I could understand atheists or agnostics dismissing Holy Scripture by refusing to write its title properly, but surely the title of a book (or a collection of books) deserves capital letters, for example, 'Wuthering Heights' or 'The Holy Qur'an'? Are people even aware that they are falling into the trap of denegrating God's Word by using lower case 'b'?
2007-05-12 02:44:29 · 36 answers · asked by Annsan_In_Him 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Dear people, thank you to all who corrected my spelling and exposed my inconsistencies (even though none of you, so far, have faced up to the point of how a book's title should be written). Marble... has correctly shown the difference between proper nouns and general nouns, so; The Bible, or, a bible. Have we all got that?
Thanks also to the 5 answerers (so far) who show what the agenda of unbelievers is when they deliberately refuse to capitalise the title of Christian scripture. This is just what I suspected but it's good to have evidence.
I'm not offended, though, and I'm sure the Almighty isn't either, with unintentional slips when writing about The Bible. This is a mere detail (funny, though, what a storm in a teacup this detail has produced.) I'm not prescribing a formula either. I'm just curious to know if literary rules apply to my Q. And have I missed something: is there another collection of books (apart from Christian scripture) known as a bible?
2007-05-12 04:41:04 · update #1
"Bible" may be used as the title of a specific book, or as a generic reference to copies of that book.
Thus, it would be proper to write that, "The Gideons regularly put bibles in hotel rooms." The term "bible" is used to refer to copies of the scripture.
It would also be proper to write, "The Bible says that reap what you sow." In this case the reference is to the name, title, or identifier of a specific literary work, not to a copy of the book itself.
As a rule of thumb, we would generally refer to "a bible" or "the Bible", in the same way we would refer to "a constitution" or "the Constitution". The proper noun is capitalized, but the general noun is not.
2007-05-12 02:58:03 · answer #1 · answered by marbledog 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋
I've just typed bible and ran the spell check. Guess what? Spell check accepted it. But I suspect you are correct in thinking that many people deliberately choose to use a lower case letter 'b'.
I've had such fun reading all the answers - some were very informative (without being insulting) and others were just downright hostile. Wonder why? Anyway, I thought it was a very good question and I'm glad to see someone sticking up for God's Holy Word. Don't mind those who would try to put you down - they only show themselves up as being mean and petty.
2007-05-12 05:24:32 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
It's only called the bible because the name comes from the Greek biblos meaning book. It's no more or less deserving of capital letters than any other book.
You Christians really want to get a decent grip on life, if that's the biggest thing in your life to worry about.
2007-05-16 05:38:09 · answer #3 · answered by Beastie 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Abomination, Apocrypha,Arameans,Ararat, Capernaum,Damascus, doxology, Dispersion, Epiphany, Esau, frankincense, Gomorrah, Hanukkah, Hezekiah, Jeroboam, Malachi, Meshach, Mordecai, Nebuchadnezzar, Nineveh, Nunc Dimittis, Pentateuch, Phoenicia, propitiation, Sadducees, Thessalonians, Transfiguration, I bypass referenced all of those with my Bible dictionary and all are spelled properly. Bible Dictionary, i such as you. LOL
2016-10-15 11:16:18 · answer #4 · answered by doloris 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I try. Sometimes I say " the Bible" or "the bible" . I usually capitalize when in doubt.
Sometimes I capitalize to many words. Sometimes not enough.
I have a hard time spelling now a days also. When you haven't used it you forget it.
I also have a hard time tpying my fingers hit the wrong letters in the ewrong order.
But I do the best I can do. After all I went to school in small town Arkansas.
2007-05-12 03:36:52 · answer #5 · answered by Old Hickory 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Either way is I am sure OK with God. There are bigger fish to fry.
A bible is a collection of books. A specific collection of books as the 66 authored by God is the Bible.
2007-05-12 05:02:09 · answer #6 · answered by grnlow 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Houston, we have a whiner. Is your real question whether these people are using lower case because they are trying to insult YOU, or whether they don't care about your holy ness. Anyone who says that a book "deserves" a capital letter is nothing but a whiner in my Book. (Note that my Book does deserve a capital letter, unlike the bible).
2007-05-12 03:36:44 · answer #7 · answered by Fred 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'm afraid you've got it wrong.
Proper nouns are capitalised - names like 'Wuthering Heights' as you said.
Types of book aren't proper nouns. e.g. a dictionary, an encyclopaedia, a bible.
Indeed in your question you correctly wrote 'book'. You didn't write Book which you seem wrongly to think it should be.
2007-05-12 05:35:06 · answer #8 · answered by mainwoolly 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The word "bible" is a word used to describe some sort of authoritative text or reference. Capitalising the word refers to the Christian scriptures.
2007-05-12 06:25:31 · answer #9 · answered by murnip 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Not all people here believe the bible is true, therefore they do not have to capitalize it if they don't want to.
You go ahead and do it the way you chose all day long and nobody cares. Just don't think the rest of us have to.
If you really think that the lack of a capital letter denegrates your god's word then you have little faith. You can't control people.
2007-05-12 02:49:34 · answer #10 · answered by Janet L 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋