Jerry C. Brewer
Introduction
Bible study must begin with an overview of it. While it has a central theme—the redemption of man through Jesus Christ—its divisions, inspiration, canon, and arrangement must first be understood. Paul told Timothy to, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). In this passage, the American Standard Version reads, “handling aright the word of truth.” Both readings indicate that there is a right way and a wrong way to handle the Bible—God’s word. It is the wrong way of handling it that has created such a babel of confusion among those who profess to follow Jesus Christ.
There is no such thing as “understanding the Bible differently.” If it is understood at all, it is understood alike. It is either understood, or misunderstood, but never “understood differently”. Nor is it impossible to understand it. Man can know the truth — God’s word (John 17:17). The Bible is both so simple that a child can understand it, but so deep that the greatest minds of the ages will never plumb its depths. But Jesus said we can know it (John 8:32).
The Library Of God’s Word
The Bible is unique. No other book on earth can compare with it. One of its unique features is that while it is a single volume, it is actually a library containing 66 books which are divided into two great sections in the Bible—the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains 39 books and the New Testament contains 27 books. Understanding these divisions will greatly facilitate one’s study of the Bible.
The Old Testament
The books comprising the Old Testament begin with the book of Genesis and end with the book of Malachi. All of these books are subdivided into what Jesus called, “…the law of Moses, …the prophets, and …the psalms” (Luke 24:46). Others divide the Old Testament into five subdivisions which are known as, The Law, History, Wisdom Literature, Major Prophets, and Minor Prophets. This division of the Old Testament divides the Prophets into two categories, based upon their length. The Minor Prophets were no less important than the Major Prophets. They are called “Minor Prophets” simply because they are shorter books than the Major Prophets, Divided into five subdivisions, the Old Testament books are as follows:
The Law
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
History
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, Second Kings, First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
Wisdom Literature
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song Of Solomon.
Major Prophets
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel.
Minor Prophets
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
The books of Law include the creation account, the call of Abraham, his faithfulness, God’s promise of a redeemer through his seed, the bondage of Israel in Egypt, their deliverance, the giving of the Law of Moses at Sinai, and Israel’s wilderness wandering until they came to the banks of Jordan, poised to enter Canaan.
The books of history recount the conquest of Canaan, Israel’s settlement in it, the period of the Judges who ruled the land and finally the kings. These books relate the history of Israel until after the death of Solomon when ten northern tribes revolted and formed the kingdom of Israel, leaving the tribes of Judah and Benjamin as the southern kingdom. These two kingdoms existed side by side until the northern kingdom was carried away by the Assyrians in 722 B. C., never to return to the land. Judah lasted until it, too, was carried away by the Babylonians in 606 B. C., then was restored to the land by the decree of the Persian King Cyrus in 536 B. C. (Ezra 1:1-4). The books of Ezra, Nehamiah and Esther relate that period when Judah was restored to their land and then the history of the Jews in the Old Testament ends.
The Wisdom Literature is composed, to a large extent, of poetry, the most notable of which is the book of Psalms. It also contains the Proverbs of Solomon and his wisdom expressed in Ecclesiastes.
The Major Prophets contain four books, authored by three prophets. Isaiah prophesied before the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah prophesied just prior to, and during, Jerusalem’s fall to the Babylonians, and his book of Lamentations is one of mourning over the fall of that city. While it is a short book, it is included among the Major Prophets because its author was Jeremiah and it immediately follows that book which is so named. Both Ezekiel and Daniel were prophets during the Babylonian Captivity.
The Minor Prophets deal with various issues. Like all the prophets, these were written by men whom God sent to Israel to call them to repentance, to warn them of impending doom if they did not repent, and to offer hope that, in spite of all that would befall Israel, the Messiah would come.
The New Testament
The 27 books comprising the New Testament can be classified under the headings of Biographical Books—so-called because they recount the life of Jesus— History, and Epistles. Here is how the New Testament is subdivided:
Biographical Books
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
History
The Acts of The Apostles
Epistles
Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, Second Thessalonians, First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, First Peter, Second Peter, First John, Second John, Third John, Jude, Revelation.
There are some who omit Revelation from the epistles and place it in a division of its own—Apocalyptic Literature. It does no harm to do this, but I include it in the epistles because it was written to the Seven Churches of Asia. The word, epistle, means letter and all of the epistles were letters written to either churches or individuals. Those written to churches were Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and First and Second Thessalonians. Those written to individuals were First and Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Second John, and Third John. Those we term. “General Epistles” were written to no particular person or church, but to individuals in general. They are, Hebrews, James, First and Second Peter, First John, and Jude.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are accounts of the Life of Jesus upon the earth, from His birth to His ascension back to heaven. Jesus lived and died under the Law of Moses and. while He was on earth, he obeyed every precept of that law. His law—the Gospel—did not become effective until after His ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost in Acts two. These books were written to produce faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God (John 20:30-31). They were never intended to instruct one on how to become a Christian.
The book of Acts is called a “History” because it describes the beginning of the church which Jesus established and its historical progress for a number of years afterward. Acts is also called the “Book of Conversions” because it recounts the conversions of various individuals throughout its pages, beginning in Acts two with the conversion of 3,000 people on the day the church came into being. As you read Acts, notice that in every case of conversion—without exception—those converted were baptized. It is the book of Acts in which one finds the how of becoming a Christian.
The epistles of Romans through Revelation address various subjects in the life and conduct of Christians, both in worship and in secular affairs. Neither were the epistles designed to instruct one on how to become a Christian. Their purpose was to instruct those who were already Christians how to live their lives to please God, and Revelation was written to the Seven Churches of Asia to exhort them faithfulness in the face of coming persecution. With that exhortation came the assurance that God would preserve His faithful servants. Revelation not only warned them of the trials—and even death—that they would face, but serves as assurance to Christians today that God will preserve the faithful and punish the wicked.
The Inspiration Of The Bible
A profitable study of the Bible cannot be undertaken without a proper understanding of its inspiration. Paul wrote, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The word inspiration is translated from the Greek, theopneustos, which means, “God-breathed.” The scriptures, including what Paul wrote in the above passage, were literally “breathed out” from God. He is the source of every word found in the Bible. Someone may ask, “You mean Satan was inspired when he lied to Eve about the forbidden fruit? That’s in the Bible.” The answer is, “no,” Satan was not inspired when he lied, but the account of his lie that Moses wrote in Genesis is an inspired account of it. The Bible was written over a period of about 1,600 years by about 40 different men. They were a diverse lot and included shepherds, kings, fishermen, a physician and a tax collector, among others, and when their writings were gathered into that single volume we call the Bible, there was not—and is not—a contradiction between any of them.
The only way to account for that is to understand that while they wrote in their own styles, God gave them the very words He wanted to convey to men. That is what we call, verbal inspiration—inspiration that extends to the very words of the Bible, not just the thought. Paul put it this way: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor. 2:13). God did not give the writers of the Bible an idea to express in their words, but expressed His own will in words of His choosing. There is a void between spirits, and the only way that void can be bridged is for one to express himself in words to another. That’s what Paul meant, saying, “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11). As you cannot know what is in my mind until, and unless, I tell you—reveal it to you—so no man could have known the will of God without Him revealing it, in His own words in the Bible through inspired men.
The Canon Of The Bible
The word canon is used to identify the authentic books of the Bible. Tom Bright explained it in this manner:
The word canon came from the ancient Greeks who used it in a literal sense. A canon was a rod, ruler, staff, or measuring rod. It has been suggested that it was a derivative of the Hebrew kaneh, meaning a measuring rod (Eze. 40:3). From the literal ruler the word was extended to refer to a rule or standard for anything. In early Christian times, it soon came to mean a rule of faith, normative writings, or authoritative Scripture. Today we speak of the “canon of Scripture” in reference to those books recognized as comprising the Bible. In short, it is an allusion to that which came from God to man through inspired men [emph his] (311).
Who determined the canon of Scripture? Who decided which books should be included in the Bible? The short answer is that God did. That was the subject Tom Bright dealt with at the Ninth Annual Shenandoah Lectures in 1995. It has been claimed through the centuries that the Catholic Church gave us the Bible. That is absolutely false.
God never intended for ‘the Church’ to establish what was and was not from heaven. The truth of the matter is, God is the ‘determiner’ of canonicity. By this, I simply mean that through the means of inspiration, God long ago determined that a writing was Scripture. Would any deny this premise: If a writing is inspired, it is Scripture; if it is Scripture, then it is canonical. Canonicity is determined by God. A writing is not inspired because men made it canonical. It is canonical because God inspired it! It is not antiquity or the church which makes a book authoritative. We need to understand this principle: a book is authoritative because it is canonical; it is not considered canonical simply because man looks upon it as valuable [emph his] (313).
The 66 books comprising the Old and New Testaments are canonical (authoritative) because they are inspired of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:21).
The Arrangement of the Bible’s Books
A study of the Bible will be more fruitful if the student understands that the books as we have them arranged in our English Bible are not in chronological order. The Old Testament begins with Genesis which was written by Moses. The time period of this book would be around 1400 B.C. However, scholars are agreed that Job is one of the Bible’s oldest books and was probably written around the time of the events Moses records in Genesis.
Some of the Bible’s books were originally parts of others. For instance, the books of First and Second Samuel were originally written as one volume, as were the two books of First and Second Kings. However, the division of these into two separate books does not detract from their canonicity or inspiration. An important component of Bible study is to determine the time frame of their writing as closely as possible. That is easily done with many of the prophetic books by comparing them with the historical books of Kings and Chronicles.
The prophets often gave the names of kings who reigned during the time of their prophecies, such as the opening verse of the book of Isaiah. “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (Isa. 1:1). The same kind of information is found in the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Jeremiah’s prophecy was given to him in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign. It further came from Jehoiakim’s reign to the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, until the fifth month of the Babylonian captivity (Jer. 1:1-3).
Ezekiel pinpoints the time of his prophecy as during the time of Judah’s captivity. “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity…” (Eze. 1:1-2). The student should also remember that the last three books of the Old Testament, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, were written before the twenty books preceding them. They were written during the events chronicled in Ezra and Nehemiah. Determining the time frame of historical books and where the prophets fit into those is important in the Old Testament. The New Testament books do not necessarily require the time frame to be determined for an understanding of their contents. However, it should be noted that the epistles penned by Paul fall within the historical context of the book of Acts and that book should be consulted when studying Paul’s epistles.
The division of the Bible into chapters and verses was not part of the original writing by inspired men. That was done much later in an effort to aid in study and to facilitate locating certain passages. Of the chapter divisions, Schaff and Herzog note that,
Common opinion concerning chapter divisions attributes them to Cardinal Hugo of Saint Cher for use in his concordance to the Latin Vulgate (c. 1240, first printed, with modification, at Bologna, 1479). This opinion rests on the direct testimony of Gilbert Genebrard (d. 1597), that “the scholastics who with Cardinal Hugo were authors of the concordance” made the division. Quetif and Echard, a century and a half later than Genebrard, ascribe to Hugo only the subdivision of the chapters presently to be mentioned. The better opinion is, that Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1228), made the chapter division to facilitate citation. (113)
The division of the chapters of the Bible into verses was made about 300 years later by a man named Henry Stephens.
In the canonical Old Testament they appear in the oldest known manuscripts http://www.bible-researcher.com/hebrewtext1.htmlhttp://www.bible-researcher.com/hebrewtext1.html, though they were not used for citation by the Jews till the fifteenth century. The earlier printed Hebrew Bibles marked each fifth verse only with its Hebrew numeral. Arabic numerals were first added for the intervening verses by Joseph Athias, at Amsterdam, 1661, at the suggestion of Jan Leusden. The first portion of the Bible printed with the Masoretic verses numbered was the Psalterium Quincuplex of Faber Stapulensis, printed at Paris by Henry Stephens in 1509. In 1528 Sanctes Pagninus published at Lyons a new Latin version of the whole Bible with the Masoretic verses marked and numbered. He also divided the Apocrypha and New Testament into numbered verses; but these were three or four times as long as the present ones. (Schaff & Herzog, 113)
Verse divisions in the New Testament were made by Stephens with the publication of his Vulgate (Geneva) Bible in 1555. There has been criticism of the arbitrary way in which many of the verses were inserted, “the division often coming in the middle of the sentence, instead of forming it into convenient and logical paragraphs, an arrangement which has seldom found favor. But their utility for reference outweighs their disadvantage.” (Schaff & Herzog, 114).
The Bible must be studied in its context. While the chapter and verse divisions are certainly helpful in locating passages, they can be a hindrance unless the student keeps the context in mind. One example of this is Acts 1:26, where Matthias replaced Judas as an apostle. The last phrase of that verse says, “…and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.” Acts 1 ends there and Acts 2:1 begins, “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” Unless the context is considered and the last word of Acts 1:26 is taken into account, one might fail to understand who the they were of Acts 2:1. This word, a pronoun, obviously has as its antecedent, “the apostles” of Acts 1:26. One should not think the division into chapters and verses means a break in the subject matter or context. The first verse of Acts chapter eight actually belongs in the context of chapter seven—“And Saul was consenting unto his death.”
One final note about Bible study and arrangement concerns the words printed in italics. The King James translators sometimes inserted words that were not in the original language for the purpose of clarifying the meaning of a verse. While the italicized words of the Bible can sometimes be helpful, they can also detract from the meaning of the text.
An example of that is in Ecclesiastes 12:13 which speaks of, “the whole duty of man.” The word duty is inserted in italics, but a better rendering would be, “this is the whole of man,” indicating not just a duty but that the very reason for man’s existence and well being is to “fear God and keep his commandments.” Another example along this line should suffice to illustrate our point. Jesus told the unbelieving Jews, “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). Notice the word he that is italicized. I suppose the translators thought Jesus was referring to Himself as the Messiah. But I believe He was making a claim to Deity. Leave out the supplied word he and the phrase reads, “For if ye believe not that I Am ye shall die in your sins.” When God appeared to Moses in Midian, He told Moses, “I Am that I Am”, indicating eternal self-existence that is only possessed by Deity (Ex. 3:14). Jesus also made that claim again, saying, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58) and as a result the Jews tried to stone Him because He claimed to be Deity.
Conclusion
Anyone who approaches the Bible as the very word of God, inspired in every part, and respects it as being breathed out from God will know His will. It will never be understood as it should be with any other approach. Even Satan can quote Scripture (Matt. 4:6) but he does not respect it as God’s word. He may know what it says, but he misuses it. That is the bane of the denominational world whose preachers may know what the Bible says, but do not respect it as the verbally inspired word of God.
Works Cited
1. All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.
2. Bright, Tom L., “Who Decided Which New Testament Books Belong In The Bible?”, A Handbook On Bible Translation, Ed. Terry Hightower, San Antonio, Texas, Shenandoah church of Christ, 1995.
3. Herzog, Johann Jakob and Schaff, Phillip, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. 2, New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1908-1912.
