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The Bible and Its Different Sections
My dear Gauri,
Every religion has its holy book. Islam has its Quran; the Hindus have the Bhagavad Gita; the Christians have their Bible.
The Bible is a collection of documents regarded by the Jewish and Christian religions as embodying the word of God. The Bible is divided into the Old Testament, the Apocrypha and the New Testament. The Old Testament consists of those books recognized by the Jews, chiefly the Law (the first five books of the Old Testament and the writings of the prophets).
The Christian Church, too, recognizes the Old Testament as authoritative and has added to it a New Testament (consisting chiefly of the Gospels and letters written by some of Christ’s disciples) which record the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
The Apocrypha are various religious writings of uncertain origin, regarded by some as inspired and by others as worthy of rejection. The word apocrypha has come to mean works of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In other words, they need not be taken seriously.
The letters were written by Paul to different people at different times. He wrote to the followers of Christ in Rome. That is his letter to the Romans. Similarly, he wrote to Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Thessalonians. Paul filled his letters with sound advice. He told the Corinthians, for example, not to give offence to the Jews or to the Greeks. He also told them: “Be imitators like me, as I am of Christ.”
Paul further told the Corinthians not to be led astray by dumb idols, indicating that at that time the Corinthians had their own Gods. He told them of the supreme virtue of love. There is a passage in Paul’s letter to Corinthians which was a great favourite of Mahatma Gandhi:
If I speak in the tongue of men and angels, but have not love, I am noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver my body to be burnt, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant and rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends…. So faith, hope and love abide; of these three, the greatest is love.
Now isn’t that the best definition of love? The original word used for ‘love’ is ‘charity’, not in the sense of giving alms to a beggar, but giving love. Gandhiji was a great admirer of the Bible because he saw so much goodness in it.
The tragedy of the world is that not all Christians listen to the voice of the Bible nor all Hindus to the wisdom of the Vedas or Gita. They use their holy books as an excuse for what they do. If the holy books were really and truly followed in the spirit in which they were written, there would be no wars but there would be peace and goodwill among all men.
The language of the Bible is simple. The sentences are short and to the point. They were not written as literature but the Bible is one of the greatest literary works in any language.
In my next letter I will tell you of the disastrous consequences of the crucifixion of Christ as they affected the Jews.
Your loving
Ajja
My dear Gauri,
Every religion has its holy book. Islam has its Quran; the Hindus have the Bhagavad Gita; the Christians have their Bible.
The Bible is a collection of documents regarded by the Jewish and Christian religions as embodying the word of God. The Bible is divided into the Old Testament, the Apocrypha and the New Testament. The Old Testament consists of those books recognized by the Jews, chiefly the Law (the first five books of the Old Testament and the writings of the prophets).
The Christian Church, too, recognizes the Old Testament as authoritative and has added to it a New Testament (consisting chiefly of the Gospels and letters written by some of Christ’s disciples) which record the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
The Apocrypha are various religious writings of uncertain origin, regarded by some as inspired and by others as worthy of rejection. The word apocrypha has come to mean works of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In other words, they need not be taken seriously.
The letters were written by Paul to different people at different times. He wrote to the followers of Christ in Rome. That is his letter to the Romans. Similarly, he wrote to Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Thessalonians. Paul filled his letters with sound advice. He told the Corinthians, for example, not to give offence to the Jews or to the Greeks. He also told them: “Be imitators like me, as I am of Christ.”
Paul further told the Corinthians not to be led astray by dumb idols, indicating that at that time the Corinthians had their own Gods. He told them of the supreme virtue of love. There is a passage in Paul’s letter to Corinthians which was a great favourite of Mahatma Gandhi:
If I speak in the tongue of men and angels, but have not love, I am noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver my body to be burnt, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant and rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends…. So faith, hope and love abide; of these three, the greatest is love.
Now isn’t that the best definition of love? The original word used for ‘love’ is ‘charity’, not in the sense of giving alms to a beggar, but giving love. Gandhiji was a great admirer of the Bible because he saw so much goodness in it.
The tragedy of the world is that not all Christians listen to the voice of the Bible nor all Hindus to the wisdom of the Vedas or Gita. They use their holy books as an excuse for what they do. If the holy books were really and truly followed in the spirit in which they were written, there would be no wars but there would be peace and goodwill among all men.
The language of the Bible is simple. The sentences are short and to the point. They were not written as literature but the Bible is one of the greatest literary works in any language.
In my next letter I will tell you of the disastrous consequences of the crucifixion of Christ as they affected the Jews.
Your loving
Ajja
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