The bible is the foundational document of Western civilisation. The word bible comes from the Greek biblia, ‘books’ used in the Septuagint (LXX) as in ‘the holy books’ e.g. in I Macc. i, 56, although graphai, ‘scriptures’, is the usual Greek word for Jewish sacred writings. But while the latter was translated into Latin as scripturae, biblia was transliterated. As the biblical books were increasingly considered a unity this originally plural word (books) came to be understood as singular, whence the English word bible. 

The Jewish scriptures were latterly classified in three groups: (1) the Law or Torah; (2) the Prophets; and (3) other books known collectively as the Writings. The canon of the Jewish scriptures was settled around 100 A.D. The Christian Old Testament, based on the Septuagint, was formally fixed when the New Testament canon was agreed in Rome in 382 A.D.

Manuscripts (MSS) which pre-date the invention of printing are the basis of all textual criticism. As in the case of the works of Greek and Roman literature of which it was formerly thought no copies had survived from before the fourth century, most biblical MSS post-date the early fourth century for the simple reason that this is when vellum was adopted as the principle writing material. Before that the material on which texts were written was perishable papyrus and so have disappeared; and during certain periods such as those of Decius A.D. 249-251) and Diocletian (A.D. 303-305) Christian books were destroyed. However, there are more early vellum MSS of the bible than any other book and the interval between the date of composition and the earliest extant MS was less in the case of the books of the New Testament (NT) than any work of classical literature. However, since the discoveries in Egypt of many thousands of fragments of papyri  by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus in 1897- including two series of Sayings of Jesus or Logia; and the papyrus codices at Hermopolis known as the Chester Beatty Papyri – we now have many examples of books more than a century earlier (early 3rd century) among them substantial portions of the Greek bible and NT (e.g. 30 leaves of the Gospels and Acts; 86 leaves out of 99 of the Pauline epistles).

For those with a limited knowledge of Hebrew the Hebrew-English interlinear bible is a helpful online resource: Online Hebrew Interlinear Bible

For the LXX this online version is easy to use: Home – The Septuagint: LXX

For the Greek NT online: Greek Bible