The Bible derives its name from the Greek word "Biblia"which means books. Reportedly, there are over 100 versions/translations of the Bible. The non-Catholic version is composed of 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The Roman Catholic version is composed of a few more books in the Old Testament.

The Bible is divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The former deals with the history of the Jewish people prior to the birth of Christ and the latter tells the story of Christ and details the things he did and said during three of the thirty-three years he spent on earth. With the exception of a minor story about Jesus when he was twelve years old, an amazing thirty years of his life are totally unaccounted for.

The last book of the New Testament segment of the Bible is said to have been written about 92 A.D. Some of the books in the Bible have no known author. Although "Genesis"is generally believed to have been written by Moses, there is no absolute certainty. The passages in "Ruth", "Judges", "Samuel", "Kings","Chronicles", "Ezra", "Esther", "Job", "Lamentations", and "Hebrews" either have no known author or are of disputed authorship.

It was not until 382 A.D., at the Roman Council, that Pope Damasus made the original decision as to what books would be included in the Bible. It is said that he made this decision based on Divine Inspiration.

He excluded many gospels which were very popular in the early Christian church. The Pope omitted these gospels because they were considered to be unreliable or of uncertain authenticity. This group of excluded works are commonly referred to as "apocrypha".

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, both on tablets and leather scrolls. The New Testament was written in Greek on papyrus, a reed that grew along the river banks.

In the year 1455, the first Bible, printed on moveable type, was produced by Gutenberg. It was called the "42-line Bible". Only 180 of them were printed. Prior to that time, there were no Bibles in circulation. Whatever copies that existed prior to that time, were hand-written by professional scribes and later by dedicated monks. They were carefully guarded in churches and monasteries and were not available to the general public.

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