The Holy Scriptures

The Bibles of the World

The Bible is not one book but a library of books written over about 1,500 years. Here is how it came together, why different churches have different numbers of books, and how it reached almost every language on Earth.

What is the Bible?Bibles of each churchList of booksGreat translationsLanguages todayHow the Bible points to Jesus

What is the Bible?

The word “Bible” comes from the Greek ta biblia, “the books”. It has two main parts:

Christians believe the Bible is inspired by God — written by human authors guided by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16).

How the books were chosen (the “canon”)

The list of accepted books is called the canon (Greek for “measuring rod”). The Jewish Scriptures were gathered over centuries. Around the 3rd–2nd century BC they were translated into Greek in Alexandria — the Septuagint — which included some extra books (such as Tobit, Judith, Wisdom and 1–2 Maccabees). The early Church mainly used the Septuagint.

For the New Testament, the Church accepted writings that came from the Apostles or their companions and were read in worship everywhere. In AD 367 St Athanasius of Alexandria listed exactly the 27 New Testament books used today. Regional councils at Rome (382), Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) confirmed a canon of 73 books. The Catholic Church formally defined it again at the Council of Trent (1546).

During the Reformation, Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers followed the shorter Hebrew canon for the Old Testament and placed the extra books in a separate section called the Apocrypha (Catholics call them deuterocanonical, “second canon”). That is why most Protestant Bibles have 66 books and Catholic Bibles have 73.

Ancient manuscripts

The Dead Sea Scrolls (found 1947–1956 near Qumran) contain parts of every Old Testament book except Esther, some over 2,000 years old. For the New Testament, more than 5,800 Greek manuscripts survive — more than for any other ancient book. Famous examples are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (4th century) and the Rylands papyrus P52, a fragment of John's Gospel from around AD 125–175.

The Bibles of each church

All Christians share the same 27-book New Testament. They differ on the Old Testament:

TraditionNumber of booksWhat is different
Protestant66 (39 OT + 27 NT)Follows the Hebrew Bible's list for the Old Testament.
Catholic73 (46 OT + 27 NT)Adds Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, plus longer Esther and Daniel.
Eastern Orthodox (Greek, Russian etc.)About 76–79Catholic books plus 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151 (4 Maccabees as an appendix in Greek Bibles).
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo81The largest canon; includes 1 Enoch, Jubilees and 1–3 Meqabyan.
Jewish Tanakh (not Christian)24 (same text as Protestant OT, counted differently)Torah (Law), Nevi'im (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings).

List of the books

Switch to the Detailed version to see every book of the Bible.

Old Testament (Protestant 39; Catholic adds those marked *)

  1. Genesis
  2. Exodus
  3. Leviticus
  4. Numbers
  5. Deuteronomy
  6. Joshua
  7. Judges
  8. Ruth
  9. 1 Samuel
  10. 2 Samuel
  11. 1 Kings
  12. 2 Kings
  13. 1 Chronicles
  14. 2 Chronicles
  15. Ezra
  16. Nehemiah
  17. Tobit *
  18. Judith *
  19. Esther (with Greek additions *)
  20. 1 Maccabees *
  21. 2 Maccabees *
  22. Job
  23. Psalms
  24. Proverbs
  25. Ecclesiastes
  26. Song of Songs
  27. Wisdom *
  28. Sirach *
  29. Isaiah
  30. Jeremiah
  31. Lamentations
  32. Baruch *
  33. Ezekiel
  34. Daniel (with Greek additions *)
  35. Hosea
  36. Joel
  37. Amos
  38. Obadiah
  39. Jonah
  40. Micah
  41. Nahum
  42. Habakkuk
  43. Zephaniah
  44. Haggai
  45. Zechariah
  46. Malachi

New Testament (27, shared by all Christians)

  1. Matthew
  2. Mark
  3. Luke
  4. John
  5. Acts of the Apostles
  6. Romans
  7. 1 Corinthians
  8. 2 Corinthians
  9. Galatians
  10. Ephesians
  11. Philippians
  12. Colossians
  13. 1 Thessalonians
  14. 2 Thessalonians
  15. 1 Timothy
  16. 2 Timothy
  17. Titus
  18. Philemon
  19. Hebrews
  20. James
  21. 1 Peter
  22. 2 Peter
  23. 1 John
  24. 2 John
  25. 3 John
  26. Jude
  27. Revelation

The great translations

3rd–2nd c. BC — Septuagint (Greek). The Old Testament in Greek, made in Alexandria; used by the Apostles and still the Old Testament of the Orthodox Church.
2nd–5th c. — Peshitta (Syriac/Aramaic). Bible of the Syriac churches of the Middle East and India.
AD 382–405 — Latin Vulgate. St Jerome's translation, commissioned by Pope Damasus I; the Bible of the Western Church for over 1,000 years.
4th c. — Gothic Bible (Wulfila) and 5th c. — Armenian, Ge'ez (Ethiopian), Georgian Bibles.
9th c. — Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created an alphabet for the Slavs.
1380s — Wycliffe Bible, the first complete English Bible (from the Latin).
c. 1455 — Gutenberg Bible, the first major book printed with movable type in Europe (Latin Vulgate).
1522/1534 — Luther Bible (German); 1526 — Tyndale New Testament (English, from Greek).
1582–1610 — Douay–Rheims, the Catholic English Bible.
1611 — King James Version (Authorized Version), the most influential English Bible.
Modern era — Revised Standard Version (1952), Jerusalem Bible (1966), New American Bible (1970, used in US Catholic Mass), New International Version (1978), New Revised Standard Version (1989), English Standard Version (2001) and many more.

Why so many translations? Translators balance two goals: word-for-word accuracy (e.g. King James, ESV, NASB) and meaning-for-meaning readability (e.g. NIV, Good News, New Living Translation). Catholic-approved English editions include the NABRE, RSV-Catholic Edition, Jerusalem Bible and the English Standard Version–Catholic Edition. Orthodox Christians often use the Orthodox Study Bible, which translates the Old Testament from the Septuagint.

Oldest Bibles in other lands: The Coptic (Egyptian) Bible dates from the 3rd–4th centuries; Chinese translations go back to the Nestorian (Church of the East) missionaries of the 7th century, with the first full Chinese Bible printed in 1822; the first complete Bible in an Indian language, Tamil, was completed in the 18th century by Lutheran missionaries Ziegenbalg and Schultze.

The Bible in the world's languages today

The Bible is the most translated book in history. According to the Wycliffe Global Alliance, the complete Bible exists in more than 750 languages, the New Testament in about 1,700–1,800 more, and portions in over a thousand others. More than 99% of the world's population can now read at least some Scripture in a language they know, though as of August 2025 there were still 544 languages (about 37 million people) waiting for translation to begin.

How the whole Bible points to Jesus

Christians read the Old Testament as preparing for Jesus. Some famous prophecies they see fulfilled in him:

Sources & further reading