The Christian Bible- Is there any other kind?

[purepurple]

DD has a homework sheet entitled "The Christian Bible".
I am a bit confused by this title as I thought the Bible is Christian.
Is there a Hindu bible, or a Sikh bible? I am feeling pretty thick today!

Technically Bible just means 'a collection of books'.

Although I think it is usually a fair assumption these days to think "the Bible" is the Christian book.

possibly to clarify it vs those parts of the bible that are taken as holy texts by other religions

eg the Old Testament is Jewish.

It could be because the Old Testament is actually the Jewish scriptures and the New Testament are the Christian ones; but to avoid that distinction they call it the Christian bible.

There is also the little problem that many students won't have come across the bible in any way, shape or form, and you have to make it that specific for them to realise what you are talking about.

The Old Testament is the Hebrew Bible. I think (as an RS teacher myself) that the teacher will have used that title so as to make clear it's Old and New Testaments and also not to offend any Jewish pupils. Other religions have holy books not called the Bible though. Hindus haver the Bhagavad Gita, Sikhs the Guru Granth Sahib and Muslims the Qur'an. HTH

I can see that some children might need extra clarification.
I have just looked at the sheet and the first question is :-
How many history books are there altogether {Old and New testaments}?
So the homework is about both testaments.

As an RS teacher I always make clear what religion we are studying, (I still get someone who says 3 weeks in what religion are we doing Miss ]. So that may be why. I do hear students say and what is the Hindu version of the Bible, so aware that the students may think that all Holy Books are called Bibles it may be thought necessary to use the word Christian. The word Bible does just mean book as a previous poster said.

The JWs have a different translation that the mainstream church doesn't recognise (or something).

AlexW - the OT is NOT the Hebrew Bible - they don't have a bible (in the Christian/religious sense) - or didn't when I did my RE PGCE. It is the Hebrew scripture, the Tanakh.

A while ago now (don't know if it still is) tables of physical constants used by engineers & scientists were published by a rubber company (not sure of its proper title) in a huge tome which was colloquially known by engineers & scientists as 'The Rubber Bible'.

The Tanakh is a collection of books and therefore can be called a 'bible'. I teach Jewish Scriptures to Jews and use the term Hebrew Bible interchangeably with Tanakh. The rabbis do too.

I'd have been shot if I'd done that.

Really alexw, have to say like scaryteacher I have always been careful not to use the word bible when discussing the Jewish scriptures.

Never seen so many RE/RS teachers on MN before! Should we have our own thread?

WE should form a quiche.

I could do with a thread tonight, am teaching Eastern perspetives on life after death tomorrow to year 13 and am full of cold and just cant get my head around it.

What ya doing with them, Morosky? I am supposed to be preparing for our inspection, so better keep my MN use down I suppose! You looking at Hinduism/Buddhism in particular?

Yes, Hinduism is fine, it is Buddhism that I am struglling to put simply as th textbooks confused them today.

We have been looking at the conept of soulessness, ideas about karma rebirth. But if you dont have a soul what is reborn? The books uses an analogy of one candle going out and another lighting.

Get an IT room and get them to research Eastern perspectives on life after death and feed back to the class in groups; or take them to the library. Give them headings and ask them to research those?

I have a great board game which takes an hour that is all about Karma and Moksha and works with all ages.

They have done research but they are not getting the Buddhist perspective. It is also coursework deadline time so computer rooms are like golddust. They understand Karma and Moksha as we teach Hinduism at Key Stage 4.

I just need to find time to look at it again and put it across in a different way

Trying to remember other stories about rebirth - something about a river flowing past you, it's still the same river but all the bits of water have moved on? I'm sure there's one too about a car - you have a car, you change the wheels, you change the engine, you change the bodywork (etc etc) - it's still your car, even though every bit of it is now different than it started out. Or, talk to them about our own cells - I believe it's true that every cell in the human body renews itself after so many years, so you aren't the same at all as you were when you were born, yet in some sense you are.. All of this rambling obviously related to how you can be reborn without a permanent soul and in a new body!

Thanks Iggi will use those.

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