Scotland

Scotland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Scotland (Gaelic: Alba) is a country[7][8] that occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It is part of the United Kingdom,[7] and shares a land border to the south with England. It is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland consists of over 790 islands[9] including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres.[10] It was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which saw Scotland become one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Scotland's largest city is Glasgow, which was once one of the world's leading industrial metropolises, and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation which dominates the Scottish Lowlands. Scottish waters consist of a large sector[11] of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union.
The Kingdom of Scotland was an independent state until 1 May 1707 when it joined in a political union with the Kingdom of England to create a united Kingdom of Great Britain.[12][13] This union was the result of the Treaty of Union agreed earlier and put into effect by the Acts of Union that were passed by the Parliaments of both countries despite widespread protest across Scotland.[14][15] Scotland's legal system continues to be separate from those of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; Scotland still constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in public and in private law.[16] The continued independence of Scots law, the Scottish education system, and the Church of Scotland have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and Scottish national identity since the Union.[17] Though Scotland is no longer a separate sovereign state, the constitutional future of Scotland continues to give rise to debate.


Etymology
Scotland is from the Latin Scoti, the term applied to Gaels. The Late Latin word Scotia (land of the Gaels) was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to (Gaelic-speaking) Scotland north of the river Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, both derived from the Gaelic Alba.[18] The use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages.[12]

History
The founders of Scotland of late medieval legend, Scota with Goídel Glas, voyaging from Egypt, as depicted in a 15th century manuscript of the Scotichronicon of Walter Bower.
The founders of Scotland of late medieval legend, Scota with Goídel Glas, voyaging from Egypt, as depicted in a 15th century manuscript of the Scotichronicon of Walter Bower.


Early history
Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land-mass of modern Scotland, have destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period. It is believed that the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.[19][20] Groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the Mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation, burial and ritual sites are particularly common and well-preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles, where lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone [21]

Roman influence
The written protohistory of Scotland began with the arrival of the Roman Empire in southern and central Great Britain, when the Romans occupied what is now England and Wales, administering it as a province called Britannia. Roman invasions and occupations of southern Scotland were a series of brief interludes. In 83–4 AD the general Gnaeus Julius Agricola defeated the Caledonians at the battle of Mons Graupius, and Roman forts were briefly set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line (none are known to have been constructed beyond that line). Three years after the battle the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands.[22] They erected Hadrian's Wall to control tribes on both sides of the wall,[23] and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the empire, although the army held the Antonine Wall in the Central Lowlands for two short periods—the last of these during the time of Emperor Septimius Severus from 208 until 210.[24] The extent of Roman military occupation of any significant part of Scotland was limited to a total of about 40 years, although their influence on the southern section of the country occupied by Brythonic tribes such as the Votadini and Damnonii would still have been considerable.[23]


Medieval period
Main articles: Picts, Scotland in the High Middle Ages, and Scotland in the Late Middle Ages
The Kingdom of the Picts (based in Fortriu by the 6th century) was the state which eventually became known as "Alba" or "Scotland". The development of "Pictland", according to the historical model developed by Peter Heather, was a natural response to Roman imperialism.[25] Another view places emphasis on the Battle of Dunnichen, and the reign of Bridei m. Beli (671–693), with another period of consolidation in the reign of Óengus mac Fergusa (732–761).[26] The Kingdom of the Picts as it was in the early 8th century, when Bede was writing, was largely the same as the kingdom of the Scots in the reign of Alexander (1107–1124). However, by the tenth century, the Pictish kingdom was dominated by what we can recognise as Gaelic culture, and had developed an Irish conquest myth around the ancestor of the contemporary royal dynasty, Cináed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin).[27][3][28]
From a base of territory in eastern Scotland north of the River Forth and south of the River Oykel, the kingdom acquired control of the lands lying to the north and south. By the 12th century, the kings of Alba had added to their territories the Anglic-speaking land in the south-east and attained overlordship of Gaelic-speaking Galloway and Norse-speaking Caithness; by the end of the 13th century, the kingdom had assumed approximately its modern borders. However, processes of cultural and economic change beginning in the 12th century ensured Scotland looked very different in the later Middle Ages. The stimulus for this was the reign of King David I and the Davidian Revolution. Feudalism, government reorganisation and the first legally defined towns (called burghs) began in this period. These institutions and the immigration of French and Anglo-French knights and churchmen facilitated a process of cultural osmosis, whereby the culture and language of the low-lying and coastal parts of the kingdom's original territory in the east became, like the newly-acquired south-east, English-speaking, while the rest of the country retained the Gaelic language, apart from the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, which remained under Norse rule until 1468.[29][30][31]
The death of Alexander III in March 1286, followed by the death of his granddaughter [[Margaret, Maid of Norway, broke the succession line of Scotland's kings. This led to the intervention of Edward I of England, who manipulated this period of confusion to have himself recognised as feudal overlord of Scotland. Edward organised a process to identify the person with the best claim to the vacant crown, which became known as the Great Cause, and this resulted in the enthronement of John Balliol as king. The Scots were resentful of Edward's meddling in their affairs and this relationship quickly broke down. War ensued and King John was deposed by his overlord, who took personal control of Scotland. Andrew Moray and William Wallace initially emerged as the principal leaders of the resistance to English rule in what became known as the Wars of Scottish Independence. The nature of the struggle changed dramatically when Robert de Brus, Earl of Carrick, became king (as Robert I). War with England continued for several decades, and a civil war between the Bruce dynasty and their long-term Comyn-Balliol rivals, the flashpoint of which could be traced to the slaying in a Dumfries church of John 'the Red' Comyn of Badenoch by Bruce and his supporters, lasted until the middle of the 14th century. Although the Bruce dynasty was successful, David II's lack of an heir allowed his nephew Robert II to come to the throne and establish the Stewart Dynasty.[32][30] The Stewarts ruled Scotland for the remainder of the Middle Ages. The country they ruled experienced greater prosperity from the end of the 14th century through the Scottish Renaissance to the Reformation. This was despite continual warfare with England, the increasing division between Highlands and Lowlands, and a large number of royal minorities.[32][33]

Modern history
In 1603, James VI King of Scots inherited the throne of the Kingdom of England, and became King James I of England, and left Edinburgh for London.[34] With the exception of a short period under the Protectorate, Scotland remained a separate state, but there was considerable conflict between the crown and the Covenanters over the form of church government. After the Glorious Revolution, the abolition of episcopacy and the overthrow of the Roman Catholic James VII by William and Mary, Scotland briefly threatened to select a different Protestant monarch from England.[35] In 1707, the Scots Parliament and the Parliament of England enacted the twin Acts of Union, which led to Scotland's formal incorporation into the Kingdom of Great Britain.[13]
The deposed Jacobite Stuart claimants had remained popular in the Highlands and north-east, particularly amongst non-Presbyterians. However, two major Jacobite risings launched in 1715 and 1745 failed to remove the House of Hanover from the British throne. The threat of the Jacobite movement to the United Kingdom and its monarchs effectively ended at the Battle of Culloden, Great Britain's last pitched battle. This defeat paved the way for large-scale removals of the indigenous populations of the Highlands and Islands, known as the Highland Clearances.[13]
The Scottish Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution made Scotland into an intellectual, commercial and industrial powerhouse.[citation needed] After World War II, Scotland experienced an industrial decline which was particularly severe.[36] Only in recent decades has the country enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance. Economic factors which have contributed to this recovery include a resurgent financial services industry, electronics manufacturing, (see Silicon Glen),[37] and the North Sea oil and gas industry.[38]
Following a referendum on devolution proposals in 1997, the Scotland Act 1998 [39] was passed by the United Kingdom Parliament to establish a devolved Scottish Parliament.

Government and politics
As part of the United Kingdom, the head of state in Scotland is the monarch of the United Kingdom, currently Queen Elizabeth (since 1952).
Scotland has limited self-government within the United Kingdom as well as representation in the UK Parliament. Executive and legislative powers have been devolved to, respectively, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh. The United Kingdom Parliament retains power over a set list of areas explicitly specified in the Scotland Act 1998 as reserved matters, including, for example, levels of UK taxes, social security, defence, international relations and broadcasting.[40]
The Scottish Parliament has legislative authority for all other areas relating to Scotland, as well as limited power to vary income tax, a power it has yet to exercise. The Scottish Parliament can refer devolved matters back to Westminster by passing a Legislative Consent Motion if United Kingdom-wide legislation is considered to be more appropriate for a certain issue. The programmes of legislation enacted by the Scottish Parliament have seen a divergence in the provision of public services compared to the rest of the United Kingdom. For instance, the costs of a university education, and care services for the elderly are free at point of use in Scotland, while fees are paid in the rest of the UK. Scotland was the first country in the UK to ban smoking in enclosed public places.[41]

The Scottish Parliament is a unicameral legislature comprising 129 Members, 73 of whom represent individual constituencies and are elected on a first past the post system; 56 are elected in eight different electoral regions by the additional member system, serving for a four year period. The Queen appoints one Member of the Scottish Parliament, (MSP), on the nomination of the Parliament, to be First Minister. Other Ministers are also appointed by the Queen on the nomination of the Parliament and together with the First Minister they make up the Scottish Government, the executive arm of government.[42]
In the 2007 election, the Scottish National Party (SNP), which campaigns for Scottish independence, won the largest number of seats of any single party. The leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond, was elected as First Minister, heading a minority government, on 16 May 2007. In addition to the SNP, the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party are also represented in the Parliament. Margo MacDonald is the only independent MSP sitting in Parliament.[43]
Scotland is represented in the British House of Commons by 59 MPs elected from territory-based Scottish constituencies. The Scotland Office represents the UK government in Scotland on reserved matters and represents Scottish interests within the UK government.[44] The Scotland office is led by the Secretary of State for Scotland, who sits in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, the current incumbent being Des Browne.[40]

Administrative subdivisions
Historical subdivisions of Scotland include the mormaerdom, stewartry, earldom, burgh, parish, county and regions and districts. The names of these areas are still sometimes used as geographical descriptors.
Modern Scotland is subdivided in various ways depending on the purpose. For local government, there have been 32 council areas since 1996,[45] whose councils are unitary authorities responsible for the provision of all local government services. Community councils are informal organisations that represent specific sub-divisions of a council area.
For the Scottish Parliament, there are 73 constituencies and eight regions. For the Parliament of the United Kingdom there are 59 constituencies. The Scottish fire brigades and police forces are still based on the system of regions introduced in 1975. For healthcare and postal districts, and a number of other governmental and non-governmental organisations such as the churches, there are other long-standing methods of subdividing Scotland for the purposes of administration.
City status in the United Kingdom is determined by letters patent.[46] There are six cities in Scotland: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and more recently Inverness, and Stirling.[47]

Scotland within the UK
A policy of devolution had been advocated by all three GB-wide parties with varying enthusiasm during recent history and Labour leader John Smith described the revival of a Scottish parliament as the "settled will of the Scottish people".[48] The constitutional status of Scotland is nonetheless subject to ongoing debate. In 2007, the Scottish Government established a National Conversation on constitutional issues, proposing a number of options such as increasing the powers of the Scottish Parliament, federalism or a referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom. In rejecting the latter option, the three main opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament have proposed a separate Constitutional Commission to investigate the distribution of powers between devolved Scottish and UK-wide bodies.[49]

Law
Scots law has a basis derived from Roman law,[50] combining features of both uncodified civil law, dating back to the Corpus Juris Civilis, and common law with medieval sources. The terms of the Treaty of Union with England in 1707 guaranteed the continued existence of a separate legal system in Scotland from that of England and Wales.[51] Prior to 1611, there were several regional law systems in Scotland, most notably Udal law in Orkney and Shetland, based on old Norse law. Various other systems derived from common Celtic or Brehon laws survived in the Highlands until the 1800s.[52]
Scots law provides for three types of courts responsible for the administration of justice: civil, criminal and heraldic. The supreme civil court is the Court of Session, although civil appeals can be taken to the House of Lords. The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court. Both courts are housed at Parliament House, in Edinburgh, which was the home of the pre-Union Parliament of Scotland. The sheriff court is the main criminal and civil court. There are 49 sheriff courts throughout the country.[53] District courts were introduced in 1975 for minor offences. The Court of the Lord Lyon regulates heraldry.
Scots law is also unique in that it allows three verdicts in criminal cases including the controversial 'not proven' verdict.[54][55]

Geography and natural history
The main land of Scotland comprises the northern third of the land mass of the island of Great Britain, which lies off the northwest coast of Continental Europe. The total area is 78,772 km² (30,414 sq mi).[56] Scotland's only land border is with England, and runs for 96 kilometres (60 mi) between the basin of the River Tweed on the east coast and the Solway Firth in the west. The Atlantic Ocean borders the west coast and the North Sea is to the east. The island of Ireland lies only 30 kilometres (20 mi) from the southwestern peninsula of Kintyre;[57] Norway is 305 kilometres (190 mi) to the east and the Faroes, 270 kilometres (168 mi) to the north.
The territorial extent of Scotland is generally that established by the 1237 Treaty of York between Scotland and England[58] and the 1266 Treaty of Perth between Scotland and Norway.[13] Important exceptions include the Isle of Man, which having been lost to England in the 14th century is now a crown dependency outside of the United Kingdom; the island groups Orkney and Shetland, which were acquired from Norway in 1472;[56] and Berwick-upon-Tweed, lost to England in 1482.
The geographical centre of Scotland lies a few miles from the village of Newtonmore in Badenoch.[59] Rising to 1,344 metres (4,406 ft) above sea level, Scotland's highest point is the summit of Ben Nevis, in Lochaber, while Scotland's longest river, the River Tay, flows for a distance of 190 km (120 miles).[60][61]

Geology and geomorphology
The whole of Scotland was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages and the landscape is much affected by glaciation. From a geological perspective the country has three main sub-divisions. The Highlands and Islands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland largely comprises ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. It is interspersed with igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and Skye Cuillins. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstones found principally along the Moray Firth coast. The Highlands are generally mountainous and the highest elevations in the British Isles are found here. Scotland has over 790 islands, divided into four main groups: Shetland, Orkney, and the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides. There are numerous bodies of freshwater including Loch Lomond and Loch Ness. Some parts of the coastline consist of machair, a low lying dune pasture land.
The Central Lowlands is a rift valley mainly comprising Paleozoic formations. Many of these sediments have economic significance for it is here that the coal and iron bearing rocks that fuelled Scotland's industrial revolution are to be found. This area has also experienced intense volcanism, Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh being the remnant of a once much larger volcano. This area is relatively low-lying, although even here hills such as the Ochils and Campsie Fells are rarely far from view.
The Southern Uplands are a range of hills almost 200 kilometres (125 mi) long, interspersed with broad valleys. They lie south of a second fault line (the Southern Uplands fault) that runs from the Rhinns of Galloway to Dunbar.[62] The geological foundations largely comprise Silurian deposits laid down some 4–500 million years ago. The high point of the Southern Uplands is Merrick with an elevation of 843 m (2,766 ft).[12][63][64][65]

Climate
The climate of Scotland is temperate and oceanic, and tends to be very changeable. It is warmed by the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic, and as such has much milder winters (but cooler, wetter summers) than areas on similar latitudes, for example Copenhagen, Moscow, or the Kamchatka Peninsula on the opposite side of Eurasia. However, temperatures are generally lower than in the rest of the UK, with the coldest ever UK temperature of -27.2 °C (-16.96 °F) recorded at Braemar in the Grampian Mountains, on 11 February 1895.[66] Winter maximums average 6 °C (42.8 °F) in the lowlands, with summer maximums averaging 18 °C (64.4 °F). The highest temperature recorded was 32.9 °C (91.22 °F) at Greycrook, Scottish Borders on 9 August 2003.[67]
In general, the west of Scotland is usually warmer than the east, owing to the influence of Atlantic ocean currents and the colder surface temperatures of the North Sea. Tiree, in the Inner Hebrides, is one of the sunniest places in the country: it had 300 days of sunshine in 1975. Rainfall varies widely across Scotland. The western highlands of Scotland are the wettest place, with annual rainfall exceeding 3,000 mm (120 in).[67] In comparison, much of lowland Scotland receives less than 800 mm (31 in) annually.[67] Heavy snowfall is not common in the lowlands, but becomes more common with altitude. Braemar experiences an average of 59 snow days per year,[68] while coastal areas have an average of fewer than 10 days.[67]

Flora and fauna
Scotland's wildlife is typical of the north west of Europe, although several of the larger mammals such as the Lynx, Brown Bear, Wolf, Elk and Walrus were hunted to extinction in historic times. There are important populations of seals and internationally significant nesting grounds for a variety of seabirds such as Gannets.[69] The Golden Eagle is something of a national icon.
On the high mountain tops species including Ptarmigan, Mountain Hare and Stoat can be seen in their white colour phase during winter months.[70] Remnants of native Scots Pine forest exist[71] and within these areas the Scottish Crossbill, Britain's only endemic bird, can be found alongside Capercaillie, Wildcat, Red Squirrel and Pine Marten.[72][73]
The flora of the country is varied incorporating both deciduous and coniferous woodland and moorland and tundra species. However, large scale commercial tree planting and the management of upland moorland habitat for the grazing of sheep and commercial field sport activities impacts upon the distribution of indigenous plants and animals.[74] The Fortingall Yew may be 5,000 years old and is probably the oldest living thing in Europe.[75]

Economy and infrastructure
Scotland has a western style open mixed economy which is closely linked with that of the rest of Europe and the wider world. Traditionally, the Scottish economy has been dominated by heavy industry underpinned by the shipbuilding in Glasgow, coal mining and steel industries.
Pacific Quay on the River Clyde, an example of the regeneration of Glasgow and the diversifying Scottish economy
Pacific Quay on the River Clyde, an example of the regeneration of Glasgow and the diversifying Scottish economy
Petroleum related industries associated with the extraction of North Sea oil have also been important employers from the 1970s, especially in the north east of Scotland. De-industrialisation during the 1970s and 1980s saw a shift from a manufacturing focus towards a more services orientated economy. Edinburgh is the financial services centre of Scotland and the sixth largest financial centre in Europe in terms of funds under management, behind London, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich and Amsterdam,[76] with many large finance firms based there, including: the Royal Bank of Scotland (the second largest bank in Europe); HBOS (owners of the Bank of Scotland); and Standard Life.
In 2005, total Scottish exports (excluding intra-UK trade) were provisionally estimated to be £17.5 billion, of which 70% (£12.2 billion) were attributable to manufacturing.[77] Scotland's primary exports include whisky, electronics and financial services. The United States, The Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain constitute the country's major export markets.[77] In 2006, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Scotland was just over £86 billion, giving a per capita GDP of £16,900.[78][79]
Tourism is widely recognised as a key contributor to the Scottish economy. A briefing published in 2002 by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, (SPICe), for the Scottish Parliament's Enterprise and Life Long Learning Committee, stated that tourism accounted for up to 5% of GDP and 7.5% of employment.[80]
As of November 2007 the unemployment rate in Scotland stood at 4.9%—lower than the UK average and that of the majority of EU countries.[81]
The most recent government figures suggest that Scotland would be in budget surplus to the tune of more than £800m if it received its geographical share of North Sea revenues, which contrasts with a deficit in the rest of the United Kingdom.[82]

Currency
Although the Bank of England is the central bank for the UK, three Scottish clearing banks still issue their own Sterling banknotes: the Bank of Scotland; the Royal Bank of Scotland; and the Clydesdale Bank. The current value of the Scottish banknotes in circulation is £1.5 billion.[83]

Transport
Scotland has five main international airports (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow Prestwick and Inverness) which together serve 150 international destinations with a wide variety of scheduled and chartered flights.[84] BAA operates three airports, (Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen), and Highland and Islands Airports operates 11 regional airports, (including Inverness), which serve the more remote locations of Scotland.[85] Infratil operates Glasgow Prestwick.
The Scottish motorways and major trunk roads are managed by Transport Scotland. The rest of the road network is managed by the Scottish local authorities in each of their areas.
Regular ferry services operate between the Scottish mainland and island communities. These services are mostly run by Caledonian MacBrayne, but some are operated by local councils. Other ferry routes, served by multiple companies, connect to Northern Ireland, Belgium, Norway, the Faroe Islands and also Iceland.

Scotland's rail network is managed by Transport Scotland.[86] The East Coast and West Coast Main Railway lines and the Cross Country Line connect the major cities and towns of Scotland with each other and with the rail network in England. Domestic rail services within Scotland are operated by First Scotrail.
The East Coast Main Line includes that section of the network which crosses the Firth of Forth via the Forth Bridge. Completed in 1890, this cantilever bridge has been described as "the one internationally recognised Scottish landmark".[87]
Network Rail Infrastructure Limited owns and operates the fixed infrastructure assets of the railway system in Scotland, while the Scottish Government maintains overall responsibility for rail strategy and funding in Scotland.[88]

Demography
Although on the rise again, Scotland's population has declined from its peak in the mid-1970s.
Although on the rise again, Scotland's population has declined from its peak in the mid-1970s.
The population of Scotland in the 2001 census was 5,062,011. This has risen to 5,116,900 according to June 2006 estimates.[89] This would make Scotland the 112th largest country by population if it were a sovereign state. Although Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland it is not the largest city. With a population of just over 600,000 this honour falls to Glasgow. Indeed, the Greater Glasgow conurbation, with a population of over 1.1 million, is home to over a fifth of Scotland's population.[90][91]
The Central Belt is where most of the main towns and cities are located. Glasgow is to the west whilst the other three main cities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee lie on the east coast. The Highlands are sparsely populated, although the city of Inverness has experienced rapid growth in recent years. In general only the more accessible and larger islands retain human populations and fewer than 90 are currently inhabited. The Southern Uplands are essentially rural in nature and dominated by agriculture and forestry.[92][93] Because of housing problems in Glasgow and Edinburgh, five new towns were created between 1947 and 1966. They are East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Livingston, Cumbernauld, and Irvine.[94]
Due to immigration since World War II, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee have small Asian communities.[95] Since the recent Enlargement of the European Union there has been an increased number of people from Central and Eastern Europe moving to Scotland, and it is estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles are now living in the country.[96] As of 2001, there are 16,310 ethnic Chinese residents in Scotland.[97] The ethnic groups within Scotland are as follows: White - 97.99%,South Asian - 1.09%, Black - 0.16%, Mixed - 0.25%, Chinese - 0.32% and Other - 0.19%.
Scotland has three officially recognised languages: English, Scots and Scottish Gaelic. Almost all Scots speak Scottish Standard English, and in 1996 the General Register Office for Scotland estimated that 30% of the population are fluent in Scots.[98] Gaelic is mostly spoken in the Western Isles, where a majority of people still speak it; however, nationally its use is confined to just 1% of the population.[99]

Education
The Scottish education system has always remained distinct from education in the rest of United Kingdom, with a characteristic emphasis on a broad education.[100] Scotland was the first country since Sparta in classical Greece to implement a system of general public education.[101] Schooling was made compulsory for the first time in Scotland with the Education Act of 1496, then, in 1561, the Church of Scotland set out a national programme for spiritual reform, including a school in every parish. Education continued to be a matter for the church rather than the state until the Education Act of 1872.[102]
All 3 and 4 year old children in Scotland are entitled to a free nursery place with "a curriculum framework for children 3–5"[103] providing the curricular guidelines. Formal primary education begins at approximately 5 years old and lasts for 7 years (P1–P7); The "5–14 guidelines" provides the curricular framework.[104] Today, children in Scotland sit Standard Grade exams at approximately 15 or 16. The school leaving age is 16, after which students may choose to remain at school and study for Access, Intermediate or Higher Grade and Advanced Higher exams. A small number of students at certain private, independent schools may follow the English system and study towards GCSEs instead of Standard Grades, and towards A and AS-Levels instead of Higher Grade and Advanced Higher exams.[105];
There are 14 Scottish universities, some of which are amongst the oldest in the world.[106][107] The country produces 1% of the world's published research with less than 0.1% of the world's population, and higher education institutions account for nine per cent of Scotland's service sector exports.[108][109]

Religion
Since the Scottish Reformation of 1560, the Church of Scotland, also known as The Kirk, has been Scotland's national church. The Church is Protestant and Reformed with a Presbyterian system of church government, and enjoys independence from the state.[12] About 12% of the population are currently members of the Church of Scotland. The Church operates a territorial parish structure, with every community in Scotland having a local congregation. Scotland also has a significant Roman Catholic population, particularly in the west. After the Reformation, Roman Catholicism continued on in the Highlands and some western islands like Uist and Barra, and was strengthened, during the 19th century by immigration from Ireland. Other Christian denominations in Scotland include the Free Church of Scotland, various other Presbyterian offshoots, and the Scottish Episcopal Church. Islam is the largest non-Christian religion (estimated at around 40,000, which is less than 0.9% of the population),[110] and there are also significant Jewish, Hindu and Sikh communities, especially in Glasgow.[110] The Samyé Ling monastery near Eskdalemuir, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2007, includes the largest Buddhist temple in western Europe.[111] In the 2001 census, 28% of the population professed 'no religion' whatsoever.

Military
Although Scotland has a long military tradition that predates the Treaty of Union with England, its armed forces now form part of the British Armed Forces, with the notable exception of the Atholl Highlanders, Europe's only legal private army. In 2006, the infantry regiments of the Scottish Division were amalgamated to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Other distinctively Scottish regiments in the British Army include the Scots Guards and Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.
Due to their topography and perceived remoteness, parts of Scotland have housed many sensitive defence establishments, with mixed public feelings.[112][113][114] Between 1960 and 1991, the Holy Loch was a base for the U.S. fleet of Polaris ballistic missile submarines.[115] Today, Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde, 25 miles (40 km) west of Glasgow, is the base for the four Trident-armed Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines that comprise the UK's nuclear deterrent.
Three frontline Royal Air Force bases are also located in Scotland. These are RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Kinloss and RAF Leuchars, the last of which is the most northerly air defence fighter base in the United Kingdom.
The only open-air live depleted uranium weapons test range in the British Isles is located near Dundrennan.[116] As a result, over 7000 radioactive munitions lie on the seabed of the Solway Firth.[117]

Culture
Scottish music is a significant aspect of the nation's culture, with both traditional and modern influences. An example of a traditional Scottish instrument is the Great Highland Bagpipe, a wind instrument consisting of three drones and a melody pipe (called the chanter), which are fed continuously by a reservoir of air in a bag. The clàrsach, fiddle and accordion are also traditional Scottish instruments, the latter two heavily featured in Scottish country dance bands. Today, there are many successful Scottish bands and individual artists in varying styles.[118]
Scottish literature includes text written in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French, and Latin. The poet and songwriter Robert Burns wrote in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and in a "light" Scots dialect which is more accessible to a wider audience. Similarly, the writings of Sir Walter Scott and Arthur Conan Doyle were internationally successful during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.[119] J. M. Barrie introduced the movement known as the "Kailyard school" at the end of the 19th century, which brought elements of fantasy and folklore back into fashion.[120] This tradition has been viewed as a major stumbling block for Scottish literature, as it focused on an idealised, pastoral picture of Scottish culture.[120] Some modern novelists, such as Irvine Welsh (of Trainspotting fame), write in a distinctly Scottish English that reflects the harsher realities of contemporary life.[121] More recently, author J.K. Rowling has become one of the most popular authors in the world (and one of the wealthiest) through her Harry Potter series, which were originally written from a coffee-shop in Edinburgh.
The national broadcaster is BBC Scotland (BBC Alba in Gaelic), a constituent part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the publicly-funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. It runs two national television stations and the national radio stations, BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio nan Gaidheal, amongst others. The main Scottish commercial television stations are STV and Border Television. National newspapers such as the Daily Record, The Herald, and The Scotsman are all produced in Scotland.[122] Important regional dailies include The Courier in Dundee in the east, and The Press and Journal serving Aberdeen and the north.[122]

Sport
Sport is an important element in Scottish culture, with the country hosting many of its own national sporting competitions, and enjoying independent representation at many international sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup, the Cricket World Cup and the Commonwealth Games (although not the Olympic Games). Scotland has its own national governing bodies, such as the Scottish Football Association (the second oldest national football association in the world)[123] and the Scottish Rugby Union. Variations of football have been played in Scotland for centuries with the earliest reference dating back to 1424.[124] Association football is now the national sport and the Scottish Cup is the world's oldest national trophy.[125] Scottish clubs have been successful in European competitions with Celtic winning the European Cup in 1967, Rangers and Aberdeen winning the Cup Winners' Cup in 1972 and 1983 respectively, and Aberdeen also winning the European Supercup in 1983. The Fife town of St. Andrews is known internationally as the Home of Golf[126]and to many golfers the Old Course, an ancient links course dating to before 1574, is considered to be a site of pilgrimage.[127] There are many other famous golf courses in Scotland, including Carnoustie, Gleneagles, Muirfield and Royal Troon. Other distinctive features of the national sporting culture include the Highland games, curling and shinty. Scotland played host to the Commonwealth Games in 1970 and 1986, and will do so again in 2014.

National symbols
The Flag of Scotland, known as the Saltire or St. Andrew's Cross, dates (at least in legend) from the 9th century, and is thus the oldest national flag still in use. The Saltire now also forms part of the design of the Union Flag. There are numerous other symbols and symbolic artefacts, both official and unofficial, including the thistle, the nation's floral emblem, the 6 April, 1320 statement of political independence the Declaration of Arbroath, the textile pattern tartan that often signifies a particular Scottish clan, and the Lion Rampant flag.[128][129][130]
Flower of Scotland is popularly held to be the National Anthem of Scotland, and is played at events such as football or rugby matches involving the Scotland national team. Scotland the Brave is used for the Scottish team at the Commonwealth Games. However, since devolution, more serious discussion of the issue has led to the use of Flower of Scotland being disputed. Other candidates include Highland Cathedral, Scots Wha Hae and A Man's A Man for A' That.[131]
St Andrew's Day, 30 November, is the national day, although Burns' Night tends to be more widely observed. Tartan Day is a recent innovation from Canada. In 2006, the Scottish Parliament passed the St. Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007, designating the day to be an official bank

World war

World war
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars have spanned several continents, and lasted for years. History has shown that as a world war progresses, involved nations devote more and more of their resources to the conflict, resulting in ever-escalating destruction. World wars have resulted in unparalleled devastation. Almost every nation involved has suffered deeply, and the loss of life can only be estimated.
The term has usually been applied to two conflicts of unprecedented scale that occurred during the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918), and World War II (1939–1945).

Origins of the term
The term "World War" was coined speculatively in the early 20th century, some years before the first World War broke out, probably as a literal translation of the German word 'Weltkrieg'[1] The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first known usage as being in April 1909, in the pages of the Westminster Gazette.
It was recognized that the complex system of opposing alliances — the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Italy vs. the French Third Republic, the Russian Empire, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was likely to lead to a global conflict in the event of war breaking out. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that a conflict would be global, as the colonies' resources would be a crucial strategic factor. The same strategic considerations also ensured that the combatants would strike at each others' colonies, thus spreading the fighting far more widely than in the pre-colonial era.
Prior to 1939, the European war of 1914–1918 was usually called either the World War or the Great War. Only after the start of hostilities in 1939 did the World War become commonly known as the First World War (or, initially, 'The First Great War'). This is easily observed today when visiting the numerous First World War monuments and memorials to be found throughout the world. Such memorials, most of which were constructed in the 1920s plainly refer to the World War or Great War. Occasionally, a contemporary marker will indicate 1919 as the year the war ended (e.g., The World War, 1914–1919) which refers to the date of the Treaty of Versailles as the official end of the war rather than the Armistice in 1918 which in effect ended the actual hostilities.
The specific term First World War was actually coined during the war. German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel wrote this shortly after the start of the war:
" There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared "European War"...will become the first world war the full sense of the word.
Indianapolis Star September 20, 1914[2]
"
This is the first known instance of the term First World War, which previously had been dated to 1931 for the earliest usage. The term was used again near the end of the war. English journalist Charles A. Repington wrote:
" [Diary entry, September 10, 1918]: We discussed the right name of the war. I said the we called it now The War, but that this could not last. The Napoleonic War was The Great War. To call it The German War was too much flattery for the Boche. I suggested The World War as a shade better title, and finally we mutually agreed to call it The First World War in order to prevent the millennium folk from forgetting that the history of the world was the history of war.
"The First World War, 1914-1918" (1920)[3]
"
In 1933, Simon & Schuster published a photographic history of the war, edited by playwright and war veteran Laurence Stallings, with the title The First World War. A feature-length documentary film, also written by Stallings and titled The First World War, was released in November 1934.
Three months before World War II began in Europe, Time magazine first used the term "World War I" in its issue of June 12, 1939, when comparing the last war with the upcoming war.[4]
The term "Second World War" was coined in the 1920s. In 1928, US Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg advocated his treaty "for the renunciation of war" (known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact) as being a "practical guarantee against a second world war". The term came into widespread use as soon as the war began in 1939. Time magazine introduced the term "World War II" in the same article of June 12, 1939, in which it introduced "World War I," three months before the start of the second war.
Other languages have also adopted the "World War" terminology; for instance, in French, the two World Wars are the Guerres Mondiales; in German, the Erste und Zweite Weltkrieg; in Russian the мировые войны; in Spanish the Guerra Mundial and so on.

Earlier worldwide conflicts
Other examples suitable to be classified as world wars in terms of their intercontinental and intercultural scope were the Mongol Invasions leading to the Mongol Empire, which spanned Eurasia from China, Japan, and Korea to Persia, Mesopotamia, the Balkans, Hungary and Russia, and the Dutch-Portuguese War from the 1580s to the 1650s, which was fought throughout the Atlantic, Brazil, West Africa, Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean, Malaysia, India and Indonesia.
Dutch-Portuguese war, the first intercontinental resource war.
Dutch-Portuguese war, the first intercontinental resource war.
Other wars in earlier periods that saw conflict across the world have been considered world wars by some:
* the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713)
* Seven Years' War (1756–1763); Winston Churchill called it "the first world war" in A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
* the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
These, however, were confined to the European powers and their colonial empires and offshoots. The Asian powers were not involved (counting in this instance the Ottoman Empire as a European power).
Prior to the late 19th century, the concept of a world war would not have had much meaning. The Asian powers of India, China and Japan did not act outside their own territory. India was an early target of the creation of trade colonies due to its strategic importance on the maritime equivalent of the Silk Road to the East Indies and China while both China and Japan were able to remain mostly isolationist until the 19th Century. The European conflicts of earlier centuries were essentially quarrels between powers which took place in fairly limited, though sometimes far-flung, theaters of conflict.
Where native inhabitants of other continents were involved, they generally participated as local auxiliaries rather than as allies of equal status, fighting in multiple theaters. For instance, in Britain's wars against France, Native Americans assisted both European powers on their own ground rather than being shipped to continental Europe to serve as allied troops there. By contrast, during the World Wars, millions of troops from Africa, Asia, North America and Australasia served alongside the colonial powers in Europe and other theatres of war.

Characteristics of the World Wars
World Map with the participants in World War I.The Allies depicted in green, the Central Powers in orange, and neutral countries in grey.
World Map with the participants in World War I.
The Allies depicted in green, the Central Powers in orange, and neutral countries in grey.
World Map with the participants in World War II.The Allies depicted in green (those in light green entered after the attack on Pearl Harbor), the Axis Powers in blue, and neutral countries in grey.

The Allies depicted in green (those in light green entered after the attack on Pearl Harbor), the Axis Powers in blue, and neutral countries in grey.
The two World Wars of the 20th century took place on every populated continent on Earth (even to a small degree Antarctica during World War II[citation needed]), Many of the nations who fought in the First World War also fought in the Second, although not always on the same sides. Some historians have characterized the World Wars as a single "European civil war" spanning the period 1914–1945[citation needed], though this is arguably an oversimplification. It also overlooks the war in the Far East caused by Japan's programme of territorial expansion, which started independently of events in Europe.
The World Wars were made possible, above all else, by a combination of fast communications (such as the telegraph and radio) and fast transportation (the steam ship and railroad). This enabled military action to be coordinated rapidly over a very wide area and permitted troops to be transported quickly in large numbers on a global scale.

Effects of the World Wars
The two World Wars of the 20th century caused unprecedented casualties and destruction across the theaters of conflict. The numbers killed in the wars are estimated at between 60 and 100 million people. Unlike in most previous conflicts, civilians suffered as badly as or worse than soldiers, and the distinction between combatants and civilians was often erased.
Affected States World War I World War II
Deaths 18 M 60 - 100 M
Injured 20 M 35 M
Conscripts 70 M 110 M
Battlefield Size 4 M km² 22 M km²
The outcome of the World Wars had a profound effect on the course of world history. The old European empires collapsed or were dismantled as a direct result of the wars' crushing costs and in some cases the defeats of imperial powers. The modern international security, economic and diplomatic system was created in the aftermath of the wars. Institutions such as NATO, the United Nations and the European Union were established to "collectivise" international affairs, with the explicit aim of preventing another outbreak of general war. The wars also greatly changed the course of daily life. Technologies developed during wartime had a profound effect on peacetime life as well—for instance, jet aircraft, penicillin, nuclear energy, and electronic computers.
Since the Second World War was ended in August 1945 by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there has been a widespread and prolonged fear of a Third World War between nuclear-armed superpowers. The fact that this has not come to pass has been attributed by many to the devastating and essentially unwinnable nature of nuclear warfare, with the end result being the extermination of human life or, at the very least, the collapse of civilization.
When asked what kind of weapons would be used to fight World War III, the physicist Albert Einstein replied:[5]
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Subsequent world wars
This section does not cite any references or sources. (June 2007)
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
Merge arrows
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with World War III. (Discuss)
Some groups define "world war" to include other far-reaching multi-national conflicts, such as the Cold War or current "War on Terrorism". The Project for the New American Century holds both views, calling the Cold War "World War III" and the War on Terrorism "World War IV"; this was also agreed by Jean Baudrillard and Andrew J. Bacevich. However, these characterizations have attracted little support and have not been agreed upon by the majority of historians.

"War on Terrorism" as a world war
The term "World War IV" is occasionally used in the United States political and policy debates that continue in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. As long ago as 1992, Count de Marenches, the former head of French intelligence, wrote a book[6] alleging that a "fourth world war", of terrorism versus civilization, was taking place. As a designation for the post-9/11 war on terrorism, its use was first proposed by Eliot A. Cohen in his opinion piece written for the Wall Street Journal opinion page on November 20, 2001 titled, "World War IV: Let's call this conflict what it is." A core quotation from his thesis is
The Cold War was World War III, which reminds us that not all global conflicts entail the movement of multimillion-man armies, or conventional front lines on a map. The analogy with the Cold War does, however, suggest some key features of that conflict: that it is, in fact, global; that it will involve a mixture of violent and nonviolent efforts; that it will require mobilization of skill, expertise and resources, if not of vast numbers of soldiers; that it may go on for a long time; and that it has ideological roots.
On November 16, 2002, James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, gave a speech at Restoration Weekend, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, titled "World War IV",[7] in which he outlines the entire rationale for fighting World War IV. In the most provocative portion of his speech, he says
But, I would say this. Both to the terrorists and to the pathological predators such as Saddam Hussein and to the autocrats as well, the barbarics, the Saudi royal family. They have to realize that now for the fourth time in 100 years, we've been awakened and this country is on the march. We didn't choose this fight, but we're in it. And being on the march, there's only one way we're going to be able to win it. It's the way we won World War I fighting for Wilson's 14 points. The way we won World War II fighting for Churchill's and Roosevelt's Atlantic Charter and the way we won World War III fighting for the noble ideas I think best expressed by President Reagan, but also very importantly at the beginning by President Truman, that this was not a war of us against them. It was not a war of countries. It was a war of freedom against tyranny. We have to convince the people of the Middle East that we are on their side, as we convinced Lech Wałęsa and Václav Havel and Andrei Sakharov that we were on their side.
Cohen was one of the first publicly to single out Iraq as the second battlefield after Afghanistan in his version of World War IV. On December 23, 2001 he then wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "War with Iraq will have its perils. Some are likely to be illusory: the Arab 'street,' for example, which never quite rises as promised. Others may be quite real, to include the use of chemical and biological weapons. Should the U.S. fail to take the challenge, sooner or later it is sure to find Iraqi terror on its doorstep. It may have already. Should the U.S. rise to the occasion, however, it may begin a transformation of the Middle East that could provide many benefits to the populations of an unfree region. That will, in the end, make us infinitely more secure at home."[8]
Following Cohen's lead, Norman Podhoretz wrote an article for Commentary magazine titled, "How to win World War IV" (Norman Podhoretz) in February, 2002. Podhoretz was not as certain as Cohen about specific tactics: "Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power." He agrees fully with Cohen's overall thesis, though: "In my opinion, by raising the possibility of a transformation of the Middle East, Cohen cuts to the heart of the matter. The real enemy in this war, Cohen argues -- as Daniel Pipes has also so persistently and authoritatively done at greater length -- is not the generalized abstraction 'terrorism,' but rather 'militant Islam.'"
A documentary film titled "World War IV: A Letter! to the President" was released in 2007 by former Governor George Bush's Governor's Circle member, Don A. Craven Jr. The film is a conservative critique of the strategic wisdom of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and suggests that the war could escalate, and historically be viewed as the opening salvo of "World War IV", rather than stabilizing the region--a principal casus belli justifying the invasion.
Another faction of conservatives, led by Newt Gingrich, do not consider the Cold War a world war, preferring to call the War on Terrorism the third world war rather than the fourth.

Competition between financial powers as a world war
Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation asserts that the Fourth World War is being conducted "between major financial centres" over the world's resources. Like Cohen, he sees the Cold War as World War III. [9]

References
1. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary entry for World War
2. ^ "The Yale Book of Quotations" (2006) Yale University Press, edited by Fred R. Shapiro
3. ^ "The Yale Book of Quotations" (2006) Yale University Press, edited by Fred R. Shapiro
4. ^ "War Machines", Time, June 12, 1939.
5. ^ How Einstein changed culture. MSNBC (2005-04-18).
6. ^ ISBN 978-0688092184
7. ^ R. James Woolsey. "World War IV". FrontPageMagazine.com, 2002-11-22. Accessed 2008-05-01.
8. ^ Eliot A. Cohen. "Iraq Can't Resist Us". OpinionJournal.com, December 23, 2001. Accessed May 1, 2008.
9. ^ The fourth world war has begun, Le Monde diplomatique, september 1997

Bible

Bible
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bible is the collection of religious writings of Judaism and of Christianity.[1] The exact composition of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations. Modern Rabbinic Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books that comprise the Tanakh, the Jewish version of the Bible.[2] The Christian Bible includes the same books as the Tanakh (referred to in this context as the Old Testament), but in a different order, together with specifically Christian books collectively called the New Testament. Among some Christian traditions, the Bible includes additional Jewish books that were not accepted into the Tanakh.
The Hebrew Bible comprises three parts: the Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Pentateuch or "Five Books of Moses"), the Prophets, and the Writings. It was primarily written in Hebrew with some small portions written in Aramaic.
The Christian Bible includes the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, which were originally written in Greek,[3] preceded by the protocanonical books of the Old Testament and sometimes a number of deuterocanonical books: Eastern Orthodox Churches use all of the books that were incorporated into the Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible;[4] Roman Catholics include some of these books in their canon; and many Protestant Bibles follow the Jewish canon, excluding the additional books. Some editions of the Christian Bible have a separate Biblical apocrypha section for books not considered canonical.
According to the United Bible Society, as of December 31, 2007, the Bible is available in 2,454 languages, with various portions of the Bible in 848 languages, one of the two Testaments in 1,168 languages, and the full Bible in 438 languages.[5]


Etymology
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible[6] is from Anglo-Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin, as used in the phrase biblia sacra ("holy book" - "In the Latin of the Middle Ages, the neuter plural for Biblia (gen. bibliorum) gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae, in which singular form the word has passed into the languages of the Western world."[7]). This stemmed from the Greek term τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια (ta biblia ta hagia), "the holy books", which derived from βιβλίον (biblion),[8] "paper" or "scroll," the ordinary word for "book", which was originally a diminutive of βύβλος (byblos, "Egyptian papyrus"), possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician port Byblos from which Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.
Biblical scholar Mark Hamilton states that the Greek phrase Ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books several centuries before the time of Jesus,"[9] and would have referred to the Septuagint.[10] The Online Etymology Dictionary states, "The Christian scripture was referred to in Greek as Ta Biblia as early as c.223."


Tanakh
The Tanakh (Hebrew: תנ"ך) consists of 24 books. Tanakh is an acronym for the three parts of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah ("Teaching/Law" also known as the Pentateuch), Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and Ketuvim ("Writings," or Hagiographa), and is used commonly by Jews but unfamiliar to many English speakers and others (Alexander 1999, p. 17). (See Table of books of Judeo-Christian Scripture).

Torah
The Torah, or "Instruction," is also known as the "Five Books" of Moses, thus Chumash from Hebrew meaning "fivesome," and Pentateuch from Greek meaning "five scroll-cases."
The Torah comprises the following five books:
* 1. Genesis, Ge—Bereshit (בראשית)
* 2. Exodus, Ex—Shemot (שמות)
* 3. Leviticus, Le—Vayikra (ויקרא)
* 4. Numbers, Nu—Bamidbar (במדבר)
* 5. Deuteronomy, Dt—Devarim (דברים)
The Hebrew book titles come from the first words in the respective texts. The Hebrew title for Numbers, however, comes from the fifth word of that text.
The Torah focuses on three moments in the changing relationship between God and people. The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world, and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel), and Jacob's children (the "Children of Israel"), especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. His story coincides with the story of the liberation of the Children of Israel from slavery in Ancient Egypt, to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai, and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation would be ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses.
The Torah contains the commandments, of God, revealed at Mount Sinai (although there is some debate amongst Jewish scholars, if this was written down completely in one moment, or if it was spread out during the 40 years in the wandering in the desert). These commandments provide the basis for Halakha (Jewish religious law). Tradition states that the number of these is equal to 613 Mitzvot or 613 commandments. There is some dispute as to how to divide these up (mainly between the Ramban and Rambam). Everyone agrees though that there are 613.
The Torah is divided into fifty-four portions which are read in turn in Jewish liturgy, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, each Sabbath. The cycle ends and recommences at the end of Sukkot, which is called Simchat Torah.

Nevi'im
The Nevi'im, or "Prophets," tell the story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy, its division into two kingdoms, and the prophets who, in God's name, warned the kings and the Children of Israel about the punishment of God. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians and the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Portions of the prophetic books are read by Jews on the Sabbath (Shabbat). The Book of Jonah is read on Yom Kippur.
According to Jewish tradition, Nevi'im is divided into eight books. Contemporary translations subdivide these into seventeen books.
The Nevi'im comprise the following eight books:
* 6. Joshua, Js—Yehoshua (יהושע)
* 7. Judges, Jg—Shoftim (שופטים)
* 8. Samuel, includes First and Second, 1Sa–2Sa—Shemuel (שמואל)
* 9. Kings, includes First and Second, 1Ki–2Ki—Melakhim (מלכים)
* 10. Isaiah, Is—Yeshayahu (ישעיהו)
* 11. Jeremiah, Je—Yirmiyahu (ירמיהו)
* 12. Ezekiel, Ez—Yekhezkel (יחזקאל)
* 13. Twelve, includes all Minor Prophets—Tre Asar (תרי עשר)
o a. Hosea, Ho—Hoshea (הושע)
o b. Joel, Jl—Yoel (יואל)
o c. Amos, Am—Amos (עמוס)
o d. Obadiah, Ob—Ovadyah (עבדיה)
o e. Jonah, Jh—Yonah (יונה)
o f. Micah, Mi—Mikhah (מיכה)
o g. Nahum, Na—Nahum (נחום)
o h. Habakkuk, Hb—Havakuk (חבקוק)
o i. Zephaniah, Zp—Tsefanya (צפניה)
o j. Haggai, Hg—Khagay (חגי)
o k. Zechariah, Zc—Zekharyah (זכריה)
o l. Malachi, Ml—Malakhi (מלאכי)
Part of a series on

Ketuvim
The Ketuvim, or "Writings" or "Scriptures," may have been written during or after the Babylonian Exile but no one can be sure. According to Rabbinic tradition, many of the psalms in the book of Psalms are attributed to David; King Solomon is believed to have written Song of Songs in his youth, Proverbs at the prime of his life, and Ecclesiastes at old age; and the prophet Jeremiah is thought to have written Lamentations. The Book of Ruth is the only biblical book that centers entirely on a non-Jew. The book of Ruth tells the story of a non-Jew (specifically, a Moabite) who married a Jew and, upon his death, followed in the ways of the Jews; according to the Bible, she was the great-grandmother of King David. Five of the books, called "The Five Scrolls" (Megilot), are read on Jewish holidays: Song of Songs on Passover; the Book of Ruth on Shavuot; Lamentations on the Ninth of Av; Ecclesiastes on Sukkot; and the Book of Esther on Purim. Collectively, the Ketuvim contain lyrical poetry, philosophical reflections on life, and the stories of the prophets and other Jewish leaders during the Babylonian exile. It ends with the Persian decree allowing Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple.
The Ketuvim comprise the following eleven books:
* 14. Psalms, Ps—Tehillim (תהלים)
* 15. Proverbs, Pr—Mishlei (משלי)
* 16. Job, Jb—Iyyov (איוב)
* 17. Song of Songs, So—Shir ha-Shirim (שיר השירים)
* 18. Ruth, Ru—Rut (רות)
* 19. Lamentations, La—Eikhah (איכה), also called Kinot (קינות)
* 20. Ecclesiastes, Ec—Kohelet (קהלת)
* 21. Esther, Es—Ester (אסתר)
* 22. Daniel, Dn—Daniel (דניאל)
* 23. Ezra, Ea, includes Nehemiah, Ne—Ezra (עזרא), includes Nehemiah (נחמיה)
* 24. Chronicles, includes First and Second, 1Ch–2Ch—Divrei ha-Yamim (דברי הימים), also called Divrei (דברי)


Hebrew Bible translations and editions
The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra) in Biblical Aramaic.[11]
Some time in the 2nd or 3rd century BC, the Torah was translated into Koine Greek, and over the next century, other books were translated (or composed) as well. This translation became known as the Septuagint[12] and was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians.[13] It differs somewhat from the later standardized Hebrew (Masoretic Text). This translation was promoted by way of a legend (primarily recorded as the Letter of Aristeas) that seventy (or in some sources, seventy-two) separate translators all produced identical texts.[14]
From the 800s to the 1400s, Jewish scholars today known as Masoretes compared the text of all known biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text. A series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud) to the text, since the original text only contained consonant letters. This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation, since some words differ only in their vowels—their meaning can vary in accordance with the vowels chosen. In antiquity, variant Hebrew readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea scrolls, and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages.[15]
Versions of the Septuagint contain several passages and whole books beyond what was included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh. In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or variants not present in the Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than was once thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition ("Vorlage") from the one that became the basis for the Masoretic texts.[15]
Jews also produced non-literal translations or paraphrases known as targums, primarily in Aramaic. They frequently expanded on the text with additional details taken from Rabbinic oral tradition.

The Torah of Judaism
Orthodox Judaism, as epitomized in the Pharisee sect, rejects any notion that the Written Torah and Oral Torah are distinct entities. The Written Torah (the Five Books of Moses), Prophets and Writings, form the corpus of what is God's word in written form. This body, is completely incomprehensible without an Oral Tradition. For example, a Torah scroll contains no vowels, and no punctuation. Were it not for an Oral Tradition, the meaning of words would be unknown, as well as the sentence structure, where to begin and end verses, sections etc. are all reliant on an oral tradition. This is extended into what Orthodox Judaism classifies in the Legal parts of the Oral Tradition, as the rules of Biblical Exegesis, which defines how to interpret the text, which is also transmitted orally. The Oral Tradition, however, is much more broad. It includes Midrash, Halachic and Aggadic, Kabbalah, interpretation, and the legal portions, which are codified to some extent in the Mishnah, Tosefta, Sifre, Sifra, Mechilta, Talmuds (both Babylonian and Jerusalem).
The Sadducees were a minority group, that had some sway during the Hellenistic period, were the inheritors of their leader Zadok who believed that there was only a minimal oral tradition of interpreting the words of the Torah, and did not extend into extended biblical interpretation. They argued against the Rabbis in mostly legal matters, threatening the very existence of Judaism. The Sadducees became corrupted and took over positions in the Priestly service, some becoming the High Priest. Others incited unrest by subverting the Sanhedrin, by providing false testimony in which the new-moon would be declared, and hence the dates of the year for the festivals would be altered.
Masorti and Conservative Judaism state that the Oral Tradition is to some degree Divinely inspired, but disregard its legal elements in varying degrees. Reform Judaism also gives some credence to the Talmud containing the Legal elements of the Oral Torah, but, as with the written Torah, asserts that both were inspired by, but not dictated by, God. Reconstructionist Judaism, denies any connection of the Torah, Written or Oral with God.

Christian Bible
The Christian Bible consists of the Hebrew scriptures, which have been called the Old Testament, and some later writings known as the New Testament. Some groups within Christianity include additional books as part one or both of these sections of their sacred writings – most prominent among which are the biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.
In Judaism, the term Christian Bible is commonly used to identify only those books like the New Testament which have been added by Christians to the Masoretic Text, and excludes any reference to an Old Testament.[16]
Old Testament
The Old Testament is the collection of books written prior to the life of Jesus but accepted by Christians as scripture. Broadly speaking, it is the same as the Hebrew Bible, however it divides and orders them differently, and varies from Judaism in interpretation and emphasis, see for example Isaiah 7:14. Several Christian denominations also incorporate additional books into their canons of the Old Testament. A few groups consider particular translations to be divinely inspired, notably the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Peshitta, and the English King James Version.

Apocryphal or deuterocanonical books
The Septuagint (Greek translation, from Alexandria in Egypt under the Ptolemies) was generally abandoned in favour of the Masoretic text as the basis for translations of the Old Testament into Western languages from St. Jerome's Bible (the Vulgate) to the present day. In Eastern Christianity, translations based on the Septuagint still prevail. Some modern Western translations make use of the Septuagint to clarify passages in the Masoretic text, where the Septuagint may preserve a variant reading of the Hebrew text. They also sometimes adopt variants that appear in other texts e.g. those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
A number of books which are part of the Greek Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew (Rabbinic) Bible are often referred to as deuterocanonical books by Roman Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e. deutero) canon. Most Protestants term these books as apocrypha. Evangelicals and those of the Modern Protestant traditions do not accept the deuterocanonical books as canonical, although Protestant Bibles included them in Apocrypha sections until around the 1820s. However, the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches include these books as part of their Old Testament.
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes the following books:
* Tobit
* Judith
* 1 Maccabees
* 2 Maccabees
* Wisdom of Solomon
* Ecclesiasticus
* Baruch
* Greek Additions to Esther
* Greek Additions to Daniel
In addition to those, the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes the following:
* 3 Maccabees
* 1 Esdras
* Prayer of Manasseh
* Psalm 151
Some other Orthodox Churches include a few others, typically:
* 2 Esdras
* Odes
* Psalms of Solomon
The Anglican Church uses the Apocryphal books liturgically, but not to establish doctrine. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Anglican Church include the Deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh.
There is also 4 Maccabees which is not accepted as canonical by any church, but was included by St. Jerome in an appendix to the Vulgate, and it therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.


New Testament
The Bible as used by the majority of Christians includes the Rabbinic Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament, which relates the life and teachings of Jesus, the letters of the Apostle Paul and other disciples to the early church and the Book of Revelation.

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books, of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse). Jesus is its central figure. The New Testament was written primarily in Koine Greek in the early Christian period, though a minority argue for Aramaic primacy. Nearly all Christians recognize the New Testament (as stated below) as canonical scripture. These books can be grouped into:
The Gospels
* Synoptic Gospels
o Gospel According to Matthew, Mt
o Gospel According to Mark, Mk
o Gospel According to Luke, Lk
* Gospel According to John, Jn
* Acts of the Apostles, Ac (continues Luke)
Pauline Epistles
* Epistle to the Romans, Ro
* First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1Co
* Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2Co
* Epistle to the Galatians, Ga
* Epistle to the Ephesians, Ep
* Epistle to the Philippians, Pp
* Epistle to the Colossians, Cl
* First Epistle to the Thessalonians, 1Th
* Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, 2Th
* Pastoral Epistles
o First Epistle to Timothy, 1Ti
o Second Epistle to Timothy, 2Ti
o Epistle to Titus, Tt
* Epistle to Philemon, Pm
* Epistle to the Hebrews, He
General Epistles, also called Jewish Epistles
* Epistle of James, Jm
* First Epistle of Peter, 1Pe
* Second Epistle of Peter, 2Pe
* First Epistle of John, 1Jn
* Second Epistle of John, 2Jn
* Third Epistle of John, 3Jn
* Epistle of Jude, Jd
* Revelation, or the Apocalypse Re
The order of these books varies according to Church tradition. The New Testament books are ordered differently in the Catholic/Protestant tradition, the Lutheran tradition, the Slavonic tradition, the Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition.
Original language
The books of the New Testament were likely written in Koine Greek, the language of the earliest extant manuscripts, even though some authors often included translations from Hebrew and Aramaic texts. Certainly the Pauline Epistles were written in Greek for Greek-speaking audiences. See Greek primacy. Some scholars believe that some books of the Greek New Testament (in particular, the Gospel of Matthew) are actually translations of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. Of these, a small number accept the Syriac Peshitta as representative of the original. See Aramaic primacy.

Historic editions
When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. See textual criticism. Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions and additions.
The autographs, the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the versions that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type (generally minimalist), the Byzantine text-type (generally maximalist), and the Western text-type (occasionally wild). Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts.
There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (including the Peshitta and the Diatessaron gospel harmony), in the Ethiopian language of Ge'ez, and in Latin (both the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate).
In 331, the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople. Athanasius (Apol. Const. 4) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans. Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists, and that Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus are examples of these Bibles. Together with the Peshitta, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles.[17]
The earliest surviving complete manuscript of the entire Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, a Latin Vulgate edition produced in eighth century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow.
The earliest printed edition of the Greek New Testament appeared in 1516 from the Froben press, by Desiderius Erasmus, who reconstructed its Greek text from several recent manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type. He occasionally added a Greek translation of the Latin Vulgate for parts that did not exist in the Greek manuscripts. He produced four later editions of this text. Erasmus was Roman Catholic, but his preference for the Byzantine Greek manuscripts rather than the Latin Vulgate led some church authorities to view him with suspicion.
The first printed edition with critical apparatus (noting variant readings among the manuscripts) was produced by the printer Robert Estienne of Paris in 1550. The Greek text of this edition and of those of Erasmus became known as the Textus Receptus (Latin for "received text"), a name given to it in the Elzevier edition of 1633, which termed it as the text nunc ab omnibus receptum ("now received by all").
The churches of the Protestant Reformation translated the Greek of the Textus Receptus to produce vernacular Bibles, such as the German Luther Bible and the English King James Bible.
The discovery of older manuscripts, which belong to the Alexandrian text-type, including the 4th century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, led scholars to revise their view about the original Greek text. Attempts to reconstruct the original text are called critical editions. Karl Lachmann based his critical edition of 1831 on manuscripts dating from the 4th century and earlier, to demonstrate that the Textus Receptus must be corrected according to these earlier texts.
Later critical editions incorporate ongoing scholarly research, including discoveries of Greek papyrus fragments from near Alexandria, Egypt, that date in some cases within a few decades of the original New Testament writings.[18] Today, most critical editions of the Greek New Testament, such as UBS4 and NA27, consider the Alexandrian text-type corrected by papyri, to be the Greek text that is closest to the original autographs. Their apparatus includes the result of votes among scholars, ranging from certain {A} to doubtful {E}, on which variants best preserve the original Greek text of the New Testament.
Most variants among the manuscripts are minor, such as alternate spelling, alternate word order, the presence or absence of an optional definite article ("the"), and so on. Occasionally, a major variant happens when a portion of a text was accidentally omitted (or perhaps even censored), or was added from a marginal gloss. Fortunately, major variants tend to be easier to correct. Examples of major variants are the endings of Mark, the Pericope Adulteræ, the Comma Johanneum, and the Western version of Acts.
Critical editions that rely primarily on the Alexandrian text-type inform nearly all modern translations (and revisions of older translations).
However for reasons of tradition, especially the doctrine of the inerrancy of the King James Bible, some modern scholars prefer to use the Textus Receptus for the Greek text, or use the Majority Text which is similar to it but is a critical edition that relies on earlier manuscripts of the Byzantine text-type. Among these scholars, some argue that the Byzantine tradition contains scribal additions, but these later interpolations preserve the orthodox interpretations of the biblical text—as part of the ongoing Christian experience—and in this sense are authoritative.

Christian theology
While individual books within the Christian Bible present narratives set in certain historical periods, most Christian denominations teach that the Bible itself has an overarching message.
There are among Christians wide differences of opinion as to how particular incidents as described in the Bible are to be interpreted and as to what meaning should be attached to various prophecies. However, Christians in general are in agreement as to the Bible's basic message. A general outline, as described by C. S. Lewis, is as follows:[19]
1. At some point in the past, humanity chose to depart from God's will and began to sin.
2. Because no one is free from sin, people cannot deal with God directly, so God revealed Himself in ways people could understand.
3. God called Abraham and his progeny to be the means for saving all of humanity.
4. To this end, He gave the Law to Moses.
5. The resulting nation of Israel went through cycles of sin and repentance, yet the prophets show an increasing understanding of the Law as a moral, not just a ceremonial, force.
6. Jesus brought a perfect understanding of the Mosaic Law, that of love and salvation.
7. By His death and resurrection, all who believe are saved and reconciled to God.
Many Christians, Muslims, and Jews regard the Bible as inspired by God yet written by a variety of imperfect men over thousands of years. Many others, who identify themselves as Bible-believing Christians, regard both the New and Old Testament as the undiluted Word of God, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans. Still others hold the Biblical infallibility perspective, that the Bible is free from error in spiritual but not scientific matters.
Belief in sacred texts is attested to in Jewish antiquity,[20][21] and this belief can also be seen in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention Divine agency in relation to prophetic writings,[22] the most explicit being 2 Tm 3:16: "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."
In their book A General Introduction to the Bible, Norman Geisler and William Nix wrote: "The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record."[23] Some biblical scholars[24][25][26] associate inspiration with only the original text; for example some American Protestants adhere to the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which asserted that inspiration applied only to the autographic text of Scripture.[27] Others, including some adherents to the King James Only view, attribute inerrancy to particular translations.

Canonization
The word "canon" etymologically means cane or reed. In early Christianity "canon" referred to a list of books approved for public reading. Books not on the list were referred to as "apocryphal" — meaning they were for private reading only. Under Latin usage from the fourth century on, canon came to stand for a closed and authoritative list in the sense of rule or norm.[28]

Hebrew Bible
The New Testament refers to the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures: the law, the prophets, and the writings. Luke 24:44 refers to the "law of Moses" (Pentateuch), the "prophets" which include certain historical books in addition to the books now called "prophets," and the psalms (the "writings" designated by its most prominent collection). The Hebrew Bible probably was canonized in these three stages: the law canonized before the Exile, the prophets by the time of the Syrian persecution of the Jews, and the writings shortly after AD 70 (the fall of Jerusalem). About that time, early Christian writings began being accepted by Christians as "scripture." These events, taken together, may have caused the Jews to close their "canon." They listed their own recognized Scriptures and also excluded both Christian and Jewish writings considered by them to be "apocryphal." In this canon the thirty-nine books found in the Old Testament of today's Christian Bibles were grouped together as twenty-two books, equaling the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This canon of Jewish scripture is attested to by Philo, Josephus, the New Testament (Luke 11:51, Luke 24:44), and the Talmud.[28]
The New Testament writers assumed the inspiration of the Old Testament, probably earliest stated in 2 Timothy 3:16 which may be rendered "All Scripture is inspired of God" or "Every God-inspired Scripture is profitable for teaching." Both translations consider inspiration as a fact.[28]

Old and New Testaments
The Old Testament canon entered into Christian use in the Greek Septuagint translations and original books, and their differing lists of texts. In addition to the Septuagint, Christianity subsequently added various writings that would become the New Testament. Somewhat different lists of accepted works continued to develop in antiquity. In the fourth century a series of synods produced a list of texts equal to the 39-to-46-book canon of the Old Testament and to the 27-book canon of the New Testament that would be subsequently used to today, most notably the Synod of Hippo in AD 393. Also c. 400, Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (see Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. With the benefit of hindsight it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon, although there are examples of other canonical lists in use after this time. A definitive list did not come from an Ecumenical Council until the Council of Trent (1545–63).[29]
During the Protestant Reformation, certain reformers proposed different canonical lists than what was currently in use. Though not without debate, see Antilegomena, the list of New Testament books would come to remain the same; however, the Old Testament texts present in the Septuagint, but not included in the Jewish canon, fell out of favor. In time they would come to be removed from most Protestant canons. Hence, in a Catholic context these texts are referred to as deuterocanonical books, whereas in a Protestant context they are referred to as Apocrypha, the label applied to all texts excluded from the biblical canon which were in the Septuagint. It should also be noted, that Catholics and Protestants both describe certain other books, such as the Acts of Peter, as apocryphal.
Thus, the Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon—the number varies from that of the books in the Tanakh (though not in content) because of a different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as part of the canonical Old Testament. The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is only synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, not the Catholic, which contains the Hebrew Scriptures and additional texts. Both Catholics and Protestants have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.
Ethiopian Orthodox canon
The Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is wider than for most other Christian groups. The Ethiopian Old Testament Canon includes the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, in addition to Enoch and Jubilees which are ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge'ez but are quoted in the New Testament, also First and 2 Esdras (the latter also known as the Apocalypse of Ezra), 3 books of Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter. The three books of Meqabyan are not be confused with the books of Maccabees. The order of the other books is somewhat different from other groups', as well.

Bible versions and translations
A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. This Bible was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery.
A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. This Bible was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery.
In scholarly writing, ancient translations are frequently referred to as "versions," with the term "translation" being reserved for medieval or modern translations.[citation needed] Bible versions are discussed below, while Bible translations can be found on a separate page.
The original texts of the Tanakh were in Hebrew, although some portions were in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version by itself, there are words which are traditionally read differently than written (sometimes one word is written and another is read), because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations.
The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX). In addition they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.
The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible.
Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 AD. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and in 1546 at the Council of Trent was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin rite.
Bible translations for many languages have been made through the various influences of Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestant, etc especially since the Protestant Reformation. The Bible has seen a notably large number of English language translations.
The work of Bible translation continues, including by Christian organisations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators (wycliffe.net), New Tribes Missions (ntm.org) and the Bible Societies (biblesociety.org). Of the world's 6,900 languages, 2,400 have some or all of the Bible, 1,600 (spoken by more than a billion people) have translation underway, and some 2,500 (spoken by 270 million people) are judged as needing translation to begin.[30]
Characteristics of early Bible texts
See also: Chapters and verses of the Bible
* The use of numbered chapters and verses was not introduced until the Middle Ages and later. The system used in English was developed by Stephanus (Robert Estienne of Paris) (as noted below)
* Early manuscripts of the letters of Paul and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever. [1] The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text.

Differences in Bible translations
As Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible, have idioms and concepts not easily translated, there is an on going critical tension about whether it is better to give a word for word translation or to give a translation that gives a parallel idiom in the target language. For instance, in the English language Catholic translation, the New American Bible, as well as the Protestant translations of the Christian Bible, translations like the King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the New American Standard Bible are seen as fairly literal translations (or "word for word"), whereas translations like the New International Version and New Living Translation attempt to give relevant parallel idioms. The Living Bible and The Message are two paraphrases of the Bible that try to convey the original meaning in contemporary language. The further away one gets from word to word translation, the text becomes easier to read while relying more on the theological, linguistic or cultural understanding of the translator, which one would not normally expect a lay reader to require.

Inclusive language
Traditionally, English masculine pronouns have been used interchangeably to refer to the male gender and to all people. For instance, "All men are mortal" is not intended to imply that males are mortal but females are immortal. English language readers and hearers have had to interpret masculine pronouns (and such words as "man" and "mankind") based on context. Further, both Hebrew and Greek, like some of the Latin-origin languages, use the male gender of nouns and pronouns to refer to groups that contain both sexes. This creates some difficulty in determining whether a noun or pronoun should be translated using terms that refer to men only, or generically to men and women inclusively. Context sometimes, but not always, helps determine whether to decode them in a gender-insensitive or gender-specific way.
Contemporary language has changed in many cases to reflect criticism of the use of the masculine gender, which has been characterized as discriminatory. Current style guides, such as APA, MLA, NCTE, and others, have published statements encouraging, and in some cases requiring, the use of inclusive language, which avoids language this approach regards as sexist or class-distinctive.
Until recently, virtually all English translations of the Bible have used masculine nouns and pronouns both specifically (to refer to males) and generically (when the reference is not necessarily gender-specific). Recent examples of translations which incorporate gender-inclusive language include the New Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, and Today's New International Version.
Comparison of Traditional vs Gender-Inclusive Translations of Rom. 12:6-8 Original New International Version Today's New International Version
We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Chapters and verses
The Hebrew Masoretic text contains verse endings as an important feature. According to the Talmudic tradition, the verse endings are of ancient origin. The Masoretic textual tradition also contains section endings called parashiyot, which are indicated by a space within a line (a "closed" section") or a new line beginning (an "open" section). The division of the text reflected in the parashiyot is usually thematic. The parashiyot are not numbered.
In early manuscripts (most importantly in Tiberian Masoretic manuscripts, such as the Aleppo codex) an "open" section may also be represented by a blank line, and a "closed" section by a new line that is slightly indented (the preceding line may also not be full). These latter conventions are no longer used in Torah scrolls and printed Hebrew Bibles. In this system the one rule differentiating "open" and "closed" sections is that "open" sections must always begin at the beginning of a new line, while "closed" sections never start at the beginning of a new line.
Another related feature of the Masoretic text is the division of the sedarim. This division is not thematic, but is almost entirely based upon the quantity of text.
The Byzantines also introduced a chapter division of sorts, called Kephalaia. It is not identical to the present chapters.
The current division of the Bible into chapters and the verse numbers within the chapters has no basis in any ancient textual tradition. Rather, they are medieval Christian inventions. They were later adopted by many Jews as well, as technical references within the Hebrew text. Such technical references became crucial to medieval rabbis in the historical context of forced debates with Christian clergy (who used the chapter and verse numbers), especially in late medieval Spain.[31] Chapter divisions were first used by Jews in a 1330 manuscript and for a printed edition in 1516. However, for the past generation, most Jewish editions of the complete Hebrew Bible have made a systematic effort to relegate chapter and verse numbers to the margins of the text.
The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has often elicited severe criticism from traditionalists and modern scholars alike. Critics charge that the text is often divided into chapters in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points, and that it encourages citing passages out of context, in effect turning the Bible into a kind of textual quarry for clerical citations. Nevertheless, the chapter divisions and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study.
Stephen Langton is reputed to have been the first to put the chapter divisions into a Vulgate edition of the Bible, in 1205. They were then inserted into Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the 1400s. Robert Estienne (Robert Stephanus) was the first to number the verses within each chapter, his verse numbers entering printed editions in 1551 (New Testament) and 1571 (Hebrew Bible).[32][33]

Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism refers to the investigation of the Bible as a text, and addresses questions such as authorship, dates of composition, and authorial intention.

Higher criticism
The traditional view of the Mosaic authorship of the Torah came under sporadic criticism from medieval scholars including Isaac ibn Yashush, Abraham ibn Ezra, Bonfils of Damascus and bishop Tostatus of Avila, who pointed to passages such as the description of the death of Moses in Deuteronomy as evidence that some portions, at least, could not have been written by Moses. In the 17th century Thomas Hobbes collected the current evidence and became the first scholar to conclude outright that Moses could not have written the bulk of the Torah. Shortly afterwards the philosopher Baruch Spinoza published a unified critical analysis, demonstrating that the problematic passages were not isolated cases that could be explained away one by one, but pervasive throughout the five books, concluding that it was "clearer than the sun at noon that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses…." Despite determined opposition from the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, the views of Hobbes and Spinoza gained increasing acceptance amongst scholars.

Documentary hypothesis
Scholars intrigued by the hypothesis that Moses had not written the Pentateuch considered other authors. Independent but nearly simultaneous proposals by H. B. Witter, Jean Astruc, and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn separated the Pentateuch into two original documentary components, both dating from after the time of Moses. Others hypothesized the presence of two additional sources. The four documents were given working titles: J (or Yahwist), E (Elohist), P (Priestly), and D (Deuteronomist), each was discernible by its own characteristic language, and each, when read in isolation, presented a unified, coherent narrative.
Subsequent scholars, notably Eduard Reuss, Karl Heinrich Graf and Wilhelm Vatke, turned their attention to the order in which the documents had been composed (which they deduced from internal clues) and placed them in the context of a theory of the development of ancient Israelite religion, suggesting that much of the Laws and the narrative of the Pentateuch were unknown to the Israelites in the time of Moses. These were synthesized by Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), who suggested a historical framework for the composition of the documents and their redaction (combination) into the final document known as the Pentateuch. This hypothesis was challenged by William Henry Green in his The Mosaic Origins of the Pentateuchal Codes (available online). Nonetheless, according to contemporary Torah scholar Richard Elliott Friedman, Wellhausen's model of the documentary hypothesis continues to dominate the field of biblical scholarship: "To this day, if you want to disagree, you disagree with Wellhausen. If you want to pose a new model, you compare its merits with those of Wellhausen's model."[34]
The documentary hypothesis is important in the field of biblical studies not only because it claims that the Torah was written by different people at different times—generally long after the events it describes—[35] but it also proposed what was at the time a radically new way of reading the Bible. Many proponents of the documentary hypothesis view the Bible more as a body of literature than a work of history, believing that the historical value of the text lies not in its account of the events that it describes, but in what critics can infer about the times in which the authors lived (as critics may read Hamlet to learn about seventeenth-century England, but will not read it to learn about seventh-century Denmark).

Modern developments
The critical analysis of authorship now encompasses every book of the Bible. Every book in turn has been hypothesized to bear traces of multiple authorship[citation needed], even the book of Obadiah[citation needed], which is only a single page. In some cases the traditional view on authorship has been overturned; in others, additional support, at least in part has been found.
The development of the hypothesis has not stopped with Wellhausen. Wellhausen's hypothesis, for example, proposed that the four documents were composed in the order J-E-D-P, with P, containing the bulk of the Jewish law, dating from the post-Exilic Second Temple period (i.e., after 515 BC);[36] but the contemporary view is that P is earlier than D, and that all four books date from the First Temple period (i.e., prior to 587 BC).[37] The documentary hypothesis has more recently been refined by later scholars such as Martin Noth (who in 1943 provided evidence that Deuteronomy plus the following six books make a unified history from the hand of a single editor), Harold Bloom, Frank Moore Cross and Richard Elliot Friedman.
The documentary hypothesis, at least in the four-document version advanced by Wellhausen, has been controversial since its formulation. The direction of this criticism is to question the existence of separate, identifiable documents, positing instead that the biblical text is made up of almost innumerable strands so interwoven as to be hardly untangleable—the J document, in particular, has been subjected to such intense dissection that it seems in danger of disappearing.
Although biblical archaeology has confirmed the existence of many people, places, and events mentioned in the Bible, many critical scholars have argued that the Bible be read not as an accurate historical document, but rather as a work of literature and theology that often draws on historical events—as well as upon non-Hebrew mythology—as primary source material(see The Bible and history). For these scholars, the Bible reveals much about the lives and times of its authors and compilers. The relevance of these ideas to contemporary religious life is left to clerics and adherents of contemporary religions to decide.

Theological responses
Judaism
The claim that the Torah—"the Five Books of Moses"—were not written by Moses, but by many authors long after Moses was said to have lived, directly challenged Jewish orthodoxy. For most, this claim implies that the Torah itself—especially its account of God's revelation at Mt. Sinai—is not historically reliable. Although many Orthodox scholars have rejected this "Higher Criticism", most Conservative and virtually all Reform Jewish scholars have accepted it. Consequently, there has been considerable debate among Jewish scholars as to the nature of revelation and the divine nature of the Torah. Conservative Jewish philosopher Elliot Dorff has categorized five distinct major Jewish positions in these debates within Conservative Judaism in the 20th century:[38]
* Orthodox (characterized by Eliezer Berkovitz and Norman Lamm): "Verbal Revelation: The Torah, including both the Written and Oral Traditions, consists of the exact words of God. He gave it all as one piece at Sinai."*
* Conservative I (characterized by Isaac Lesser, Alexander Kohut, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and David Novak): "Continuous Revelation:God dictated His will at Sinai and other times. It was written down by human beings, however, and hence the diverse traditions in the Bible."
* Conservative II (characterized by Ben Zion Bokser, Robert Gordis, Max Routtenberg and Emil Fackenheim): "Continuous Revelation: Human beings wrote the Torah, but they were divinely inspired."
* Conservative III (characterized by Louis Jacobs, Seymour Seigel, Jacob Agus, David Lieber and Elliot Dorff): "Continuous Revelation: The Torah is the human record of the concounter between God and the People Israel at Sinai. Since it was written by human beings, it contains some laws and ideas which we find repugnant today."
* Conservative IV/Reconstructionist (characterized by Mordecai Kaplan, Ira Eisenstein and Harold Schulweis): "No Revelation: Human beings wrote the Torah. No claim for divinity of the product."
In addition to the 5 categories described by Elliott, other positions have been adopted:
* Traditional Rabbi David Weiss HaLivni, the founder of the Union for Traditional Judaism, adapted a position he describes as chatu yisrael ("Israel sinned"), that God revealed the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai but it subsequently became corrupted and lost, and Ezra restored it by redacting it from multiple manuscripts reflecting disparate traditions. Under this view, the Torah is the best available record of the Divine will, has prophetic commendation, and is binding on the Jewish people, but is not necessarily entirely free of disparaties.[39]
* Reform (characterized by the Movement's 1937 Guiding Principles): "Progressive revelation: The Torah is God's will written by human beings. As time goes on, we get to understand his will better and better (="progressive revelation").
* Reconstructionist Reconstructionist Judaism generally adapts the textual critical approach in toto and regards the Torah as either inspired rather than revealed, or an entirely human product rather than the product of an external God.
Christianity
In 1943 Pope Pius XII's encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu gave the Vatican's imprimatur to textual criticism.

Archaeological and historical research
According to recent theories, linguistic as well as archaeological, the global structure of the texts in the Hebrew Bible were compiled during the reign of King Josiah in the 7th century BC. Even though the components are derived from more ancient writings, the final form of the books is believed to have been set somewhere between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD.
With regard to the Exodus and the 40-year sojourn in the desert, archaeological digs in possible Biblical locations have been unsuccessful so far. There is also no archaeological evidence of a conquest of the land and cities of Canaan of the kind recounted in the Book of Joshua.
However, after the split of the Kingdom of Israel in the second half of the 9th century BC, archaeological findings fit the Biblical chronology.

Nomadist theory
The ancestors of the Hebrews and the Jews are believed to be either nomads who have become sedentary, or people from the plains of Canaan, who fled to the highlands to escape the control of the cities. These positions are held by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman in The Bible Unearthed, by the American archaeologist William Dever in Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come from?, and by Jean-Marie Husser, professor at Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg, France.