Ideational, Canonical, Semantic, and Textual Relationship among Sacred Works: A Case Study of the Bible

Abstract

Bible is a word of Greek derivations used by different religions to describe a sacred scripture but ambiguous because the meaning is different among religious groups. The Bible is the most complex text that ever existed with ideational, canonical, and textual and translation inconsistency with no perfect solution to how best to bibliographically describe it. The goal of this paper is three fold: 1) systematically review literature on “work”, 2) identify ways the Bible meets the criteria in relation to work, and 3) make conclusions on how the Bible should meet the criteria. The analysis shows a strong ideational but different canonical, semantic, and textual relationship among Bible works which view deviates from AACR2, FRBR, and RDA that perceive the Bible works as a single work found in a number of different versions all essentially regarded as the same work. The need to locate the right volume will supersede the need to locate the right work signifying the age of the work (determined by the date of publication), original manuscript, and canonical, semantic and textual content as the strong characteristic that can be used to predict if a Bible is a new work.