The word Bible, like the New Testamen comes from Koinē Greek, the same language used to write the New Testament Bible. The Greek, τὰ βιβλία, means "the books." The Bible is not a single book but a collection of books and the origins of these books are not totally clear. The books of the Bible were written and copied by hand, initially on papyrus scrolls. Papyrus paper comes from papyrus reeds, which are tall, skinny green plants that look like large flower stems with crazy hairstyles. Papyrus paper did not last very long so no original writings of the Bible survive, and the oldest existing scrolls are copies that were written hundreds of years after the books of the Bible were first written.