The Christian Bible is divided into two parts. Christians call the first part the Old Testament and for Jews, this is the whole Bible. The God described here is the only God who exists, the one God who is known as Yahweh. The second part is called the New Testament and describes the life of Jesus Christ and his followers. Jesus Christ is the Son of God who offers all men and women the fullness of life.

The Old Testament

The Old Testament is a collection of different books written between the years 1000 and 200 BC.

In the Book of Genesis, God creates the world and raises up a special people, the descendants of Abraham, the people of Israel, popularly known as the Jews.

In the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel are led by Moses from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land of Israel, having picked up the 10 Commandments at Sinai on the way.

Once there, God raises up a line of Kings to rule over them, the first three being Saul, David and Solomon. But the Kingdom gets into trouble and splits in two. God raises up prophets to tell the people how to get out of this mess but things go from bad to worse and foreign powers overrun the promised land until finally the Jews are deported to Babylon, where they famously sat and wept.

The Persians overrun Babylon and let the Jews return from exile to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. But trouble looms again when the Greeks, descendants of Alexander the Great, capture Jerusalem and try to wipe out Jewish religion. The Romans arrive in the nick of time, happy to tolerate Jewish religion provided the Jews respect Roman law and order, including taxation and military occupation.

The New Testament

The New Testament begins here and into this situation, Jesus of Nazareth is born.

There are four Gospels, which tell of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. His birth stories are pretty amazing but the main part of the story begins when he is aged about 30 and he meets his cousin, John the Baptist. This encounter affects Jesus deeply and he then spends forty days in the desert being tempted by the devil.

Jesus emerges from all this with a conviction that he must tell people to repent and prepare for the coming of God's kingdom. He shows people what it means to repent and welcome God's kingdom through a series of miracles, healings and parables.

He gathers many followers, including twelve disciples. But the Jewish leaders get edgy and finally condemn him as a stirrer who will upset the delicate balance they have worked out with the Romans. Pontius Pilate, the Governor, condemns Jesus to be crucified.

Amazingly, after his death and burial, his tomb is found to be empty and the risen Jesus appears in a new way to his disciples. He tells them to go and carry on his work all round the world, promising them that his spirit, the Holy Spirit, will be with them.

The Acts of the Apostles describes this spreading of the Gospel and in particular how the main persecutor of Christians, Saul of Tarsus, has a dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. He then becomes the greatest preacher of the Gospel, now called Paul.

Paul's letters describe a developing understanding of Jesus as the Son of God and as the Messiah (hence Jesus is known as Christ, Greek for Messiah). Paul also gives a more specific set of moral guidelines for the new Christian communities emerging in Rome, Corinth and elsewhere around the Mediterranean.

The Bible ends with the Book of Revelation, sometimes called the Apocalypse, where visions of the end of the world are expressed with stories of cataclysms of all kinds. Satan (known by the number 666) is defeated, the last trumpet sounds and Christians are assured that Christ will triumph. The final words are: 'Come Lord Jesus'.