How the Catholic Bible is divided: Tongues, Parts and Books

Do you know how the Catholic Bible is divided? Well, in this article we are going to give you all the details of how this book is composed, which has everything that is related to faith and biblical teachings.

How the Catholic Bible is divided

The Bible is like a great Library full of books, in which you can see a great building with two levels called the Old and New Testaments. Walking through it is like finding a great path with light which helps you better understand its structure and sections.

When you read the Bible you will have in your hands a great help that can drive you to change your life and see everything in a different way, and you can understand the immense love that Jesus had for us. It is a Library full of wisdom.

General Division

The Bible is divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. At first it was called diatheke, a Greek term meaning arrangement or contract but later derived to Testament which comes from the Latin Testament, and with that name it remains until today to designate the two parts of the Bible.

The people doing the translation from the Greek, known as the Septuagint, took the word from the Hebrew Berit, which means covenant of sovereignty, and with it, reference was made to the alliance that existed between the Hebrews of Sinai with God or Jehovah.

Numerical Division of the Bible

Only two religions are governed by the teachings of the Bible, the Jewish and the Christian, the latter being subdivided into Orthodox, Catholic and other Christian denominations. For Jews, only the information or teachings found in the Old Testament are valid, which is divided into three parts:

The law
The prophets
Other sacred writings

In total they only recognize 39 books, of the 46 that the Old Testament has. For Catholics they take the entire Bible for their teachings with its 73 books, the 46 of the Old Testament and the 27 of the New Testament. Protestants only recognize 39 books from the Old Testament and 27 from the New Testament, for a total of 66 biblical books. The difference in all of them lies not in what is found in the new testament but in the old.

Previously it was believed that Judaism was based on two canons, the Alexandrian and the Palestinian, hence the church took into account the Alexandrian which was longer or more extensive, but from the first or second century after Christ they decided to keep the version Palestinian which is shorter hence the difference in the number of books they recognize. These hypotheses remained so for a time but were subsequently rejected for various reasons:

First, that the translation of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek was not carried out in a unitary way, and even less so that it was translated simultaneously.
Second, most of the known books of the Bible were those translated by the Septuagint, and these were based on Christian codices from the IV and V centuries after Christ, therefore Christian terms were already used at that time and that is why there are many variable points.
Third among the Jews of Palestine there was no uniformity as to what they had in their canon, so there was also no Palestinian canon as such.

For these three reasons it is not known what were the exact limits of the books that were recognized by the Jews of Alexandria, so there must be books from Palestine, Alexandria, texts written in Greek such as the Book of Wisdom, in Hebrew , Aramaic, etc.

In this way, both the Catholic and Orthodox churches, through the Council of Hippo, which occurred in 383 after Christ, made it clear that the books that had divine inspiration were the protocanonical (First Law), the deuterocanonical (Second Law ), which was later ratified at the Council of Trent in 1546.

From there it can be determined as a single argument that it has 73 books and not 66 the following:

That the first community of Christians made up of the Apostles and disciples of Jesus used a Greek Septuagint translation of the Bible, in other words the 46-book Old Testament.
That when Jesus told Peter that he would give him the keys to the Kingdom of God and that what was bound on earth would also be bound in heaven and what was loosed on earth would also be loosed in heaven, leads us to understand and accept that those who the first Christians believed, did and used in word or voice should also believe it.
Most of the excuses used by the Jews for not fully accepting the books of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament were because they lacked divine authority, since by the year 100 AD the Christian community had already been formed and they had authority in their subject.

In short, what matters most to us in all this diatribe is that the Bible as we know it has 73 books that are of divine inspiration, that is to say that it is the word of God that has been written at specific moments of Tradition, and that nothing can be added to it and of course nothing can be taken away from it, since the last covenant of God with us will not pass away nor do we have to wait for another revelation until Jesus Christ returns again as our king and lord.

Furthermore, the only church that has transmitted the word of God throughout the world has been the Catholic Church, through various monasteries, its monks who copied the sacred texts, through its liturgies, its celebrations surrounding Christ, and by showing everyone what the Bible itself contains. There can be no acceptance of the Bible without accepting the Church that has safeguarded all its contents so that they will not be lost.

The books that were not accepted by Judaism and the other religious sects are those of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and the books 1 and 2 of Maccabees.

Thematic Division

When we divide by biblical themes, we must also do so through the Old Testament. In the time of Christ and even today, the Jews still classify it this way. There were the books of the Law, the Prophets, and other Writings. Of these, the first two are the most important for the Jews. Christ often quoted from the Old Testament writings, which were used in the assemblies.

At present and by the Catholic Church in the Old Testament it is divided into five books that are called the Pentateuch, this word is derived from the Greek penta which means five and Teuco which means Instruments. From there came the expression of cases, which was where the papyrus rolls or books were kept. These five books for the Jews is what they call The Torah or the Law and each one of them represented a fifth part of the law. The Pentateuch is made up of the books of:

The exodus
Genesis
Levitical
Numbers
Deuteronomy

Then there are the Wisdom Books:

Psalms
Jobs
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of songs
Wisdom
Sirach or Ecclesiasticus

The Historical Books follow:

Josué
Business Registration
I Samuel
II Samuel
I Kings
II Kings
I Chronicles
II Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Tobias
Judit
Ester
Judges
I Maccabees
II Maccabees

For the Jews the previous prophets were Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings since they tell the stories of the lives of the greatest prophets such as Elijah, Elisha and Samuel. For Catholics these are only known as prophets.

In the Greek Bible the Book of Samuel and the Book of Kings were a single book, in the same way it happened with Chronicles that were a single book together with Ezra and Nehemiah that are considered to belong to the same author. The Greek Bible and later the Vulgate that Saint Jerome wrote to Chronicles was known as Paralipomenos. After these books come the Prophetic Books:

Isaiah
Jeremias
Wailing
Baruch
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Zacarias
Malachi

Now in the New Testament we find 4 divisions or parts, which begin with the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the New Testament Letters and the Catholic Letters. The Gospels are those of: San Mateo, San Marcos, San Lucas and San Juan.

Acts of the Apostles: In this group are 21 epistles or letters written by the apostles.

Letters of the New Testament: it is made up of various letters that the apostles or disciples wrote and that were addressed to the peoples of the time: Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Hebrews.

The Catholic Letters are letters written by the apostles are those of Santiago, I and II Pedro; I, II and III John; Jude and Apocalypse.

The Pentateuch or Torah

These are books that discuss how God created the world, how Abraham was chosen, what the laws and dogmas are, and what God's relationship with his people was like. Many believe these books were written by the prophet Moses; in fact, Jesus himself called them the Law of Moses (Luke 24:44). The relevant topics of these five books are:

The life of Adam and Eve
The relationship of Cain and Abel
The construction of Noah's Ark
The construction of the tower of Babel
The history of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
The story of Abraham and his wife Sarah
The story of Isaac and Rebekah
The relationship between Jacob and Esau
The story of Joseph and the coat of many colors
The life of Moses from birth, until he manages to free the people of Israel, how he crossed the Red Sea, Easter, the 10 commandments and the ark of the covenant until his death.
What happened to the 12 tribes of Israel?
All the laws, traditions and festivals of the people of Israel.

the historical books

In this part of the Bible everything is told about the history of the people of Israel and how they had to fight to be able to be in the Promised Land and how to preserve it under the leaders of the Judges and Kings. In these you will find everything about the formation of Israel as a people, who were under their reigns, how they were devoted to God and what were the majority of the spiritual crises and how they persevered to overcome them. The most attractive topics of these books are:

The life of Joshua his passage through the Jordan and the fall of the walls of Jericho
The story of Samson and Delilah
The story of Ruth and Naomi
Samuel's life
The story of King Saul, David and Goliath, and how David became King.
The life of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the construction of the Temple
The stories of the prophets Elijah and Elisha
The kings of Israel and their battles
How was the kingdom of Israel divided?
The time of exile and his subsequent return
Judith and Esther

The Poetic Books or Books of Wisdom

These books are full of verses, sayings and proverbs, you also find the psalms that are various prayers that were sung in the form of hymns to give praise to God. Most of the Psalms were written by King David, but there are others that are by Solomon. The most interesting topics of these books are:

The life and suffering of Job
the 150 psalms
proverbs
The sayings of wisdom
The song of songs

The Prophetic Books

These are books that can tell us everything about the predictions of the present and future of the people of Israel, the means by which God communicated with them, and also why Catholics should believe in one God and have faith, since he speaks to us through the Bible. In this section, you can find information about the Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; and the Minor Prophets: Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Jonah.

The gospels

These are the writings that tell us about the Life of Jesus Christ from his birth to his death and resurrection. The most outstanding of these are the topics that correspond to:

Jesus' birth
The story of the Magi
The Family of Jesus (Joseph and Mary)
Jesus lost in the temple
Jesus goes to the desert
Baptism of Jesus
The beatitudes and the Our Father
The parables of Jesus and his miracles
The Last Supper
Jude's betrayal
Peter's denial
The resurrection of Christ

The acts of the apostles

The way in which the first Christian community began to form and coexist is narrated, it is believed that it is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke, since they are by the same author. What they look for the most in these books are the themes of: the ascension of Jesus to heaven, how the Holy Spirit arrives at Pentecost, the early church, the martyrdoms of the first saints, the conversion of Saul, the works of Peter and Saul now called Paul and his miracles.

Letters

It is composed of 21 letters, half of them written by Saint Paul and that were addressed to Christian communities and their leaders, in them teachings, warnings are made, they are encouraged to continue in the faith, corrections are made and information is sent to the communities. early churches. The topics that stand out the most are:

How to say thanks
How is faith justified?
What is the Law
What is the Holy Eucharist
The gifts
the mystery of the church
The suffering
The meaning of Christ and his cross
What was Christian behavior?

The Apocalypse or Book of Revelations

In these books attributed to John, the manifestations of God as the owner of the entire universe are spoken of, these books have been the subject of many misinterpretations.

How to read the Catholic Bible?

When reading the Bible, many people believe they find general knowledge in it, they look for it out of curiosity or necessity. But actually to understand it you must have a method to read it, these books themselves do not have a sequence and are not written in a chronological order.

Each section of the Bible is filled with readings. If you were reading a specific book, you would start with the first chapter and work your way to the end. The same should be done with the Bible.

Has everything written about God been written by God?

There are many books that talk about God, and we can find these for thousands of years. For the Mayans there was the Popol Vuh, for the Buddhists there is the Ramayana and the Mahabaratha. But what we Christians know comes through the death of Jesus Christ, when many of his works and teachings began to be written.

Many of them are considered real and faithful sources of Jesus' life, but in other cases, many were invented simply to gain more followers. There are many writings that depict a child Jesus, to whom many miracles are attributed, such as giving life to his toys or being able to talk to animals. However, since there is no indication of what happened in Jesus' life from the age of 12 until the age of 30, when he began his gospel, these books were considered Apocryphal.

Through the tradition of the apostles, the Church was given great power, with which it compiled all the books, analyzed them in detail, and through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, made a selection. Of all the books available, it selected only 73, to which it called the word of God. They later compiled them into a single book called The Bible or the Sacred Canon of Scripture.

The Bible was considered the true and only word of God, which is written by him through the pens of hagiographers. As the Holy Spirit was present in the selection of the works, the church tells us that we have to be sure that only the truth is written in it, a truth that is faithful and has no errors.

There are many different Bibles. Which one is good?

We find many Bibles among them are the one of the Mormons, the one of the people, the one of Gideons, the Latin American, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the one of Jerusalem, etc. This happened for the following reasons:

There were many people who, due to their good will and following the Church, made many translations of them and adapted them to many languages, so that the word of God reached all people, and in these translations they changed the meaning of many words. .
There are also many sects or religions that suppressed much of the information and retouched things that they did not like or were convenient and ended up changing the message of God, because many words that the hagiographers had originally written were modified.

How to Know if a Bible is the Original

When you want to buy a Bible and want to know if it is an original, you should pay attention to the following recommendations:

Check that you have all 73 books included, of which 46 belong to the Old Testament and 27 to the New Testament.
See if on the back cover there is the signature or name of any of the authorities of the Catholic Church, in Latin they should say Imprimatur y nihil obstat whose meaning is that it can be printed and that there is no obstacle for its new printing.
If you want to have more security, seek advice from a trusted priest.

Unity of both Testaments

Both testaments have a union, that is, they complement each other in such a way that the first explains the second and the second also explains the first, any explanation that is sought in any of them can be found in both since they refer to the first to the events that were going to happen and in the second to the things that had happened and that were prophesied until the arrival of Jesus.

For this reason, Jesus always told the people who followed him to hear him that they should do research in the ancient scriptures and that there they would find that Moses had spoken of him (John 5, 39-45).

The Old Testament… out of date?

Not everything that is old means it's useless or worthless. We can see this in old furniture and jewelry, which are extremely expensive today and are increasing in value. Similarly, the Old Testament spoke to us of the coming of Jesus, but once he arrived, he remained valid. Yet Jesus never came to this world to abolish what had already been written; he came to perfect it.

This tells us that we should not ignore the writings of the Old Testament, since they also come from the inspiration of God and in them we can find many imperfections and passing things, but there is also a lot of divine education, good teachings of who is God, wisdom of man, prayers, and for many there we have a hidden treasure of how we can save ourselves.

Now, the New Testament has in it a unique truth that it is divine Revelation, which focuses on Jesus Christ, what he did, what he taught, what his passion would be for his later resurrection. In it we find how the new church began through the help of the Holy Spirit. But in order to understand what God's message is in the New Testament, we must read it in correspondence with the Old Testament.

In all the holy scriptures, we find a single revelation, a great message from God to humanity, and this cannot be understood if the Bible is read in fragments. Many experts believe the Bible is like a tape recorder, which requires two speakers to hear: the Old and the New Testaments. If you listen to it with only one speaker, you will only hear one tone: low or high, meaning you won't be able to hear the music on the other.

Only when you use the two bugles do you hear the complete music and you can enjoy it, in this same way the Bible works, its author composed it in such a way that you must listen to the two bugles so that you understand its beautiful composition. That is why all the holy scriptures must be read, the ancient covenant of God that we find in the Old Testament tells us about the things that Christ would do in the New Testament, that is why both parts are inseparable from each other.

Original texts and copies

None of the texts of the Bible have a signature, and it cannot be confirmed if they were really written by the hand of the person to whom they were assigned in their classification. But this is not a reason for concern, since there are many works that have been found that are very different in years and even centuries from an original work.

When reference is made in the Bible to original texts we refer to the language in which they were written, the main languages of that time were Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. After that the translations would be done in Latin, Spanish, English, etc.

handwritten copies

When we refer to handwritten copies, they are documents that were made by hand.

Material

The first materials that were used to make writings or to record them were clay tablets, ostrakas or ceramics, cylinder stones and stelae. To start making the text of the Bible, these materials were not the ones used, since they were only used to make short and short-lived texts, therefore papyri and parchment began to be used.

The oldest of them is the papyrus that began to be used in Egypt in the year 3000 BC. This is a water plant, also called cane or Junco that always stands out in the Nile Delta. To make it, the trunk had to be opened and then pressed, from there some sheets were obtained that are then crisscrossed, crushed and put to dry.

It was a widely used material, but it was also very fragile, it was possible to write on it on only one side, many of which have been found in Egypt, since its dry climate allowed its durability. Much information has been obtained from them from the biblical texts.

On the contrary, parchment was made from the skin of animals such as lambs and sheep. The technique for its preparation was known as pergamon and was used in the north of Ephesus, around the year 100 after Christ, its use was very particular among the Persians. By the fourth century after Christ it was already in common use, since it was more resistant, but at the same time very expensive, sometimes this material was scraped to remove everything that had been written, and write again on it.

Format

The format was to make a long roll of papyrus or leather, which was reinforced at its ends through wooden or metal rods, whose use was to roll up, these rolls are still used among Jews today. The codex or ordinary book, as they were called, were used by the first Christians in the second century, and the Jews from the seventh century.

The oldest ones were written in continuous capital letters, they are difficult to read since there is not much separation between their words and they were used until the middle of the 250th century, of which about 2600 have been found. Those that followed had smaller letters and their Reading is easier, since it gave space to separate the words, its use began in the XNUMXth century after Christ and there are more than XNUMX of them.

Languages in which the Bible was written

The languages used for the writing of the Bible were Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek. Almost the entire Old Testament is written in Hebrew, this is the original language of the Jewish people, not much is known about its origin, but it is believed that it began to be used by the Canaanites and was adopted by the Israelites when they inhabited the land of Canaan .

Aramaic is a very old language, much older than that of the Hebrews, in this language there are very few written things such as Ezra, Jeremiah, Daniel and Matthew. Its use in the Israelites began approximately between the fourth and third centuries before Christ and its use was so strong that it began to displace Hebrew, through the Bible it is known that Jesus spoke in Aramaic.

Greek is the language in which the Book of Wisdom, 2 Maccabees and almost everything in the New Testament are written, except for the Gospel of Matthew. This Greek writing was in popular and vulgar use, not the classical one, and it was the most used after Alexander the Great conquered Greece. In short, the Bible is written in these languages:

Old Testament

Daniel is written in Hebrew with several fragments of Aramaic and Greek, Ezra is in Hebrew and some fragments of Aramaic, Esther is in Hebrew with fragments of Greek, I Maccabees is in Hebrew and II in Greek, Tobit and Judith are in Hebrew and Aramaic, Wisdom is in Greek and the rest of the books are in Hebrew only.

New Testament

The New Testament is written in Greek except for the Gospel of Saint Matthew which is entirely in Aramaic.

Bible Versions

Over the centuries, the Bible has had many versions. The oldest known versions are the Septuagint and the Vulgate. The Septuagint version is said to have been written by 70 scholars from the people of Israel and dates back to the XNUMXrd and XNUMXst centuries BC. It was used during the Diaspora, or the period of Jewish dispersion. It was used only by Jewish communities living in the Greco-Roman world, especially in Alexandria, who had already forgotten how to use Hebrew.

This Septuagint translation was important in Greek-speaking Jewish communities and from there spread throughout the Mediterranean, preparing for what would become the Gospels.

The version of the Vulgate, is the one elaborated by Saint Jerome in Latin, corresponds to the IV century, was written in the city of Bethlehem, and arises from necessity, since during the first two centuries of the Christian era the Greek version was used. popular, language used in Roman times, but by the third century, Latin was gaining momentum throughout the West, it is from this version that the other versions that we know today have come out.

The Council of Trent was the one who recognized the Vulgate as the official Latin version of the Bible, without leaving aside the other versions that existed.

Sacred Scripture is very valuable for the life of the Church

If it is very important since it represents the living word of God, or it was the one that gave strength and power to Christians for their expansion, it is the one that sustains, together with the Eucharist, all the life of the church, affirming the faith, nourishing the soul and being the source of all spiritual life.

It should be the spirit of theology, of the preaching of pastors, of catechism, and of all Christian teachings. It is only through these activities and by keeping in mind the life of Jesus Christ, his word, and the fruits that have come from it that we can continue to live a Christian life. The Church recommends that we read the Bible constantly, because if we don't know it, we will never know who Christ is.