I will be traveling over the long weekend, so there will be no posts Monday or Tuesday next week.
How about ending this week on a lighter note? Even though this blog is meant to examine the intersection of faith, culture and politics, I tend to get bogged down in the circus that is our current political state of affairs—amirite?
Some time ago I mentioned that I was developing a “bible basics” class for people who are either new to the Christian faith or who want to fill in the gaps of what they know about the Bible. I’m now planning to turn that material into a book and have been doing some further research to supplement what I originally did for the class.
When I talk about “bible basics” I make no assumptions about what people do or don’t know about the Bible. For instance, if I asked you why we call the Bible, “the Bible,” would you know? Do you know where that word came from?
No?
Well, it’s your lucky day, because I’m going to tell you.
Papyrus
The story starts around 3000 BC, when the Egyptians developed the use of papyrus as a primative form of paper (the word “paper” comes from the word papyrus), which offered advantages over materials like clay tablets and animal skins. The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus use dates back to mid-2500 BC.
For those of you keeping track, that’s some 4,500-5,000 years ago.
As the Egyptians perfected the manufacture of papyrus, their product became well known and demand for “Egyptian papyrus” was high. They kept the method of production secret, guaranteeing a monopoly on the papyrus market.
One of the most important cities to the papyrus trade was Gebal, a port city on the coast of ancient Phoenicia, located about twenty miles north of the city of Beruit in modern-day Lebanon. Gebal, which played a unique role as an intermediary between Egypt and the rest of the ancient world, imported the famed Egyptian papyrus and then exported it to the Aegean region (the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey and south to the island of Crete).
And there is where we begin to pick up hints of the ancient roots of the word “Bible.”
Byblos
Papyrus was adopted by and used extensively by the Greeks. They got their papyrus from the Phoenician traders and called the city of Gebal, “Byblos” (βίβλος)—pronounced BIB-loss, their word for papyrus. More specifically, “biblos” referred to the inner fibers of the stalk of the papyrus reed, from which the rolls (or sheets) of papyrus were made.
Byblion
Once a scroll had been made from papyrus, the Greeks called it a “biblion” (βιβλίον), a diminutive of Byblos meaning “little scroll” (similar to how we say “booklet,” the diminutive of “book”). Eventually it came to refer to any written work (almost always scrolls at that time) and meant “scroll.”
Biblia
“Biblia” (βιβλία) was the plural of biblion, meaning “scrolls.” Greek speaking (Hellenistic) Jews called their scriptures ta biblia (τὰ βιβλία), “the scrolls.” Ta biblia gradually came to mean “the books” as the codex, precursor to the modern book, began to replace scrolls as the favored form of written works.
The earliest Christian use of ta biblia (the books) is said to be 2 Clement 2:14 (c. 150 AD): “The books and the apostles declare that the church . . . has existed from the beginning.” The earliest known use of “ta biblia” to refer to both the Old and New Testaments together was by John Chrysostom in the late fourth century AD.
Note that the word “biblia” is plural, so when it is used by Clement to refer to “the books” he is talking about multiple books, e.g. the individual books that were considered scripture (the canon of scripture that we know today was not fully formed). The sense of a singular “book” when referring to the scriptures had not yet developed, until …
… the Greek phrase was adopted into Latin, where it gradually lost its plural sense became biblia sacra (“holy book”). The word “biblia” was then loaned as a singular into the languages of Western Europe, including Old French.*
Bible
In Old French, the word “biblia” became bible (pronounced BEEB-leh), and was eventually adopted by Old English, replacing biblioðece as the ordinary word for “the Scriptures” in the early 14th century.
The sense of a “book” once associated with the etymology of the word Bible has become obsolete, and instead is now understood to mean any authoritative work (e.g. The Hunter’s Bible; The Football Fitness Bible), but specifically about the Christian scriptures.
And that’s why the Bible is called “the Bible.” The English word comes to us via the Old French “bible” from the Medieval Latin biblia, from the Greek βιβλία (biblia), the plural of βιβλίον (biblíon), originally a diminutive of βίβλος (bíblos), meaning “papyrus” because the Greeks got their rolls of papyrus from the Phoenician city of Gebal (Byblos).
Now you know something basic about the Bible that you didn’t know before. Impress your friends at church this weekend!
See you next week.
* The image is of a German Bible published in 1894 that I own. It has the word “Biblia” on the spine.