Continuing with our discussion of the Bible ands its organization and content, the following is a summary of what we covered in the last 2 posts on Bible Basics:
The Bible has 2 testaments: The Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Old Testament has 39 books divided into 5 sections: The Law, The History, The Poetry & Wisdom, The Major Prophets and The Minor Prophets.
The Law consists of: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
That brings us to the next grouping of books in the Old Testament – The History. The Books of History include:
- Joshua (the tribes entering into and conquering the promised land)
- Judges (the 300-year period when Israel was ruled by Judges and the Israelites moving through a repeated cycle of sin, oppression, crying out to God, God’s deliverance, and gradual falling away from God and repeating the cycle)
- Ruth (an important story of two women during the period of judges which has important images of the Kinsman redeemer which connect to the Book of Revelation)
- 1 and 2 Samuel (a story of 2 kings for Israel, first Saul and then David)
- 1 and 2 Kings (Solomon’s kingdom and the divided kingdom)
- 1 and 2 Chronicles (God’s story focused solely on the Southern Kingdom of Judah)
- Ezra (the return from Babylonian captivity)
- Nehemiah (the rebuilding of the City of Jerusalem)
- Esther (a story of a Jewish woman living in exile who saves the Jews from extermination)
The Books of the History span over 1,000 years of the history of the children of Israel following them from the time they entered the promised land, to the time of judges, to their receiving a King (Saul) and his removal by God, to David being anointed their King, to David ruling over Jerusalem, to David ruling over all of Israel, to the Kingdom dividing, to the fall of the Northern Kingdom, to the Fall of the Southern Kingdom and the children of Israel in their captivity and ultimately, their deliverance from captivity.
