![]() Few issues stir up evangelical Christian passions more than Bible translation. I think that’d be a great way to appreciate the intricacies of the Bible-it really is a work of art.An updated version of the New International Version (NIV) has come out this year, and of course, controversy abounds. ![]() Someday I’ll do a video or course on numbers in the Bible. So it’s not too far off to say that the canon, as it is, is a nice round 70. So you could say that the Christian Bible has seventy books: 66 books – 1 (Psalms proper) + 5 (the five books of Psalms) = 70. Maybe it’s a side-effect of church leaders from diverse cultures weighing in on the matter, as opposed to homogenously Jewish scribes artistically crafting the Tanakh.īUT if you’re itching for some sevens, consider this: the book of Psalms is actually five books in one (a nice reference to the Torah). for Catholics!) and we’re not even consistent across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant branches of the church. We (Christians) took our sweet time finalizing the list of books we’d accept as canonical (as late as 1546 A.D. The significance of book count in the Christian Bible is a bit less interesting to me, to be honest. We just don’t know-the number meaning is assumed in the Bible, but we don’t get any passages that explicitly tell us what God thinks of certain numbers. For example, if the Jews already associated the number 7 with completion, then perhaps God’s prophets and scribes made heavy use of these numbers to help God’s people understand him better. ![]() It’s possible that some of these numbers were actually more special to the Jews than they were to God, and God used these numbers to better communicate with his people. But a 49-book Christian canon would make for a neat arrangement! =) The Tanakh book count and subdivisions instead gives plenty of attention to other biblically significant numbers, especially 3 (the patriarchs), 5 (the Torah), and 12 (the tribes of Israel). I’ve read that Esther took a while to be adopted into the Tanakh, and that before that, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes were the subject of a bit of rabbinic dispute. Hi Don-no, I’m unfamiliar with a 22-book treatment of the Tanakh (or the Christian OT, for that matter). They helped ancient Jews make decisions, worship God, remember their history, and look forward to a future when the long-awaited Messiah would save them. These works of wisdom, poetry, and narrative are arranged to help readers navigate the world in light of God’s laws. In the book of Malachi (which likely means, “My Messenger”), God tells the people that they will once again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, and urges the people to remember the law that Moses gave in the Torah.Īnd the Writings pick up where the Prophets left off, describing how blessed the person who remembers the Law is, and how those who forsake the law eventually come to ruin. The Prophets end with a note that looks back on the Torah and anticipates the writings. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t go so well.) God sends messengers to Israel to warn them of the consequences of breaking God’s laws, but the people, for the most part, ignore them. This is where we see God’s covenant relationship with Israel play out. (Which isn’t quite true anymore, if you ask Christians!) This implies that there were more prophets-which is covered in the next section of the Tanakh. ![]() This section ends with the scribes commenting that no prophet like Moses has come along since his time. In these books, God chooses Israel to be his special people, and he lays out his expectations for them. These are the books of teaching, the main character of which is Moses. Enjoy!Īnd in case you wanted to copy-paste this goodness … The 24 books of the Tanakh, in order Law (Torah) I thought you might enjoy seeing how the Tanakh arranges these books, so I made a new video showing how they all fit together. The order of these books is fascinating (and quite artful). In fact, when Peter, Paul, and Jesus talk about “Scripture” in the New Testament, they’re referring to the books of the Old Testament-most of which had been considered sacred for a while.īut since there was no “New Testament,” (and there still isn’t in Judaism today), nobody called it the “Old Testament.” Instead, through the ages, the Rabbis have called this group of texts the Tanakh.īut there’s a twist: although the text of the Tanakh is pretty much the same as the Old Testament, the books are in a different order. It’s divided into two big sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament.Īnd a good deal of Bible geeks know that the Old Testament books are sacred to the Jewish faith, too.
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