When I was a new Christian trying to find my way around the Bible, I was confused. The books of the Bible are not arranged in alphabetical order; nor are they in chronological order. So, in what sort of order are they listed in the Christian Old and New Testament?
The order actually makes a lot of sense unlike other religious books such as the Q’uran which orders the Suras (Chapters) by size alone.
In the Protestant Christian Bible, the first five books are the Law: the Pentateuch, the books written by Moses. After this, we have the historical books, Joshua through Esther. Then come the poetic books sometimes called the “writings:” Job through Song of Solomon. After this come the prophets: first the Major Prophets, Isaiah through Daniel, then the Minor Prophets, Hosea through Malachi. The Major Prophets are no more important than the Minor Prophets, they are just longer.
In the New Testament, the category order is pretty much the same. First we have the biographies, the Gospels, Matthew through John. Next we have the historical book of Acts. After this come the writings, the epistles and, no, an epistle is not the wife of an apostle. These epistles are usually broken up into Paul’s epistles and the others are called the General Epistles. This is because Paul’s epistles were written to specific churches such as the Romans, Galatians, Corinthians, etc. or to individuals such as Timothy and Titus.
The General Epistles were written to the church at large and by writers other than Paul: James, Peter, John, Jude, and we’re not sure who wrote Hebrews.
Sometimes Paul’s epistles are broken down even further, and the Prison Epistles which Paul wrote from captivity around 60-62 a.d.: Epistles, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon are seen as separate.
Last of all comes the prophetic book of the New Testament: Revelation.
This only covers the books of the Protestant Bible. Though we have 39 books of the Old Testament, the Rabbinic Jewish canon (recognized books) only has 24 books, but the books outside of the Torah, the five books of Moses, and the Prophets, are “fluid;” the number can change. The Jewish view of inspiration is different than the Christian.
Within Christianity, there are different canons (lists of inspired books). The Protestants recognize 66 inspired books while the Catholic Bible currently contains 73 books. The additional seven books are the Old Testament books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 Maccabees, and 2 Maccabees. These are seen by the Catholic Church as important and added to the Bible in the 16th century at the Council of Trent. The Protestants see them as “apocrypha,” books accepted by some as inspired but not by others.
The question arises how the Protestant Bible came about, how did they know the books that are included in their canon? In A General Introduction to the Bible by Geisler and Nix, a list of tests is given that were used by the early church to discover which books were inspired.
A New Testament book needed to be written by someone with Apostolic Authority. That meant the book needed to be written by an apostle or someone closely related to an apostle. Luke wasn’t an apostle, but he was a close associate of Paul’s and traveled extensively with him. James and Jude were the Lord’s half brothers. Paul calls James an apostle in Gal. 1:19. We don’t know the author of Hebrews, but it passed the other tests.
A book needed to be widely recognized as inspired by the church. It also needed to be consistent with those books already accepted as inspired, and it must carry the power of God.
The New Testament Canon was not agreed upon until 367 a.d. when Athanasias included his list of the 27 books in his Easter letter. There was no rush on this as the early church didn’t recognize a need to form a “collection” of inspired books. In fact, the first list of books doesn’t appear until 100 years after the death of all the apostles but John. It was in 170 a.d. when 23 of our current New Testament books were contained in what is known as the Muratorian Canon. The only books not listed were 2 Peter, Hebrews, and two of John’s epistles. By then the other 23 were accepted. In fact, as early as late in Peter’s ministry, he tells us Paul’s epistles were accepted as Scripture (2 Peter 3:16).
Why is this important?
To defend the Bible against those who would attack its reliability and inspiration, we need to understand what it is and how it came to be. Christians don’t cling to some old random collection of ancient documents for direction. The Bible is a very carefully compiled collection of 66 books written by more than 40 authors over a period of 1500 years. Christians believe in it strongly enough to defend it robustly and eagerly.
How accurate is our modern Bible? Astrophysicist, Dr. Hugh Ross, went on a search for the Creator God of the universe he saw. He felt this God might want to communicate with His creation, and so began to read the writings of all the major world religions. He left Christianity for last but discovered great accuracy in the writings of the Bible when compared with the universe around us and gave his life to Christ.
The book we know as the Bible is as trustworthy as the reality of the universe and its Creator it describes.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 