The Bible is, unarguably, the most influential and important documentation of events to have ever been recorded in human history. This is objectively true regardless of whether or not the reader believes in the Bible as truth or fact or merely as fiction.

In the former, admittedly long(ish) sentences, you may have noticed that the phrase “documentation of events” was used instead of the word “book.” While many people do consider the Bible to be a book, such a conception of the Bible in response to a question like, “what is the Bible” is rather superficial.

While the Bible as you know it today is certainly a book, such a conception of the Bible in response to the question, “what is the Bible,” is only referring to the presentation or format in and by which the Bible is being presented to you. However, the Bible itself is more than the format in and by which it is presented.

However, you may have again noticed that it is the Bible that is being documented. Hence, the Bible itself is more than the process through and by which it is documented.

This post is not discussing the physicality of the documentation of the Bible. Rather, this post is discussing what the Bible really is.

What is the Bible?

As you may have already intuited, there is a distinction to be made when it comes to understanding what the Bible really is.

One way of considering the Bible is simply to reduce it to the physical form by which it is presented to you. Hence, the response of many Christians that the Bible is a book, yet even if you answer the question, “what is the Bible” with “its a book,” you will then have to answer the question, “a book about what?”

This “about what” is an important consideration when coming to understand what the Bible really is.

You see, a book is a way by which something is documented, preserved, and relayed or shared. While a book is a thing, it is a thing functioning as a container, and a container holds something within it.

Now, you may be thinking that the Bible is a bunch of words or stories, and if this is your conception, then you are, at least in part, correct.

However, there is a second way of considering the Bible, and this second way has much less to do with the physical form by which it is presented to you and has much more to do with the substance of the message. In fact, it is the substance or the message that is the thing that is the Bible, yet it is more than the words on the page. Rather, the Bible is the substance that you are able to recognize and experience through study coupled with practice.

While this may sound somewhat confounding because it is not a precise, articulate answer to the question, it is worth remembering that all articulation is already once removed from what is being articulated.

In fact, in order to know anything, you must first be able to recognize it, and to recognize, you must first cognize. How else could you cognize again?

This means that all articulation is once removed from the thing and that all articulation can never hold the thing that it is within itself.

Put it this way, does saying “Holy Spirit” fully encapsulate the thing that is the Holy Spirit? No, of course it does not because the Holy Spirit is a thing outside of the words allowing you, as a human being, to be aware of it. The phrase “Holy Spirit” simply allows you to recognize the Holy Spirit and to thereby be able to see It and to be aware of It in your life. Without the words, you have no ability to recognize it, but your recognition of it in no way matters for the actuality of its existence. The ability to know it through recognition is a gift that God has given to you.

What follows are several to-the-point articulations pertaining to what the Bible is. After reading it, the hope is that you have at least intuited what the Bible really is.

What is the Bible?

The Bible is the Living Word of God

Now, many Christians have heard that the Bible is the living word of God, yet expressing exactly what this sentence means through an articulation is challenging because the truth of the sentiment encapsulated in this sentence is much less of a recognition and so much more an experience.

The truth that the Bible is the living word of God is experienced by all Christian women who have experienced and thus know the power of reading Scripture.

Scripture is different from any other written work in that it contains a supernatural power that permanently changes the reader in an internal and substantial way.

Now, the Bible being the living word of God is not saying that God lives in or possesses any book.

Instead, it is to say that the word of God has a power that is unparalleled by any other documentation known to man and that this power is something to be experienced rather than merely recognized through an intellectual grasping of an articulation.

Additionally, the sentence also expresses that the Bible comes from or was given to humans from the living God, and that the living God works in our lives through His word coupled with the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is the Documentation of the Relationship God has with His People

The Bible documents the relationship that God has had with His people from creation until the end of time, which is accounted for in the book of Revelation even though this book is, at this moment in time, still prophesy and is yet to actualize as historical fact.

The Bible is a factual document that tells anyone willing to read it events that have occurred, and, more importantly, the ways in which God has engaged in the events of the world and in the lives of his chosen people.

The Bible is a Tool to Know & Understand Who God Is

Given that the Bible is a historical document informing all readers of the ways in which God has engaged with the events of the world and with His chosen people, the Bible is also a tool by which any reader is able to know the person of God.

This is important for those who believe in God yet are not Christian because without knowing the qualities of the personhood of God, it is all too easy to come to know God merely conceptually because it is far too easy to build your own, make believe “god” and thus come to know only a concept rather than a being or person who exists in reality as the ultimate reality.

Now, you may be thinking something along the lines of, “yes, the qualities of God are able to be related via the Bible, but if God is a person, then God can interact with and engage with anyone regardless of if this individual recognizes Him or not.”

Of course, if this is your line of thought, you are right. It is not uncommon for new Christians to look retrospectively at their life and to see God working in it, protecting them, and ultimately leading them back to Him.

However, the relationship one has with God is not for the sake of God. God does not need His creation. He loves His creation, but He does not need His creation, but we need God. Hence, in order for you to have a relationship with God, something that is a fundamental need more important than even food and shelter, you must first be able to recognize Him. Otherwise, it is far too easy to be lead astray into ways of living and behaviors that harden your heart to God and thus repel you away from Him.

God does not dwell with unrepentant sinners, and this is the case no matter how much He loves you because He respects the freedom of your will.

While God does work in your life even when you are blind to Him due to ignorance of Him and an inability to recognize Him, in order to have a relationship with Him, you must know Him, which is the result of being able to recognize Him.

The Bible offers this ability to you because it is God revealing Himself to us. Through seeing the factual account of how God has worked in the life of people since He created them, you are offered an account of His character, and you are offered the opportunity to fix any erroneous, secularly-fueled conceptions or attributes that you may have given to your conception of “god” with the actual characteristics of His personhood as evidenced (and experienced) through reading and studying Scripture.

The Bible is a Gateway to a Better Life

Only an arrogant and prideful fool is able to utter that his or her plan is better than the plan of God.

The way of God is always superior to the way of man, and accepting this can be a real blow to the ego, but the gift of peace and grace that you are granted when you surrender to the will of God is unparalleled to anything that you could possibly imagine or even conceive.

The best life that you can have is a life that is led by Christ not only in your personal character and personal decisions but in that you surrender to God completely in your life so much so that it is almost as if His person is moving through you–even when you are unable to understand the directional commands that he is requesting of you.

God has a better plan than anything you can possibly imagine for your life, and while you may be fearful because many Christians have been persecuted and slaughtered, God grants you a peace and a faith that is so strong that even if you do face such things, you will be free, filled with peace, and close to God nonetheless.

While saying that the Bible is the ultimate gateway is to be considered erroneous because it is Jesus Christ who is the ultimate gateway to a better life, the Bible is a gateway for you to know Him and thus to willingly choose to be led to a better life by Him.

So, What is the Bible?

Although this post did not give you a concrete answer, such as, “as the Bible is a book” as an answer to your question, “what is the Bible,” the hope is that through reading this post, you will be able to understand the sentiment that the Bible is so much more than a physical compilation bound and presented in book format or any format at all.

The Bible is much more than any articulation has the ability to encapsulate because even though the word of God allows you to recognize God and thus to know Him, the words themselves are only tools allowing you to see, but much like a lens through which you look, the thing you are seeing it something much bigger than the lens itself.

May God bless you, and may Peace be with you.

With (tough) Love,

Hannah