Books of the Bible

66 Books in the Protestant Bible

The Protestant Bible contains 66 books — 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. These books were written across roughly 1,500 years by dozens of authors, in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek), spanning law, narrative, poetry, prophecy, Gospels, history, letters, and apocalypse.

Different Christian traditions recognize different counts:

• Protestant — 66 books (39 OT + 27 NT)
• Roman Catholic — 73 books (46 OT + 27 NT); the additional 7 are the deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, plus expansions of Esther and Daniel)
• Eastern Orthodox — typically 76 books, adding 3 & 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151, and the Prayer of Manasseh
• Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo — 81 books, including 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and several others not in other canons

The Old Testament (39 Books)

Pentateuch (5 books) — the Torah, traditionally attributed to Moses

• Genesis — creation, patriarchs
• Exodus — liberation from Egypt, Sinai covenant
• Leviticus — priestly and holiness laws
• Numbers — wilderness generation
• Deuteronomy — Moses's farewell discourses

Historical Books (12 books)

• Joshua, Judges, Ruth
• 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings
• 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther

Wisdom & Poetry (5 books)

• Job — suffering
• Psalms — 150 hymns and prayers
• Proverbs — practical wisdom
• Ecclesiastes — vanity and meaning
• Song of Solomon — love poetry

Major Prophets (5 books)

• Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel

Minor Prophets / The Twelve (12 books)

• Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah
• Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

In the Hebrew Bible these are collected as a single book (Trei Asar, "the Twelve"), not 12 separate books — reducing the Hebrew count to 24 books total, though the content is identical to the Protestant Old Testament's 39.

The New Testament (27 Books)

Gospels (4 books)

• Matthew — Jesus as the promised king of Israel
• Mark — earliest and shortest Gospel; Jesus as servant
• Luke — Jesus as savior of all, written to Theophilus
• John — Jesus as the eternal Word made flesh

History (1 book)

• Acts of the Apostles — early church from Jerusalem to Rome

Pauline Epistles (13 books)

• Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians
• 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon

General Epistles (8 books)

• Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2 & 3 John, Jude

Apocalypse (1 book)

• Revelation — John's visions on Patmos

How the Canon Was Formed

Neither testament's list of books was decided by a single council. Both developed through centuries of use and recognition:

• Hebrew Bible — the three-part structure (Torah, Prophets, Writings) was largely settled by the 2nd century BC. Jesus refers to "the law of Moses, and… the prophets, and… the psalms" (Luke 24:44) — the three divisions as already standard.
• New Testament — the 27 books were in wide circulation by the 2nd century AD. The earliest list matching the modern 27 appears in Athanasius's 39th Festal Letter (AD 367). Church councils (Hippo 393, Carthage 397) ratified rather than created the list.

Languages and Textual Basis

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with brief Aramaic portions in Ezra 4:8–6:18, Ezra 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, and Daniel 2:4b–7:28. The New Testament was written entirely in Koine Greek — the common Greek of the eastern Mediterranean in the first century AD. The KJV (1611), like most English Bibles, translates from these original languages rather than from Latin or other intermediaries (with some use of the Latin Vulgate where textual readings were uncertain).

Summary

• 66 books in the Protestant Bible (39 OT + 27 NT).
• Written over ~1,500 years in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek).
• Other Christian traditions include additional books (Catholic 73, Orthodox 76, Ethiopian 81).
• Organized by genre: law, history, wisdom/poetry, prophecy, Gospels, epistles, apocalypse.