ABSTRACT
The Bible contains very little secular literature: it is mostly about religious themes. This chapter discusses a selection of these themes. The nature of God—which is assumed rather than described in the Bible—is complex, because God is both the universal creator of the world and of all people, yet at the same time seen as bound to a particular people—Israel in the Old Testament, the church in the New. A second theme is the nature and task of Jesus, with the Gospels providing details of his life, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection, and the Letters setting out various ways of understanding his nature and identity. A further theme is the presence of evil in the world and how it is to be understood and combated. Thoughts about the coming end-time are frequent in the New Testament but are rooted in some of the Old Testament’s prophetic literature. The Bible also has much to say about ethics, and about the relation between what God requires of people by way of obedience to his laws and what he freely provides out of love for them.
