The Bible is divided into two major divisions: The Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament consists of thirty-nine books and the New Testament is made up of twenty-seven books, a total of sixty-six books all together.
Both testaments, or covenants (old and new) are divided by a grouping of the various books into different kinds of literature, time frames of history, poetry and wisdom literature, prophecy and so forth. So, lets’ begin with the Old Testament division or grouping of books . . .
Old Testament
The Old Testament was written over roughly a thousand-year period and is divided into five sections:
The Pentateuch
Pentateuch is a Greek word that literally means “five books” or “five scrolls”. It refers to the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus. Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Moses was the human author of these books.
The Jewish community called these five books the “Torah” or “The Law,” sometimes called “The Law of Moses.” The Torah is divided into three parts:
- The Moral Law
- The Practical Law
- The Ceremonial or Sacrificial Law
We will take a closer look at the “Torah” in a later article.
The Historical Books
The Historical books include Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.
These books deal with the History of God’s chosen people, the Hebrews. It traces their line of history from the entering and possessing of the promised land, to the period of the Judges, to the selecting of a king, to a divided kingdom and to the breaking of God’s covenant resulting in their deportation and captivity in foreign lands.
The Poetic and Wisdom Writings
These include the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.
Hebrew poetry is a lot different from ours. Our poetry rhymes; Hebrew poetry doesn’t. It has no distinctive meter or rhyme to make it look or sound any different from prose. Rather, Hebrew poetry relies upon its parallelism, or the counterbalancing of ideas in phrases.
For example, in Psalm 1:1. the Psalmist begins with the phrase: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.” (KJV)
Then, He balances it with a second line with which he re-phrases the first; the same thought, just said a different way to balance and re-inter-ate the first phrase. “Nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” (KJV)
Wisdom literature of the Hebrews has its roots firmly planted in the fear and reverence of God, i.e., “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”–Proverbs 9:10.
The Major Prophets
The major prophets include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel. These books are called “major” because of the size of the books. Compare the amount of content of the major prophets to that of the minor prophets and you can certainly see a difference. In my daily Bible readings, for instance, it takes considerably longer to read through Jeremiah than it does the book of Amos.
Since we are on the subject of prophets, lets look at what the Bible says about a prophet . . . A prophet in the Old Testament was someone who was used by God to communicate His message to the world. Prophets were also called “seers” because they could “see,” spiritually speaking, as God gave them insight–I Samuel 9:9. He was required to deliver God’s message accurately and it had to be 100 percent right, because if what he prophesied did not come true, then he could not have been speaking for God, since God never lies–Numbers 23:19.
Often God’s prophets were revealed during times of a national crisis. God used them to provide direction and wisdom during those times of crises. They were also used by God to remind His people of their covenant relationship to a Holy God. When they strayed and broke His covenant, He gave warning through the prophets and by means of His message attempted to persuade His people to return to Him.
The Minor Prophets
Twelve books make up the minor Prophets, including Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
When Malachi closed out his prophetic utterances to a stubborn a rebellious people, God was silent for 400 years. He did not speak again until a man dressed in camel hair and eating locusts and wild honey appeared on the scene. Through this new prophet, John the Baptist, God will once again speak, and oh, what a message He will deliver.
New Testament
The twenty-seven books of the New testament are divided into four categories: The Gospels, the Book of Acts, the Letters or Epistles and the Book of Revelation. Let’s take a look:
The Gospels
The four gospels of the New Testament are well defined and well-known among the public. They consists of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The word “Gospel” means “Good News.” It is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who came to earth to die on the cross as our perfect redeemer, to be buried and on the third day to rise again from the grave in order that through Him we might be saved and have new life in Him–I Corinthians 15:3-4.
Even though Matthew appears first in the New Testament, Mark is believed to be the earliest of the four gospels. Mark most likely got his information from Peter and of course the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Mark’s gospel presents Jesus as the suffering servant who came to die for our sins (Mark 10:45).
When Jesus met Matthew, he was a tax collector. Jesus “called” Matthew to leave the tax-collectors’ table and to follow Him. He was appointed by Jesus as one of the twelve apostles. Matthew wrote his account of the gospel from the perspective as Jesus Christ, the King. Matthew’s purpose was to offer proof that Jesus is the Messiah, the One who fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures.
Luke was a physician, probably the only gentile writer of any portion of the New Testament. Luke’s account is the only gospel addressed to an individual, a person named, Theophilus. Luke’s main attempt in the gospel is to convey that Jesus is truly human. Luke most likely received his information from his good friend and companion on missionary journeys, the apostle Paul.
The last of the four gospels is the Gospel of John. John was one of the inner circle of disciples who were the closest to Jesus: James, John and Peter. John and James were fisherman. Jesus “called” them to leave their nets and their father, Zebedee and to follow Him and He would make them to become “fishermen of men.” John’s key message is that Jesus is the divine Son of God–John 20:21.
Acts
The book of Acts is historical. It is variously known as the “Acts of the Apostles” and the “Acts of the Early Church.” It is a squeal to the Gospel of Luke, written by Luke to the same man as he wrote his account of the gospel, Theophilus. It tells about the early church from the time of Pentecost to a missionary movement by which the gospel was spread throughout the Roman empire.
The General Letters or The Epistles
These are letters written to local churches and individuals, i.e., Timothy, Titus and Philemon. Most (thirteen) are written by Paul. Three are written by John. Peter wrote two, I & II Peter. James a half brother of Jesus wrote the letter that bears his name and Jude who too, was a half-brother of our Lord also wrote a letter. It’s location in the New Testament appears just before the Book of Revelation. The author of Hebrews remains a mystery.
All together, twenty-one letters are recorded in the New Testament: Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, I Peter, II Peter, I John, II John, III John and Jude.
Revelation or the Apocalypse
The name of this last book of the Bible comes from the second word of the first verse–“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John.”
In Greek, it is the word, apokalupsis, which in English is translated, revelation. It literally means “unveiling” or “disclosure.” And that is what God is saying to His servant, John in this last recorded book in the New Testament, “Things which must soon take place . . .”
The book of Revelation was written by John the Apostle around AD 90-96, while he was in exile of the rocky Island of Patmos. The purpose of Revelation was to warn against falling away from the faith and to offer assurance of victory for believers.
Key verse of Revelation is Revelation 1:19– “Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things.”