These truths are what they have been told and taught they are what they teach to new converts and to their own children. The first Christians, gathering for worship, repeat together their beliefs about the life, death and promises of Jesus Christ. The Gospels in written form are slightly later than the Epistles and Acts, but they contain oral texts from earlier times. Much of Acts, therefore, is first-hand contemporary evidence of the events described. He has accompanied Paul on some of his travels, including his last journey to Rome. This account is believed to be the work of Luke, who probably writes it between about AD 75 and 90. Next in chronological sequence comes the Acts of the Apostles, a description of the missionary efforts of Peter and others in Jerusalemand of Paul on his journeys. The earliest such texts are the letters (or Epistles) written between about 50 and 62 AD by St Paul to various early Christian communities. But from the middle of the 1st century AD texts begin to be written which will later be gathered into a New Testament, representing the updated covenant revealed by Christ. The holy book used by the early Christians is the Jewish Bible, known to Christians now as the Old Testament (‘testament’ meaning in this context a covenant between God and man). Yet in the Bible the early Jews and Christians provide an account of themselves which is unparalleled, among religious groups of those times, in its wealth of detail. The conventional sources of historical evidence (archaeological remains, written documents) provide few traces of the Old Testament story and none at all of the events described in the New Testament. In doing so it also explains their beliefs. In each case it brings together a group of documents to tell the story of the founders and early followers of the religion. The Bible (from biblos, Greek for ‘book’) is the basis of two great religions, Judaism in the Old Testament and Christianity in the New Testament.