Scripture

So what do we mean by scripture? Different religions have different documents they call scripture. Even among Christians there are differences of opinion as to what qualifies as scripture, or how to interpret it. The books officially accepted as scripture are referred to as "the canon." For a great explanation of this concept and the process of defining the canon over the past two thousand years see this wikipedia article.

When the word "scripture" is used in this wiki, it refers to the widely accepted canon of Christian scripture: The Old Testament, made up of 39 books of Jewish scripture, and the New Testament, made up of 26 books of early Christian scripture.

Some Christians include other books as scripture. These are generally called "The Apocrypha" and include both Jewish writings from the inter-testamental period, as well as early Christian and gnostic documents. These are also referred to as the pseudoepigrapha or the deuterocanonical writings. These books are interesting for cultural reasons, but are not considered to be scripture within this wiki.

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