The Canon
The books of Scripture across the Christian traditions — Protestant 66, Roman Catholic 73, the wider Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox canons. Each book described in its own theological theme, with the traditions that recognize it.
Old Testament
39 books in the Protestant canon. The Hebrew Scriptures, common to every Christian tradition.
Torah / Pentateuch
Traditionally Mosaic; final form ancient IsraelGenesis
Genesis opens Scripture with creation, humanity's fall, the flood, and the covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. It gives the Church the first grammar of creation, sin, promise, election, and providence.
Traditionally Mosaic; final form ancient IsraelExodus
Exodus tells of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, the Passover, the crossing of the sea, the covenant at Sinai, and the tabernacle. It forms Christian language for redemption, worship, and the God who dwells among his people.
Traditionally Mosaic; final form ancient IsraelLeviticus
Leviticus teaches Israel how a holy God dwells with a consecrated people. Its sacrifices, purity laws, priesthood, feasts, and command to love the neighbor become essential background for Christian teaching on holiness and atonement.
Traditionally Mosaic; final form ancient IsraelNumbers
Numbers follows Israel through wilderness testing, judgment, intercession, rebellion, and preservation. The book shows the cost of unbelief and the faithfulness of God to bring his people toward the promised inheritance.
Traditionally Mosaic; final form ancient IsraelDeuteronomy
Deuteronomy is Moses' covenant sermon to Israel at the edge of the land. It calls the people to love the Lord with heart, soul, and strength, and it echoes throughout the teaching of Jesus and the apostles.
Historical Books
Ancient IsraelJoshua
Joshua recounts Israel's entrance into the land, the fall of Jericho, the allotment of inheritance, and the call to serve the Lord. The book is both conquest narrative and covenant summons.
Ancient IsraelJudges
Judges shows Israel's repeated cycle of apostasy, oppression, crying out, and deliverance. Its dark refrain, 'everyone did what was right in his own eyes,' prepares the longing for faithful kingship.
Ancient IsraelRuth
Ruth is a small story of famine, grief, loyal love, and redemption. Through Ruth the Moabite and Boaz the kinsman-redeemer, the line of David is quietly prepared.
Ancient Israel1 Samuel
First Samuel moves from the birth of Samuel to the rise of Saul and David. It weighs kingship under God's word and shows that the Lord looks not on outward appearance but on the heart.
Ancient Israel2 Samuel
Second Samuel follows David's reign, triumphs, failures, repentance, and household grief. The promise of an everlasting Davidic throne becomes one of Scripture's great messianic foundations.
Ancient Israel1 Kings
First Kings begins with Solomon's wisdom and temple and ends in the divided kingdom's spiritual crisis. Elijah's confrontation with Baal dramatizes the question that haunts the book: whom will Israel worship?
Ancient Israel2 Kings
Second Kings carries the story from Elijah and Elisha through the collapse of Israel and Judah. It records judgment with theological sobriety, while keeping alive the hope of mercy beyond exile.
Post-exilic period1 Chronicles
First Chronicles retells Israel's story with special attention to genealogy, David, temple worship, and the ordering of praise. It teaches the post-exilic community to remember itself before God.
Post-exilic period2 Chronicles
Second Chronicles focuses on Judah's kings, the temple, reforms, failures, exile, and Cyrus's decree. It reads Israel's history as a call to seek the Lord and return.
Post-exilic periodEzra
Ezra recounts the return from exile, rebuilding of the temple, and renewal of the people under the law. It centers the restored community around worship and the written word.
Post-exilic periodNehemiah
Nehemiah tells of Jerusalem's walls rebuilt amid opposition and of a people gathered again around Scripture, confession, worship, and covenant responsibility.
Persian periodEsther
Esther tells how the Jewish people were preserved in Persia through hidden providence, royal risk, and courageous intercession. Though God's name is famously absent, his care is everywhere implied.
Wisdom & Poetry
Ancient; setting patriarchalJob
Job is Scripture's great wrestling with righteous suffering. It refuses easy answers, brings complaint into the presence of God, and ends not with explanation but encounter.
Collected across Israel's worshipPsalms
Psalms is the prayer book of Israel and the Church. Its hymns, laments, royal psalms, wisdom songs, and messianic hopes give language to worship in every condition of the soul.
Solomonic and later wisdom collectionsProverbs
Proverbs trains the reader in wisdom rooted in the fear of the Lord. It attends to ordinary life: words, money, work, family, justice, prudence, and the path of folly.
Wisdom tradition; traditionally SolomonEcclesiastes
Ecclesiastes faces the vapor-like character of life under the sun. It strips away illusions and teaches the reader to receive ordinary gifts with reverence before God.
Wisdom tradition; traditionally SolomonSong of Songs
Song of Songs is a poetic celebration of love and desire. Jewish and Christian readers have also heard in it the deeper mystery of covenant love between God and his people.
Major Prophets
8th century BC and later prophetic collectionIsaiah
Isaiah is one of the Church's central prophetic books, moving from judgment to comfort, from Zion's failure to the Servant's suffering, and from exile to new creation.
Late 7th-6th century BCJeremiah
Jeremiah proclaims judgment before Jerusalem's fall, grieves over the people, and promises a new covenant written on the heart. His book gives the Church language for both lament and hope.
After 586 BCLamentations
Lamentations mourns the destruction of Jerusalem with disciplined grief. Its poems teach the faithful how to grieve devastation without surrendering the confession of God's mercy.
6th century BC exileEzekiel
Ezekiel sees the glory of God in exile, announces judgment, promises a new heart and Spirit, and pictures dry bones raised to life. The book is visionary, priestly, and fiercely hopeful.
Exilic setting; final form debatedDaniel
Daniel combines court stories of faithfulness with apocalyptic visions of kingdoms, beasts, judgment, resurrection, and the Son of Man. It shaped Jewish and Christian expectation profoundly.
Minor Prophets
8th century BCHosea
Hosea portrays Israel's idolatry as marital betrayal and God's mercy as wounded, faithful love. Judgment is real, but the final word is healing.
Date debatedJoel
Joel summons the people to repentance before the day of the Lord and promises the Spirit poured out on all flesh. Peter cites Joel at Pentecost to interpret the Church's first great sign.
8th century BCAmos
Amos announces judgment on injustice and empty worship. The book insists that covenant worship cannot be separated from righteousness, and it ends with the promised restoration of David's fallen tent.
After Jerusalem's fall or earlier Edomite hostilityObadiah
Obadiah is the shortest Old Testament book, a prophetic word against Edom's pride and violence. It closes with the confession that the kingdom belongs to the Lord.
Date debatedJonah
Jonah tells of a prophet fleeing mercy, a great fish, Nineveh's repentance, and God's compassion for the nations. Jesus later names Jonah as a sign of death and resurrection.
8th century BCMicah
Micah confronts corrupt leaders and false security while promising a ruler from Bethlehem and a God who delights in mercy. It binds justice and hope tightly together.
7th century BCNahum
Nahum announces the fall of Nineveh, the violent empire that once repented under Jonah but returned to cruelty. The book is a comfort to the oppressed and a warning to empires.
Late 7th century BCHabakkuk
Habakkuk brings honest complaint before God over violence and judgment. The answer does not remove mystery, but it teaches that the righteous shall live by faith.
Late 7th century BCZephaniah
Zephaniah announces the day of the Lord against Judah and the nations, then turns to purification, restoration, and the astonishing image of God rejoicing over his people.
520 BCHaggai
Haggai calls the returned exiles to rebuild the temple and reconsider their priorities. Its promise of latter glory gives hope to a small and discouraged community.
520-518 BC and laterZechariah
Zechariah is filled with visions of restoration, priesthood, judgment, and messianic hope. Its images of the humble king, pierced one, and struck shepherd echo deeply in the New Testament.
5th century BCMalachi
Malachi confronts cold worship, corrupt priests, and covenant weariness. It closes the Twelve with the promise of a messenger and the coming day of the Lord.
Deuterocanonical / Anagignoskomena
Books recognized as Scripture by Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox traditions; received as edifying but non-canonical in most Protestant traditions.
Deuterocanonical Historical
Second Temple periodTobit
Tobit is a story of exile faithfulness, prayer, almsgiving, marriage, healing, and the angel Raphael's hidden ministry. Catholic and Orthodox traditions receive it as Scripture; most Protestant traditions read it as useful ancient Jewish literature.
Second Temple periodJudith
Judith tells of a faithful woman whose courage delivers Israel from an enemy commander. It is received in Catholic and Orthodox canons and read by Protestants as part of the wider deuterocanonical tradition.
Late 2nd century BC1 Maccabees
First Maccabees narrates the Jewish revolt against Seleucid oppression, the courage of the Maccabean family, and the rededication of the temple. It gives historical background to Hanukkah and Second Temple expectation.
Late 2nd-1st century BC2 Maccabees
Second Maccabees retells parts of the Maccabean crisis with theological emphasis on martyrdom, resurrection, temple holiness, and prayer for the dead. It is central to Catholic and Orthodox deuterocanonical reception.
Deuterocanonical Wisdom
First century BCWisdom
Wisdom speaks of righteousness, immortality, divine wisdom, and the folly of idolatry in polished Greek. It is especially important for Catholic and Orthodox readings of Second Temple wisdom.
Early 2nd century BCSirach
Sirach gathers practical wisdom, praise of the law, and remembrance of Israel's heroes. Catholic and Orthodox traditions receive it as Scripture; Protestants often value it as a major witness to Jewish wisdom before Christ.
New Testament
27 books, received as canonical across all Christian traditions.
Gospels
1st century ADMatthew
Matthew presents Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, son of David, teacher of the kingdom, fulfiller of Scripture, crucified and risen Lord who sends his disciples to the nations.
1st century ADMark
Mark moves with urgency toward the cross, revealing Jesus as the Son of God whose kingship is known through suffering, service, exorcism, healing, death, and resurrection.
1st century ADLuke
Luke gives an orderly account of Christ's life, mercy toward sinners, concern for the poor, work of the Spirit, and revelation of the risen Lord in the breaking of bread.
Late 1st century ADJohn
John opens with the eternal Word and leads the reader through signs, discourses, passion, resurrection, and confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that believers may have life in his name.
Pauline Epistles
c. AD 57Romans
Romans is Paul's fullest theological letter, expounding sin, grace, justification, union with Christ, life in the Spirit, Israel's place in God's promise, and transformed worship.
c. AD 53-551 Corinthians
First Corinthians addresses a divided church with the wisdom of the cross, teaching on holiness, worship, spiritual gifts, the Lord's Supper, love, and the resurrection.
c. AD 55-562 Corinthians
Second Corinthians is deeply personal, defending apostolic ministry through weakness, suffering, comfort, reconciliation, generosity, and the power of Christ made perfect in weakness.
c. AD 48-55Galatians
Galatians defends the gospel of Christ against adding boundary-markers of the law as requirements for Gentile believers. It proclaims freedom, sonship, cruciform life, and the fruit of the Spirit.
c. AD 60-62Ephesians
Ephesians praises God's cosmic plan in Christ, salvation by grace, Jew-Gentile reconciliation, the unity and maturity of the Church, household life, and armor for spiritual conflict.
c. AD 60-62Philippians
Philippians is a letter of joy from prison, centered on the humility and exaltation of Christ and the call to live as citizens of heaven in faithful partnership.
c. AD 60-62Colossians
Colossians exalts Christ as image of the invisible God, creator, reconciler, head of the Church, and the one in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily.
c. AD 50-511 Thessalonians
First Thessalonians encourages a young church in faith, holiness, love, and hope, especially concerning the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.
c. AD 50-522 Thessalonians
Second Thessalonians corrects confusion about the day of the Lord, calls the church to stand firm, and instructs believers in disciplined faithfulness while waiting for Christ.
1st century AD1 Timothy
First Timothy gives pastoral instruction on worship, leadership, teaching, care for the vulnerable, and the Church as the household of God and pillar of truth.
1st century AD2 Timothy
Second Timothy reads as Paul's final charge: guard the deposit, suffer faithfully, preach the word, and endure until the crown of righteousness.
1st century ADTitus
Titus instructs the ordering of churches in Crete, grounding good works and godly life in the grace of God that has appeared in Christ.
c. AD 60-62Philemon
Philemon is Paul's brief appeal for Onesimus, calling Philemon to receive him no longer merely as a slave but as a beloved brother in Christ.
General Epistles
1st century ADHebrews
Hebrews proclaims the supremacy of Christ: the final Son, greater than angels and Moses, true high priest, once-for-all sacrifice, and mediator of the new covenant.
1st century ADJames
James is a wisdom-shaped letter calling believers to steadfastness, pure speech, care for the poor, active obedience, prayer, and faith made visible in works.
1st century AD1 Peter
First Peter encourages Christians as elect exiles, calling them to holiness, endurance under suffering, honorable witness, and hope grounded in Christ's resurrection.
1st century AD2 Peter
Second Peter calls believers to grow in godliness, remember the apostolic witness, resist false teachers, and wait for the new heavens and new earth.
Late 1st century AD1 John
First John tests confession, love, and obedience by the reality of the incarnate Son. It gives believers assurance that eternal life is found in Jesus Christ.
Late 1st century AD2 John
Second John is a brief letter joining love and truth, warning against teachers who do not confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh.
Late 1st century AD3 John
Third John commends faithful hospitality for gospel workers and contrasts humble cooperation with domineering leadership.
1st century ADJude
Jude urges the Church to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, warns against corruption, and ends with one of Scripture's great doxologies.
