1. Introduction
2. What’s in the Bible?
3. Categories of Old Testament Books
4. Categories of New Testament Books
5. Geography and Kingdoms of the Bible
6. A brief history of the Old Testament
7. A brief history of the New Testament
8. Eight Messages of Scriptures
9. Where do I start? How do I start?
10. Summary
11. Appendix: A Chronological Reading of the Bible

How is the Bible Structured?

The Bible is a collection of 66 individual books. In the Christian Bible, it’s separated into the Old Testament (all the books from before Jesus was born) and the New Testament (the books after Jesus was born). The Old Testament is sometimes called the Jewish Scriptures or the Hebrew Scriptures.

There are 39 books in the Old Testament, and it covers almost 2000 years of history. Abraham (Genesis 12) is the first person in the Old Testament who can be reliably dated (he lived somewhere around 1900-2100 BCE). The last book of the Old Testament to be written was Daniel, around 165 BCE. The stories in the Old Testament began as oral stories—they were told by parents and grandparents to the younger generations. More and more were written down through the years, and most of the Old Testament was assembled and put into organized form about 500 years before the birth of Christ (although a few books were written and added later).

The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) describe Jesus’ ministry. He was born about 4 BCE and died and rose about 30 AD. The 27 books of the New Testament books were written after Jesus’ ministry, in a span of less than 50 years. The first book of the New Testament to have been written may have been James, possibly around 48 AD. The last book of the New Testament to have been written may have been Revelation, possibly written about 95 AD.

The books of the Bible are not in chronological order. They’re listed in order of categories. For example, in the New Testament, all of the gospels (describing the ministry of Jesus) are first—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then the Book of Acts, which describes the ministry of Peter and Paul. Then Paul’s letters are listed together, then all of the letters not written by Paul.

Why Old and New “Testaments”? What is a Testament?

Testament is an old word that means covenant. A covenant is like a promise between two parties. Sometimes at wedding ceremonies, the officiant will talk about the “covenant of marriage.” Two people make a commitment together. That’s a covenant. So, the Bibles two parts should really be the “Old Covenant” and the “New Covenant.”

The Old Covenant was given at Mount Sinai, after the Children of Israel escaped slavery in Egypt. The Old Covenant is God saying “I’ll be your God, if you’ll be my people.” This covenant was conditional—the people had responsibilities if they wanted God to be their God. This is sometimes called a two-way covenant—the people had to do certain things if they wanted to get the benefits of the covenant.

The New Covenant is Jesus Christ, who says, “I love you and I will always be with you.” The New Covenant is unconditional—Jesus saves us by his death on the cross. We don’t have to do anything to get the covenant—its all what Jesus does. We sometimes call this a one-way covenant—God promises something but asks nothing in return.

What are the Numbers after the Book Name?

Each book of the Bible is divided up into chapters and verses (a couple of the really short books have only one chapter). In order to find a passage, the first number is the chapter, then there is a colon, and then comes the verse. Matthew chapter 5, verse 3 is written: Matthew 5:3. The verse is “Blessed is the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Sometimes you’ll be directed to multiple verses. If you see Matthew 5:3-12, it means all of the verses (and including) 3-12. If you see Matthew 1-5 (no verses), then it is directing you to the first five chapters of Matthew.

How did the Bible Come Down to Us?

Early in history, the Bible stories were not written, but spoken. As families sat around the fire at night, they would tell the stories that we have in our Bible—to teach the younger generation, and remind young and old of the presence and love of God. As time went on, those stories began to be written down.

In 587 BCE, the people of Judah were conquered by the Mesopotamian kingdom of Babylon. The Babylonians took all the leaders—priests, soldiers, merchants, etc., to live in Babylon. This is known as the Babylonian Exile. As they lived there in Babylon, the people of Judah were exposed to Babylon religion and customs, and the leaders of Judah became concerned that the people would be assimilated into Babylonian culture. The leaders of Judah wisely created a number of pillars to uphold their Hebrew identity. One of those pillars was to write down their stories. Much of the Old Testament was assembled in Babylon. They took the oral stories and the fragments of writings and put them all together into what we know as the Old Testament (although a few Old Testament books were written after the Babylonian exile). All of the Old Testament books were written in Hebrew (although there are a few passages in the Mesopotamian language of Aramaic).

Most of the early versions of the Bible were written on leather. Later, the versions were written on parchment, made from the skin of sheep or goats.

The copies of the Bible books were copied by hand. It was a painstaking and tedious process, done by people called scribes. The scribe was a prized occupation in the ancient world. They learned how to make exact copies. There were even laws surrounding the work of scribes. One such law said that even if the king or other royalty walked into the scribe’s room, the scribe was not allowed to acknowledge the royal visitor until the scribe had finished copying the sentence. If a single error was made, and could not be erased, the whole document was often discarded or given to a school for reading practice.

After the time of Jesus, there was a process for deciding which books would be put into the New Testament books. The vast majority of the books were already in use in Christian Churches across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. By 125 AD, there was a group of books that everyone agreed should be the official books of the New Testament. There were a few books where there was some disagreement. There was controversy about the Book of Revelation, as some leaders believed that people would take it too literally (imagine that!). And there was a book called the Didache, which was fine material, but ultimately rejected because they weren’t sure who wrote it. At first, all the books of the New Testament were in the Greek language.

In 383 AD, a bishop named Jerome translated the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament into Latin, which was the common language of the day. Jerome’s translation was called the Vulgate, which means “common people.”

After a few hundred years, people weren’t speaking Latin anymore. As the common people were speaking French, German, and other local languages, Latin had become a language used only among scholars. People longed for the Bible in their own language, but the church forbade using any translation except the Latin Vulgate. Priests would read out of the Latin Vulgate in church services, but no one understood what was being read.

Why did the church forbid translations into people’s languages? There may have been a concern that someone would translate the Bible poorly. But probably the chief concern of the church was control. If no one understood the Bible readings, the church could say whatever they want. The church held the power of interpretation over the people.
There were a few illegal translations into local languages. But the biggest translation came when Martin Luther (and a few of his colleagues) translated the Bible into German (the New Testament was finished in 1522 and the Old Testament was finished in 1534). Luther went back to the original Greek and Hebrew documents of the Bible to translate. Luther’s translation was illegal, but he was protected by a powerful German Prince. Luther’s translation opened the floodgates for reading the Bible in their own language.

In the early 1600s King James of England commissioned a group of scholars to translate the Bible into English. They published their Bible, called the King James Bible, in 1611.

And the chapter and verse designations? They weren’t in the original bible. The chapters of the Bible were added to the narrative in the 13th century by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The verses were added in the 16th century by a French printer.