How Is The Old Testament Organized
In modern English translations of the Old Testament, the 39 books fall into five main divisions: Books of Moses, History, Poetry, Major Prophets, and Minor Prophets. The number of books in each division turns out to be rather easy to remember: 5-12-5-5-12:
- Books of Moses Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
- History Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
- Poetry Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
- Major Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel
- Minor Prophets Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
Memorize the books in each division, because it will greatly aid you when you are trying to look up a reference.
Want to go a little deeper? The Jews count 24 books, not 39, for they combine the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra/Nehemiah and the Minor Prophets into one book each. The Jews call the Hebrew Scriptures the TaNaKh, an acrostic of the initial letters of terms designating its three parts: Torah , Nebiim , and Khethubim . The first two of these correspond to what Jesus calls The Law and the Prophets or Moses and the Prophets . On at least one occasion, in referring to The Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms , Jesus may have lumped all of the writings in the third category under Psalms, the Writings largest book.
The Jewish division of books is as follows:
The Order Of The Books In The Complete Bible
The OT consists of 3 parts and the NT of 4, so the entire Bible consists of 7 parts and 2×7=14 sub-parts. The Bible was written on 22+27=49=7x7 scrolls and has a total of 39+27=66 or43+27=70 individual books. The first 5 books of the OT and of the NT together form the 10 law books however, the law of love in the NT standing above the OT.In the OT there are 21 prophetic books for the local people of Israel and in the NT there are21 letters for the worldwide Christian family. The Bible is not a normal book, it is a miracle. However, the most people will only recognize it when it’s too late, because many churches, together with their pastors,are now asleep and do not know the Bible itself.
While in the OT the God Yahweh was revealed to the people of Israel, the NT shows the Son of God for the whole world. His name is “Jesus the Christ” . He already existed before He became human and corresponds to Yahweh in the OT . Only He was authorized to pay the blame for our sins, and to save us from eternal death .
What Is A Testament In The Bible
Testament is a word that means covenant, or an agreement between two parties.
A similar idea today might be a contract.
The Old Testament is how God relates to the people of Israel through the Law of Moses. The New Testament is how God relates to mankind in light of what Jesus has done.
The message of the New Testament is that God now relates to mankind in light of His agreement through Jesus. In other words, the Old Covenant is no longer in full effect.
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
This means that we now receive Gods blessing by believing in Jesus and what He has done through His life, death, and resurrection. We can be made right in our relationship with God. In other words, its not my own effort of trying to be good and keeping the commandments of the Law. This is the key difference between the Old Testament and the New Testaments.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
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The Gospels Are The Beginning Of The Nt
The word “Gospel” is derived from “good spell” and the Greek “evangelion”, which means “good news”. The 4 Gospels illuminate the life of Jesus from 4 different perspectives. The first 3 gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke are referred to as “synoptic gospels” because they have much in common in a temporal compilation of events than the Gospel of John. Since Jesus is the Word of God who came to earth to save people from eternal death, the Gospels are the most important books in the entire Bible. They belong to the beginning of the NT and are therefore right in the center of the 7-part Bible:
Use In The Christian Canon
The book was widely quoted by early Christian authors and it found a place in ‘s . According to , 3 Esdras was considered apocryphal. As Jerome’s version of the Bible gradually achieved dominance in Western Christianity, 1 Esdras no longer circulated. From the 13th century onwards, Vulgate Bibles produced in Paris reintroduced a Latin text of 1 Esdras, in response to commercial demand. placed it in an appendix to the along with and the “lest they perish entirely”. However, the use of the book continued in the Eastern Church, and it remains a part of the Eastern Orthodox canon.
The Vulgate text of 3 Esdras is a translation from the Greek version of the Septuagint called Esdras A.
In the Roman rite liturgy, the book is cited once in the Extraordinary Missal of 1962 in the Offertory of the votive Mass for the election of a Pope. Non participentur sancta, donec exsurgat póntifex in ostensiónem et veritátem .
Some scholars, including in his 1988 commentary on EzraNehemiah, hold that the book is a late 2nd/early 1st century BC revision of Esdras and Esdras , while others such as L. L. Grabbe believe it to be independent of the Hebrew-language EzraNehemiah.
The book normally called 1 Esdras is numbered differently among various versions of the Bible. In most editions of the , the book is titled in Greek: and is placed before the single book of , which is titled in Greek: .
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The Original Ot Was Written On 22 Scrolls
The individual Hebrew books of the OT have been created over a period of more than 1,200 years. At that time there were no books with individual pages, but the writings were written down and transported on very precious and expensive parchments . Since leather is perishable, the texts had to be rewritten again and again. In order not to make a mistake, even all single letters were counted. If the number did not match the original, the copy was destroyed. So today we have exactly the same texts as thousands of years ago. God made sure that His people have a spiritual light in this world, that was the sacred text. These book scrolls were the most important treasure of Israel, as they opened the understanding of God and the spiritual dimension. God has chosen the small and despised people of Israel. That’s why the language of this people was used to make the first part of the Bible.
At the time of the canonization, the 12 Little Prophets were written down to a single scroll. Also the 5 books of the Psalms were summarized on a scroll. The same applies to Ezra-Nehemiah. Therefore, in the Septuagint and the Vulgate, the book Nehemiah is referred to as the “2nd Book of Ezra”. The two Chronicle books were also recorded on only one scroll. So there were exactly 22 scrolls .
Major Divisions Of The Bible
- The word Testament means covenant, agreement or promise.
- The Old Testament has 39 books while the New Testament has 27.
- The Roman Catholic Church Bible contains other books known as apocrypha books.
- Apocrypha is a Greek word which means hidden/secret writings.
- They are also referred to as Deutro-canonical books.
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Pauls Letters To The Churches
Paul spent much of his life planting churches on several missionary journeys. He later wrote letters to many of the churches and many of these letters have been preserved in the New Testament. Pauls letters include Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon.
The Three Divisions Of The Old Testament
05/01/2014
The following is taken from Alan Newtons unfinished book:
The Spirit of God versus The Religion of Man
The Hebrew word used by Judaism to refer to these ancient biblical messages from the patriarchs is Tah-NahK. This word is a combination of the first letters of each word used to describe the three categories that all of the Old Testament writings are placed into.
The first category of writings is Torah, and is comprised of the first five books of the Old Testament. Torah is the Hebrew word we translate into English as Law. These first five books are also sometimes referred to simply as Moses. Moses is recognized by most, if not all, serious students of scripture as the original writer of these first five books. The other prominent name for the first five books is Pentateuch, based on the Greek word for five.
The second category of Old Testament writings is referred to as Nevieem, or Prophets. The Hebrew word Na-Vee is the word we translate as prophet and the word means to percolate, or bubble up from within. An effective word picture to illustrate Na-Vee is an artesian well. Artesian wells bring water to the surface by an unknown or unobserved force or energy. Nevieem is the plural of Na-Vee. All of the messages to us from the prophets are called Nevieem.
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The Major Divisions Of The Old Testament
Question: What are the major divisions of the 39 books of the Old Testament?
Answer: The Pentateuch, History, Poetry or Writings, Major Prophets, Minor Prophets
The Old Testament was composed over roughly a thousand year period and is divided by the grouping of the various books:
The Pentateuch is the term commonly applied to the first five books of the Bible Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy . The Pentateuch was the first collection of literature acknowledged as Scripture by the Hebrew community. The writing of these books has been ascribed to Moses. It holds supreme rank in the Old Testament canon in respect and holiness.
This Greek expression means “five scrolls” and was popularized by the Alexandria Jews in the first century A.D. who had come under the influence of Greek culture. The Hebrew-speaking Jewish community referred to these five books as “The Law,” “Torah,” or “The Law of Moses.”
The Historical books include Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. These books share a prophetic view of history describing how the obedience or disobedience of God’s people is directly tied to the blessings and curses of the covenant. In the Hebrew arrangement, Joshua, Judges, and the books of Samuel and Kings form a group of books called “the Former Prophets” due to the prophetic view from which they are written.
Th Level: The Spiritual Dimension Of The Bible
Even if the harmonies of numbers did not exist at all, the sensational content of the Bible testifies to the existence of God.This concerns the inspiration and inscription of historical events, the wisdom literature, the publication of commandments and the prophecies.If you already have the basic knowledge, you cannot get out of the astonishment. How was it possible that thousands of years ago the empires, individual rulers, as well as many very small details of the life of Jesus were laid down in writing?This is only possible through conscious planning of an existing spiritual power.The Bible has also been written in such a way that it can only be understood by those who have been given it . Even if people would memorize the whole Bible, they could never understand the Scripture without the Holy Spirit, and would consider this book to be a normal, strange and illogical work of world literature. But those who ask God for understanding and have a humble heart will recognize the spiritual dimension and understand the spiritual content behind the letters .Through the Bible, we learn that there is not only a physical but also a spiritual world, and that God’s goal isthat we can be with him.Our life on earth is therefore only a short period of training for eternity.
The 7 levels in the construction of the Bible show planning and the eternal completeness of the Word of God.
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The Order Of The Books Of The Nt
The scholars realized very early that exactly 27 scrolls form the New Testament . Nothing has changed to this day. The New Testament, abbreviated NT, is a collection of 27 scriptures of early Christianity in Greek, proclaiming Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Son of God come to save Israel and the cosmos. Thus, all people know exactly which books belong to the inspired NT and which are not. There is no doubt in Christianity. But as far as the order of the individual writings is concerned, there is disagreement. The arrangement of the books in the NT in the pictures on this website corresponds to the old and original order . The NT consists of 4 parts, Gospels, Acts, 21 Letters , and Revelation. Together with the 3 parts of the OT, the entire Bible consists of 7 parts. Some theologians confirm the 4-division, but they group the Gospels and Acts into a single group, subdividing the 21 letters into two groups, the 7 General and 14 Paul’s letters and Revelation]. But this is not logical, because the similarities in content are much larger in the letters than between the Gospels and Acts. In addition, the Epistle group consists of exactly 21 books , which harmonizes with the 21 books of the prophets of the OT. We are very fortunate, because the order of the books of the NT is correct in most Bibles, for only the position of the Epistle to the Hebrews should have been a little higher up.
Summary Question 7 Why Are The Books Of The Bible Placed In A Particular Order
The books of the Bible are divided for sake of convenience and their logical historical developmentthere is no sacred order. Because the order of the books is human-made, it is not necessary to read the Bible in this sequence.
In the Protestant Bible, there are sixty-six booksthirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, which has the same content as the Protestant Old Testament, there are twenty-four books. The difference is in the way they are divided.
The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox and Ethiopic Church, add a number of books to the Old Testament that are not accepted by Protestants or by the Jews. These books are known as the Apocrypha by Protestants, and the deuterocanonical books by the Roman Catholic Church.
There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament. They can be divided into four gospels, one book of history, twenty-one letters and one book of prophecy.
There is no divine order for the biblical books. In the Latin manuscripts that are known to exist, we find about three hundred different arrangements of the books of Scripture. Pauls letters are arranged in at least twenty different sequences.
The four gospels are placed in their present order based on the usual order in which they are found in the existing manuscripts. The letters of Paul are placed in order according to their length, rather than the time they were written.
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Some Groups Accept More Old Testament Books Than Protestants And Jews
The Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ethiopic Church add a number of books to the Old Testament that are not accepted by the Protestants or by the Jews. As far as the books added by the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, these works are known as the Old Testament Apocrypha by Protestants and Jews, and Deuterocanonical books, or books added to the canon, by the Roman Catholic Church.
In our course on the Canon of Scripture, we detail the reasons as to why the Roman Catholic Church accepts these works as Scripture and why Protestantism and Judaism reject them. We will discover that there are no good reasons for accepting these extra books as part of Holy Scripture.
The Eastern Orthodox Church adds three additional books that the Roman Catholic Church does not consider to be sacred Scripture the Russian Orthodox Church adds four extra books, while the Ethiopic Church adds five books.
What Are The Five Divisions Of The Old Testament
KAY DEAN
From Genesis to Malachi, for over 6,000 years, the Old Testament of the Holy Bible has been the book of faith for millions of people in the Christian and Jewish religions. After studying the overall message or purpose of the different books, biblical scholars grouped the Old Testament into five divisions.
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Free Worksheets For Bible Divisions Review
This page link to our series of Bible worksheets for each major section in the Scriptures. These are ideal for children learn more about Gods Word in a homeschool or Christian school setting. You can also use them for review and deeper teaching in Sunday School class. For each division, there are two pages with learning activities. Click on the index below for each section.