The original Bible was written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). At that time, these languages were primary world languages, as English now is. The New Testament was written in every day (koiné) Greek and not in the traditional Greek of the scientists. The Bible should be accessible for all people, so they could understand the message in words that addressed them. Nowadays, it is easier to believe that the text of the Bible is no longer representative of its original. How can we understand this message if none of the original texts of the Bible are known to be in existence anymore? Is the Bible still reliable, although many translations have been made through decades? To answer these questions it is necessary to learn more about the history of the Bible and the way its different translations were brought about.
             The Bible refers to the primary sacred scriptures of either the Jewish or Christian religions. These scriptures are compilations of what were originally separate documents (called "books", the Greek word for "books" is biblia) written over a long period of time. They were later compiled to form first the Jewish Bible (Tanakh) and, with later additions, the Christian Bible. The Jewish Bible (Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) consists of the five books of Moses (the Torah or Pentateuch), a section called "Prophets" (Neviim), and a third section called "Writings" (also Ketuvim or Hagiographa). The term "Tanakh" is a Hebrew acronym formed from these three names. Though the Hebrew Bible was written predominantly in Hebrew, it has some small portions in Aramaic. The Christian Bible contains the entirety of the Tanakh translated with some modifications and re-ordered (there called the Old Testament), along with a set of later writings known as the New Testament. Roman Catholics and some Anglicans (but not most Protestants) also include some additional works from the Septuagint, an early (pre-Christian) translation of the O...