Bible

The Bible (Raamattu in Finnish, Bibel or Bibeln in Swedish) is a collection of writings.  Nowadays it is usually printed as one book.  The Bible has two major parts, the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT).  The Old Testament includes 39 writings (that are also called “books”) that were written in Hebrew over a long period of time before Jesus was born.  The OT has the same content as the ”Torah, prophets and writings” (Tanakh) of Judaism, although Christians and Jews count the books differently and put them in a different order.  Followers of Jesus wrote writings in Greek, and 27 of these were put together as the New Testament.  Sometimes the NT is printed as a book by itself, or it can be printed together with the Psalms of the OT.  Writings called the Apocrypha are sometimes published as a part of the Bible.

The whole Bible has been translated into more than four hundred languages, and more copies have been printed of the Bible than of any other book in the world.  Also, parts of the Bible have been translated into about two thousand other languages and published as smaller books.

In the Internet you can read the Bible in Finnish  and search the Bible in Swedish ( and read or search the Bible in English and many other languages.

The New Testament was translated into Swedish by Olaus Petri and Laurentius Andreae in 1526, and the whole Bible in Swedish was published in 1541.  In Finland, Mikael Agricola translated the New Testament and parts of the Old into Finnish; his NT translation was published in 1548, but the whole Bible in Finnish had to wait until 1642.  Since then, these languages have changed quite a bit (and so have translation methods), and new translations have been made.  In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the versions that are now officially used are the 1992 Finnish Bible and the ”Bibel 2000” in Swedish.  Translations have also been made into Sami languages spoken in Lapland.  Unofficial translations of some books of the Bible have been published in Helsinki slang and some provincial dialects of Finnish.

The Bible is the holy book of Christianity, but it is not revered in the same way as holy books in some other religions.  Christians consider the message of the Bible as holy, but the book itself is like a tool.  We do not worship the book; some Christians do kiss the Bible as a sign of devotion, but that is not customary in our Lutheran church.  Because the message is important, translations are made so that people can understand the Bible without learning Hebrew or Greek – we think that reciting scripture is useless if it is not understood.

Christians do not think that the Bible (or any other book) has come down from heaven.  Instead, the Spirit of God has led people to write important messages with human words.  These messages were written in specific situations, so that some of them do not directly apply to us.  For example, Christians have always considered many laws in the OT as “shadows of things to come” so that they are not observed.  Many other messages and instructions in the Bible, however, are constantly debated among Christians:  do they still apply directly to us or not?  God speaks through old writings, but what is his message to us?

In our church the first four books in the NT, the gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are used a lot.  Muslims (followers of Islam) also believe that the Gospel is a holy book; they think that Jesus was a prophet whose task was to deliver the Gospel to people, so Muslims often complain that early Christians (before Muhammad) lost and spoiled the Gospel because now there are four gospels instead of one!  For Christians, this completely misses the point.  We think that there was no written Gospel before Jesus.  Jesus did not come to tell about a Gospel that came from heaven; we believe that Jesus himself was sent from heaven, and the four gospels were written later to tell about him, each gospel from a slightly different viewpoint!  Jesus Christ is the one who is truly important and deserves to be honored in the same way as we honor God the Father; the main purpose of the Bible is to make sure we know Jesus.  It is written in John's gospel:
“These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  (John 20:31)

There are dozens of translations of the Bible into English.  The previous quote is from the New Revised Standard Version, which is also quoted in the English translation of our Catechism and translations made of parts of our worship manual.  That version, however, has not been published in the Internet, so if you want to read the Bible in English in the web you must choose another version.  The New International Version is also used a lot.  The seventeenth-century King James Version still has its supporters although it can be difficult to understand, especially if English is not your native language.

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, congregations give a Bible as a gift to every couple that is wed in church, and many congregations also give a Bible to every confirmation school student.  The Bible is studied in confirmation schools, and many congregations have Bible study groups for people of various ages.  In Helsinki there are Bible study groups in many languages (see Other links).  Children become acquainted with Bible stories in day clubs and Sunday schools.  Many people read the Bible privately.  Three passages from the Bible are designated in our worship manual for every Sunday to be read during a worship service before the sermon, but words and phrases from the Bible are repeated throughout the service.

In Finland you can buy or order Bibles in many languages in bookstores.  In Helsinki you can also buy Bibles in many languages from shops that are specialized in them, such as IEC Books (see www.christianbooks.fi) and the store of the Finnish Bible Society (http://www.pipliakauppa.fi/), orders by phone 010 838 6520 or e-mail myynti(at)bible.fi).