The Books of the Bible

The Bible can be described as a library of many books written by many people over a long period of time.  It is the source of nearly all of our important stories, rituals, and traditions.  It is most of all the primary way God speaks to us.

Many religious books were written by members of the religious communities of Israel and during the early years of the church, but over time, people of faith identified one group of books as being different from the rest.  This group of books became our Bible.  They are also called the canon.  Books were included in this group because:

• they had the authority of the apostles,
• they had been accepted as authoritative by all parts of the church, and
• they had been recognized as being inspired by the Holy Spirit.

An important skill that all Christians can benefit from is being able to find your way through the books of the Bible.  As our Bible is published today it is made up of sixty-six books.  At other times the books were grouped somewhat differently for instance I and II Samuel were originally one book but came to be divided into two separate books because the whole book was too long to fit on one normal-sized scroll.

Some Christian Churches recognize an additional set of books called the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books.  We respect these books but do not put them in the same category as the sixty-six.

It's probably good to note here that the chapter and verse divisions of the Bible only appeared long after the books were written.  The division of the books of the Bible into chapters was probably derived from work done by Stephen Langton (d.1228).  He was a professor at the University of Paris and later became the Archbishop of Canterbury in England.  The first division of the Old Testament into numbered verses as we know them was published in 1509.  The New Testament chapters were subdivided in 1551 by Robert Stephens, a printer.  It is important to remember that these chapter and verse divisions are merely for our convenience and sometimes do not reflect the actual breaks in the text.  Read more about the history of these subdivisions here.

Two Testaments

The Bible can be divided into two sections: those written before the birth of Jesus and those written afterward.  We call the section written before the birth the Old Testament and those written afterward the New Testament.

As you may have figured out, Jewish people who do not include the life of Jesus as part of their faith do not include the New Testament in their Bible.  Muslims also respect the same books that we do, but put them at a different level of authority than most Christians would.

At times Christians have disagreed about whether the New and Old Testaments should have the same authority.  Some have even ignored the Old Testament all together.  We believe that God speaks to us through both.  If you are interested in some of the history of this debate, you can read about it here.

The Old Testament

Within the Old Testament there are thirty-nine books.  We group them into five categories.

	Five Books of Moses (also known as the Books of the Law, the Pentateuch, and the Torah)	Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy
	Twelve Books of History	Joshua Judges Ruth; I Samuel II Samuel I Kings II Kings I Chronicles II Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Esther
	Five Books of Poetry	Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon
	Five Major (Longer) Prophets	Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel Daniel
	Twelve Minor (Shorter) Prophets	Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi.

The New Testament

Within the New Testament there are twenty-seven books.  We group them into four categories with a few sub-categories.

You may notice that the letter to the Hebrews is listed among the General Epistles rather than among the writings of Paul.  The letters that most people attribute to Paul are listed in order longest to shortest (Romans to Philemon) and then the relatively long letter to the Hebrews is placed after this grouping.  Some people believe this book was written by Paul; most do not.

	Four Gospels	Three Synoptic ("same-eye") Gospels	Matthew Mark Luke
		John
	One Book of History		The Acts of the Apostles
	Twenty-One Epistles (or Letters)	Thirteen Letters from Paul	Romans I Corinthians II Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians I Thessalonians II Thessalonians I Timothy II Timothy Titus Philemon
		Eight General Epistles	Hebrews James I Peter II Peter I John II John III John Jude
	One Book of Prophecy		The Book of the Revelation

Learning the Order of the Books

A good way to learn the order of the Old Testament books and the kind of contents that they have is to sing them to the tune of the song "Did You Ever See a Lassie."

A good way to learn the order of the New Testament books is to sing them to the tune of the gospel song "Bring Them In."