 when John Stainer published a influential collection entitled "Christmas Carols New & Old". Few notable carols were produced from the beginning of the 20th century until the Great Depression era of the 1930s, when a stream of songs of American origin were published, most of which did not explicitly reference the Christian nature of the holiday, but rather the more secular traditional Western themes and customs associated with Christmas.
These included songs aimed at children such as "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", as well as sentimental ballad-type songs performed by famous crooners of the era, such as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "White Christmas", the latter of which remains the best-selling single of all time as of 2018. Popular Christmas music produced from after World War II until the present day has remained thematically and instrumentally similar to the songs produced in the early 20th century. Since the dawn of the rock era in the mid-1950s, much of the Christmas music produced for popular audiences has had explicitly romantic overtones, only using Christmas as a setting; the 1950s featured the introduction of novelty songs that used the holiday as a target for satire and source for comedy. Exceptions such as "The Christmas Shoes" have re-introduced Christian themes as complementary to the secular Western themes, a plethora of traditional carol cover versions by various artists have explored all music genres.
Music was an early feature of its celebrations. The earliest examples are hymnographic works intended for liturgical use in observance of both the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany, many of which are still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church; the 13th century saw the rise of the carol written in the vernacular, under the influence of Francis of Assisi. In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle called them carols; the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style, familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, to England. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of John Audelay, a Shropshire priest and poet, who lists 25 "caroles of Cristemas" sung by groups of wassailers, who went from house to house. Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians. During the Commonwealth of England government under Cromwell, the Rump Parliament prohibited the practice of singing Christmas carols as Pagan and sinful.
Like other customs associated with popular Catholic Christianity, it earned the disapproval of Protestant Puritans. Famously, Cromwell's interregnum prohibited all celebrations of the Christmas holiday; this attempt to ban the public celebration of Christmas can be seen in the early history of Father Christmas. The Westminster Assembly of Divines established Sunday as the only holy day in the calendar in 1644; the new liturgy produced for the English church recognised this in 1645, so abolished Christmas. Its celebration was declared an offence by Parliament in 1647. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this ban, whether or not it was enforced in the country. Puritans disapproved of the celebration of Christmas—a trend which continually resurfaced in Europe and the USA through the eighteenth and twentieth centuries; when in May 1660 Charles II restored the Stuarts to the throne, the people of England once again practiced the public singing of Christmas carols as part of the revival of Christmas customs, sanctioned by the king's own celebrations.
William Sandys's Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, contributed to the mid-Victorian revival of the holiday. Singing carols in church was instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 in Truro Cathedral, England, now seen in churches all over t
A biblical canon or canon of scripture is a set of texts which a particular religious community regards as authoritative scripture. The English word "canon" comes from the Greek κανών, meaning "rule" or "measuring stick". Christians became the first to use the term in reference to scripture, but Eugene Ulrich regards the idea as Jewish. Most of the canons listed below are considered by adherents "closed", reflecting a belief that public revelation has ended and thus some person or persons can gather approved inspired texts into a complete and authoritative canon, which scholar Bruce Metzger defines as "an authoritative collection of books". In contrast, an "open canon", which permits the addition of books through the process of continuous revelation, Metzger defines as "a collection of authoritative books"; these canons have developed through debate and agreement on the part of the religious authorities of their respective faiths and denominations. Believers consider canonical books as inspired by God or as expressive of the authoritative history of the relationship between God and his people.
Some books, such as the Jewish-Christian gospels, have been excluded from various canons altogether, but many disputed books—considered non-canonical or apocryphal by some—are considered to be Biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical or canonical by others. Differences exist between the Jewish Tanakh and Christian biblical canons, although the Jewish Tanakh did form the basis for the Christian Old Testament, between the canons of different Christian denominations. In some cases where varying strata of scriptural inspiration have accumulated, it becomes prudent to discuss texts that only have an elevated status within a particular tradition; this becomes more complex when considering the open canons of the various Latter Day Saint sects—which are viewed as divergent from biblical Christianity —and the scriptural revelations purportedly given to several leaders over the years within that movement. Rabbinic Judaism recognizes the twenty-four books of the Masoretic Text called the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible.
Evidence suggests that the process of canonization occurred between 200 BC and 200 AD, a popular position is that the Torah was canonized c. 400 BC, the Prophets c. 200 BC, the Writings c. 100 AD at a hypothetical Council of Jamnia—however, this position is criticised by modern scholars. According to Marc Zvi Brettler, the Jewish scriptures outside the Torah and the Prophets were fluid, different groups seeing authority in different books; the book of Deuteronomy includes a prohibition against adding or subtracting which might apply to the book itself or to the instruction received by Moses on Mt. Sinai; the book of 2 Maccabees, itself not a part of the Jewish canon, describes Nehemiah as having "founded a library and collected books about the kings and prophets, the writings of David, letters of kings about votive offerings". The Book of Nehemiah suggests that the priest-scribe Ezra brought the Torah back from Babylon to Jerusalem and the Second Temple around the same time period. Both I and II Maccabees suggest that Judas Maccabeus collected sacred books, indeed some scholars argue that the Jewish canon was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty.
However, these primary sources do not suggest. The Great Assembly known as the Great Synagogue, according to Jewish tradition, an assembly of 120 scribes and prophets, in the period from the end of the Biblical prophets to the time of the development of Rabbinic Judaism, marking a transition from an era of prophets to an era of Rabbis, they lived in a period of about two centuries ending c. 70 AD. Among the developments in Judaism that are attributed to them are the fixing of the Jewish Biblical canon, including the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and the Twelve Minor Prophets. In addition to the Tanakh, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism considers the Talmud to be another central, authoritative text, it takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, philosophy and history. The Talmud has two components: the first written compendium of Judaism's oral Law. There are numerous citations of Sirach within the Talmud though the book was not accepted into the Hebrew canon; the Talmud is the basis for all codes of rabbinic law and is quoted in other rabbinic literature.
Certain groups of Jews, such as the Karaites, do not accept the oral Law as it is codified in the Talmud and only consider the Tanakh to be authoritative. Ethiopian Jews—also known as Beta Israel —possess a canon of scripture, distinct from Rabbinic Judaism. Mäṣḥafä Kedus is the name for the religious literature of these Jews, written in Ge'ez, their holiest book, the Orit, consists of the Pentateuch, as well as Joshua and Ruth. The rest of th
Cultural Christians are deists, agnostics and antitheists who adhere to Christian values and appreciate Christian culture. This kind of identification may be due to various factors, such as family background, personal experiences, the social and cultural environment in which they grew up. Contrasting terms are "biblical Christian", "committed Christian", or "believing Christian". Deists of the 18th and early 19th centuries, such as Napoleon and various Founding Fathers of the United States, considered themselves part of Christian culture, despite their doubts about the divinity of Jesus. In the 21st century, outspoken British atheist Richard Dawkins has described himself in several interviews as a "cultural Christian" and a "cultural Anglican"; the President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has identified as cultural Christian calling himself an "Orthodox atheist" in one of his interviews. The provinces North Brabant and Limburg in the Netherlands are mostly Roman Catholic, therefore many of their people still use the term and some traditions as a base for their cultural identity rather than as a religious identity.
Since the War of Independence the Catholics were systematically and discriminated against by the Protestant government until the second half of the 20th century, which had a major influence on the economical and cultural development of the southern part of the Netherlands. From the Reformation to the 20th century, Dutch Catholics were confined to certain southern areas in the Netherlands, they still tend to form a majority or large minority of the population in the southern provinces of the Netherlands, North Brabant and Limburg. However, with modern population shifts and increasing secularization, these areas tend to be less and less religious Catholic. Since 1960 the emphasis on many Catholic concepts including hell, the devil and Catholic traditions like confession, the teaching of catechism and having the hostia placed on the tongue by the priest disappeared, these concepts are nowadays or not at all found in modern Dutch Catholicism; the southern area still has original Catholic traditions including Carnival, rituals like lighting candles for special occasions and field chapels and crucifixes in the landscape, giving the southern part of the Netherlands a distinctive Catholic atmosphere, with which the population identifies in contrast to the rest of the Netherlands.
The vast majority of the Catholic population in the Netherlands is now irreligious in practice. Research among Catholics in the Netherlands in 2007 shows that only 27% of the Dutch Catholics can be regarded as theist, 55% as ietsist /agnostic/deist and 17% as atheist. In China, the term "Cultural Christian" can refer to intellectuals religious or otherwise, who are devoted to Christian theology and literature, contribute to a movement known as Sino-Christian theology. Traditionally, Christianity has been considered a "foreign religion" in China, including all the negative connotations of foreignness common in China; this attitude only started to change at the end of the 20th century. In China, the term "Cultural Christians" can refer to Chinese intellectuals devoted to the study of Christian theology and literature, contribute to a movement known as Sino-Christian theology. A small number of them are religious, some others keep their religiosity secret to protect their academic positions in Communist China, some express sympathy with Christianity but do not associate themselves with it, while the majority are non-religious.
Liu Xiaofeng is the best known Chinese cultural Christian of the first type
Role of Christianity in civilization
The role of Christianity in civilization has been intricately intertwined with the history and formation of Western society. Throughout its long history, the Church has been a major source of social services like schooling and medical care. In various ways it has sought to affect Western attitudes to virtue in diverse fields. Festivals like Easter and Christmas are marked as public holidays; the cultural influence of the Church has been vast. Church scholars preserved literacy in Western Europe following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, the Church rose to replace the Roman Empire as the unifying force in Europe; the cathedrals of that age remain among the most iconic feats of architecture produced by Western civilization. Many of Europe's universities were founded by the church at that time. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries; the university is regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting, born from Cathedral schools.
The Reformation brought an end to religious unity in the West, but the Renaissance masterpieces produced by Catholic artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael at that time remain among the most celebrated works of art produced. Christian sacred music by composers like Pachelbel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Verdi is among the most admired classical music in the Western canon; the Bible and Christian theology have strongly influenced Western philosophers and political activists. The teachings of Jesus, such as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, are among the important sources for modern notions of Human Rights and the welfare measures provided by governments in the West. Long held Christian teachings on sexuality and marriage and family life have been both influential and, in recent times, controversial. Christianity played a role in ending practices such as human sacrifice, slavery and polygamy. Christianity in general affected the status of women by condemning marital infidelity, incest, birth control and abortion.
While official Church teaching considers women and men to be complementary, some modern "advocates of ordination of women and other feminists" argue that teachings attributed to St. Paul and those of the Fathers of the Church and Scholastic theologians advanced the notion of a divinely ordained female inferiority. Women have played prominent roles in Western history through and as part of the church in education and healthcare, but as influential theologians and mystics. Christians have made a myriad contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields, both and in modern times, including the science and technology, fine arts and architecture, literatures, philanthropy, ethics and business. According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of Nobel prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference. Eastern Christians have contributed to the Arab Islamic Civilization during the Ummayad and the Abbasid periods by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards to Arabic.
They excelled in philosophy, science and medicine. Some of the things that Christianity is criticized for include the oppression of women, condemnation of homosexuality and various other cases of violence. Christian ideas have been used both to end slavery as an institution; the criticism of Christianity has come from the various religious and non-religious groups around the world, some of whom were themselves Christians. Christianity began as a Jewish sect in the mid-1st century arising out of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; the life of Jesus is recounted in the New Testament of the Bible, one of the bedrock texts of Western Civilization and inspiration for countless works of Western art. Jesus' birth is commemorated in the festival of Christmas, his death during the Paschal Triduum, what Christians believe to be his resurrection during Easter. Christmas and Easter remain holidays in many Western nations. Jesus learned the texts of the Hebrew Bible, with its Ten Commandments and became an influential wandering preacher.
He was a persuasive teller of parables and moral philosopher who urged followers to worship God, act without violence or prejudice and care for the sick and poor. These teachings have been influential in Western culture. Jesus criticized the privilege and hypocrisy of the religious establishment which drew the ire of the authorities, who persuaded the Roman Governor of the province of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, to have him executed; the Talmud says Jesus was executed for leading the people into apostacy. In Jerusalem, around 30AD, Jesus was crucified; the early followers of Jesus, including Saints Paul and Peter carried this new theology concerning Jesus throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, sowing the seeds for the development of the Catholic Church, of which Saint Peter is remembered as the first Pope. Catholicism, as we know it, emerged slowly. Christians faced persecution during these early centuries for their r
Church music is music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. Christianity began as a persecuted Jewish sect. At first there was no break with the Jewish faith; the only record of communal song in the Gospels is the last meeting of the disciples before the Crucifixion. Outside the Gospels, there is a reference to St. Paul encouraging the Ephesians and Colossians to use psalms and spiritual songs. There is a reference in Pliny the Younger who writes to the emperor Trajan asking for advice about how to prosecute the Christians in Bithynia, describing their practice of gathering before sunrise and repeating antiphonally "a hymn to Christ, as to God". Antiphonal psalmody is the singing or musical playing of psalms by alternating groups of performers; the peculiar mirror structure of the Hebrew psalms makes it that the antiphonal method originated in the services of the ancient Israelites.
According to the historian Socrates of Constantinople, its introduction into Christian worship was due to Ignatius of Antioch, who in a vision had seen the angels singing in alternate choirs. The use of instruments in early Christian music seems to have been frowned upon. In the late 4th or early 5th century St. Jerome wrote that a Christian maiden ought not to know what a lyre or flute is like, or to what use it is put; the introduction of church organ music is traditionally believed to date from the time of the papacy of Pope Vitalian in the 7th century. Gregorian chant is the main tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical chant of Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services; this musical form originated in Monastic life, in which singing the'Divine Service' nine times a day at the proper hours was upheld according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. Singing psalms made up a large part of the life in a monastic community, while a smaller group and soloists sang the chants.
In its long history Gregorian Chant has been subjected to some reforms. It was organized and notated in the Frankish lands of western and central Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries, with additions and redactions, but the texts and many of the melodies have antecedents going back several centuries earlier. Although popular belief credits Pope Gregory the Great with having invented Gregorian chant, scholars now believe that the chant bearing his name arose from a Carolingian synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant. During the following centuries the Chant tradition was still at the heart of Church music, where it changed and acquired various accretions; the polyphonic music that arose from the venerable old chants in the Organa by Léonin and Pérotin in Paris ended in monophonic chant and in traditions new composition styles were practised in juxtaposition with monophonic chant. This practice continued into the lifetime of François Couperin, whose Organ Masses were meant to be performed with alternating homophonic Chant.
Although it had fallen into disuse after the Baroque period, Chant experienced a revival in the 19th century in the Catholic Church and the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Anglican Communion. The mass is a form of music. Most masses are settings of the liturgy in Latin, the traditional language of the Catholic Church, but there are a significant number written in the languages of non-Catholic countries where vernacular worship has long been the norm. For example, there are many masses written in English for the Church of England. Music is an integral part of mass, it accompanies various rituals acts and contributes to the totality of worship service. Music in mass is an activity. Masses can be a cappella, for the human voice alone, or they can be accompanied by instrumental obbligatos up to and including a full orchestra. Many masses later ones, were never intended to be performed during the celebration of an actual mass. For a composition to be a full mass, it must contain the following invariable five sections, which together constitute the Ordinary of the Mass.
Kyrie Gloria Credo, the Nicene Creed Sanctus, the second part of which, beginning with the word "Benedictus", was sung separately after the consecration, if the setting was long. Agnus Dei The Requiem Mass is a modified version of the ordinary mass. Musical settings of the Requiem mass have a long tradition in Western music. There are many notable works in this tradition, including those by Ockeghem, Pierre de la Rue, Jean Richafort, Pedro de Escobar, Antoine de Févin, Palestrina, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Gossec, Berlioz, Bruckner, Dvořák, Frederick Delius, Maurice Duruflé, Fauré, Verdi, Herbert Howells, Britten, György Ligeti, Penderecki and Andrew Lloyd Webber. In a liturgical mass, there are variable other sections that may be sung in Gregorian chant; these sections, the "proper" of the mass, change with the day and season according to the chu
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures. Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews and Rastafarians. What is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups; the Hebrew Bible overlaps with the Christian Old Testament. The Christian New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. Among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about what should be included in the canon about the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible differ among Christian groups. Roman Catholics, high church Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of the Bible and sacred tradition, while Protestant churches, including Evangelical Anglicans, focus on the idea of sola scriptura, or scripture alone.
This concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only infallible source of Christian teaching. The Bible has been a massive influence on literature and history in the Western World, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type. According to the March 2007 edition of Time, the Bible "has done more to shape literature, history and culture than any book written, its influence on world history is unparalleled, shows no signs of abating." With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, it is considered to be the most influential and best-selling book of all time. As of the 2000s, it sells 100 million copies annually; the English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the same word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin and from Koinē Greek: τὰ βιβλία, translit. Ta biblia "the books". Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra "holy book", while biblia in Greek and Late Latin is neuter plural, it came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.
Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια tà biblía tà ágia, "the holy books". The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book", it is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, "Egyptian papyrus" so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia was "an expression. Christian use of the term can be traced to c. 223 CE. The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. By the 2nd century BCE, Jewish groups began calling the books of the Bible the "scriptures" and they referred to them as "holy", or in Hebrew כִּתְבֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ, Christians now call the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible "The Holy Bible" or "the Holy Scriptures"; the Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and it was divided into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne and is now cited by book and verse.
The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in earlier oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, it is known as the Codex Vaticanus; the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus. Professor John K. Riches, Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, says that "the biblical texts themselves are the result of a creative dialogue between ancient traditions and different communities through the ages", "the biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural and ecological – varied enormously". Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh, says that the Old Testament is "a collection of authoritative texts of divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing."
He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it written by God and passed to mankind. Parallel to the solidification of the Hebrew canon, only the Torah first and the Tanakh began to be translated into Greek and expanded, now referred to as the Septuagint or the Greek Old Testament. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from oral traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that: Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, but the results have not been too encouraging; the period of transmission is short: less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Mark's Gospel. This means that there was little time for oral trad