THE BIBLE DEFINED

The other source of supernatural knowledge is the Bible. In the words of the Council of Trent, which enumerated the books of the Bible under their proper titles, the Church declares that she receives: “All the books of the Testaments, Old and New, since the one God is the Author of both.” The Vatican Council is more explicit: “The Church holds those books as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority, nor merely because they contain revelation without error, but because having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their Author.” 

The word “Bible” comes from the Greek biblion meaning “the book;” the plural is ta biblia, “the books.” In the Greek the word is a neuter, but later on the word biblia was taken for a feminine singular, “the book.” Taken in this sense, it refers to all the books of both Testaments. The Bible is the Book par excellence.