Bible in Current Perspective - Reflection The Bible teaches us that in all existence, from all eternity, there has been and always will be only one God. God was never created, is completely loving, completely just, completely holy, completely merciful, and that He desires the best for us. God is holy and He can have nothing to do with sin as the Bible says, "His eyes are too pure to look upon evil," (Hab. 1:13). This does not mean that God cannot see what someone does that is wrong. It is a way of describing how holy God is. God cannot sin. He is perfect. The Bible starts at Creation and progresses through the history of the beginning Jewish nation and God's revelation of himself to them through the prophets and the first covenant between God and humans in that God would promise to look after and love his people. Ultimately the Bible completes God's revelation through the second covenant - the second agreement between God and us - in the form of Jesus - the ultimate manifestation of God's love. Finally, the Bible finishes with the end of the world when Jesus returns as judge. Dictionaries and researchers define the word, "canon," as a body of books accepted as authoritative by some religious body. Thus there is no problem of the canon; most modern Protestants, and Protestant churches historically accept exactly sixty-six books, thirty-nine books from Hebrew, which they call the Old Testament, and twenty-seven books written in Greek, which they call the New Testament. Protestants use and accept these books; therefore, there are sixty-six books in the Protestant canon. As long as the living voice of prophets and apostles was to be heard, there wasn’t a pressing need of a canon of Scripture. Under the inspiration of God they knew what was inspired, and what was not. But as soon as these men were dead--and with them inspiration ceased--it became necessary that their writings be gathered together to know what their messages to the churches were, and to preserve those writings from corruption. Aporcypha means "hidden." These books were written primarily in the time period between the Old and New Testaments (B.C. 420-27). The Apocrypha contains fourteen books. The set of books are not considered authoritative, or divinely inspired, in Judaism and Protestant Christian churches, and therefore, not accepted into the canon of Scripture. A large portion of the Apocrypha was officially recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as part of the