How many books are in the Bible?

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This is not a question about Catholic vs. Protestant Bibles. This is a question for scripture scholars, concerning the original authors and their intentions, as best as it can be gleaned from the text. What I am wondering is which books of the Bible are only separated due to the constraints of papyrus roll length or other similar, somewhat arbitrary reasons. From what I can remember, for example, 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel are really one single work, but because of the length limitations of scrolls used at the time, the one book was divided into two. In addition, the same happened for 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles. However this is a different situation from the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, which are written as a pair, but Acts is clearly a separate work that stands as a sequel to the Gospel. (E.g. you don’t think of a movie as only the part before an intermission, but you watch the whole thing before deciding its artistic value. Yet you can argue the relative merits of the various Star Wars movies as separate artistic works.)

I am pretty sure that all books of the New Testament are individual works, but the Old Testament books are where I am confused as so many appear to be the same literary piece. Here are a few questions that I am pondering: Are 1 Kings and 2 Kings part of the books of Samuel? (At some point, some people called them 1-4 Kings, right?) What about 1 and 2 Maccabees? And what about the apocryphal 3 and 4 Maccabees? Also, I have read that Ezra and Nehemiah were written as a single piece. Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers also read a bit too much like a single work and not truly separate books. On the flip side, the Psalms were individually written, but collected together. However, they should be read more as individual poems.

If you define ‘books’ as ‘the writing on a particular amount of paper grouped together’, then there isn’t that much of a discussion. But now that I have typed all of this, I guess I have a better way to formulate my question: How many separate literary works are in the Bible?

Peace
 
Hopefully a scripture scholar will answer. Here is a beginning book - three hundred pages. It is an easy read which gives a lot of information on dates, content, authors, languages, whether books are historical, prophetical or doctrinal,etc. ** Introduction to The Bible by Fr. John Laux, M.A. **

Info I took from book; Fr. Laux tells of debates going on, who author what and when:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy called the
Pentateuch was authored by Moses and he may have used contemporary writers and oral resources.

Josue called sequel to Pentateauch authored by Josue

Book of Judges, relates to history of 12 military leaders, written by Samuel

Book of Ruth, family history in the period of Judges, by unknown writer

Four Books of Kings, originally was 2 books of Samuel and 2 books of Kings. King 1 and 2 or Samuel 1 and 2 is the history of last two Judges, Heli and Samuel composed after division of kingdom until Babylonian Captivity. King 3 and 4 tells of David, Solomon, Babylon which is a compilation of sources by the Prophet Jeremiah during the Babylonian captivity.

Two books Paralipommenon or 2 Chronicle which was originally one book. In Greek means “left out” . Yet it is not supplement to Kings but an independent Work, a religious history of Juda authored probably by Esdras

Two books of Esdras(or Esdras(Ezra) and Nehemias)(538 B.C. to 432 B.C.), tells of return and restoration of Jews after Babylonian captivity taken from various sources with memoirs of Esdras, a scribe and Nehemias, Cup bearer of Persian King, Artaxerxes I.

First Book of Macabees embraces Jewish history from 175 to 135 B.C. telling of their persecution and fight for freedom. Both books give an account under Seleucid, King of Syria. The Second Book of Macabees is an epitome of a larger work in five books by Jason of Cyrene which deals with 175 to 161 B.C. The second book of Macabees was probably written around 120 B.C. before the first book around 100 B.C.
 
I did struggle abit in this book by Fr. Laux with the non-writing prophets and the seventeen writing prophets.

I had to read, pause and read. I wish someone would do a movie about them all.😃
 
What you are looking for I believe can be found under the name of

Tanakh = is an acronym that identifies the Hebrew Bible

The Torah =" Instruction". It is also called the Chumash חומש, meaning “the five” or “the five books of Moses.” In Greek, it is called the Pentateuch. The Torah is often referred to as the law of the Jewish people. 5 books

Nevi’im = meaning “Prophets.” This term is associated with anything to do with the prophets. 8 books

Ketuvim = meaning “Writings.” The Greek word being “Hagiographa.” 11 books

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Tanakh.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh

hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Nevi_im/nevi_im.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevi%27im

jewfaq.org/torah.htm#Written

You just have to be careful with “wikipedia” they are a website created by “we” the people.So just cross refrence with other sites.
 
when the catholic church through the Holy Spirit formulated the 72 books of the bible in the 4th. century, there were another 60 plus books already in use. these were subsequently rejected.🤷
 
originally posted by robert ambrose
there were another 60 plus books already in use. these were subsequently rejected
Click to expand...
Fr. Laux does a section on the Apocrypha which means “hidden” books which were excluded from readings during divine services explaining that some were harmless human legends but others were heretical.

He also explains about the term Septuagint (Greek) Version and how the bible was form. Many Jews no longer spoke Hebrew because they had dispersed all over the world.

Later a number of these books came from the Gnostic sects which were not in line with Church teaching.

From New Advent…

newadvent.org/cathen/01601a.htm
 
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