Books of the Bible

All 66 books, grouped by the kind of writing they are — because reading a psalm the way you read a legal code produces nonsense.

Old Testament

39 books

The Law

The Torah or Pentateuch — creation, the patriarchs, the exodus, and the law given at Sinai. Traditionally attributed to Moses; the question of how the books reached their final form is long debated.

Genesis50 chapters

Creation, the flood, and the family God makes promises to.
Exodus40 chapters

Rescue from Egypt, the covenant at Sinai, and the tabernacle.
Leviticus27 chapters

Sacrifice, purity, and what it means for a people to live near a holy God.
Numbers36 chapters

Forty years between the mountain and the land, mostly spent going nowhere.
Deuteronomy34 chapters

Moses’ last speeches: the law restated for a generation about to cross over.

History

From the entry into Canaan to the return from exile. These books are written to interpret events, not only to record them.

Joshua24 chapters

Entering the land, and the accounts of its conquest and division.
Judges21 chapters

A repeating cycle of crisis, rescue and relapse, told without varnish.
Ruth4 chapters

A famine, a foreign widow, and a quiet link into David’s family line.
1 Samuel31 chapters

Samuel, the demand for a king, Saul’s rise and David’s anointing.
2 Samuel24 chapters

David’s reign — Jerusalem, the promise of a throne, and his worst failure.
1 Kings22 chapters

Solomon, the temple, and the kingdom splitting in two.
2 Kings25 chapters

Two kingdoms declining toward Assyria and Babylon.
1 Chronicles29 chapters

The same history retold for the returned exiles, centered on David.
2 Chronicles36 chapters

Judah’s kings and the temple, ending with permission to go home.
Ezra10 chapters

Return from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple.
Nehemiah13 chapters

Rebuilding the walls, and rebuilding a community’s practice.
Esther10 chapters

A Jewish queen in the Persian court; God is never named in the book.

Wisdom & Poetry

Israel’s poetry and reflective writing — worship, argument, proverb and lament.

Job42 chapters

A righteous man loses everything and refuses easy answers about why.
Psalms150 chapters

The prayer book of Israel: praise, complaint, confession and rage.
Proverbs31 chapters

Short sayings on how a life actually works.
Ecclesiastes12 chapters

A hard-eyed look at meaning, work and death.
Song of Songs8 chapters

Love poetry, read by Jews and Christians in more than one way.

Major Prophets

“Major” refers to length, not importance.

Isaiah66 chapters

Judgement and comfort, and the servant who suffers for others.
Jeremiah52 chapters

Warnings before Jerusalem falls, and the promise of a new covenant.
Lamentations5 chapters

Poems written over the ruins of the city.
Ezekiel48 chapters

Visions in exile — dry bones, and a temple restored.
Daniel12 chapters

Faith under a foreign empire, and visions of empires ending.

Minor Prophets

Twelve shorter books, counted as one scroll in the Hebrew Bible.

Hosea14 chapters

A marriage used as a picture of a broken covenant.
Joel3 chapters

Locusts, a day of the Lord, and a promised outpouring of the Spirit.
Amos9 chapters

Worship without justice, condemned in the strongest terms.
Obadiah1 chapter

A single chapter against Edom for standing by.
Jonah4 chapters

A prophet furious that his enemies were spared.
Micah7 chapters

Corrupt leaders, coming ruin, and Bethlehem.
Nahum3 chapters

Nineveh’s fall, from the other side of Jonah.
Habakkuk3 chapters

A prophet arguing with God about why evil goes unanswered.
Zephaniah3 chapters

A day of reckoning, and a remnant kept.
Haggai2 chapters

Get the temple rebuilt — a short, practical summons.
Zechariah14 chapters

Visions of a restored Jerusalem and a coming king.
Malachi4 chapters

Half-hearted worship confronted, and a messenger promised.

New Testament

27 books

The Gospels

Four accounts of Jesus. None names its author; the traditional attributions are early and are attested from the 2nd century onward.

Matthew28 chapters

Jesus presented to a Jewish readership as the promised king.
Mark16 chapters

The shortest and fastest-moving; commonly thought the earliest.
Luke24 chapters

An orderly account, with unusual attention to the poor and to women.
John21 chapters

A different set of scenes, organised around signs and identity.

History

The second volume of Luke’s work.

Acts28 chapters

From Pentecost to Paul in Rome — how the movement spread and argued.

Paul’s Letters

Thirteen letters bearing Paul’s name. Seven are accepted as his by almost all scholars; several others are debated.

Romans16 chapters

His fullest argument: sin, grace, Israel, and how to live.
1 Corinthians16 chapters

A divided, gifted, difficult church, answered point by point.
2 Corinthians13 chapters

A defence of his ministry, and the most personal thing he wrote.
Galatians6 chapters

A furious letter insisting the Gentiles are already in.
Ephesians6 chapters

The church as one new humanity.
Philippians4 chapters

Joy, written from prison.
Colossians4 chapters

Christ above every rival power.
1 Thessalonians5 chapters

Encouragement to a young church, and hope about the dead.
2 Thessalonians3 chapters

Steadying a church unsettled about the day of the Lord.
1 Timothy6 chapters

Order, leadership and sound teaching.
2 Timothy4 chapters

A last letter: hold on, and hand it on.
Titus3 chapters

Organising churches on Crete.
Philemon1 chapter

A private note asking a slave owner to receive Onesimus as a brother.

General Letters

Letters not attributed to Paul, addressed more broadly.

Hebrews13 chapters

Christ as the better priest and sacrifice. The author is unknown.
James5 chapters

Faith that shows up in what you do with money and your mouth.
1 Peter5 chapters

Living well under suspicion and pressure.
2 Peter3 chapters

A warning against teachers profiting from the church.
1 John5 chapters

Love, truth, and how to tell the real thing.
2 John1 chapter

A short note on hospitality and discernment.
3 John1 chapter

A shorter one, about a man who would not welcome anybody.
Jude1 chapter

A blunt appeal to contend for the faith.

Apocalypse

Apocalyptic writing — a genre with its own conventions, which is why it is read so variously.

Revelation22 chapters

Visions given to churches under pressure: judgement, and a city at the end.

A note on the numbers

Chapters came later

Chapter and verse numbers were added long after these books were written — chapters in the 13th century, verses in the 16th. A few books are divided differently in the Hebrew Bible: Joel and Malachi are the usual examples. The counts here follow the Protestant English Bible.

How we got the Bible The story it tells