Books of the Bible

Books of the Bible are listed differently in the canons of Jews, and Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox Christians, although there is overlap.

Old Testament (including Tanakh)

The Tanakh, or Jewish scriptures, have the following standard arrangement.

• the Law
  • Genesis
  • Exodus
  • Leviticus
  • Numbers
  • Deuteronomy
• the Prophets
  • the Former Prophets
    • Joshua
    • Judges
    • Samuel
    • Kings
  • the Latter Prophets
    • Isaiah
    • Jeremiah
    • Ezekiel
    • the Twelve Prophets
      • Hosea
      • Joel
      • Amos
      • Obadiah
      • Jonah
      • Micah
      • Nahum
      • Habakkuk
      • Zephaniah
      • Haggai
      • Zechariah
      • Malachi
• the Writings
  • Psalms
  • Proverbs
  • Job
  • the Five Rolls
    • Song of Songs
    • Ruth
    • Lamentations
    • Ecclesiastes
    • Esther
  • Daniel
  • Ezra (including Nehemiah)
  • Chronicles

The Protestant Old Testament is identical to the Tanakh in contents, but different in arrangement. The Roman Catholic Old Testament includes additional books (marked here with *) and passages in other books (marked with †).

• historical books
  • Pentateuch
    • Genesis
    • Exodus
    • Leviticus
    • Numbers
    • Deuteronomy
  • Joshua
  • Judges
  • Ruth
  • Samuel (2 books)
  • Kings (2 books)
  • Chronicles (2 books)
  • Ezra
  • Nehemiah
  • Tobit*
  • Judith*
  • Esther†
  • 1 Maccabees*
  • 2 Maccabees*
• teaching books
  • Job
  • Psalms
  • Proverbs
  • Ecclesiastes
  • Song of Songs or Song of Solomon
  • Wisdom*
  • Ecclesiasticus or Sirach*
• prophetic books
  • Isaiah
  • Jeremiah
  • Lamentations
  • Baruch*
  • Ezekiel
  • Daniel†
  • Hosea
  • Joel
  • Amos
  • Obadiah
  • Jonah
  • Micah
  • Nahum
  • Habakkuk
  • Zephaniah
  • Haggai
  • Zechariah
  • Malachi

The Eastern Orthodox Church has never considered it important to define a definite canon of scripture. On the whole, it theoretically recognizes only the Protestant canon of the Old Testament as fully canonical inspired scripture, but other works are regarded as part of the scriptures and in practice treated little differently. These include the works marked above and others, varying between branches: this too does not seem to be considered important. Early Protestant Bibles and some more recent ones included the extra books and some others in a separate section under the title Apocrypha, sometimes with notes explaining their inferior status.

New Testament

In general, among Christian groups the New Testament canon is agreed-upon, although book order can vary.

Catholic, most Protestant, almost all Orthodox	Luther Bible	Slavonic Bible
The Gospels
Matthew	Matthew	Matthew
Mark	Mark	Mark
Luke	Luke	Luke
John	John	John
The History
Acts	Acts	Acts
The Pauline epistles	The Pauline epistles	The General epistles
Romans	Romans	James
1 Corinthians	1 Corinthians	1 Peter
2 Corinthians	2 Corinthians	2 Peter
Galatians	Galatians	1 John
Ephesians	Ephesians	2 John
Philippians	Philippians	3 John
Colossians	Colossians	Jude
1 Thessalonians	1 Thessalonians	The Pauline epistles
2 Thessalonians	2 Thessalonians	Romans
1 Timothy	1 Timothy	1 Corinthians
2 Timothy	2 Timothy	2 Corinthians
Titus	Titus	Galatians
Philemon	Philemon	Ephesians
The General epistles	The General epistles	Philippians
Hebrews	1 Peter	Colossians
James	2 Peter	1 Thessalonians
1 Peter	1 John	2 Thessalonians
2 Peter	2 John	1 Timothy
1 John	3 John	2 Timothy
2 John	Books questioned by Luther	Titus
3 John	Hebrews	Philemon
Jude	James	Hebrews
Apocalypse	Jude	Apocalypse
Revelation of Christ to John	Revelation of Christ to John	Revelation of Christ to John

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a few additional books in its canon: Jubilees, Book of Enoch, the Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, Acts of Paul, and some uniquely Ethiopian books. There is a matter of some controversy as to what constitutes "canon" in this religious body. The Peshitta excludes 2-3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation, but Bibles of the modern Syriac Orthodox Church includes later translations of those books. Third Epistle to the Corinthians was once considered part of the Armenian Orthodox Bible.

See also

• Authors of the Bible

Notes

Return links: Tanakh/Tanakh — New Testament

External links

• Bible Prophecy and History – an Evangelical perspective Canon 325AD, translation issues, historically proven prophecy.
• The Canon of Scripture – a Catholic perspective Canon 1546AD
• The Tanakh at Breslov.com - Masoretic, Hebrew, Aramaic, JPS, Kaplan translations.
• Articles on Various Books from Biblical Resource Database
• Judaica Press Translation - Online Jewish translation of the books of the Bible. The Tanakh and Rashi's entire commentary.
• Protestant Bible at BibleGateway.com 50 versions in 35 languages, searchable by verse or keyword.
• Protestant Bible at BlueLetterBible.org King James Version with Strong's Hebrew/Greek Concordance, many tools.
• Slavonic Bible
• Books of the Apocrypha (from the UMC)
• Armenian Bible (an essay, with full official canon at the end)
• Ethiopian Orthodox "narrow canon" (from the UMC)
• The Book That Bridges Millennia (online video and exploration of Biblical beginnings, authority, canonization, translation, and interpretation from the UMC)