The Bible is divided into two main Testaments – the Old Testament and the New Testament – each with many books. Knowing this structure means knowing how the books are filed away (law, history, prophecy) and how they differ by tradition. The Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) is far older and includes the Pentateuch, the historical books, wisdom literature, and the Prophets, while the New Testament includes the life of Christ and the early church. If you have not done so yet, you could start on our general Introduction to the Bible and we can move on to its division of books, their numbers, and historical canonization.
What is the structure of the Bible in regard to the Old and New Testaments?
The Bible’s own structure includes the way its books are grouped into two Testaments and multiple sections. The Hebrew Scriptures form the basis of the OT, and the NT is comprised of Christian writings. Protestant Bibles have 39 OT books and 27 NT books etc (66 books total). Other Catholic Bibles have, 27 New Testament books and 46 Old Testament books (73 books in total including seven Deuterocanonical books). Orthodox Bibles will usually be following the Septuagint, and could have 51 or so OT books and about 78 books overall. In each example the NT is 27 book in all traditions, but the OT differs (see below).
What is the structure of the Old Testament?
The Old Testament is structurally divided, in traditional terms, into several parts. Commonly these are:
- Pentateuch (Law) – 5 books (Genesis to Deuteronomy) dealing with and creation, the patriarchs the exodus, and the law.
- Historical Books – 12 books (Joshua to Esther in Protestant Bibles) that detail the history of the people of Israel. (Catholic Bibles include Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees.)
- Wisdom/Poetical Books – 5 books of poetry and wisdom (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). (Catholics count Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach among their deuterocanonicals.)
- Prophetic Books – 17 books (the Major prophets being Isaiah, Jeremiah (with Lamentations), Ezekiel, and Daniel; and the Minor prophets being Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi).
Some of these categories may also overlap (some books may be law and poetry or historical). (Fundamentally, what’s happening here is that Protestants number 39 OT books in this way, and Catholics number 46, with the other seven being “extra” books traditionally found in the Greek Septuagint tradition.) The Jewish counterpart to the OT has the same “stories” that the OT has, 24 books (some books are combined differently). Each book of the OT is classified as one type of these genres, which determines how it is to be interpreted (i.e., whether viewed as a narrative or poetry, etc.).
What is the New Testament organized like?
There are 27 books – Only 1 way The New Testament can be divided into major sections:
- Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (four books about Jesus’s life).
- History – Acts (1 book) describes the early church.
- Pauline Epistles – It includes 13 books (Romans – Philemon but may include Hebrews even though it’s debated on the Pauline authorship).
- General Epistles – 7–8 letters by various leaders (James; 1–2 Peter; 1–3 John; Jude; sometimes Hebrews are counted here).
- Prophecy – Revelation (1 book) – prophetic vision of John.
In overview, the NT includes 4 Gospels, Act of the Apostles, 21 Epistles (13 Pauline + 8 General, including Hebrews) and 1 Revelation. These 27 books are accepted by all major Christian traditions. Luther’s 16th-century German Bible had initially put some NT books in an appendix, but by the time of the Reformation, these 27 had become the established NT canon.
How do various Christian denominations differ in terms of the Bible books?
The Christian groups vary primarily in their Old Testament contents. Protestants have 66 books (39 in the OT and 27 in the NT) like Hebrew Bible. The Catholic Church includes in its Old Testament several books and passages that are not part of the Hebrew Bible (51 in total as a consequence of counting the deuterocanonical books of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah)—these books appear in the Septuagint, but are regarded by Protestants to be apocryphal. The Eastern Orthodox churches apparently accept optional books of the Septuagint (e.g., Maccabees 1-3, Psalm 151, Prayer of Manasseh, 3-4 Ezra)– over 51 OT books – but their lists are not uniform. These differences are shown in the table below:
| Tradition | Old Testament Books | New Testament Books | Total Books | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Protestant | 39 (Hebrew canon) | 27 | 66 | Does not contain the deuterocanonical/Apocrypha (7 books) |
| Catholic | 46 (including 7 deuterocanonicals) | 27 | 73 | Canon of the Council of Trent (1546) |
| Eastern Orthodox | ~51 (Septuagint canon) | 27 | ~78 | Influenced by Septuagint (See LXX); included additional books (e.g. 1–3 Maccabees) |
These totals explain why you might see something different (66 numbers vs 73 vs ~78). The NT 27 books The 27 books of The New Testament are recognized by all traditions. The excluded books in Protestant Bibles are frequently referred to as the Apocrypha (or hidden writings, not accepted, but useful in some way, in Protestantism). Catholics, on the other hand, term them deuterocanonical and hold them to be canonical. Orthodox Christians tend to accept even more by tradition.
Councils, Translations, and the Origin of the Canon
More than that, the Bible as we know it today was shaped over centuries by theologians, councils and disciples who had to sidestep a roadway paved by translators, scribes and illiterates. Major African councils (Hippo 393AD; Carthage 397 AD) in the 4th century, affirmed a canon of Scripture that included the OT (including the deuterocanonical books) and a 27-book NT. 298 and restricting its contents to a list of books, Pope Damasus I asked Jerome to also make a list of books (in 382) and the same list, in the same order (387). The Vulgate edition helped to fix the Western canon as Catholics have known it. Bishops such as Augustine of Hippo asserted the lists already as precedent.
There were revisions after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Martin Luther retained the deuterocanonical books in a section he placed between the Old and New Testaments, but–with the exception of Tobit, which he included in a list of good books for Christians to read–he relegated them to the status of the “apocryphal” and “noncanonical” books in the Hebrew canon (in reality, six of the seven books deemed deuterocanonical by Catholics; he noted that “1 Esdras” was “not held equal to the prophetic books”). Others including Reformer William Tyndale and English Reformers afterwards went on to produce Bibles containing 66 books (OT and NT) in all. In reaction, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1546) officially declared the full 73-book canon. Meanwhile, Eastern Orthodoxy similarly did not hold a council to formally decide its canon, but also never stopped using the Septuagint-based Old Testament in worship. In 1672 these books were included in the Orthodox Old Testament, but local usage varied.
So the “bridge” between ancient writings and today’s Bibles was one of agreement and disagreement. The decisions of the early formations of the church (Hippoh, Carthage, Rome) had the effect of congealing the canon with which both Catholic and Orthodox churches have handed down to us, but it was the reformers who made lists.” Key translations were influential: the Septuagint (3rd–2nd centuries BC), which made the OT accessible in Greek (and so shaped early church and Eastern practice), and Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (c.400 AD), which became the Bible of Western Christianity. These developments — the councils, the debates over certain books and new translations — are what decided the shape of the Bible that Christians read today.
In what language was the original Bible written?
The Bible took several centuries to write in three main languages. All of the Old Testament was written in Biblical Hebrew, except for some sections of the following books: 242 Ezra, Daniel, and the prophets written after the Babylonian exile which were written in 243 Aramaic. The Koine Greek language is used in the writing of the New Testament. These original languages are the basis of modern translations of the Bible, so the form (book order, chapters) often reflects how the texts were composed in Hebrew/Greek.
How many chapters and verses are there in the Bible?
In total, the Protestant Bible contains 1,189 chapters: 929 in the Old Testament and 260 in the New Testament. It also includes some 31,102 verses (23,145 in the OT and 7,957 in the NT). Thes partitions ( or chapters, verses) were added much latter (chapters in the 13th century and verses in the 16th century). Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have more chapters in total due to the inclusion of the additional books, but the number of OT/NT chapters is the same for the common books.
What is the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and how is it different from the Old Testament?
The Protestant Old Testament has the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but they are counted differently. It is divided into three parts (Torah, Prophets, Writings) and consists of 24 books. Christians read the same texts but divide them up into more books (e.g., Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are each two books, not one). Consequently you have the same content, but 39 books (Protestant OT) or 46 (Catholic OT). As a matter of practice all the books of the “Hebrew Bible” are included in Christian canons; differences are strictly in organization and the inclusion and/or order of the extra books from the Septuagint tradition.
What different forms are there in the Bible?
The Bible is replete with literary types, and each has an effect on how the text is to be understood. They are generally categorized as: Law (legal and covenant text, e.g. Leviticus and Deuteronomy), History/Narrative (e.g., Joshua – Kings, Acts), Poetry/Wisdom (e.g., Psalms, Proverbs, Job), Prophecy/Apocalyptic (e.g., Isaiah, Ezekiel, Revelation), and Epistle (letters of Paul, Peter, etc.). The actual content of a book can span multiple categories (e.g. the historical books often contain law, or the prophets often contain historical information). For instance, the Psalms are a poetic and worshipful songs, the Gospels are biography/narrative. Readers can’t interpret the hard verses unless they get a handle on these genres.
Where can I get a summary of each book of the Bible?
Each book in the Bible has its own theme and purpose. For a brief overview of all 66–73 books, visit our site page, Books Summary. It has a listing of every book (Genesis through Revelation, and the deuterocanonicals) with a little blurb about each. This outline can enable you to rapidly understand how the Bible is laid out in action… book by book.
