The Bible

The Christian Bible include the books of the Hebrew Bible, but arranged in a different order: Jewish Scripture ends with the people of Israel restored to Jerusalem and the temple and the Christian arrangement ends with the book of the prophet Malachi.

When I was a child, I learned to name all 66 books of the Christian Bible in order from Genesis (The first book of the 39 books of the Old Testament) to Revelation (the last of the 27 books in the New Testament.) As with most things we learn early, I can still name the 66 books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

The Old Testament or the Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, is divided into three parts:

1. The five books of the Torah ("teaching" or "law") comprise the origins of the Israelite nation, its laws and its covenant with the God of Israel;

2. The Nevi'im ("prophets") containing the historic account of ancient Israel and Judah plus works of prophecy; and

3. The Ketuvim ("writings"), poetic and philosophical works such as the Psalms and the Book of Job.

Christian Bible is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament, containing the 39 books of Hebrew Scripture.The second portion is called the New Testament and contains 27 books. The first Four, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are The Gospels , telling the story of Jesus. A Physician named Luke writes the book of Luke and Acts, telling the story of the early church and the conversion of Jewish persecutor of the church named Saul who was converted in a vision of Christ on the Damascus Road and became the great apostle Paul. Paul became the preacher to the Gentiles and the author of most of the New Testament.