So What Exactly Is The Bible?

           Sixty six books, of a wide variety of literature types, including some that are unique to this book.  The fancy word is “Canon”, the accepted ‘God-inspired’ list of the biblical books.  This is so important, it is shared in the second paragraph of the first section of the Westminster Confession of Faith, perhaps the most central document to the Presbyterian Church’s historic confessions. (http://files1.wts.edu/uploads/pdf/about/WCF_30.pdf) But what are they?

          First, two ‘testaments’ worth, the Old and the New, essentially pre- and post-Jesus.  There are 39 in the old and 27 in the New.  But on the whole, the Old Testament books are quite a bit longer than their New Testament counterparts so it is around three quarters the length of the gathered document.  Then they break out as follows:

“The Torah”: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  Attributed to Moses, this is the Law of Moses.  It takes us from creation to the edge of the people entering into the Promised Land.  It is history, law, covenant, sacred architecture, census, narrative, anecdote, and so much more.  The Ten Commandments show up twice.  These books serve as the legal and historic foundation for the people of Israel.

“The Histories”: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.  It takes us from Jericho-at the invasion of the Promised Land, to the Restoration after the Babylonian Exile.  It is not a continuous history, but there is overlap.  There are also some ‘one off’ stories (Ruth & Esther), and a compilation of such stories (Judges). 

“The Poetry”: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.  This is a more diverse list.  Job is ALL about suffering.  The Psalms serve as the hymn book of the Old Testament.  Proverbs are just those.  Ecclesiastes is a hard reflection on life. The Song of Solomon is erotic poetry.  Yup. It is.

“The Prophets”, Major and Minor.  The Majors are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (a second piece attributed to Jeremiah), Ezekiel, and Daniel.  They are major because they are longer.

The Minors provide a great pool of names to get your child picked on in school, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obabiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Malachi.

The books of the Prophets contain their words as commanded by God, sometimes with historic context and even some narrative to set the stage, but often without.

          This brings us then to the New Testament, again, 27 books.

“The Gospels”: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four books covering essentially the same time period and the same person.  Each has a different point of view, there are commonalities and differences in the narrative, but in the end, they come to the same place, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. 

“The History”: The Acts of the Apostles is the only dedicated book relating history in the New Testament.  It is not a stand-alone, but is part two to the gospel of Luke (we know this because both are addressed to Theophilus).  It takes us from Jesus’ Ascension to Paul’s being transited to Rome in an appeal to the emperor (I invite you to read it to find out why an apostle has the power to appeal to the emperor).  It seems to be a gathering of tales about various apostles and their work at the establishment of the church.

“The Pauline Epistles”: Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.  They are called “Pauline” because they are written by Paul, according to the testimony of the text (but scholars like to argue about this stuff).  The first batch are written to churches that Paul has or is going to while the last four are to those so named in the title.  It is personal correspondence of which we only have one half, Paul’s.

“The Anonymous Epistle”: Hebrews. In the line of Paul’s correspondence, this one is written to the Jewish people, providing powerful and explicit connections between Jesus and what came before, what comes in the Old Testament.  We do not have an author listed but some suspect Paul and others suspect just about everyone else you can think of. 

“The General Epistles”: Or, the epistles of everyone else, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1 & 2 & 3 John, and Jude.  Unlike the more specifically targeted correspondence that comes before, these seem to be regionally addressed, thus attributed to the authors instead of the destinations.

“The Apocalypse”: or the Book of Revelations, the book of the End Times.  Written by John (traditionally the one of the Gospel and the trio of Epistles), it is filled with imagery and a ‘history’ of the end of time.  The most important thing to remember is that the Good Guys win. 

          So this is the Canon of the Protestant Church, the ‘top’ 66.  There are a few more books in the Roman Catholic Bible, which we (the Protestants) collectively refer to as the Apocrypha.  That is not my tradition and I do not have much familiarity with them.  What I will say is what the Westminster Confession says, “The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings”. (Chapter 1, Section III).

          SO THEN, where does one start?  Gospels.  Start at the gospels.  That is Jesus, the Reason.  I like John as a starting point, it makes no bones about the connection of Jesus and God from verse 1.  If you do Luke, you will see it is written as a ‘comprehensive’ account for Theophilus, Part 1 to Acts as Part 2.  Mark is the shortest.  Matthew starts with a genealogy-important to set the context of the time-but something of a snooze-fest to the uninitiated.