The Holy Bible (Catholic Canon, 73 books)

The most influential book in human history and the foundation of Western civilization. The Catholic Canon comprises 73 books (46 OT + 27 NT), including the seven deuterocanonical books: Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch, plus additions to Esther and Daniel. We use 33 AD—the traditional year of Christ's crucifixion—as the publication date, the moment from which the Christian religion and its civilizational influence begin. No other single work has so deeply shaped law, art, philosophy, literature, music, and the moral imagination of the West.

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was composed over approximately a millennium; the New Testament was written c. 50-100 AD. The Catholic canon was formally defined at the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), and St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate (382-405 AD) became the authoritative text for over a thousand years. Gutenberg's Bible (c. 1455) was the first major book printed with movable type, inaugurating the age of mass literacy. Protestant reformers in the 16th century removed or relegated the deuterocanonical books to an appendix, making the Catholic and Protestant canons diverge to this day.