The books of the Bible are the separations of the different writings. They are different letters, teachings, laws and historical accounts written by men who were inspired by God. They were originally written on scrolls, and long before the invention of the printing press. The printing press allowed us to compile them into one large volume, the Bible, and we now refer to those different scrolls and letters as the books of the Bible.
Are The Books Of The Bible In Chronological Order?
In today’s common Bibles the books are not in chronological order. They are grouped together by different types of writings; law, history, etc. However, you can purchase special Bibles that have been arranged in the best chronological order possible. Some books overlap each other in time and some books don’t specify when they took place.
Who Divided The Bible Into Old And New Testaments?
There is a 400 year gap between the old and new testaments. What we now refer to as the “old testament” is actually the original Hebrew Bible, or Jewish Bible. The old and new testaments should not be seen as one whole book split into two parts. Rather, the new testament is an addition, and the fulfillment, to the original Hebrew Bible.
What Is The Old Testament?
The “old testament” is the name used by Christians for the the Hebrew Bible. The old testament covers events from how everything in the universe was created to the exile and return of the Jewish people around 400 B.C. It contains the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, Jonah and the big fish, David and Goliath, and many, many more.
The old testament also tells of the messiah, the coming King, Jesus, around 500 times and Jesus fulfilled over 300 of it’s prophecies. Those events are recorded in the new testament.
What Are The Books Of Law?
The books of law are the first five books of the Old Testament in the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Also referred to as the Torah or the Pentateuch, these 5 books were written by Moses. They tell the events of the beginning of the world through the death of Moses around the 13th century B.C.
What Are The Major Prophets And The Minor Prophets?
The major and minor prophets are only called that because of the length of each book, not because of the quality of the books. They could also be looked at as macro and micro prophets. The major prophets discuss their prophecies on more of a macro level, addressing all of Israel at times. The minor prophets tend to look at things from a micro perspective, talking to a specific smaller location or audience.
As a whole, the prophetic books carry the same themes. The people needed to repent of their sins or face the judgement of them while they were waiting on the coming Messiah. Later in the new testament Jesus would fulfill each of these prophecies and take the ultimate punishment for our sins by dying on the cross for each of us.
What Are The Major Prophets?
The four major prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. Isaiah stands alone on the timeline of history, 740-710 B.C., but Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel overlap each other from 620-580 B.C. Common themes in these books include asserting that God was speaking through each of them, the covenant relationship between God and Israel, Israel sinning against God, judgement to eradicate those sins and that the coming Savior will then bring peace.
What Are The Minor Prophets?
The minor prophets, or the twelve prophets, are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The themes of the minor prophets are the same as those of the major prophets, to repent and turn back to God while waiting on His coming. These prophets warned their audiences about specific sins that would lead to specific punishments. They also encouraged readers in the ultimate victory of the coming King.
What Is The New Testament?
The new testament can be looked at as the second part of the Christian bible. It picks up about 400 years after the old testament ended. New testament writings were completed over a period of around one hundred years and contain the gospels, church history, epistles and prophecy.
A great phrase to sum up the new testament’s theme is “already but not yet.” The new testament tells us all about that “coming King” of the old testament, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the “already” by fulfilling many prophecies of the old testament through His birth, life, death and resurrection. Jesus is also the “not yet” because we now await His second coming that is mentioned in the new testament book of Revelation. The new testament is also when the Holy Spirit is sent to live inside of each believer in Christ.
What Are The Gospels?
The Gospels refer to the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible. They are the first person accounts of the events that happened from Jesus’ birth to around the year 100 A.D. and are the first four books in the new testament. Another name for the gospels could be ancient biographies, or bios, because they describe the key events around Jesus and His teachings.
The gospels themselves are not always written in chronological order. For example, Mark groups events topically at times. Also, some events are repeated in more than one gospel because they were witnessed my more than one person.
Technically, the gospels are all anonyms in authorship because the authors did not out right name themselves. But historical documents from early church history help support the authors we have for them today. It is assumed that each author assembled their gospel for their own church that knew them well and did not need an author specified.
What Are The Synoptics?
The synoptics are the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are called the synoptics because they overlap in many places and tell about the life of Jesus starting with His birth. They also include Jesus’ genealogy and the story of John the Baptist. The synoptics gradually unfold who Jesus is as the Son of God. But, John, the 4th book in the gospels starts by saying that Jesus was present with God at the creation of the world.
What Is The Book Of Acts?
The book of Acts is the fifth book in the new testament of the Christian Bible. It describes Jesus’ ascension to heaven, the Holy Spirit coming down to live with us and the ministry of the apostles. These events take place from around 30 A.D. to almost 70 A.D. The book of acts includes events such as Stephen’s stoning in chapters six and seven, and Philip being carried away by the Spirit of the Lord in chapter eight.
In the bigger picture, the book of Acts explains that this new religion, Christianity, is for both the Jews and Gentiles. Christianity should be taken all over the world because it is for everyone around the world.
What Are The Epistles?
The word epistle means letter or series of letters and the epistles make up 21 of the 27 books of the new testament.
13 of the 21 epistles were written by the apostle Paul. Three of his letters were sent to specific people, Timothy, Titus and Philemon and the other ten were sent to certain churches as a whole. Paul wanted his letters to be read to the entire congregations because they described the gospel in great detail, they provided solutions to problems the churches were facing and they taught practical life advice about how to live as Christians.
The other epistles have various different authors and were written for circulating through all of the churches at that time. They warned against false doctrine, encouraged those being persecuted and gave practical, daily advice. Chronologically, the book of James was written first, though it’s the 20th book in the bible, and provides a lot of practical, straightforward advice.
What Are The Books Of Prophecy?
Revelation, sometimes called the apocalypse, is the last book of the bible and it prophetically covers the events that will take place at the end of the world. It was written by John, who also wrote the gospel of John, after he had been exiled to the island of Patmos and was near the end of his life on earth.
Though it can feel hard to interpret at first, Revelation contains a large amount of descriptive imagery about the end of time as we know it now. It also describes Jesus’ imminent return and victory, the new heaven and the new earth, and how the church will be presented as a bride.
Final Thoughts
The bible was written over a span of 1500 years by 40 authors and each books points back to the same principal, Christ died for our sins.
If you are new to Bible reading or find it intimidating remember these verses:
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
There is no wrong place to start reading your Bible. His return is imminent, there is no time like now to start. A free, online Bible can be found here.