Seven
billion, thirty-six million, three hundred sixty-four thousand, four hundred
eighty – a very long numerical word – which could be written as 7,036,364,480.
This is not a magic number. It is the total number of humans living on earth,
at least since September 1, 2012. While many statistical figures could be
extrapolated from this number, let us concentrate on religion and the Bible.
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Vulgate
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Around
the middle of 2010, the number of Christians in the world is 2,280,616,000 or
32.4% of the world’s total population. From this total Christian population,
the highest number belongs to the Roman Catholic, which has 1,150,661,000
members. While most of the Roman Catholics are no longer practicing or are
occasional churchgoers, it cannot be denied that they still remain true to
their faith.
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A Bible from 1859
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The
guiding book for Christians and from which the Church bases and obtains its
doctrines is the Holy Bible. The dictionary defines the Bible as the collection
of Christian scriptures, which consists of the Old and the New Testaments. It
is also defined as the Jewish scriptures that consist of the Prophets, the
Hagiographa and the Torah. Hagiographa, also called Writings, is the collection
of twelve books of the Bible, the third of the three main parts of the Old
Testament, based on the Jewish tradition. It consists of the Psalms, Job, the
Song of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ruth, Esther, Nehemiah,
Chronicles, Lamentations and Ezra. The Torah is the Hebrew word for
instructions or teaching. This consists of the first five books of the Bible
based on Jewish tradition, and includes the Bereshit or Genesis, the Shemot or
Exodus, Vayikra or Leviticus, Bamidbar or Numbers and Devarim or the Deuteronomy.
