What Is the Bible?

Let us suppose that I meet some man from another land and culture who has never heard of the English word, “Bible.” He curiously looks at me, not to down or to extol the book I love, but he simply asks sincerely, “What is the Bible?” What shall I answer him?

It is like describing a flower to a blind man who has never seen or even heard of it; it is like describing Mars without a telescope or pictures to a five year old; it is like teaching piano to a caveman. I love this book but how can I define that, which surpasses both my definition and devotion, to a stranger? How can I empower a visitor with such an appreciation for this book? I am not sure if I can, but I must try. If this hub helps you relate your understanding of a personal God, then my feeble effort in this simple treatise is worth the effort.

“What is the Bible?”seems so easy and so simple, but suppose I try to answer it, and what will my answer be? There are common­place things all around me that are just like that, and I get along rather well until they bobble before me demanding my answer. For example, I know what love is, but I am never able to define or describe in adequate words how I feel about my wife or children. It is most difficult.

What is the Bible? I will not be able to give an ample answer; I cannot. In fact, I am certain I never will answer it to the sat­isfaction of everybody. Having said that, I am not the least embarrassed to frame a response to help someone’s faith. I cannot identify love, I cannot tell you what it is, but I feel its tingle and embrace, its thrill and its ever­lasting, ever present, ever powerful tug at my heart. I am limited to describe life, I cannot tell you what it is, but abundantly I am experiencing its joys and sorrows. I see life; I feel life; I recognize its possibilities and pleasures and pursuits.

What is the Bible? It is just so with the Bible. There are so very many fine things I know about it that it is well worth my most prayerful con­sideration. So in my own way I want to give you a definition of the Bible.

What is the Bible? I start with a background or a framework to identify its definition. Know well that this definition is not given in a vacuum; I give it from the background of the believer. It is necessary for me to state this up front for the Bible makes such powerful claims in itself, that if I accept it as nonfiction (as every true believer does), then I must accept its power and influence.

What is the Bible called? For this section I quote from Smith’s Bible Dictionary.

Smith's Bible Dictionary “Bi’ble. “ “The Bible is the name given to the revelation of God to man contained in sixty-six books or pamphlets, bound together and forming one book and only one, for it has in reality one author and one purpose and plan, and is the development of one scheme of the redemption of man. I. ITS NAMES.—“

(1) The Bible , i.e. The Book , from the Greek "ta biblia," the books. The word is derived from a root designating the inner bark of the linden tree, on which the ancients wrote their books. It is the book as being superior to all other books. But the application of the word BIBLE to the collected books of the Old and New Testaments is not to be traced farther back than the fifth century of our era.

(2) The Scriptures , i.e. the writings, as recording what was spoken by God.

(3) The Oracles , i.e. the things spoken, because the Bible is what God spoke to man, and hence also called

(4) The Word.

(5) The Testaments or Covenants, because it is the testimony of God to man, the truths to which God bears witness; and is also the covenant or agreement of God with man for his salvation.

(6) The Law , to express that it contains God’s commands to men.

First. I say the Bible is the Word of God, and, as such, it really is, and it shall always be. I know many Bible critics will detest my introduction, but I can start no other place. God writes a book, and in that book He tells me who He is and what He is and what He has done and what He is doing and what He will do. He tells me His wonderful plans and purposes. He makes his story as a love letter and tells me I am the apple of His eye and the reason He is willing to offer His one and only begotten Son. This is all totally true. When I read the Bible, God tells me of His amazing grace, His incomparable wisdom, and unlimited love. He tells me I am made in His image. The image of God means he makes me to be a son of God.

The Bible tells me that He is “in the beginning.” Thereby, He informs me in this sacred book that He is the “first cause” of all things, and that he is the “first mover” of all that has motion. It appears that Jehovah God is speaking to his Son and also to the one we know as the Holy Spirit. When God says, “Let us make man.” Here, my definition of, “What is the Bible?” holds true. The Bible is the Word of God. The design of man requires a designer greater than man and the Bible introduces the Designer and Creator of all things to me. He makes all that is “both in heaven and on earth."

No other book explains it thus. I believe in science; I am a former science teacher; I know scientific methods. However, I can digest every quantum of the literatures of our day and the gaps of creation are still there. It takes light years of faith to believe that everything comes from nothing, and life is here because somewhere in the nature of nothing is something, and that this lifeless something has the ability to produce life. It is far more palatable to know the Bible is the Word of God!

"The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handiwork."

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In the second place I may answer the question, “What is the Bible?” by saying, “The Bible is the book God has written about man.”

I need to put my first two definitions together: The Bible is the Word of God where He introduces Himself to me; and It is the Word from God to let me know about myself.

He tells who I am and what I am; how I am made and where I come from. He tells me that I have always wanted to compare myself to Him and I repeatedly try to out do Him. He tells me that I have tried and failed in every test. This Bible tells me about man's body being formed from the earth, and about woman being formed from man. It reveals the founding of the institution of marriage. It speaks at length about the trial and fall of man. Then, from that fall forward, every hero (no matter how great), and every sinner fall short. For examples:

Abraham is extolled as the father of faith, and yet he is revealed as a liar;

David is a king among kings, but he is also an adulterer and murderer;

Simon Peter is the first head of the early church, and yet he cursed God;

Paul is the favored apostle of the Gentiles, but he was the most infamous persecutor of the church;

John is the apostle of love, and yet he prayed in wrath for fire to consume his enemies!

This list goes on and on like threads in a villain’s cloak. Paul sums it this way:

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

It is from the Bible I learn that I am the apple of his eye and yet destined to die.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death

This is the Word from God. The Bible is the love letter to me that tells me that I am not forsaken; that eternal loneliness is destroyed; that even in my failures I can stand before Him in purity, a purity made possible because of His love for me.

The Love Letter is so sweet; my beloved lays his life down for me; he sheds his blood that I might live with him forever!

John 3:16 "God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son. Anyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life.

I call upon you to bear in the deepest corner of your heart a love deeper than friendships, more intimate that sensuality, more relevant then family, more eternal than life itself. The Book reads of supreme love in its complete manifestation in Divine sacrifice. It speaks of blood letting not for vain selfishness but for a friend. Such love is only revealed in this Book we call the Bible. It is the message of unlimited, unconditional love given, lost and then regained; It is the throbbing heart of the universe. Also, accept this in understanding, there is not another book in the world that gives us such a complete diagram of hu­manity—body, soul and spirit—from the early dawn of the sixth day to the time that man must stand before his Creator in the judgment. —the only Book in the world—that reveals man, his sin, his struggles, his triumphs, and his final destiny.

And, furthermore, the Bible is the only book that sets forth, in letters of love and glory divine, the Savior and Redeemer of all those who love and will accept the truth. The soaring intellect with which God has en­dowed man enables him to reach out and up for things this world can never give, and can be satisfied only when robed with glorious immortality.

This is why I sing for joy!

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me....

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now, I see.”

I Introduce The Most Wonderful Character In Heaven Above Or On Earth Beneath—His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Finally. I have one more definition for the Bible. It is this: The Bible is the book that God has written to tell us about His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. I cannot answer every critic, and I cannot give faith to every doubter. If she could only come and see and touch Him, she would know this Book is God’s Word, for this Bible is all about Jesus. I cannot say too much about a book that God writes to tell me of Himself and a writing so personal and loving as to lift me from my fallings but the Bible is even more.

If the Bible did not tell us about our risen Lord, it would be like a heart annulled of love, or like our world without a sun, or like a rose without color or perfume, or like my family without "mother."

This Savior is so dominant through its pages, that John concludes that He and this “Word” are the same. It is He along whose love and sacrifice is so awesome that the villainous symbol of the cross becomes the victory sign for the Christian. This Bible is the only book that speaks with inspiration of how this Jesus changed a little skull-hill called Golgotha to more significance than Mount Everest. It is this very book that takes the executioner’s cross to lift Jesus up and use that most horrible act to draw all men to God. Such is the power of love as revealed in this greatest love narrative ever written.

"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

What is the sweetest story ever told to a lonely sinner such as I. It is the story of Jesus coming into the world to seek and to save the lost. Where is this introduction found? It is in this Book I call the Bible. This is what the Bible is.

He is the embodiment of grace and truth, divinity and humanity, mortality and immortality, corruption and incorruption, death and life. This precious book speaks of His birth, His life, His love, His mission, His Power, His mercy, and His willing­ness to forgive and restore all who come unto God by him. In it is the story of His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension to heaven, His intercession for us and His return to be with us. Yes, He is coming again and the Bible is the only book which comforts us with those words.

My dear Web 2.0 friends, I believe I have told you what the Bible is. In our age of science and technology and little gadgets which we all love and cannot imagine life without; in an age of politicians and economic unrest; in an age of wars and rumors of wars; in our time it is so easy to become side-tracked from things really important. It is so great to have something to anchor us, This is my Bible!

Psalms 119:105 Your Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.