Does The Bible Contain Self-Reference, That Is, The Word 'Bible'?

Answer 1

No. The Bible is a compilation of stories written by different authors. Consider it more of an anthology put together by the Catholic Church around 324 AD (the New Testament... the Old Testament is the Jewish Holy Book, which is also a compilation of stories written by different authors).

Answer 2

Yes, all sorts.

1. The Torah may perhaps be seen as being about the giving of itself, a complete story starting with creation and ending with prophecy related to effects of adherence to itself.

2. The phrase "these words" and "this law" occur many times throughout the text, e.g. "You shall set these words..."

3. The last book includes an instruction that it should be inscribed on stones -- constructable and, if constructed, another description of itself.

4. The word for each letter of Hebrew ("aleph", "bet", "gimmel") starts with itself.

5. The Torah is aware of itself as a written text, rather than simply the contents of memories or an oral tradition: Torah verses include at least one pangram, a sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet. To a first approximation, all pangrams are deliberate: spoken language virtually never produces "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog," and when it does it is almost always in sentences much longer than the Hebrew verse.

6. The letters for the word 'Torah', in Hebrew, are said to be spaced every 49 letters throughout the text four times: Forward in the first two of five books and backward in the last two books (though I have not counted).


Others too ...!?

Answer 3

The bible is an artificial collection of the works various comittees have chosen as having passed certain criteria. There have been several such groups. Mostly each group has thinned down the Bible each time. At the current rate, in about 1000 years the Bible will be at least %50 smaller.

Answer 4

The Bible is simply a compilation of stories told from disiples and other figures in biblical times. Some stories lend credibility to each other, others contradict each other. The Bible is a compliation of 'point of views'. Everyone has a point of view. Although the word Bible does not appear in the text, however, the word Gospel does appear, refering to the word of God. That is what the bible is supposed to be, the word of God.

Answer 5

No. 'Bible' simply means 'book' it comes from 'Biblos' a city where paper was gotten at the time. The only self-reference you'll find in the Bible are references to 'The Law', 'The Prophets' or the 'Scriptures' both referring to the religious books of the Jewish people, Genesis, Ezekiel, et cetera.

Answer 6

no the word bible actually comes from the name of an ancient port city, which was named after a pagan god. The bible calls itself the scriptures.

Answer 7

Of course not. The Bible was not written as one book. It is a collection of writings by people whom church scholars regarded as important. There were also numerous books that were considered but left out. There were also books that were called "Gospels" but never even considered.
What you read as "The Bible" today is an edited, somewhat biased collection of Christian writings.

Answer 8

Yes The bible does reference itself. Remember When Jesus was Tempted in the Wilderness, Jesus Said, "It is Written (In the Bible) Man shall not live by bred alone, But by every Word that Proceeded out of the mouth of God. He also Said " it is writtem, You shall worship the Lord thy God and Him alone shall Thou serve.. So The bible in a sesnse did make reference of itself.

Answer 9

Sometimes it does. I've seen a refrence in one book to another book. It quotes from other books, yes. And then writes where the quote is from in the footnotes. There are a lot of footnotes in the Bible.

Answer 10

The NT makes references to the OT many times.