Sacred scriptures are texts believed to have been revealed by God, either through divine intermediaries such as angels or prophets, or directly.

Many scriptures were transmitted orally before being written down. The Hebrew Bible originated in an oral culture and tradition. The Islamic Qur’an means ‘recitation’ in English. In contrast, the New Testament of the Christian Bible likely began as a series of documents, especial

The Hebrew Bible, known to many Christians as the Old Testament, is the sacred scripture of Judaism. It consists of:

The Torah/Pentateuch, the first five books, attributed to Moses; the Nev’im, or Prophets, consisting of the former prophets (Joshua to Kings); the Latter Prophets (Isaiah to Ezekiel); the Twelve Minor Prophets (Hosea to Malachi); and the Ketuvim, or Writings, believed to have bee

The God of Israel is named as YHWH, transliterated to Yahweh, and often translated into English as ‘Lord’. In many texts used in Judaism, the word ‘God’ appears as G-d, as it is forbidden to pronounce the holy name, otherwise known as the tetragrammaton.

Many types of literature are present in the Hebrew Bible: poetry (Song of Solomon); history (I and 2 Kings, Chronicles); Prophetic literature (e.g. Isaiah); and wise sayings (Proverbs). The main themes include God’s relationship with Israel, the Jewish exodus from Egyptian oppres

The New Testament consists of 27 individual ‘books’, including the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). They are called the ‘synoptic gospels’, meaning they cover similar stories, wording and sequencing.

Mark is generally considered the earliest of the synoptic gospels, with Matthew and Luke taking material from Mark. Material found only in either Matthew or Luke, but not taken from Mark, has the attribution ‘Q’, from the German quelle or source.

All four Gospels give accounts of the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, a first-century Jew. But they are not biographies in the modern sense. Instead, each Gospel is believed to have been written for a particular audience i.e. a particular early Chri

The Gospels were produced within the first 200 years after the death of Jesus. Luke’s Acts of the Apostles is a narrative record of the early Church, focusing on the life of St. Paul. The remainder of the New Testament contains Paul’s letters, and the apocalyptic book of Revelati