Book sequence differences in the OT

[opdsgt]

Something I noticed between my two Catholic edition bibles is, the NAB lists the books of Maccabees roughly in the middle of the the bible. The RSV-CE has those two books right at the end of the OT. Why the difference in sequence, I wondered.

So I went snooping around and may have found the explanation, though the reasoning behind the difference in OT book sequence is still something of a mystery to me. See the second paragraph here:

nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/1maccabees/intro.htm

Any thoughts?

Frankly, I was surprised to see a difference in sequence in the books of the OT between two “CE” bibles. I heretofore believed the only difference between Protestant and Catholic bibles was the matter of seven more OT books in the latter, but now it seems there are even disparities in book sequence.

 

[lak611]

NAB places 1 & 2 Maccabees with the Historical Books, since they are history, not prophecy. The last book in NAB Old Testament is Malachi, who is a minor prophet. Order really doesn’t matter though, because the Bible is not in chronological order anyway. For instance all translations place Paul’s epistles in the same order in the New Testament, but they are not listed in the order that he wrote them.

 

[opdsgt]

Good point, lak. I recall reading someplace that all the letters were written after the Gospels, but the unaware would of course conclude otherwise simply by cracking the bible open.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Good point, lak. I recall reading someplace that all the letters were written after the Gospels, but the unaware would of course conclude otherwise simply by cracking the bible open.

Did you mean before?

 

[opdsgt]

OOPS.

Sure did.