Question #53 – Mayroong mga nagtatanong ng ganito: “Saan natin mababasa sa Biblia ang katagang Biblia, liban sa cover sapagkat yung cover ay gawa ng printer, hindi kinasihan ng Diyos yun?” (Some folks in our country, the Philippines, ask in the dialect: “Where in the Bible can we read the word Biblia, except the cover because the cover is not inspired?”)
Answer: In several major Philippine languages, we use the term Biblia for the English term Bible. Biblia is an influence from the Greek text, translated also Biblia in the Latin and Spanish. From Spanish, Philippine languages absorbed the term Biblia.
In the Greek language, Biblos (book in English) is the nominative case, singular form; Bibliou in the genitive case, and Biblion in the accusative case. “Biblia” in the Greek text is in the plural form. There are two verses in the Greek text where we find the word “Biblia” which are 2 Timothy 4:13 translated in English “books” in some versions, while others render it as “parchments.” “Biblia” (books in English) is also found in Revelation 20:12.
Muslims refer to Christians as “people of the books.” This phraseology may refer to the idea that there are several books written independently of each other by separate authors in a period of about 2000 years. Secondly, it may refer to the volume of the collected books which is why at the cover of the scripture collection, the name is “Biblia” (plural: 39 books in the OT and 27 books in the NT). On the other hand, Muslims consider their Qurán as one book miraculously sent down from heaven as one unit, recited by Muhammad while he was embraced by the angel Gabriel inside a cave, a book which is unchangeable, and eternal.
In a future date, we shall tackle these claims about the Qurán. These claims about the Qurán are doubtful given the fact that ancient existing copies of the Qurán are not the same and these ancient Quranic manuscripts are dated about two hundred years after Muhammad died. By comparison, the Gospel records were written by disciples/apostles of Christ before they died like Matthew, Mark, and John. The Epistles of James and Jude were written by the half-brothers of our Lord Jesus.
We have provided you the “ammunition” to counter the claim that humans invented the Bible. The word Biblia is literally found in the inspired text. #