There are 39 books in Old Testament. The 39 books of the Old Testament are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and I Samuel II Samuel 1 Kings 2 Kings 1 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Esther Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi

In the Old Testament, there are 39 books. The first five books of the Old Testament are called the Pentateuch (or Torah). They are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The next 15 books contain historical writings: Joshua and Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings, Ruth and 1 & 2 Chronicles. Then come the poetic books: Job and Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and Lamentations; followed by the prophetic books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel. The remaining twelve books include Ezra (with Nehemiah), Esther, Job (parts) Obadiah Habakkuk Haggai Zechariah Malachi

How Many Books In Old Testament Catholic

Content. The Old Testament contains 39 (Protestant), 46 (Catholic), or more (Orthodox and other) books, divided, very broadly, into the Pentateuch (Torah), the historical books, the “wisdom” books and the prophets.

The term canon, from a Hebrew-Greek word meaning “cane” or “measuring rod,” passed into Christian usage to mean “norm” or “rule of faith.” The Church Fathers of the 4th century CE first employed it in reference to the definitive, authoritative nature of the body of sacred Scripture.

The Hebrew canon
The Hebrew Bible is often known among Jews as TaNaKh, an acronym derived from the names of its three divisions: Torah (Instruction, or Law, also called the Pentateuch), Neviʾim (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings).

The Torah contains five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Neviʾim comprise eight books divided into the Former Prophets, containing the four historical works Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and the Latter Prophets, the oracular discourses of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve (Minor—i.e., smaller) Prophets—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The Twelve were all formerly written on a single scroll and thus reckoned as one book. The Ketuvim consist of religious poetry and wisdom literature—Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, a collection known as the Five Megillot (Five Scrolls; i.e., Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, which have been grouped together according to the annual cycle of their public reading in the synagogue)—and the books of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

The number of books
The number of books in the Hebrew canon is thus 24, referring to the sum of the separate scrolls on which these works were traditionally written in ancient times. This figure is first cited in II Esdras in a passage usually dated about 100 CE and is frequently mentioned in rabbinic (postbiblical) literature, but no authentic tradition exists to explain it. Josephus, a 1st-century-CE Jewish historian, and some of the Church Fathers, such as Origen (the great 3rd-century Alexandrian theologian), appear to have had a 22-book canon.

English Bibles list 39 books for the Old Testament because of the practice of bisecting Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles and of counting Ezra, Nehemiah, and the 12 Minor Prophets as separate books.

The tripartite canon
The threefold nature of the Hebrew Bible (the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings) is reflected in the literature of the period of the Second Temple (6th–1st century BCE) and soon after it. The earliest reference is that of the Jewish wisdom writer Ben Sira (flourished 180–175 BCE), who speaks of “the law of the Most High…the wisdom of all the ancients and…prophecies.” His grandson (c. 132 BCE), in the prologue to Ben Sira’s work, mentions “the law and the prophets and the others that followed them,” the latter also called “the other books of our fathers.” The same tripartite division finds expression in II Maccabees, the writings of Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, and Josephus, a Hellenistic Jewish historian, as well as in the Gospel According to Luke. The tripartite canon represents the three historic stages in the growth of the canon.

The history of canonization
Because no explicit or reliable traditions concerning the criteria of canonicity, the canonizing authorities, the periods in which they lived, or the procedure adopted have been preserved, no more than a plausible reconstruction of the successive stages involved can be provided. First, it must be observed that sanctity and canonization are not synonymous terms. The first condition must have existed before the second could have been formally conferred. Next, the collection and organization of a number of sacred texts into a canonized corpus (body of writings) is quite a different problem from that of the growth and formation of the individual books themselves.

No longer are there compelling reasons to assume that the history of the canon must have commenced very late in Israel’s history, as was once accepted. The emergence in Mesopotamia, already in the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, of a standardized body of literature arranged in a more or less fixed order and with some kind of official text, expresses the notion of a canon in its secular sense. Because Babylonian and Assyrian patterns frequently served as the models for imitation throughout the Middle East, sacred documents in Israel may well have been carefully stored in temples and palaces, particularly if they were used in connection with the cult or studied in the priestly or wisdom schools. The injunction to deposit the two tables of the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) inside the Ark of the Covenant and the book of the Torah beside it and the chance find of a book of the Torah in the Temple in 622 BCE tend to confirm the existence of such a practice in Israel.

The divisions of the TaNaKh
The Torah
The history of the canonization of the Torah as a book must be distinguished from the process by which the heterogeneous components of the literature as such developed and were accepted as sacred.

The Book of the Chronicles, composed circa 400 BCE, frequently refers to the “Torah of Moses” and exhibits a familiarity with all five books of the Pentateuch. The earliest record of the reading of a “Torah book” is provided by the narrative describing the reformation instituted by King Josiah of Judah in 622 BCE following the fortuitous discovery of a “book of the Torah” during the renovation of the Temple. The reading of the book (probably Deuteronomy), followed by a national covenant ceremony, is generally interpreted as having constituted a formal act of canonization.

Between this date and 400 BCE the only other ceremony of Torah reading is that described in Nehemiah as having taken place at the autumnal New Year festival. The “book of the Torah of Moses” is mentioned and the emphasis is on its instruction and exposition. The Samaritans, the descendants of Israelites intermarried with foreigners in the old northern kingdom that fell in 722 BCE, became hostile to the Judaeans in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (6th–5th century BCE). They would not likely have accepted the Torah—which they did, along with the tradition of its Mosaic origin—if it had only recently been canonized under the authority of their archenemies. The final redaction and canonization of the Torah book, therefore, most likely took place during the Babylonian Exile (6th–5th century BCE).

The Neviʾim
The model of the Pentateuch probably encouraged the assemblage and ordering of the literature of the prophets. The Exile of the Jews to Babylonia in 587/586 and the restoration half a century later enhanced the prestige of the prophets as national figures and aroused interest in the written records of their teachings. The canonization of the Neviʾim could not have taken place before the Samaritan schism that occurred during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, since nothing of the prophetical literature was known to the Samaritans. On the other hand, the prophetic canon must have been closed by the time the Greeks had displaced the Persians as the rulers of Palestine in the late 4th century BCE. The exclusion of Daniel would otherwise be inexplicable, as would be the omission of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, even though they supplement and continue the narrative of the Former Prophets. Furthermore, the books of the Latter Prophets contain no hint of the downfall of the Persian empire and the rise of the Greeks, even though the succession of great powers in the East plays a major role in their theological interpretation of history. Their language, too, is entirely free of Grecisms.

These phenomena accord with the traditions of Josephus and rabbinic sources limiting the activities of the literary prophets to the Persian era.

The Ketuvim
That the formation of the Ketuvim as a corpus was not completed until a very late date is evidenced by the absence of a fixed name, or indeed any real name, for the third division of Scripture. Ben Sira refers to “the other books of our fathers,” “the rest of the books”; Philo speaks simply of “other writings” and Josephus of “the remaining books.” A widespread practice of entitling the entire Scriptures “the Torah and the Prophets” indicates a considerable hiatus between the canonization of the Prophets and the Ketuvim. Greek words are to be found in the Song of Songs and in Daniel, which also refers to the disintegration of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great. Ben Sira omits mention of Daniel and Esther. No fragments of Esther have turned up among the biblical scrolls (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls) from the Judaean desert. Rabbinic sources betray some hesitation about Esther and a decided ambivalence about the book of Ben Sira. A third-generation Babylonian amora (rabbinic interpretive scholar; plural amoraim) actually cites it as “Ketuvim,” as opposed to Torah and Prophets, and in the mid-2nd century CE the need to deny its canonicity and prohibit its reading was still felt. Differences of opinion also are recorded among the tannaim (rabbinic scholars of tradition who compiled the Mishna, or Oral Law) and amoraim (who created the Talmud, or Gemara) about the canonical status of Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Esther.

All this indicates a prolonged state of fluidity with respect to the canonization of the Ketuvim. A synod at Jabneh (c. 100 CE) seems to have ruled on the matter, but it took a generation or two before their decisions came to be unanimously accepted and the Ketuvim regarded as being definitively closed. The destruction of the Jewish state in 70 CE, the breakdown of central authority, and the ever-widening Diaspora (collectively, Jews dispersed to foreign lands) all contributed to the urgent necessity of providing a closed and authoritative corpus of sacred Scripture.

The Samaritan canon
As has been mentioned, the Samaritans accepted the Pentateuch from the Jews. They knew of no other section of the Bible, however, and did not expand their Pentateuchal canon even by the inclusion of any strictly Samaritan compositions.

The Alexandrian canon
The Old Testament as it has come down in Greek translation from the Jews of Alexandria via the Christian church differs in many respects from the Hebrew Scriptures. The books of the second and third divisions have been redistributed and arranged according to categories of literature—history, poetry, wisdom, and prophecy. Esther and Daniel contain supplementary materials, and many noncanonical books, whether of Hebrew or Greek origin, have been interspersed with the canonical works. These extracanonical writings are I Esdras, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira), additions to Esther, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremiah, and additions to Daniel, as listed in the manuscript known as Codex Vaticanus (c. 350 CE). The sequence of the books varies, however, in the manuscripts and in the patristic and synodic lists of the Eastern and Western churches, some of which include other books as well, such as I and II Maccabees.

It should be noted that the contents and form of the inferred original Alexandrian Jewish canon cannot be ascertained with certainty, because all extant Greek Bibles are of Christian origin. The Jews of Alexandria may themselves have extended the canon they received from Palestine, or they may have inherited their traditions from Palestinian circles in which the additional books had already been regarded as canonical. It is equally possible that the additions to the Hebrew Scriptures in the Greek Bible are of Christian origin.

The canon at Qumrān
In the collection of manuscripts from the Judaean desert—discovered from the 1940s on—there are no lists of canonical works and no codices (manuscript volumes), only individual scrolls. For these reasons, nothing can be known with certainty about the contents and sequence of the canon of the Qumrān sectarians. Since fragments of all the books of the Hebrew Bible (except Esther) have been found, it may be assumed that this reflects the minimum extent of its canon. The situation is complicated by the presence in Qumrān of extracanonical works—some already known from the Apocrypha (so-called hidden books not accepted as canonical by Judaism or the church) and pseudepigrapha (books falsely ascribed to biblical authors) or from the Cairo Geniza (synagogue storeroom) and others entirely new. Some or all of these additional works may have been considered canonical by the members of the sect. It is significant, however, that, so far, pesharim (interpretations) have been found only on books of the traditional Hebrew canon. Still, the great Psalms scroll departs from the received Hebrew text in both sequence and contents. If the Psalms scroll were a canonical Psalter and not a liturgy, then evidence would indeed be forthcoming for the existence of a rival canon at Qumrān.

How Many Books In The Old And New Testament

What is it about the Bible that has made it the book to “turn to” for the last half-century? It is a book that also has various translations to choose from and even different representations among the Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant faiths. The Book of Hebrews states it best when explaining why the Word of God is something everyone is drawn to:

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart, (Hebrews 4:12).

Let’s journey through the origins of the Bible, learning as we go of how the Bible has affected not only the lives of countless people but has also become the foundational building blocks for the leading faiths in our world today.

How Many Books Are in the Bible?
To offer a brief overview, the current English Bible consists of 66 books with two distinct sections: The Old Testament (39 books) and the New Testament (27 books). The two sections are arranged this way to highlight the birth of Jesus, with the Old Testament sharing the emerging prophecies of the Messiah and Jesus’ actual birth, death, and resurrection taking place at the start of the New Testament with the Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

There are about 50 versions of the English Bible in circulation, with revised versions well into the hundreds. The most popular of the Bible translations is that of King James Version, which is also public domain and doesn’t require obtaining permission for reprinting Scripture verses in published books. Bible Study Tools even has a list of the best-known versions and translations of the Bible for readers to peruse, with a brief explanation of each version.

What’s the Difference Between the Hebrew Bible and the Protestant Bible?
How the Bible was established to include what it does of stories and parables is part of the canonization process, which is, initially, a Christian communion performed by the Roman Catholic Church (as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church) to appoint selected deceased members of the church into the determined canon, or list, to be considered a saint in the church.

The same process was applied to determine what books of the Bible would be included, seen as to whether they were inspired by the Spirit or not, to be the authorized Word of God. It comes from the Greek word “kanon,” which means reed or measurement.

The Hebrew Bible consists of 24 books, believed to be determined by the councils of Jamnia in AD 90 and 118 as the list of books to be part of the Bible. There is still debate over what all the council selected to be canonized of the Bible, as this council has only been mentioned in ancient Hebrew writings and no confirmation has been found that this council existed or what they canonized. It is believed the Hebrew Bible was written between 1200 to 100 BC and has been in its current form since the second century BC.

The believed criteria used to determine what books were to be canonized, as the Word of God, may have included prophetic authorship (text written by an apostle or prophet), inner witnesses of the Holy Spirit, eyewitness testimonies, and then the final acceptance of the book by the people. Given that Jesus’ disciples were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ actions and words, they were the ones to give authorization of the New Testament and whether something was divinely inspired or not.

What Are The 46 Books Of The Old Testament

The Hebrew Bible and the Protestant Bible have the same content in the Old Testament, but the organization is different, such as, for example, the Hebrew Bible has one book of Samuel while the Protestant Bible has two. Primarily for those of Jewish faith, especially Messianic Jews, the first five books of the Bible are the Torah (or Pentateuch) and the main asset of the Bible, detailing how God chose Abraham to be the father of many nations and established the Law (Ten Commandments) as the way to live for God. The New Testament is seen as commentary to the Torah/Old Testament.

What’s the Difference Between the Protestant Bible and the Catholic Bible?
The Protestant Bible comprises much of the Hebrew Bible but organizes the stories into a larger collection than its Jewish predecessor. While the Hebrew Bible was formed entirely from ancient scrolls (24 for each book), the Protestant Bible combines the Hebrew Bible with the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible written in the third and second century BC.

The Eastern/Greek Orthodox Church may use the New King James Version or other translations that allow more of the Greek translation to be used, coupled with their belief that the Bible’s New Testament, with the story of Jesus, is precedent over the Old Testament. The Catholic Bible consists of 46 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament (which is the same NT as the Protestant Bible).

The additional Old Testament sections in the Catholic Bible are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Baruch (includes Letters of Jeremiah), I and II Maccabees, and additional sections for the books of Daniel and Esther. Those of the Catholic faith believe what is in their Bible was canonized by the Synod of Rome council and the early church in AD 382.

It was decided several years later, during the Reformation, by Protestants to follow more of the Greek translations of the Bible instead of the entire Hebrew Bible, which had been canonized and accepted in the original King James Bible by the Catholic Church.

Thus, the Apocrypha is present in the Catholic Bible as the collection of books not found in the Protestant Bible. They can be found in the original 1611 King James Bible but were pulled from the Bible in 1885 and named “deuterocanonical books.”

Other Bible Translations for Other Faiths
Jehovah’s Witnesses use their own version of the Bible, New World Translation of Holy Scriptures, which they believe is more accurate, clearer, and has God’s name listed as they believe it should in the text. Before this version, Jehovah’s Witnesses heavily consorted to the King James Bible.

For Mormons, there are four books they hold as the Word of God: The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ (which have believed records of how God interacted with people of America from 2000 BC to 400 AD), the King James Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants (collection of declarations about the formation and regulation of the Church of Jesus Christ in the last days), and The Pearl of Great Price (writings from Mormon church founder Joseph Smith).

What Does This Mean?
One can see while learning the path toward the creation of the Bible, that it is still one open to interpretation of whose Bible relates most to God’s spoken word on paper. The debate over using canonized Scripture or more Greek translation-infused Scripture will continue, as more people gravitate to reading and studying the Bible and the truth of the Holy Trinity.

What is hoped is readers find a translation that allows their relationship with God to bloom and strengthen their awareness that Jesus lived and died for us so that we would be united with God for eternity.