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The Structure of the Bible
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This page is under construction. Thanks for your patience!
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An Overview of the Categories & Content of the Books in the Bible
Jaharis Byzantine Lectionary, circa 1100 and made in Constantinople,
open to folio 43 showing the evangelist Matthew (Metropolitan Museum of Art)This page explains the Church's traditional categorizations of the various books of the Bible. It also gives a broad overview of the content of the Bible. We list the books in the order they appear in the Bible, with links to where in the lectionary guide one can find more information about each of them. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are divided into four sections. Use the links below to jump ahead.
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Old Testament: Pentateuch (or Torah)
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The first five books of the Bible are often called the Pentateuch (Greek: five books) by Christians and the Torah (Hebrew: the Law) by Jews. Judaism holds that the Torah is the most important part of the scriptures: it is the foundation on which God created the world.
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Genesis 1 - 11 tells of the origins of the world and humanity before the advent of written history. These chapters are not intended as factual reporting of distinct, actual events. Whether or not these events happened as related in the Bible, they still speak to great truths in our understanding of who God is, and how we are called to relate to God. Genesis 12 - 50 relates the stories of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, leaders in one family who related personally with God over four generations, c. 1800 - 1650 BC.
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The other four books of the Pentateuch are about events c. 1250 - 1200 BC. Jacob's descendants—called the Israelites—are numerous, but enslaved by the Pharoah in Egypt. God calls Moses to deliver the people from captivity. During the Red Sea's miraculous parting, the Israelites escape the Egyptians in a stunning reversal of fortunes. At Mt. Sinai, God gives the Israelites the Law (or Torah)—a covenant that they will follow in response to God protecting them—but the Israelites soon question God's commands. In response, God forces the Israelites to wander the desert for 40 years until the faithless generation has died out and been replaced.
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To learn more about each book of the Pentateuch, please click on the links below:
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Old Testament: Historical Books & Biblical Novellas
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The next set of books are designated by Christians as historical books. They are not categorized this way because they reach any standard of verifiable factual accuracy. The term “historical” refers to the content and scope of the books. We argue that while the books of Ruth, Tobit, Judith, and Esther are presented as history, they are better understood as biblical novellas whose spiritual insights push them closer to the wisdom books that we will discuss further down this page.
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Unifying the Kingdom
Joshua leads the Israelites in a conquest of the Land of Canaan, the land originally promised by God to Abraham 600 years beforehand. But not all is peaceful. Other peoples still live in the land, and the Israelites sometimes give in to worshipping the gods of these other peoples.
Occasionally, God raises up a "judge"—a person who is both a prophet and a military leader—to bring the Israelites back to worship of God and defend the people from military attacks.
Samuel is the last of the judges. He anoints Saul as the first king of Israel. After Saul's death, David is anointed as the second king. He unites the entire nation of Israel c. 1000 and conquers the other peoples in the land. His son, Solomon, rules after him, taking the kingdom to its highest peak of peace and prosperity. Solomon builds the magnificent temple to house the ark of covenant.
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The Divided Kingdoms
At the death of Solomon c. 930, the unified kingdom is divided by civil war. The northern kingdom, called Israel, Samaria, or Ephraim, is led by corrupt kings. Prophets rise up to condemn the kings, starting with Elijah. The northern kingdom is destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 722, and the Israelites are dispersed by the Assyrians throughout the empire, losing their identity as a people.
David and Solomon's descendants rule the southern kingdom of Judah, which contains Jerusalem. It is led by some devout kings and some evil kings, but after a string of corrupt kings after the death of King Josiah, the Babylonian Empire conquers the kingdom. The Judahite priests and aristocrats are taken away in exile to Babylon in 597, and the Babylonians destroy Jerusalem and its temple in 586.
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After the Babylonian Exile
The Babylonian exile is the greatest of crisis of the Old Testament, forcing the religion to wrestle with how God could allow such a tragedy to befall the chosen people. It is during this time (586 - 538) that the religion of the "faithful remnant" of the descendants of Abraham is first called Judaism (the religion of the people of Judah). When Persia defeats Babylon in 539, King Cyrus allows the Judahites to return to rebuild the city and the temple. The second temple is dedicated in 515.
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The Greek Period
The next few centuries are not reported in many historical accounts, in the Bible or anywhere else. Judah, the vassal state that pays tribute to Persia, is conquered by the Macedonian Empire in 332 and is now called Judea (Greek name). Upon Alexander the Great's death in 323, Macdeonia breaks up into rival empires.
The Ptolemies, tolerant of Judaism like the Macedonians before them, rule 301 - 200. The Seluecids wrest control of Judea from the Ptolemies. The Seleucid rulers, especially Antichous IV, are intolerant of Judaism. Judas Maccabeus leads a revolt against the Seleucids, 167 - 164.
By 110, the new Hasmonean kingdom, led by Judas' family, is truly independent. Pompey of Rome conquers Judea in 63. Herod convinces the Romans to make him King of Judaea (Roman name) in 37.
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The Divided Kingdoms
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After the Babylonian Exile & the Greek Period
(Jewish and Protestant Bibles do not include Tobit, Judith, or 1 & 2 Maccabees, and they have a shorter version of Esther.)
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Old Testament: Wisdom Books
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Seven books of the Catholic Bible are categorized as wisdom books. These books are filled with prayers, insights, and syntheses of how to live one's life in accord with God's commands.
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With the exception of Job, these books do not have discernible plots. As mentioned above, we who are writing this Lectionary Guide consider the biblical novellas of Ruth, Tobit, Judith, and Esther to be more accurately catgeorized as wisdom books than historical books. As we suggest in the prophetic books below, Lamentations and Jonah may be better categorized as wisdom books, too.
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Old Testament: Prophetic Books
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In most cultures, a prophet is a person given special powers and insights by a divine being. That is not the spirit of the prophetic tradition in Judaism and Christianity. A prophet in the Judeo-Christian tradition is someone who speaks God's truths. Jews traditionally recognize 55 prophets in the Old Testament, starting with Abraham and Sarah. While Christians do not typically categorize all 55 of these people as prophets, we recognize some prophets before the time of the divided kingdoms, including Moses, Samuel, and Nathan.
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The prophetic tradition reaches its full flowering in the northern kingdom of Israel starting c. 865 with Elijah and Elisha, whose deeds are recorded in 1 & 2 Kings. Other prophets of the northern kingdom are Amos and Hosea. Prophets of the southern kingdom (before the Babylonian exile) include Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah.
Prophets during the exile include Ezekiel and perhaps Obadiah.
Prophets after the exile include Haggai, Zechariah, Baruch, Malachi, and Joel. The age of prophecy comes to a close with Joel c. 400.
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Christianity traditionally categorizes 18 books as prophetic books, but we suggest categorizing 3 of them differently. Lamentations is a book of wisdom poetry grieving the destruction of Jesusalem in 586. Daniel is apocalyptic literature. (See the section on Revelation below.) Jonah is a fable of wisdom.
We traditionally break the prophetic books into the "major prophets" and the "minor prophets." The 6 major prophets are listed first—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel because they are the longest books, and Lamentations and Baruch for their association with the prophet Jeremiah. The 12 minor prophets are shorter books that were traditionally written on a single scroll.
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Major Prophets
(Jewish and Protestant Bibles do not include Baruch, and they have a slightly shorter version of Daniel.)
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New Testament: Gospels
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For Christians, the gospels are by far the most important books of the Bible. They each detail the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For those beginning their study of the Bible, we recommend beginning with the Gospel of Mark before moving on to Matthew, Luke, and John.
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New Testament: The Acts of the Apostles
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The Acts of the Apostles is the second volume of a 2-part history of Christianity written in connection with the Gospel of Luke. Acts records the beginning of the Church at Pentecost, c. 30 AD, and how the gospel was then spread throughout the world by the nascent Church—guided by the Holy Spirit—in the next few decades, through c. 60. The main protagonists are the apostles Peter and Paul. Minor protagonists include the apostle John, the deacons Stephen and Philip, and the Christian leaders Barnabas and James, called "the brother of the Lord."
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New Testament: The Epistles
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Early leaders wrote a number of letters, or epistles, to Christian communities and individuals aroud the Roman Empire. 21 have been collected in the Bible. For more information on the authorship of the various epistles, check out this page.
The first 13 epistles in the Bible have traditionally been attribted to Paul. Hebrews is a treatise, written by an unknown disciple. The last seven epistles, written by authors other than Paul, are called the "catholic" letters because most of them are addressed to a more universal (i.e. catholic) audience.
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Pauline Epistles
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Romans
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1 Corinthians
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2 Corinthians
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Galatians
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Ephesians
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Philippians
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Colossians (page under construction)
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1 Thessalonians (page under construction)
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2 Thessalonians
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1 Timothy (page under construction)
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2 Timothy
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Titus
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Philemon
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New Testament: The Book of Revelation
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Like the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, the Book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic arose during Judeo-Christian religious persecutions c. 300 BC - 200 AD. It presents events of the present and the recent past in a new spiritual light—an unveiling or a revealing of new truths about God's plans that could not be grasped before.
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This concludes page 3 of 40 in our Lectionary Guide. For a comprehensive reading of the entire guide, we suggest going next to Genesis 1 - 11: The Divine Origins of Human Existence.
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