Bible

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The sacred book of Christianity, a collection of ancient writings including the books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
2. n. The Hebrew Scriptures, the sacred book of Judaism.
3. n. A particular copy of a Bible: the old family Bible.
4. n. A book or collection of writings constituting the sacred text of a religion.
5. n. A book considered authoritative in its field: the bible of French cooking.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The Book, or rather the Books (see etym.), by way of eminence; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The word bible is not found in the English version, but the Greek word occurs frequently, being always translated “book” or “books,” sometimes indicating the books of the Old Testament. The Bible consists of two parts: the Old Testament, written in Hebrew, containing the Law, the Prophets, and the sacred writings, or Hagiographa; and the New Testament, written in Greek, consisting of the four Gospels, the Book of Acts, the Epistles of Paul and other apostolic writers, and the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation, the only strictly prophetic book which it contains. Roman Catholic writers accept, in addition to these, most of the books contained in the Apocrypha of the King James version, which occur in the Septuagint (see below) and Vulgate, distributed among the other books of the Old Testament. The principal ancient versions of the Bible, or of portions of it, are the Targums, a Chaldee or Aramaic paraphrase or interpretation of the more ancient Hebrew Scriptures; the Samaritan Pentateuch, a Hebrew version of the first five books of the Old Testament, ancient in its character, and preserved with jealous care among the Samaritans; the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Old Testament prepared by Jewish scholars at Alexandria under the Ptolemies, principally in the third century B. C.; the Vulgate, a Latin version of both Old Testament and New Testament, prepared by Jerome at the close of the fourth century A. D.; and the Peshito, a Syriac version of the Old Testament and the major part of the New Testament, probably prepared in the second century A. D. Translations were early made into the principal languages of Christendom. The first complete translation into English was that of Wyclif, about 1383; and the first printed English versions were those of Tyndale and Coverdale, 1524-35. Other important versions are the Lutheran, in the German, by Martin Luther, 1521-34—the basis of the Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Dutch, and Finnish versions; the Authorized or King James, prepared by a special commission of scholars in England under James I., 1604-11; the Douay, a popular name given to a translation into English prepared by Roman Catholic divines—the Old Testament at Douay (1609-10), the New Testament at Reims (1582); and the Revised, a recension of the King James Bible prepared by a committee of British and American Protestant divines, the New Testament appearing in 1881, and the Old Testament in 1885. The number of minor versions is indicated by the fact that, since 1804, translations of the Bible or portions of it have been published in upward of 225 languages. Roman Catholics and Protestants differ in the degree of authority which they attach to the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church “receives with piety and reverence all the books of the Old and New Testaments, since one God is the Author of each” (Council of Trent); but “at the same time it maintains that there is an unwritten word of God over and above Scripture” (Cath. Dict.). Protestants generally hold that “the Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, and private spirits are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture” (Westminster Conf. of Faith).
2. n. Hence Any book or collection of religious writings received by its adherents as a divine revelation: as, the Koran is the Bible of the Mohammedans; the Mormon Bible.
3. n. [lowercase] Any great book.
4. n. [lowercase] A medieval military engine for throwing large stones.

Wiktionary

1. n. The Christian holy book.
2. n. The Jewish holy book that was largely incorporated into the Christian Bible.
3. n. The analogous holy book of another religion.
4. n. A specific version, edition, translation, or copy of one of the above-mentioned texts.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A book.
2. n. The Book by way of eminence, -- that is, the book which is made up of the writings accepted by Christians as of divine origin and authority, whether such writings be in the original language, or translated; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; -- sometimes in a restricted sense, the Old Testament. Also, the book which is made up of writings similarly accepted by the Jews.
3. n. A book containing the sacred writings belonging to any religion.
4. n. a book with an authoritative exposition of some topic, respected by many who are experts in the field.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the sacred writings of the Christian religions
2. n. a book regarded as authoritative in its field