BIBLES & SCRIPTURES

The Apocalypse of Paul (Apocalipsis Pauli, more commonly known in the Latin tradition as the Visio Pauli or Visio sancti Pauli) is a fourth-century non-canonical apocalypse considered part of the New Testament apocrypha. The original Greek version of the Apocalypse is lost, although heavily redacted versions still exist. Using later versions and translations, the text has been reconstructed. The text is not to be confused with the gnostic Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, which is unlikely to be related.

The text which is pseudepigrapha, purports to present a detailed account of a vision of Heaven and Hell experienced by Paul the Apostle; “its chief importance lies in the way it helped to shape the beliefs of ordinary Christians concerning the afterlife”

Deuterocanonical books of the Bible are works recognized by the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy to be canonical parts of the Christian Old Testament but were not included in the Hebrew Bible. The word deuterocanonical is a Greek term that means ‘belonging to the second canon’. The literal meaning of the word is misleading, but it does highlight the reluctance with which these works were admitted into the canon by some.

The Douay–Rheims Bible, also known as the Rheims–Douai Bible or Douai Bible, is a translation of the Latin Vulgate, which is itself a translation from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Douay-Rheims was the first English translation of the Catholic Bible. Its purpose was to uphold Catholic tradition in counter to the Protestant Reformation, which dominated Elizabethan religion and academic debate. It was an effort by English Catholics to support the Counter-Reformation.

The Haggadah is a Jewish text that reveals the order of the Passover Seder. Reciting the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each Jew to “tell your son” of a story from the Book of Exodus about Israelites being delivered from slavery, involving an Exodus from Egypt through the hand of Yahweh in the Torah (“And thou shalt tell thy son in that time, saying: It is because of that which the LORD did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.” Ex. 13:8).

Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews likewise apply the term Haggadah to the service itself, as it makes up the act of “telling your son”.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) was a Syrian Christian theologian[1] and Neo platonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum.

The author pseudonymously identifies himself in the corpus as “Dionysios”, portraying himself as Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert of Paul the Apostle mentioned in Acts 17:34.This false attribution to the earliest decades of Christianity resulted in the work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both the East and the West.

The Dionysian writings and their mystical teaching were universally accepted throughout the East, amongst both Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians, and also had a powerful impact in later medieval western mysticism, most notably Meister Eckhart. Its influence decreased in the West with the fifteenth-century demonstration of its later dating, but in recent decades, interest has increased again in the Corpus Areopagiticum.

The Acts of Andrew (Acta Andreae), is the earliest testimony of the acts and miracles of the Apostle Andrew. The surviving version is alluded to in a 3rd-century work, the Coptic Manichaean Psalter, providing a terminus ante quem, according to its editors, M. R. James (1924)[1] and Jean-Marc Prieur in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (vol. 1, p. 246), but it shows several signs of a mid-2nd-century origin. Prieur stated that “The distinctive Christology of the text”, its silence concerning Jesus as a genuinely historical figure, and its lack of mention of church organisation, liturgy, and ecclesiastical rites, lead one to “militate for an early dating”. By the 4th century, they relegated the Acta Andreae to the New Testament apocrypha.

Acts of John, an apocryphal (non-canonical and unauthentic) Christian writing, composed about AD 180, purporting to be an account of the travels and miracles of St. John the Evangelist. Photius, the 9th-century patriarch of Constantinople, identified the author of the Acts of John as Leucius Charinus, otherwise unknown. The book reflects the heretical views of early Christian Docetists, who denied the reality of Christ’s physical body and attributed to it only the appearance of materiality. The Acts of John likewise has a hymn containing formulas to evade demons who, according to Gnostic teachings, could impede one’s journey to heaven. The book was condemned by the second Council of Nicaea, in AD 787, because of its subversion of orthodox Christian teachings.

Acts of Paul, one of the earliest of a series of pseudepigraphal (noncanonical) New Testament writings known collectively as the Apocryphal Acts. Probably written about AD 160–180, the Acts of Paul is an account of the Apostle Paul’s travels and teachings. It includes, among others, an episode reminiscent of the Greek fable of Androcles and the lion, in which Paul escapes from the wild beasts in the arena at Ephesus by recognizing a lion he had baptized earlier.

In these Acts, Peter performs many miracles–everything from making dogs and infants talk to the resurrection of both people and smoked fish. Rome is the primary setting. It is from these stories we have corroborating information about the tradition that Peter was crucified upside-down. Because the martyrdom was well-preserved in separate Greek, Coptic, and various other fragments, Peter’s martyrdom was part of ancient tradition long before the Acts of Peter were discovered.

2 Baruch is a Jewish pseudepigraphical text thought to have been composed in the late 1st century AD or early 2nd century AD, after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. It is associated to the biblical Baruch and then is associated with the Old Testament, but not regarded as scripture by Jews or by most Christian groups. It is consisted of in some editions of the Peshitta, and is part of the Bible in the Syriac Orthodox tradition. It has 87 parts (chapters).

2 Baruch is also acknowledged as the Apocalypse of Baruch or the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (used to distinguish it from the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch). The Apocalypse proper occupies the initial 77 chapters of the book. Chapters 78–87 are normally referred to as the Letter of Baruch to the Nine and a Half Tribes.

4 Ezra comprises seven visions of Ezra the scribe. The first vision takes place as Ezra is yet in Babylon. He seeks God how Israel can be kept in despair if God is just. The archangel Uriel is sent to deal with the question, answering that God’s plans cannot be understood by the mortal mind. Soon, however, the end would take place, and God’s justice would be made manifest. Similarly, in the second vision, Ezra asks why Israel was conveyed up to the Babylonians, and is again told that man cannot understand this and that the end is near. In the third vision, Ezra asks why Israel does not possess the world. Uriel responds that the current state is a period of transition. Here follows a description of the fate of evil-doers and the righteous. Ezra asks whether the righteous may intercede for the unrighteous on Judgment Day, but is told that “Judgment Day is final”.

The next three visions are more symbolic. The fourth is of a woman mourning for her only son. It transforms her into a city when she hears of the desolation of Zion. Uriel says that the woman is a symbol of Zion. The fifth vision concerns an eagle with three heads and twenty wings (twelve large wings and eight smaller wings “over against them”). The eagle is rebuked by a lion and then burned. The explanation of this vision is that the eagle refers to the fourth kingdom of the vision of Daniel, with the wings and heads as rulers. The ending scene is the triumph of the Messiah over the empire. The sixth vision is of a man, representing the Messiah, who breathes fire on a crowd that is attacking him. This man then turns to another peaceful multitude, which accepts him.

The Apocalypse of Peter is framed as a discourse of the Risen Christ to his faithful, offering a vision first of heaven, and then of hell, granted to Peter. Theorized as written in the form of a nekyia it goes into elaborate detail about the punishment in hell for each type of crime and the pleasures given in heaven for each virtue.

The Apocalypse of Thomas is a work from the New Testament apocrypha, apparently composed originally in Greek. It concerns the end of the world and appears to be a rendering of the Apocalypse of John, [citation needed] although written in a somewhat less enigmatic or mystical manner. It is the inspiration for the popular medieval millennial list Fifteen Signs before Doomsday.

The Syriac Infancy Gospel, also known as the Arabic Infancy Gospel, is a New Testament apocryphal writing concerning the infancy of Jesus. It may have been compiled as early as the sixth century, and was partly based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and Protevangelium of James. There are only two surviving manuscripts dating from 1299 AD and the 15th/16th century in Arabic. They were copied in the area of northern Iraq and show influence from the Quran.

Ascension of Isaiah, pseudepigrapha work surviving intact only in a 5th–7th-century-AD Ethiopic edition. Fragments exist in Greek, Coptic, Latin, and Old Slavonic. Three separate works comprise the total book, the final version by a Christian editor which appeared in the 2nd century AD. The first section is entitled “The Martyrdom of Isaiah,” a Midrash on the Manasseh story in II Kings 21, possibly written originally in Hebrew or Aramaic in the early 1st century AD. It includes a legendary martyr motif and extensive passages on demonology. The second is the “Testament of Hezekiah,” a Christian work, dating from the late 1st century AD, that contains a concept of Antichrist as a spirit dwelling in the Roman emperor Nero (AD 54–68), whose persecution of Christians in 64–65 was thought to be the chaos preceding the messianic age. The third work is called the “Ascension (or Vision) of Isaiah,” also written by a Christian at the beginning of the 2nd century. It contains a description of the seven tiers of heaven paralleling that found in the Second Book of Enoch and in the New Testament.

The Douay–Rheims Bible, also known as the Rheims–Douai Bible or Douai Bible, is a translation of the Latin Vulgate, which is itself a translation from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Douay-Rheims was the first English translation of the Catholic Bible. Its purpose was to uphold Catholic tradition in counter to the Protestant Reformation, which dominated Elizabethan religion and academic debate. It was an effort by English Catholics to support the Counter-Reformation.

The King James Bible (KJB) is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, commissioned in 1604 and completed and published in 1611 under the sponsorship of James VI. The original King James Version included all the books in the Septuagint, including 14 books of the Apocrypha, but changed to the 66 books, 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament, included today. They translated the New Testament from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin.

The Book of Enoch also known for 1 Enoch is an ancient Hebrew apocalyptic religious text, attributed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. Enoch contains rare material on the origins of demons and giants, why some angels fell from heaven, an answer of why the Genesis flood was potentially significant, and prophetic exposition of the thousand-year reign of the Messiah.

1 Enoch is a collection of several works, most of which are apocalyptic. Its oldest part is the “Apocalypse of Weeks,” written shortly before the Maccabean revolt of 167 BC against the Seleucids. Other parts, specifically those dealing with astronomical and cosmological believes, are complex to date. Because of its views on messianism, celibacy, and the fate of the soul after death, parts of I Enoch may have come from with or been influenced by the Essene community of Jews at Qumran. No fragments of the longest portion of the work (chapters 37–71), however, were found among the Qumran writings. This has led scholars to theorize that this part was perhaps written in the 2nd century AD by a Jewish Christian who wished to imbue his own eschatological speculations with the authority of Enoch, and added his work to four older apocryphal Enoch writings.

The Book of Jubilees, often called Lesser Genesis, is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters, considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), where it is recognized as the Book of Division. We consider jubilees one pseudepigraphon by Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It is likewise not acknowledged canonical within Judaism outside of Beta Israel.

The Book of Jubilees is a retelling of many biblical events and significant resource for those seeking more detail on biblical history and events. It was found in Ethiopia and is regarded by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as canon. The original author’s identity is shrouded in mystery, previously believed to be a Pharisee and a Jewish person from the biblical era. We will probably never truly know. What is undeniable is that R. H. Charles’ translation and accompanying notes are instructive, clear, and assist the modern reader in making sense of this piece of theological and literary treasure?

Charles sheds light on the extraordinary position of the Book of Jubilees as the first substantive response to the Book of Genesis, and religious beliefs of some Jewish population in the pre-Christian era. We can see both the familiar elements of the bible and the legal traditions and forms of observance of Judaism in forms that are never seen elsewhere or necessarily within the rest of Christian and modern Jewish practice and theory.

The Second Book of Enoch (abbreviated as 2 Enoch and also known as Slavonic Enoch, Slavic Enoch or Secrets of Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic text in the apocalyptic style. It represents the ascent of the patriarch Enoch, ancestor of Noah, through ten heavens of an Earth-centered cosmos.

The cosmology of 2 Enoch corresponds closely with early medieval beliefs about the metaphysical structure of the universe and may have been influential in shaping them. The text was lost for several centuries, then recovered and published at the end of the nineteenth century. The full text is extant only in Church Slavonic, but we have known Coptic fragments since 2009. The Church Slavonic itself represents a translation from an earlier Greek version.

Some scholars attribute 2 Enoch to an anonymous Jewish sect, while others regard it as the work of first-century Christians. Some consider it a later Christian work. It is not included in either the Jewish or the Christian canon.

2 Enoch is distinct from the Book of Enoch, known as 1 Enoch, and there is also an unrelated 3 Enoch. Scholars have applied the numbering of these texts to distinguish each from the others.

The Fourth Book of Maccabees has scanty historical information and belongs to the Maccabees series only because it deals with the beginning of the persecution of Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It was possibly written during the reign of the Roman emperor Caligula (37–41 CE). Throughout the early Christian period, they wrongly attributed IV Maccabees to Josephus.

The work’s main religious theme is that the martyr’s sufferings vicariously expiated the sins of the entire Jewish people.

The Christian church preserved the Maccabees books. St. Augustine wrote in The City of God that it preserved them for their accounts of the martyrs. This suggests that in antiquity, IV Maccabees, dealing almost only with martyrdom, may have been the most highly regarded.

Known as “the apostles” or “ones who were sent,” Bartholomew and the other disciples witnessed Jesus’ ministry for about three years. After Jesus’ death, they began the movement which became known as Christianity. This makes Bartholomew one of the most important and authoritative leaders of the ancient church, and he likely helped spread the gospel to particular regions during the first century—but he’s never explicitly mentioned or singled out in any of the epistles.

According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and patristic writings from as early as the 2nd century, Christ invaded Hades during the interval in which he lay dead in the tomb and “made a proclamation to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19), freeing the just who sat in exile awaiting their Redeemer. Hell, in this sense, is a waiting place for the righteous before the coming of Christ, and Christ’s descent into hell is understood to be a rescue mission. To support this teaching, Eastern Christian icons of the Resurrection depict Christ breaking the jaws of hell, entering triumph, and drawing Adam upwards by the wrist.

The Gospel of the Ebionites is the traditional name given by scholars to an apocryphal gospel extant only as seven brief passages in a heresiology known as the Panarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis; he misidentified it as the “Hebrew” gospel, believing it to be a truncated and changed version of the Gospel of Matthew. It embedded the quotations in a polemic to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of a Jewish Christian faction known as the Ebionites relative to Nicene orthodoxy.

The surviving fragments derive from a gospel harmony of the Synoptic Gospels, formed in Greek with numerous expansions and abridgments expressing the theology of the writer. Distinctive features include the absence of the virgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an Adoptionist Christology, in which it chooses Jesus to be God’s Son at the time of his Baptism; the abolition of the Jewish sacrifices by Jesus; and an advocacy of vegetarianism. It is believed to have been composed some time during the middle of the 2nd century in or around the region east of the Jordan River. Although the gospel was said to be used by “Ebionites” during the time of the early church, the identity of the group or groups that used it remains a matter of conjecture.

The Gospel of the Hebrews, or Gospel according to the Hebrews, was a syncretic Jewish–Christian gospel. They lose the text of the gospel with only splinters of it surviving as brief quotations by the early Church Fathers and in apocryphal writings. The fragments consist of traditions of Jesus’ pre-existence, incarnation, baptism, and probable temptation, along with some of his sayings. Distinctive features include a Christology characterized by the belief that the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ Divine Mother and a first resurrection appearance to James, the brother of Jesus, showing a high thought for James as the leader of the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem. It was probably composed in Greek in the first decades of the 2nd century and is believed to have been utilized presumably by Greek-speaking Jewish Christians in Egypt during that century.

The Gospel of James, short for Protoevangelium of James, is a 2nd-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the holy couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following.

This gospel has also been known as The Infancy Gospel of Matthew, but apparently its original title was “The Book about the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior.” Now it is called the Pseudo Gospel because scholars agree that its original author was not the evangelist known as Matthew. This text primarily repeats the earlier stories in the Infancy Gospel of James, which focused on the birth and dedication of Mary. To that is added the story of the flight to Egypt. Obviously, this gospel was very important to the Coptic [Egyptian] Church. It ends with repetition from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. One notable addition to the birth stories is the placement of the ox and donkey at the nativity. In Luke’s version, there were only shepherds with the possibility of sheep in attendance. Yet, in many modern nativity sets, an ox and donkey are included.

The first known quotation of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is from Irenaeus of Lyon around AD 180, who calls it spurious and apocryphal. Scholars agree on a date in the mid-to-late-2nd century AD. There are two 2nd-century documents, the Epistula Apostolorum and Irenaeus’ Adversus haereses, that refers to a story of Jesus’s tutor telling him, “Say alpha,” and Jesus replied, “First tell me what is beta, and I can tell you what alpha is.” At least some period of oral transmission of the source material is believed to have occurred, either wholly or as several stories before it was first transcribed and over time redacted. Thus, both documents and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas possibly all refer to the oral versions of this story. The area of origin for the work is unknown and many proposed locations of origin have been put forward.

The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (the “Most Holy Book”) was revealed by Bahá’u’lláh in response to repeated requests from his followers for laws to follow. In it, Bahá’u’lláh sets out laws in relation to such areas of life as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage. The work was written in Arabic under the Arabic title al-Kitabu l-Aqdas, but it commonly referred to by its Persian title, Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The word Aqdas is a superlative form derived from the interconsonantal root Q-D-Š, denoting holiness or sanctity in Semitic languages. It refers the Aqdas to as “the Mother-Book” of the Bahá’í teachings, and the “Charter of the future world civilization”. It is not, however, only a ‘book of laws’: much of the content deals with other matters, notably ethical exhortations and addresses to various individuals, groups, and places. The Aqdas also discusses the establishment of Bahá’í administrative institutions, Bahá’í religious practices, mysticism, laws of personal status, inheritance, criminal law, spiritual and ethical exhortations, social principles, miscellaneous laws and abrogations, and prophecies.

Koran acts as the basis of Islam and its teachings are pivotal in understanding Islam.

Based on the story, it can be concluded that the major themes of the Koran are God, prophets, main, divine, scriptures, and sin. God is merciful, forgiving, and is above all what is on earth and in heaven.

I am a catholic with an open point of view I found this book to be a beautiful and important book of peace, knowledge and truth, im glad I had the guts to read it and see try to understand a different way of life. It explains and relate them to the context of the times, and the differences in culture.

I have read the introduction several times and found it very helpful in understanding the origins of Islam and a little of why there is a discrepancy between those Muslims who speak of peace and toleration over against those who seek world domination on behalf of their understanding of Islam.

The Letter of Aristeas or Letter to Philocrates is a Hellenistic work of the 2nd century BC, given by Biblical scholars to the Pseudepigrapha.

Josephus, who paraphrases about two-fifths of the letter, attributes it to Aristeas and to have been written to a certain Philocrates, describing the Greek translation of the Hebrew Law by seventy-two interpreters sent into Egypt from Jerusalem at the request of the librarian of Alexandria, resulting in the Septuagint translation. Though some have argued that its story of the creation of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible is fictitious, it is the earliest text to mention the Library of Alexandria.

The Letter of Aristeas, called so because it was a letter addressed from Aristeas to his brother Philocrates, deals primarily with the reason the Greek translation of the Hebrew Law, also called the Septuagint, was created, and the people and processes involved. The letter’s author alleges to be a courtier of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (reigned 281-246 BC).

Over twenty Greek manuscript copies of the letter survive, dating from the 11th to the 15th century. The letter is also mentioned and quoted in other ancient texts, most notably in Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus (c. 93 AD), in Life of Moses by Philo of Alexandria (c. AD 15), and in an excerpt from Aristobulus of Paneas (c. 160 BC) preserved in Praeparatio Evangelica by Eusebius.

The first five chapters of this piece are a Jewish expansion of 2 Kings, revealing the martyrdom of Isaiah. Chapters 6-11 are a Christian work that describes Isaiah’s ascension through the seven heavens. This section is like the apocalyptic literature of Enoch in that Isaiah’s soul is ushered through different stages of heaven. Each section is a composite of discrete sources. This complicates the dating of the book. The Jewish section was likely written in Hebrew and transcribed into Greek. Hebrews 11 turns out to relate to the martyrdom of Isaiah (“some were sawn asunder”) or the same tradition that Isaiah the prophet was martyred by being sawn in half. This would signify a date preceding to the late first century.

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, a journal recounting her trial and imprisonment that was continued by a contemporary who described Perpetua’s death in the arena. Ancient and modern Christians have highly revered both her martyrdom and its account. Her text is one of the rare surviving documents written by a woman in the ancient world.

According to the Quran, Muhammad is the last in a chain of prophets sent by God (33:40). Throughout the Quran, Muhammad is referred to as “Messenger”, “Messenger of God”, and “Prophet”. The Quran disclaims any superhuman characteristics for Muhammad, but describes him in terms of positive human qualities.

The Secret Gospel of Mark is described as a second “more spiritual” version of the Gospel of Mark composed by the evangelist himself. The name derives from Smith’s translation of the phrase “mystikon euangelion”. However, Clement simply refers to the gospel as written by Mark.

The Sibylline Oracles (Latin: Oracula Sibyllina; sometimes called the pseudo-Sibylline Oracles) are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophets who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive, in an edition of the 6th or 7th century AD. They are not to be confused with the original Sibylline Books of the ancient Etruscans and Romans which were burned by order of Roman general Flavius Stilicho in the 4th century AD. Instead, the text is an “odd pastiche” of Hellenistic and Roman mythology interspersed with Jewish, Gnostic and early Christian legend.

The Sibylline Oracles are a valuable source for information about classical mythology and early first millennium Gnostic, Hellenistic Jewish and Christian beliefs. Some apocalyptic passages scattered throughout seem to foreshadow themes of the Book of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature. The oracles have undergone extensive editing, re-writing, and redaction as they came to be exploited in wider circles.

The Story of Ahiqar, also known as the Words of Ahikar, is a story first attested in Aramaic from the fifth century BCE that disseminated widely in the Middle and Near East. It has been characterised as “one of the earliest ‘international books’ of world literature”.

The primary cast is Ahiqar who was born in Kalhu/Nimrud, the ancient capital of Assyria.

In the story, Ahikar was chancellor to the Assyrian kings Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. Having no child of his own, he adopted his nephew Nadab/Nadin, and raised him to be his successor. Nadab/Nadin ungratefully plotted to have his elderly uncle murdered and persuades Esarhaddon that Ahikar has committed treason. Esarhaddon orders Ahikar be executed in response, and so Ahikar is arrested and imprisoned to await punishment. However, Ahikar reminds the executioner that the executioner had been saved by Ahikar from a similar fate under Sennacherib, and so the executioner kills a prisoner instead and pretends to Esarhaddon that it is the body of Ahikar.

This 1888 classic by LDS General Authority Elder George Reynolds is considered the first commentary on the Book of Mormon. It is also a retelling of its stories in a way accessible to everyone. The love he had for that book of scripture, and the inspiration he received from it and expressed within the pages of this book continues to inspire modern readers.

The World English Bible is an update of the American Standard Version of 1901. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 with the translation method being primarily a word-for-word equivalence to, and based on the 1901 American Standard Version, the Greek Majority Text, the Hebrew Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia with minor adjustments made because of alternative readings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint. The World English Bible project is a non-copyrighted modern English Bible version that does not use archaic English, like the King James Version, or is a simplified version like the Bible In Basic English.

It is invaluable to the believer and just an interesting read to an interested non-believer. In these times of religious violence perpetrated by a few radical persons, pointing to the Koran as their motive, their justification, their guide, and their belief, it is necessary that everyone familiarize him or herself with the Koran, and this book, giving three different translations makes the study even more interesting. Contrasting the verses dictated in the Medina period with those in the Mecca and knowing the conflicts and pressures being experienced by the narrator at each location gives greater meaning to the lessons. I wish the radicals would learn the history of their religion and their prophet, then develop. The world would be better for it.