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138-617: Later in the 19th century, many people of African descent who found themselves in America due to slavery found solace in a passage of the bible speaking of Ethiopia which connected them to their lands and gave them hope of blacks being able to one day self govern. Their interpretations of the Biblical passage (Psalm 68:31): " Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth its hands unto God" (in the original Hebrew, actually כּוש Cush ) united them to one another and also to their homes and cultures. The term

276-923: A product of divine inspiration , but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning five books ) in Greek. The second-oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im ). The third collection (the Ketuvim ) contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. " Tanakh "

414-511: A Muslim background, most of which belonged to some form of Protestantism. Some experts predict the shift of Christianity's center from the European industrialized nations to Africa and Asia in modern times. Yale University historian Lamin Sanneh stated that "African Christianity was not just an exotic, curious phenomenon in an obscure part of the world, but that African Christianity might be

552-641: A combined linguistic and historiographical approach, Hendel and Joosten date the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 and the Samson story of Judges 16 and 1 Samuel) to having been composed in the premonarchial early Iron Age ( c.  1200 BCE ). The Dead Sea Scrolls , discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are

690-584: A growing number of native Moroccans (45,000) converting to Christianity, especially in the rural areas. Many of the converts are baptized secretly in Morocco's churches. Since 1960 a growing number of Moroccan Muslims are converting to Christianity. Before the independence in 1956; Tunisia was home to 255,000 Europeans , mostly Christians. The Christian community in Tunisia , composed of indigenous residents, Tunisians of Italian and French descent , and

828-470: A half) in sub-Saharan Africa. Protestant have grown to 35.9% of the whole population of the continent. Studies have suggested there are an estimated two hundred million evangelicals and charismatics in Africa. The three countries with more Protestant population are: Nigeria with 60 million (37.7% of the population), Kenya with 48 million (84% of the population), and South Africa with 24 million (47.7% of

966-674: A large group of native-born citizens of Berber and Arab descent, numbers 50,000 and is dispersed throughout the country. The Office for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the United States also noted the presence of thousands of Tunisians who converted to Christianity. Some scholars and media reports indicate that there been increasing numbers of conversions to Christianity among the Berbers . According to Thomas C. Oden , "Christians of northern Africa—of Coptic , Berber , Ethiopian, Arabic, and Moorish descent—are treasured as part of

1104-457: A lesser extent of Portuguese, French and Italian ancestry. The U.S. State Department estimates the number of Moroccan Christians as more than 40,000. Pew-Templeton estimates the number of Moroccan Christians at 20,000. Most Christians reside in the Casablanca , Tangier and Rabat urban areas. The majority of Christians in Morocco are foreigners, although some reports states that there is

1242-519: A local church. Jesuit missions functioned similarly in Mozambique and Angola until in 1759 the Society was overcome by Portuguese authority. The Jesuits went largely unchallenged by rival denominational missions in Africa. Other religious congregations did exist who sought to evangelize regions of the continent under Portuguese dominion, however, their influence was far less significant than that of

1380-550: A majority of the population, although scholarly estimates on this issue are tentative and vary between authors. Under the reign of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim (r. 96–1021), an exceptional persecution of Christians occurred, This included closing and demolishing churches and forced conversion to Islam, which brought about a wave of conversions. There are reports that the Roman Catholic faith persisted in

1518-850: A new branch and formed the Ethiopian Church, in South Africa, mainly because of dissatisfaction with racial segregation in the church and the lack of fellowship between black and white ministers. His preachings included the theme of "Africa for the Africans", which was later a pillar of the UNIA-ACL . A group of former Anglican and Methodist leaders gathered around Mokone, including Kanyane Napo, Samuel James Brander, James Mata Dwane and several others. Two relatives of Mokone, Kate and Charlotte Maneye were studying at Wilberforce College in America, and Kate wrote to Mokone to tell him about

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1656-407: A period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural, economic, and ecological – varied enormously. There are texts which reflect a nomadic existence, texts from people with an established monarchy and Temple cult, texts from exile, texts born out of fierce oppression by foreign rulers, courtly texts, texts from wandering charismatic preachers, texts from those who give themselves

1794-469: A place like Alexandria, Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize that the scribes in Alexandria – which was a major intellectual center in the ancient world – were particularly scrupulous, even in these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form of the text of the early Christian writings

1932-487: A result, the existence of Catholic missions diminished significantly in these regions. The bishopric of Marrakesh continued to exist until the late 16th century and was borne by the suffragans of Seville . Juan de Prado who had attempted to re-establish the mission was killed in 1631. A Franciscan monastery built in 1637 was destroyed in 1659 after the downfall of the Saadi dynasty . A small Franciscan chapel and monastery in

2070-583: A significant event, since this city was founded by Arab Muslims around 680 AD as their administrative center after their conquest. A letter in Catholic Church archives from the 14th century shows that there were still four bishoprics left in North Africa, admittedly a sharp decline from the over four hundred bishoprics in existence at the time of the Arab conquest. The Almohad Abd al-Mu'min forced

2208-467: A special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content". Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth"). Hebrew cantillation

2346-667: A title previously held by the archbishop of Carthage, on 19 December 1246 by Innocent IV. The bishopric of Marrakesh continued to exist until the late 16th century. The medieval Moroccan historian Ibn Abi Zar stated that the Almohad caliph Abu al-Ala Idris al-Ma'mun had built a church in Marrakech for the Christians to freely practice their faith at Fernando III 's insistence. Innocent IV asked emirs of Tunis, Ceuta and Bugia to permit Lope and Franciscian friars to look after

2484-603: A variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed , but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE). The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books: The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of

2622-604: A wider sense to include all African independent church denominations that had broken away from Western-initiated Protestant groups like the Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, as well as the Anglicans and Methodists. Sundkler therefore classified bodies like the African Congregational Church and Zulu Congregational Church as "Ethiopian", though they did not really participate in

2760-460: Is also known as the "Five Books of Moses " or the Pentateuch , meaning "five scroll-cases". Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself. Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility that Moses first assembled the separate sources. There are

2898-404: Is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally written in Hebrew , Aramaic , and Koine Greek . The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon . Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be

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3036-581: Is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible composed of the first letters of those three parts of the Hebrew scriptures: the Torah ("Teaching"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Tanakh, in Hebrew and Aramaic, that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism . The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of

3174-416: Is any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains that "Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS [manuscripts] attest to it." Hebrew scholar Emanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated. Medieval handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were considered extremely precise:

3312-604: Is defined by what we love". Natural law is in the Wisdom literature, the Prophets, Romans 1, Acts 17, and the book of Amos (Amos 1:3–2:5), where nations other than Israel are held accountable for their ethical decisions even though they don't know the Hebrew god. Political theorist Michael Walzer finds politics in the Hebrew Bible in covenant, law, and prophecy, which constitute an early form of almost democratic political ethics. Key elements in biblical criminal justice begin with

3450-729: Is embraced by the majority of the population in most Southern African, Southeast African , and Central African states and in large parts of the Horn of Africa and West Africa , while the Coptic Christians make up a significant minority in Egypt. According to a 2018 study by the Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary , more Christians live in Africa than any other continent, with Latin America second and Europe third . Christianity reached Africa first in Egypt around

3588-520: Is no surprise that different localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say, the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they were for the most part "in-house" documents, copied from one another; they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics, which were not the same as those found in

3726-669: Is not until the Babylonian Talmud ( c.  550 BCE ) that a listing of the contents of these three divisions of scripture are found. The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28) written in Biblical Aramaic , a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world. The Torah (תּוֹרָה)

3864-559: Is said to have done this due to his desire to become a bishop within this church, however he never did, and many of his original followers left when they realized they would be allying with the Anglican Church of the Province, a "white church". The Order of Ethiopia soon became composed predominantly of Xhosan people, and had little variety of followers unlike the Ethiopian Church from which they separated. Charlotte Maneye married

4002-554: Is taken from the masoretic text (called the Leningrad Codex ) which dates from 1008. The Hebrew Bible can therefore sometimes be referred to as the Masoretic Text. The Hebrew Bible is also known by the name Tanakh ( Hebrew : תנ"ך ‎). This reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings") by using the first letters of each word. It

4140-525: Is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books. The five relatively short books of Song of Songs , Book of Ruth , the Book of Lamentations , Ecclesiastes , and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot . These are

4278-528: Is thought to have occurred before 68 during Nero's reign. Early Christians transported these writings around the Empire, translating them into Old Syriac , Coptic , Ethiopic , and Latin , and other languages. Bart Ehrman explains how these multiple texts later became grouped by scholars into categories: during the early centuries of the church, Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it

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4416-708: The African Methodist Episcopal Church , which her sister Charlotte had joined. This led the Ethiopian Church to decide to join the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church) in 1896, and Rev. Mokone, James Mata Dwane, and J G Xaba went to the US to negotiate the union. They ended up signing the negotiation and successfully merged the two churches, this allowed South Africans of the parish to go to America to study. Over time Dwane, who had previously worked to build

4554-603: The Chalcedonian Schism ) in Egypt and the Orthodox Tewahedo Church survived Muslim invasion. Islamization of Muslim-ruled territory occurred progressively over the next few centuries, though this process is not fully understood by historians. Restrictions on church building and demolition of churches in Egypt, along with occasional persecutions such as during the reign of al-Hakim (996–1021), put additional pressure on Copts in Egypt . In

4692-642: The Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible, which contains both the Old and New Testaments . The English word Bible is derived from Koinē Greek : τὰ βιβλία , romanized:  ta biblia , meaning "the books" (singular βιβλίον , biblion ). The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of " scroll " and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos , "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from

4830-763: The Hebrew Bible : the Septuagint , the Masoretic Text , and the Samaritan Pentateuch (which contains only the first five books). They are related but do not share the same paths of development. The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and some related texts, into Koine Greek, and is believed to have been carried out by approximately seventy or seventy-two scribes and elders who were Hellenic Jews , begun in Alexandria in

4968-570: The Islamization of these regions, as well as the speed at which conversions happened, is a complex subject. Among other rules, the Muslim rulers imposed a special poll tax, the jizya , on non-Muslims, which acted as an economic pressure to convert alongside other social advantages converts could gain in Muslim society. The Catholic church gradually declined along with local Latin dialect. Historians have considered many theories to explain

5106-590: The Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the L ORD God" ( Yahweh ) and believers in foreign gods, and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers; in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , followed by

5244-618: The Mediterranean (fourth century to the founding of the Principate , 27  BCE ), the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and the extension of Roman rule to parts of Scotland (84 CE). The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand on papyrus scrolls. No originals have survived. The age of the original composition of the texts is therefore difficult to determine and heavily debated. Using

5382-664: The Middle Ages , the Ethiopian Empire was the only region of Africa to survive as a Christian state after the expansion of Islam. The Ethiopian church held its own distinct religious customs and a unique canon of the Bible . Therefore, the Ethiopian church community is globally unique in that it wasn't Christianised through European missionaries , but was highly independent and itself spread missionaries throughout

5520-651: The Mozarabs . They were recognised as forming the Moroccan Church by Pope Innocent IV . In June 1225, Honorius III issued the bull Vineae Domini custodes that permitted two friars of the Dominican Order named Dominic and Martin to establish a mission in Morocco and look after the affairs of Christians there. The bishop of Morocco Lope Fernandez de Ain was made the head of the Church of Africa ,

5658-541: The Muslim conquests , most of the early Muslim caliphs showed little interest in converting the local people to Islam . Christianity continued to exist after the Muslim conquests. Initially, Muslims remained a ruling minority within the conquered territories in the Middle East and North Africa. Overall, the non-Muslim population became a minority in these regions by the 8th century. The factors and processes that led to

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5796-566: The Nevi'im ("prophets"), was canonized in the third century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim ("writings"), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the second century BCE and the second century CE. These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew , with some parts in Aramaic , which together form the Hebrew Bible or "TaNaKh" (an abbreviation of "Torah", "Nevi'im", and "Ketuvim"). There are three major historical versions of

5934-473: The New Testament . With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. It has had a profound influence both on Western culture and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or is being translated into about half of

6072-502: The Old Testament - while it was condemned by European Christianity. Dona Beatriz was a woman from Central Africa known for her controversial views on the acceptance of polygamy – she argued that Jesus never condemned it – and she was burnt at the stake. European missionaries were faced with what they considered an issue in maintaining Victorian values, while still promoting the vernacular and literacy. Missionaries largely condemned

6210-406: The Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, these Christian communities and others began to flourish up and down the coast, as well as in Central and Southern Africa as new missionary activities from Europe started, (Christian evangelists were intimately involved in the colonial process in southern Africa). In the 21st century, they constitute the bulk of the booming Christian community on

6348-499: The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) began as early as 1548 in various regions of Africa. In 1561, Gonçalo da Silveira , a Portuguese missionary, managed to baptize Monomotapa, king of the Shona people in the territory of Zimbabwe. A modest sized group of Jesuits began to establish their presence in the area of Abyssinia, or Ethiopia Superior, around the same time of Silveira's presence in Southern Africa. Although Jesuits regularly confronted persecution and harassment, their mission withstood

6486-411: The UNO counted 45,000 Roman Catholics and 50,000 to 100,000 Protestants in Algeria . Conversions to Christianity have been most common in Kabylie , especially in the wilaya of Tizi Ouzou . In that wilaya, the proportion of Christians has been estimated to be between 1% and 5%. A 2015 study estimates 380,000 Muslims converted to Christianity in Algeria. Before the independence in 1956; Morocco

6624-411: 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 biblical 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

6762-461: The mellah of the city existed until the 18th century. The Orthodox Tewahedo split into the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church ) in 1993. The P'ent'ay churches are works of a Protestant reformation within Ethiopian Christianity . The growth of Catholicism in the region after the French conquest was built on European colonizers and settlers , and these immigrants and their descendants mostly left when

6900-403: The 17th century; its oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE. Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh. A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle. In

7038-431: The 1st century AD, and in the 21st century the majority of Africans are Christians. Several African Christians influenced the early development of Christianity and shaped its doctrines, including Tertullian , Perpetua , Felicity , Clement of Alexandria , Origen of Alexandria , Cyprian , Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo . In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of

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7176-456: The 809 million people in Africa. In 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI visited Africa, it was estimated at 158 million. Most belong to the Latin Church , but there are also millions of members of the Eastern Catholic Churches. In 2010, Pew estimated that there were around 300 million Protestants in Sub Saharan Africa. Other estimates range up to four hundred million. Protestantism is the largest Christian group in Africa, with 35.9% (more than

7314-416: The Africanization of Christianity and hence its growth in twentieth century Africa. As many as five million Africans are estimated to have died. European governments, churches and medicine were powerless against the plague, boosting anti-imperial sentiment. This contributed to growth of independent and prophetic Christian mass movements with prophecy, healings, and nationalist church restructuring. For example,

7452-463: The Bible "often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without explanation or apology". The Hebrew Bible contains assumptions about the nature of knowledge, belief, truth, interpretation, understanding and cognitive processes. Ethicist Michael V. Fox writes that the primary axiom of the book of Proverbs is that "the exercise of the human mind is the necessary and sufficient condition of right and successful behavior in all reaches of life". The Bible teaches

7590-471: The Bible has also been used to support abolitionism . Some have written that supersessionism begins in the book of Hebrews where others locate its beginnings in the culture of the fourth century Roman empire. The Bible has been used to support the death penalty , patriarchy , sexual intolerance , the violence of total war , and colonialism ; it has also been used to support charity , culture, healthcare and education . The term "Bible" can refer to

7728-406: The Bible that were not overtly condemned, such as polygamy . They also incorporated in their own practices relationships with objects and actions like dancing and chanting. When Africans were able to read in the vernacular , they were able to interpret the Bible in their own light. Polygamy was a topic of debate- many literate Africans interpreted it as acceptable because of information contained in

7866-624: The Bible. A number of biblical canons have since evolved. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church canon, and the 66-book canon of most Protestant denominations, to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon, among others. Judaism has long accepted a single authoritative text, whereas Christianity has never had an official version, instead having many different manuscript traditions. All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those that copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts. A variant

8004-589: The Blind , Ticonius , Cyprian , Athanasius and Cyril (along with rivals Valentinus , Plotinus , Arius and Donatus Magnus ) influenced the Christian world outside Africa with responses to Gnosticism , Arianism , Montanism , Marcionism , Pelagianism and Manichaeism , and the idea of the university (after the Library of Alexandria ), understanding of the Trinity , Vetus Latina translations, methods of exegesis and biblical interpretation, ecumenical councils , monasticism , Neoplatonism and African literary, dialectical and rhetorical traditions. After

8142-439: The Christian populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries CE suffered religious persecution , religious violence , and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers. Many were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of

8280-432: The Christians and Jews of Tunis to convert in 1159. Ibn Khaldun hinted at a native Christian community in 14th century in the villages of Nefzaoua , south-west of Tozeur . These paid the jizyah and had some people of Frankish descent among them. Berber Christians continued to live in Tunis and Nefzaoua in the south of Tunisia up until the early 15th century, and in the first quarter of the 15th century texts state that

8418-460: The Christians in those regions. He thanked the Caliph al-Sa'id for granting protection to the Christians and requested to allow them to create fortresses along the shores, but the Caliph rejected this request. Another phase of Christianity in Africa began with the arrival of Portuguese in the 15th century. After the end of Reconquista , the Christian Portuguese and Spanish captured many ports in North Africa. Missionary expeditions undertaken by

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8556-481: The Christians. The Jesuit's ascendency to prominence began with the padroado in the fifteenth century and continued until other European countries initiated missions of their own, threatening Portugal's status as sole patron of the continent. The favor of the Jesuits took a negative turn in the mid eighteenth century when Portugal no longer held the same dominion in Africa as it had in the fifteenth century. The Jesuits found themselves expelled from Mozambique and Angola, as

8694-413: The Ethiopian Church, found issues with the relations between the church and their new partners, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He disliked the paternal presence of the AME Church and began to found his own following known as the Order of Ethiopia. He led followers of the Ethiopian Church away into the new denomination with his teachings which would ally with the Anglican Church of the Province. Dwane

8832-433: The Ethiopian movement itself. The independent churches of the Congregational tradition formed a separate network from the Ethiopian one, with less contact between the networks. Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures which to a certain degree are held to be sacred in Christianity , Judaism , Samaritanism , Islam , the Baháʼí Faith , and other Abrahamic religions . The Bible

8970-442: The Former Prophets ( Nevi'im Rishonim נביאים ראשונים , the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets ( Nevi'im Aharonim נביאים אחרונים , the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets ). The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah , focusing on conflicts between

9108-401: The Galilean cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, and in Babylonia (modern Iraq). Those living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee ( c.  750 –950), made scribal copies of the Hebrew Bible texts without a standard text, such as the Babylonian tradition had, to work from. The canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (called Tiberian Hebrew) that they developed, and many of

9246-404: The Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ( tà biblía tà hágia , "the holy books"). Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra "holy book". It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun ( biblia , gen. bibliae ) in medieval Latin, and so

9384-429: The Hebrew Bible was produced. During the rise of Christianity in the first century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians eventually called these new scriptures the "New Testament" and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament". The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. Most early Christian copyists were not trained scribes. Many copies of

9522-489: The Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid in reading. By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs. Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others. Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script and updating archaic forms while also making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care. Considered to be scriptures ( sacred , authoritative religious texts),

9660-405: The Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to Christianity , and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs . From the Muslim conquest of Egypt onwards, the Coptic Christians were persecuted by different Muslim regimes. Islamization was likely slower in Egypt than in other Muslim-controlled regions. Up until the Fatimid period (10th to 12th centuries), Christians likely still constituted

9798-415: The Revd Marshall Maxeke, and they did missionary work for the AME Church in South Africa, and in 1908 they founded the Wilberforce Institute in the Transvaal, modelled on her American alma mater. Many of the original Ethiopianist leaders, however, became dissatisfied with the AME Church, and found Black American domination of the church leadership as irksome as White British domination. They felt that there

9936-541: The Tanakh from the third and second centuries BC; it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible. Christianity began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism , using the Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament . The early Church continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospels , Pauline epistles , and other texts quickly coalesced into

10074-524: The Ugandan state with the help of other prophets. According to Paul Kollman, teaching from missionaries was up to the interpretation of each person and took different forms when acted upon. David Adamo, a Nigerian within the Aladura church chose portions of the Bible that closely resembled what his church found important. They read portions of Psalms because of the idea that missionaries were not sharing

10212-588: The West. Much of the recent Christian growth in Africa is now due to indigenous African missionary work and evangelism and high birth rates, rather than European missionaries. Christianity in Africa shows tremendous variety, from the ancient forms of Oriental Orthodox Christianity in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea to the newest African-Christian denominations of Nigeria , a country that has experienced large conversion to Christianity in recent times. Several syncretistic and messianic sections have formed throughout much of

10350-536: The airs of sophisticated Hellenistic writers. It is a time-span which encompasses the compositions of Homer , Plato , Aristotle , Thucydides , Sophocles , Caesar , Cicero , and Catullus . It is a period which sees the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire (twelfth to seventh century) and of the Persian empire (sixth to fourth century), Alexander 's campaigns (336–326), the rise of Rome and its domination of

10488-426: The aural dimension" of the texts. Current indications are that writing and orality were not separate so much as ancient writing was learned in a context of communal oral performance. The Bible was written and compiled by many people , who many scholars say are mostly unknown, from a variety of disparate cultures and backgrounds. British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote: [T]he biblical texts were produced over

10626-556: The beginning of the 3rd century the church in Alexandria expanded rapidly, with five new suffragan bishoprics . At this time, the Bishop of Alexandria began to be called Pope, as the senior bishop in Egypt. In the middle of the 3rd century the church in Egypt suffered severely in the persecution under the Emperor Decius . Many Christians fled from the towns into the desert. When the persecution died down, however, some remained in

10764-505: The belief in God as the source of justice and the judge of all, including those administering justice on earth. Carmy and Schatz say the Bible "depicts the character of God, presents an account of creation, posits a metaphysics of divine providence and divine intervention, suggests a basis for morality, discusses many features of human nature, and frequently poses the notorious conundrum of how God can allow evil." The authoritative Hebrew Bible

10902-568: The books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most current printed editions. The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud ( Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. Christianity in Africa Christianity in Africa arrived in Africa in

11040-421: The books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures). The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon by the fifth century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called

11178-470: 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. He leads 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

11316-594: The conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem . The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land , and end with the release from imprisonment of

11454-485: The continent's population, with Muslims forming 42%. As of 2023, there are an estimated 718 million Christians from all denominations in Africa, and the majority of Africans are Christian. According to a 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public life study, 147 million African Christians were "renewalists" ( Pentecostals and Charismatics ). According to David Barrett, most of the 552,000 congregations in 11,500 denominations throughout Africa in 1995 are completely unknown in

11592-694: The continent, including the Nazareth Baptist Church in South Africa and the Aladura churches in Nigeria. Some evangelical missions founded in Africa such as the UD-OLGC, founded by Evangelist Dag Heward-Mills , are also quickly spreading in influence all around the world. There are also fairly widespread populations of Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses . A 2015 study estimated 2.1 million Christians in Africa to be from

11730-445: The continent. As of 2024, there are an estimated 734 million Christians from all denominations in Africa, up from about 10 million in 1900. In a relatively short time, Africa has gone from having a majority of followers of indigenous, traditional religions, to being predominantly a continent of Christians and Muslims , even though there is a significant and sustained syncretism with traditional beliefs and practices. Christianity

11868-757: The controversial African views and worked against leaders branching out. Simon Kimbangu became a martyr , put in a cage because of Western missionaries concern, and died there. Within African communities, there were clashes brought on by Christianization. As a religion meant to "colonize the conscience and consciousness of the colonized" Christianity caused disputes even amongst hereditary leaders, such as between Khama III and his father Sekgoma in nineteenth-century Botswana. Young leaders formed ideas based on Christianity and challenged elders. Dona Beatriz, an African prophet, made Christianity political and eventually went on to become an African Nationalist, planning to overthrow

12006-729: The countries of the region became independent. As of the last census in Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were 1,050,000 non-Muslim civilians (mostly Catholic ) in Algeria (10 percent of the total population including 140,000 Algerian Jews ). Under French rule , the Catholic population of Algeria peaked at over one million. Due to the exodus of the pieds-noirs in the 1960s, more North African Christians of Berber or Arab descent now live in France than in Greater Maghreb. In 2009,

12144-552: The decline of Christianity in North Africa, proposing diverse factors such as the recurring internal wars and external invasions in the region during late antiquity , Christian fears of persecution by the invaders, schisms and a lack of leadership within the Christian church in Africa, political pragmatism among the inhabitants under the new regime, and a possible lack of differentiation between early Islamic and local Christian theologies that may have made it easier for laymen to accept

12282-643: The desert as hermits to pray. This was the beginning of Christian monasticism , which over the following years spread from Africa to other parts of the Gohar, and Europe through France and Ireland . The early 4th century in Egypt began with renewed persecution under the Emperor Diocletian . In the Ethiopian / Eritrean Kingdom of Aksum , King Ezana declared Christianity the official religion after having been converted by Frumentius , resulting in

12420-603: The early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate . Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon. The Council of Trent (1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation , authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of

12558-466: The end of the Talmudic period ( c.  300 – c.  500 CE ), but the actual date is difficult to determine. In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora (from which we derive the term "masoretic"). These early Masoretic scholars were based primarily in

12696-535: The first century BCE. Fragments of the Septuagint were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; portions of its text are also found on existing papyrus from Egypt dating to the second and first centuries BCE and to the first century CE. The Masoretes began developing what would become the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism near

12834-656: The first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, followed by the Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia , Makuria and Alodia and several Christian Berber kingdoms. The Islamic conquests into North Africa brought pressure on Christians to convert to Islam due to special taxation imposed on non-Muslims and other socio-economic pressures under Muslim rule, although Christians were widely allowed to continue practicing their religion . The Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (which separated from each other during

12972-787: The founder of the Ahmadiyya sect, believed that Muhammed was the most important prophet, but not the last- departing from typical Muslim views. Sunni Africans were largely against the Ahmadiyyas; the Ahmadiyyas were the first to translate the Quran into Swahili, and the Sunnis opposed that as well. There was a militarism developed in different groups and movements like the Ahmadiyyas and the Mahdist movement and clashes between groups with opposing views. The influenza pandemic of 1918 accelerated

13110-547: The gospels and Paul's letters were made by individual Christians over a relatively short period of time very soon after the originals were written. There is evidence in the Synoptic Gospels, in the writings of the early church fathers , from Marcion , and in the Didache that Christian documents were in circulation before the end of the first century. Paul's letters were circulated during his lifetime, and his death

13248-510: The history of Africa before European colonization and taught Afro-Atlantic teachings, meaning they brought together the religious ideas of both the Europeans and the Africans. There was no sharp boundary to the movement, but it shaded off into other groups. Features of the Ethiopian movement included: Wider meaning of Ethiopian The description above is of the Ethiopian movement itself, but writers like Bengt Sundkler used Ethiopian in

13386-625: The inception of the Aladura movement in Nigeria coincided with the pandemic. Evolving into the Christ Apostolic Church, it gave rise to many offshoots, which continued to emerge into the 1950s spreading with migrants around the world. For example, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, founded in 1952, has congregations in a dozen African states, Western Europe and North America. Christian missionaries were compelled to spread an understanding of their gospel in

13524-477: The indigenous Christians of Tunis , which would have not been possible had there been an absence of contact with Rome. Local Christians came under pressure when the Muslim regimes of the Almohads and Almoravids came into power, and the record shows demands made that the local Christians of Tunis convert to Islam. There are reports of Christian inhabitants and a bishop in the city of Kairouan around 1150 AD -

13662-731: The last king of Judah . Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover: The Latter Prophets are Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets , counted as a single book. Ketuvim (in Biblical Hebrew : כְּתוּבִים , romanized:  Kəṯūḇīm "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy . In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in

13800-467: The late third century BCE and completed by 132 BCE. Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus , King of Egypt, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora. Existing complete copies of the Septuagint date from the third to the fifth centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the second century BCE. Revision of its text began as far back as

13938-526: The latest books collected and designated as authoritative in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the second century CE. The books of Esther , Daniel , Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares. They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons. The following list presents

14076-452: The most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts. Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts still contain some variants. The majority of all variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional. In the Hebrew text, "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include

14214-463: The name of the Phoenician seaport Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books". The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew , delivered between 386 and 388 CE) to use

14352-480: The native Christians of Tunis, though much assimilated, extended their church, perhaps because the last Christians from all over the Maghreb had gathered there. However, they were not in communion with the Catholic Church. The community of Tunisian Christians existed in the town of Tozeur up to the 18th century. Another group of Christians who came to North Africa after being deported from Islamic Spain were called

14490-490: The native language of the indigenous people they sought to convert. The Bible was then translated and communicated in these native languages. Christian schools did teach English, as well as mathematics, philosophy, and values inherent to Western culture and civilization. The conflicting branches of secularism and religiosity within the Christian schools represents a divergence between the various goals of educational institutions within Africa. There has been tremendous growth in

14628-525: The nature of authority and the sharing of power, animals, trees and nature, money and economics, work, relationships, sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others. Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: "The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, [as well as] axiological and aesthetic assumptions about

14766-443: The nature of valid arguments, the nature and power of language, and its relation to reality. According to Mittleman, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character. In the biblical metaphysic, humans have free will, but it is a relative and restricted freedom. Beach says that Christian voluntarism points to the will as the core of the self, and that within human nature, "the core of who we are

14904-404: The nature of value and beauty. These are all implicit in the texts." However, discerning the themes of some biblical texts can be problematic. Much of the Bible is in narrative form and in general, biblical narrative refrains from any kind of direct instruction, and in some texts the author's intent is not easy to decipher. It is left to the reader to determine good and bad, right and wrong, and

15042-527: The new religion. Some Christians, especially those with financial means, also left for Europe. In the lands west of Egypt, the Church at that time lacked the backbone of a monastic tradition and was still suffering from the aftermath of heresies including the so-called Donatist heresy, and one theory proposes this as a factor that contributed to the early obliteration of the Church in the present day Maghreb. Proponents of this theory compare this situation with

15180-586: The notes they made, therefore differed from the Babylonian. These differences were resolved into a standard text called the Masoretic text in the ninth century. The oldest complete copy still in existence is the Leningrad Codex dating to c. 1000 CE. The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah maintained by the Samaritan community since antiquity, which was rediscovered by European scholars in

15318-436: The number of Christians in Africa - coupled by a relative decline in adherence to traditional African religions. In 1900, there were only nine million Christians in Africa, but by the year 2000, there were an estimated 380 million Christians. In 2020, there were nearly 658 million Christians in Africa, with 760 million expected by 2025, surpassing earlier estimates of 630 to 700 million for 2025. In 2020, Christians formed 49% of

15456-407: The oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length that are not fragments. The earliest manuscripts were probably written in paleo-Hebrew , a kind of cuneiform pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period. The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE. From the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls,

15594-427: The path to understanding and practice is rarely straightforward. God is sometimes portrayed as having a role in the plot, but more often there is little about God's reaction to events, and no mention at all of approval or disapproval of what the characters have done or failed to do. The writer makes no comment, and the reader is left to infer what they will. Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Schatz explain that

15732-405: The period 1900–1920 many different Ethiopian denominations were formed, which were heirs of the Ethiopian tradition. Ethiopianism was not really an ideology, a theological school, or a political program. It was rather a cluster of ideas and traditions about being Christian in Africa that were shared by a group of Christian leaders in the period from 1890–1920. These ideas and traditions focused on

15870-432: The population), these three countries add up to around 121 million Protestants. There are an estimated 60 million Anglicans and 23 million Lutherans in Africa. There are also approximately 10 million Baptists and another 25 million Methodists on the continent. Presbyterians in Africa are estimated to number more than twenty million. Lutheranism in Africa represent 24.13 million people. With over 20 denominations in

16008-482: The power of their faith. They found power in reading these verses and put them into the context of their lives. In addition to Africanizing Christianity, there were movements to Africanize Islam. In Nigeria , movements were created to arouse Muslims to de-Arabize Islam. There were clashes between people who accepted the de-Arabization and those who did not. These movements took place around 1980, resulting in violent behavior and clashes with police. Mirza Ghulam Ahmed ,

16146-802: The promotion of Christianity in Ethiopia (eventually leading to the foundation of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ). At the beginning of the fifth century, no other region of the Roman Empire had as many bishoprics as Northern Africa; when the Vandal king summoned a synod in Carthage, 460 Catholic bishops attended. In these first few centuries, African Christian leaders such as Origen , Lactantius , Augustine , Tertullian , Marius Victorinus , Pachomius , Didymus

16284-607: The region from Tripolitania (present-day western Libya ) to present-day Morocco for several centuries after the completion of the Arab conquest by 700. A Christian community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in central Algeria . There is also evidence of religious pilgrimages after 850 to tombs of Catholic saints outside the city of Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts with Christians of Muslim Spain. In addition, calendar reforms adopted in Europe at this time were disseminated amongst

16422-629: The rest of Africa prior to the contact of European Christians with the continent. In the late 15th century, Portuguese traders and missionaries began arriving in West Africa , first in Guinea , Mauritania , the Gambia , Ghana , and Sierra Leone , then Nigeria and later in the Kingdom of Kongo , where they would find success in converting prominent local leaders to Catholicism . During and after

16560-419: The seventh century, the first codex form of the Hebrew Bible was produced. The codex is the forerunner of the modern book. Popularized by early Christians, it was made by folding a single sheet of papyrus in half, forming "pages". Assembling multiples of these folded pages together created a "book" that was more easily accessible and more portable than scrolls. In 1488, the first complete printed press version of

16698-638: The shape of things to come." The statistics from the World Christian Encyclopedia (David Barrett) illustrate the emerging trend of dramatic Christian growth on the continent and supposes, that in 2025 there will be 633 million Christians in Africa. Megachurches (defined as churches with weekend attendances of at least 2,000 ) are found in many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania , Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. They are mostly of Pentecostal denominations. The largest church auditorium, Glory Dome,

16836-526: The sixth century within the kingdoms of Nobatia , Makuria and Alodia were linked to those of Egypt . Christianity also grew in northwestern Africa (today known as the Maghreb ), reaching the region around Carthage by the end of the 2nd century. The churches there were linked to the Church of Rome and provided Pope Gelasius I , Pope Miltiades and Pope Victor I , all of them Christian Berbers like Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica . At

16974-650: The strong monastic tradition in Egypt and Syria, where Christianity remained more vigorous. In addition, the Romans and the Byzantines were unable to completely assimilate the indigenous people like the Berbers. Some historians remark how the Umayyad Caliphate persecuted many Berber Christians in the 7th and 8th centuries CE, who slowly converted to Islam. Other modern historians further recognize that

17112-535: The substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional. Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons. Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words

17250-405: The test of time for nearly a century. Despite this confrontation, they found success in instituting Catholic doctrine in a region that, prior to the existence of their vocation, maintained strictly established orthodoxies. During the sixteenth century, Jesuits extended their mission into the old Kongo Kingdom , developing upon a preexisting Catholic mission which had culminated in the construction of

17388-576: The whole multicultural matrix of African Christianity". Within different geographical areas, Africans searched for aspects of Christianity that could more closely resemble their religious and personal practices. Adaptations of Protestantism, such as the Kimbanguist church emerged. Within the Kimbanguist church, Simon Kimbangu questioned the order of religious deliverance- would God send a white man to preach? The Kimbanguist church believed Jesus

17526-432: The word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. The Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of books whose complex development is not completely understood. The oldest books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars of the twenty-first century are only in the beginning stages of exploring "the interface between writing, performance, memorization, and

17664-408: The world's languages. Some view biblical texts to be morally problematic, historically inaccurate, or corrupted, although others find it a useful historical source for certain people and events or a source of moral and ethical teachings. The Bible neither calls for nor condemns slavery outright, but there are verses that address dealing with it, and these verses have been used to support it, although

17802-594: The year 50 AD. Mark the Evangelist became the first bishop of the Alexandrian Patriarchate in about the year 43. At first the church in Alexandria was mainly Greek -speaking. By the end of the 2nd century the scriptures and liturgy had been translated into three local languages. Christianity in Sudan also spread in the early 1st century, and the Nubian churches, which were established in

17940-444: Was black and regarded symbols with different weight than the Catholic and Protestant Europeans. The common practice of placing crosses and crucifixes in churches was viewed as a graven image in their eyes or a form of idolatry. Also, according to Mazrui, Kimbanguists respected the roles of women in church more than orthodox churches; they gave women the roles of priests and preachers. Members within these churches looked for practices in

18078-788: Was composed of Anglicans who were dissatisfied with race-based control of the Anglican Church. Kanyane Napo's Church was established in Marabastad, Pretoria and was the first intertribal church formed and led by Africans in South Africa. Napo created the African Church to prove that there could be an entirely African church built without the help of the missionary, and kept the liturgical style of worship and doctrines found in Anglican churches. In 1892, former first head of African ministers in Pretoria, Mangena Maake Mokone, decided to form

18216-673: Was home to half a million Europeans , mostly Christians. The numbers of the Catholics in French Morocco reached about 360,000 or about 4.1% of the population. In 1950, Catholics in Spanish protectorate in Morocco and Tangier constitute 14.5% of the population, and the Spanish Morocco was home to 113,000 Catholic settlers. Catholics in Spanish protectorate in Morocco and Tangier were mostly of Spanish descent, and to

18354-478: Was inaugurated in 2018 with 100,000 seats, in Abuja , Nigeria . Pew projected that 53% of Africa's population would be Christian in 2020. Estimates of Christians on the continent range up to eight hundred million. Catholic Church membership rose from 2 million in 1900 to 140 million in 2000. In 2005, the Catholic Church in Africa, including Eastern Catholic Churches , was followed by approximately 135 million of

18492-560: Was later given a much wider interpretation by Bengt Sundkler , whose book Bantu Prophets in South Africa was the first comprehensive study of African Independent Churches (AICs). Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Psalm 68 :31 In 1888, an evangelist, Joseph Mathunye Kanyane Napo, seceded from the Anglican Church to form the Africa Church or African Church, which

18630-700: Was little difference between the black American domination and that of missionary churches where African churchgoers had little to no say in the congregation, which was the entire reason for forming new branches of churches in the first place. In 1904 Samuel James Brander formed the Ethiopian Catholic Church in Zion, which combined the Anglican and Methodist strands of the Ethiopian tradition. It initially included Kanyane Napo and Daniel William Alexander among its leaders, but both of them appear to have later broken away to revive Napo's African Church. During

18768-686: Was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The fourth edition of the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text. The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women, sex, children, marriage, neighbours, friends,

18906-594: Was preserved, decade after decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes. These differing histories produced what modern scholars refer to as recognizable "text types". The four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian , Western , Caesarean , and Byzantine . The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by those of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Between 385 and 405 CE,

19044-412: Was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses. The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law . Tradition states that there are 613 commandments ( taryag mitzvot ). Nevi'im ( Hebrew : נְבִיאִים , romanized :  Nəḇī'īm , "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups,

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