Helping You Read The Bible. The Bible on One page. In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000. The Bible has been called the best-selling book of all time, though the term itself comes from biblia, Greek for a collection of books. The Bible developed gradually, over many centuries, as the result of cultural interaction and exchange among many different societies.
Over time, some texts were accepted as part of the canon of belief, while others were excluded as apocryphal and heretical. Out of this rich diversity and cultural complexity emerged the modern Bible.