Page 15 - Lessons and Activities on the Bible

A LIBRARY OF BOOKS
e children will view the Bible as a collection of books and become acquainted with the names of these books.
Catechist Notes
God chose to convey his message by means of a variety of books gathered into one collection, the Bible. e Jewish people categorized the Old Testament books as belonging to the Law (Torah), the Writings, and the Prophets. e New Testament contains the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Letters, and Revelation. e oldest known bibli- cal manuscripts in existence are among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in Qumran by a shepherd in 1947.
You might challenge your children to memorize the biblical books. Here, at least, is a jingle for re- membering the rst fourteen letters in the New Testament in order to help locate them:
Ro-Co-Co, Gal-Eph-Phi Col- ess- ess, Tim-Tim-Ti Phil-Heb
Materials
□ Bibles
□ Paper
□ Pens or pencils
□ Copies of Activity Sheet 4
Activity
1 Form the children into teams. Hold a contest to see which team can list the most kinds of books in a library. O er biography as an example. After two minutes, ask the team with the longest list to read it. Invite other teams to add to the list.
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Objective
Greek for “the books,” which is plural. ▪ e books in the Bible belong either to the
rst part, called the Old Testament, or to
the second part, called the New Testament. ▪ To nd your way around a library, you
need to know how the books are grouped. In the Bible, similar books, like the historical books or the Christian letters, are grouped together. In addition, the books are more or less in chronological order.
▪ e rst ve books are called the Pentateuch, which is Greek for ve scrolls. Jewish people call them the Torah. ey are about the rst dealings of God with his people and contain God’s law.
Direct the children to turn to their Bible’s table of contents. Tell half of the children to count the Old Testament books (46) and the other half to count the New Testament books (27). en ask how many books there are all together (73).
4 Distribute copies of Activity Sheet 4. Read the directions and have the children work the sheet.
5 When the children are nished, check the an- swers. Answers: 1) Genesis; 2) Revelation; 3) Ruth, Esther, Judith; 4) Psalms, Song of Solomon; 5) 1&2 Kings; 1&2 Chronicles; 6) Leviticus; 7) Exodus; 8) Acts of the Apostles; 9) John; 10) Romans; 1& 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1&2 Thessalonians; 11) Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Sirach; 12) Job; 13) Numbers; 14) Matthew, John; 15) Hebrews; 16) 18; 17) Psalms; 18) 3 John; Bonus: Answers will vary.
Prayer
O God, how creative you are in packaging your word in many forms. May I present your word to others by my words and actions.
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2 Show a Bible and compare it to a library. ▪ e Bible is like a library because it is composed of many kinds of books. In
fact, the word bible comes from the
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Twenty-Third Publications Sample