a. The sacred book of Christianity, a collection of ancient writings including the books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
b. The Hebrew Scriptures, the sacred book of Judaism.
c. A particular copy of a Bible: the old family Bible.
d. A book or collection of writings constituting the sacred text of a religion.
2. often bible A book considered authoritative in its field: the bible of French cooking.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin biblia, from Greek, pl. of biblion, book, diminutive of biblos, papyrus, book, from Bublos, Byblos.]
Books of the Bible
Books of the Hebrew Scriptures appear as listed in the translation by the Jewish Publication Society of America. Books of the Christian Bible appear as listed in the Jerusalem Bible, a 1966 translation of the 1956 French Roman Catholic version. The Old Testament books shown in italic are considered apocryphal in many Christian churches, but they are accepted as canonical in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Armenian and the Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox Church. The Christian Old Testament parallels the Hebrew Scriptures with the exception of these books.
bible /babl/ n.1 (cap.) the holy writings of Christianity and Judaism, (syn.) the Scriptures: She reads the Bible every day.2 a book or writings that cover a field expertly: That professor wrote the bible on European history.-adj.biblical /bblkl/.