Sunday Off-Topic: Bible Trivia

Every Introduction course always has its off-topic tangents, and Catholicism 101 is no different. On Sundays, we'll delve into some aspects of Catholicism that we might not otherwise get to. These areas are kind of up to my whim, but they will usually focus on unusual parts of Catholicism.

Here's a bit more on the interesting history of the Bible itself:

The actual word bible never once appears in it. Nowhere from Genesis to Revelations does the word appear at all. However, the word Scripture appears 53 times and the phrase Word of God appears 55 times. So why is it called the Bible, then? The word is derived from the Greek word biblia, meaning a collection of books, although the origin also goes even further back to the word biblos (papyrus). In ancient times, there was no paper to write on... only papyrus or stone (yes, stone).

The Catholic Church itself gave the name Bible to the collection of inspired books from the Old and New Testament. The church also decided which books belonged in the Bible and which were left out, since nowhere in the Bible is there a list of what should be in it. Why four Gospels? Why is Matthew first? Why isn't the Gospel of Thomas included? Why exactly 27 books in the New Testament? What happened to the Apocalypse of Moses? The Church had to reach these decisions of Sacred Tradition on its own, since none of the Sacred Scripture revealed them.