A version of the following joke exists in many countries around the world: A fellow walks into a bar and bets the price of a round with his friend that he has memorised 3 pages of the telephone directory. ‘All right’, says his friend, ‘if you can do that I’ll be impressed’, and goes to get a phonebook. The fellow then tells him to turn to a certain page and begins to recite:

‘Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith…’

Ok, it’s an old joke, but the point is that for many people the Bible is of no more interest than the phonebook and a whole lot less memorable. For most people, which I’m sorry to say includes most believers, the Bible is a bit of mystery. They don’t know what most of it says, far less what any of it means, and wouldn’t know how to find out even if they wanted to. Nor should we be surprised because religious churchianity historically expended a great deal of effort over hundreds of years to ensure that most believers were neither exposed to the Word of God not encouraged to discover what lay within its pages. Religion preserved it in a language few could understand and still fewer could read, and at times even made it a capital offence to own a translation in one’s own language. Church authorities enjoyed a monopoly on the scriptures they were not willing to relinquish because it served their agenda of maintaining their own powerbase and prestige as the sole arbiters the truth and interpreters of scripture. However, as Lord Acton famously observed:

“Power tend to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority.”

Nowhere was Acton’s aphorism more true than in the early church from about the third or fourth centuries, many of whose leaders whom we now call ‘Church Fathers’ were vehemently anti-Semitic and did all they could to expunge any trace of Judaism from the Bible, leading to what would eventually become the doctrine of ‘Replacement Theology‘ in which Israel, the ‘Christ-killer’ of Biblical antiquity, had been replaced by the true Church. No wonder that by the twentieth century Adolf Hitler expressed the opinion that Jesus Christ was not really a Jew. The problem was that by de-Judaising the Bible religious churchianity did inestimable damage to the Church’s understanding of it, rendering much of the New Testament well nigh unintelligible in a way that God had never intended, by pursing their perverse, unbiblical and ungodly agenda.

To be frank, I’m old enough to remember when the quizmaster on a TV general knowledge show could ask a contestant a Biblical question and receive a meaningful reply. But it’s shameful indeed that even in the church today few could name the first five books of the Bible or the writers of the four Gospels. How many even know how many books there are in either Testament? You see, ignorance doesn’t take a lot of effort, and if people are ignorant of even the most basic elements of the Bible they are unlikely to be interested in what it says or who it is about. Most people today consider the Bible an irrelevance at best: an old book written in funny language about ancient peoples living in a primitive and often barbaric culture, who naïvely worshipped a severe, vengeful and judgemental God.

Is that a fair assessment? Not in the least! But who is to gainsay such criticisms when most professing Christians hardly know their own Bible and - truth be told - many of the accusations levelled by unbelievers at the Judaeo-Christian faith are believed by many Christians themselves? Righting that situation is wildly beyond the scope of any single article, but a good place to start is in re-acquainting Christians with the basics of the Bible and demonstrating how it has an integrity and flow that is seldom recognised and few appreciate today. But, even though it is not possible to comprehensively cover even a single book of the Bible in one short article, this one at least attempts a thumbnail sketch outlining the overall structure; albeit in a somewhat idiosyncratic fashion.

 

 

So, beginning with an overview, the Bible is not just a book but an anthology of 66 volumes written over some 1500 years by about 40 different authors under the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit . Our word Bible derives from the Greek biblia, meaning ‘books’, who singular biblos refers to any book whatsoever, hence our Bible is more properly known as the Holy Bible, to differentiate it from ‘Lady Chatterley‘s Lover’, ‘The Encyclopaedia Britannica’, or any other publication. And the Bible as such is not what is found in most Churches or Christian homes, which are mostly translations, as most believers do not read the original languages in which the scriptures were inspired, which are mainly Hebrew and Greek, with some Aramaic, Akkadian and even Arabic, and even a smattering of Latin here and there.

The 66 books of the Christian Bible are also divided into different categories, the most obvious of which is the division between the Old and New Testaments; terms which are often inaccurately considered as synonymous with the Old and New Covenants, which they are not. In fact, the New Covenant is often prefigured in the Old Testament, whilst the Old Covenant is not superseded by the New until well into the Gospel accounts of the New Testament. So, of the 66 books of the entire Bible, the first 39 form the Hebrew Old Testament, while the last 27 make up the New Testament.

Some denominations also recognise as instructive a group of writings known as the Apocrypha, from the Greek meaning ‘hidden things’. However, these are not accepted as authoritative scriptures belonging to the main Biblical canon (from the Greek kanon meaning, ‘straight rod’, referring to a general rule or principle judged according to standard criteria). English language Bibles did not appear until about the Reformation, some 450 to 500 years ago, about the same time as the advent of the printing press in Europe (a technological innovation which greatly facilitated both the Bible’s publication and the new religious movement) although partial translations had achieved some limited circulation for several centuries beforehand. However, apart from manuscripts the original languages, the main version of the Bible available was the fourth century Latin translation by Jerome and some others, known as the Vulgate (from the Latin vulgaris - ‘the common people’). However, Jerome’s was not the first popular translation of Scripture. That distinction was held by the Septuagint; a Greek translation of what we call the Old Testament made between the third and first centuries BC and so named according to the tradition that it was originally the work of seventy scholars, who began with the Torah. These earliest translations are regarded as the most accurate than later interpretations of subsequent books, and even Jesus was known to quote from the Septuagint, which brings us to the Tanakh. This is an acronym of Torah, Navi’im, and Ketuvim (Instruction, Prophets, and Writings) and contains all the books that Christians would recognise from their own Old Testament, although categorised differently in the order stated. Also, the number of books in the Hebrew Bible was originally reckoned differently from today with Josephus mentioning about 22. This is merely due to several books being categorised together rather than separately, and no new material has been added. It’s analogous to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which may be regarded as a single book or as a trilogy, or yet again as six books, because each volume is further subdivided. In the end, it doesn’t matter how you number it; if you’ve read the whole book, you’ve read the Lord of the Rings. Similarly, if you’ve read the Tanakh, you’ve read the Old Testament, whether as 22 books or as 39.

In outline then, the 66 books of the Judaeo-Christian Holy Bible appear in the following order, with Old Testament books listed by:

Traditional Name, [Hebrew Name] and (Meaning)

The New Testament is slightly different and is listed by:

Traditional Name, [Hebrew or Greek Name] and (Latin version/Meaning, if applicable):

Genesis [Bereshith] (In the Beginning)

Exodus [Ve’eleh Shemoth] (And these are the names)

Leviticus [formerly, Torot Kohenim] (Laws of the Priests) [now, Vayyikra] (And called to)

Numbers [BeMithbar] (In the Wilderness)

Deuteronomy [Elleh HaDebarim] (These are the words)

Joshua [Yehoshua] (Yahweh Saves)

Judges [Shaphatim] (Judges/Magistrates)

Ruth [Ruth] (Friendship)

1 Samuel [Sh’muel aleph] (Heard of God) - (Hebrew Canon: Melakim aleph/I Kings)

2 Samuel [Sh’muel beth] (Heard of God) - (Hebrew Canon: Melakim beth/II Kings)

1 Kings [Melakim aleph] (Kings) - (Hebrew Canon, Melakim gimmel/III Kings)

2 Kings [Melakim beth] (Kings) - (Hebrew Canon, Melakim daleth/IV Kings)

1 Chronicles [Debarey HaYamim aleph] (I Words or Events of the Days)

2 Chronicles [Debarey HaYamim beth] (II Words or Events of the Days)

Ezra [Ezrah] (Help)

Nehemiah [N’khemyah] (Yahweh is Comfort)

Esther [Esther] (Star or Venus)

Job [Iyob] (Hated)

Psalms [Sepher Tehillim] (Book of Praises)

Proverbs [Mishley] (Proverbs)

Ecclesiastes [Koheleth] (Preacher)

Song of Songs [Shir HaShirim] (Song of Songs)

Isaiah [Yishahyah] (Yahweh is Salvation)

Jeremiah (Yirmyah) (Yahweh Exalts)

Lamentations [Eykah] (How? or Alas!)

Ezekiel [Y’chezkel] (God Strengthens)

Daniel [Daniyel] (God is my Judge)

Hosea [Hoshea] (Salvation or Deliverence)

Joel [Yoel] (Yahweh is God)

Amos [‘Amos] (Burden-Bearer)

Obadiah [Obadyah] (Servant of Yahweh)

Jonah [Yonah] (Dove)

Micah [Mikah] (He Who is Like Yahweh)

Nahum [Nachum] (Comforter)

Habakkuk [Chabakkuk] (Embrace)

Zephaniah [Tzephanyah] (Yahweh Has Hidden)

Haggai [Chaggay] (Festive)

Zechariah [Z’karyah] (Yahweh Remembers)

Malachi [Malakiy] (My Messenger or Angel]

 

 

Matthew [Mattithiah] (Gift of Yahweh)

Mark [Markon] (Marcus/Dedicated to Mars)

Luke [Loukan] (Lucanus or Lux/Light)

John [Yochanan] (Yahweh is Gracious)

Acts [Praxeis Apostolon] (Acts of the Apostles)

Romans [pros Romaious] (to Romans)

1 Corinthians [pros Korinthious alpha]

2 Corinthians [pros Korinthious beta]

Galatians [pros Galatas]

Ephesians [pros Ephesious]

Philippians [pros Philippesious]

Colossians [pros Kolossaeis]

1 Thessalonians [pros Thessalonikeis alpha]

2 Thessalonians [pros Thessalonikeis beta]

1 Timothy [pros Timotheon alpha] (to Honouring I)

2 Timothy [pros Timotheon beta] (to Honouring II)

Titus [pros Titon] (to Giant or Defender)

Philemon [pros Philemona] (to Beloved)

Hebrews [pros Ebraious]

James [Iakobou Episotle] (of Yakov Epistle)

1 Peter [Petrou alpha] (of Peter I)

2 Peter [Petrou beta] (of Peter II)

1 John [Ionannou alpha] (of Yochanan I)

2 John [Ionannou beta] (of Yochanan II)

3 John [Ionannou gamma] (of Yochanan III)

Jude [Ioda] (of Judah)

Revelation [Apokalupsis Ionannou] (an Unveiling of Yochanan)

 

Another important feature readers will soon notice is the application of a theological principle known as type and shadow. This is somewhat tritely encapsulated in the little aphorism: The New is but the Old concealed; the New is but the Old revealed’. This refers both to the revelation of the Old and New Covenants and the Person of Jesus Christ, in both the Old and New Testaments, because what the New Testament clearly reveals about Jesus and his ministry, the Old Testament alludes to throughout. This allusion is what theologians call Typology.

Without this important key, much of the Old Testament makes little sense and can even be quite confusing, while most of the New Testament is robbed of its context. But, when we recognise the Shadow in the Old Testament, we will follow it to the feet of the One who cast it, and from there we can look up and see the Man Jesus revealed in his glory.

I trust that as you journey through this short series, the Bible will become less of a mystery and more of an integrated whole in which you will discover that Jesus and the Father he came to reveal.

Enjoy!