Jewish and Christian Bibles: A Comparative Chart

by Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D.

Introduction:

Although the "New Testament" contains the same twenty-seven books for almost all Christians, there are some major and important differences between the "Hebrew Bible" (HB) used by Jews and different versions of the "Old Testament" (OT) used by various Christian churches and denominations:

The foundational texts are different:
- Jewish Bibles are based on the HB;
- the OT section in Christian Bibles is arranged according to the order of books in the "Septuagint" (LXX), the ancient Greek version of the Jewish scriptures;
- however, the translations of individual OT books in Christian Bibles are now usually based on the texts of the HB.
The total number of biblical books is different:
- Jews count 24, Protestants 39, Catholics 46, Orthodox Christians up to 53;
- certain books of the HB are subdivided in the LXX; e.g., "The Twelve" minor prophets are considered one book in the HB, while the LXX and Christian Bibles count these as twelve separate books;
- the LXX contains several additional books not found in the HB; Orthodox and Catholic Christians regard these additional books as part of the OT canon (calling them the "Deuterocanonical Books"), while Jews and most Protestant Christians do not (calling them the "Apocrypha").
The arrangement of the categories of books is different:
- e.g. the "Latter Prophets" come before the "Writings" in the HB, but all the "Prophets" come after the "Wisdom" literature in the Christian OT.
  the order of the "Prophets" is also different between the LXX and the Catholic and Protestant OT.
The titles of some of the books are different:
- e.g. "Samuel" of the HB is split up into "1 Kingdoms" and "2 Kingdoms" in the LXX, which are renamed "1 Samuel" and "2 Samuel" in most Christian Bibles.
The categorization of some books is different:
- e.g. several of the books categorized as "Writings" in the HB are placed among the "Historical Books" or the "Prophets" in LXX and the Christian OT; the displacements of Ruth and Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles (1&2), and Lamentations and Daniel are indicated with highlighted colors in the chart below.

Notes:

HB = Hebrew Bible; LXX = Septuagint; OT = Old Testament; see my Biblical Glossary for detailed explanations of all these terms.
Books in CAPITALS are found in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Bibles, but not in most Jewish or Protestant Bibles.
Books in Italics are also in the LXX and considered biblical by various Orthodox Christians, but NOT by Jews or most other Christians.

Comparative Chart:

HEBREW BIBLE (a.k.a. Mikra or TaNaK/Tanakh)	ORTHODOX BIBLES (based on larger versions of LXX; exact contents & editions vary)	CATHOLIC BIBLE (based on Alexandrian canon of LXX; with seven Deuterocanonical books)	PROTESTANT BIBLE (retains Catholic order, but seven Apocrypha removed)
Torah / Books of Moses 1) Bereshit / Genesis 2) Shemot / Exodus 3) VaYikra / Leviticus 4) BaMidbar / Numbers 5) Devarim / Deuteronomy	Pentateuch 1) Genesis 2) Exodus 3) Leviticus 4) Numbers 5) Deuteronomy	Pentateuch (Law) 1) Genesis 2) Exodus 3) Leviticus 4) Numbers 5) Deuteronomy	Law (Pentateuch) 1) Genesis 2) Exodus 3) Leviticus 4) Numbers 5) Deuteronomy
Nevi'im / Former Prophets 6) Joshua 7) Judges 8) Samuel (1&2) 9) Kings (1&2)	Historical Books 6) Joshua 7) Judges 8) Ruth 9) 1 Kingdoms (= 1 Sam) 10) 2 Kingdoms (= 2 Sam) 11) 3 Kingdoms (= 1 Kings) 12) 4 Kingdoms (= 2 Kings) 13) 1 Chronicles 14) 2 Chronicles 15) 1 Esdras 16) 2 Esdras (=Ezra + Nehemiah) 17) Esther (longer version) 18) JUDITH 19) TOBIT 20) 1 MACCABEES 21) 2 MACCABEES 22) 3 Maccabees 23) 4 Maccabees	Historical Books 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 (longer version) 20) 1 MACCABEES 21) 2 MACCABEES	Historical Books 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) Esther (shorter version)
Nevi'im / Latter Prophets 10) Isaiah 11) Jeremiah 12) Ezekiel 13) The Book of the Twelve: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
Khetuvim / Writings 14) Psalms (150) 15) Proverbs 16) Job 17) Song of Solomon 18) Ruth 19) Lamentations 20) Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 21) Esther (shorter version) 22) Daniel (12 chapters) 23) Ezra-Nehemiah 24) Chronicles (1&2)	Poetic Books 24) Psalms (151) 25) Odes (w/ Prayer of Manasseh) 26) Proverbs 27) Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 28) Song of Solomon 29) Job 30) WISDOM of Solomon 31) SIRACH, a.k.a. Ecclesiasticus or Ben Sira 32) Psalms of Solomon	Wisdom Books 22) Job 23) Psalms (150) 24) Proverbs 25) Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 26) Song of Solomon 27) WISDOM of Solomon 28) SIRACH, a.k.a. Ecclesiasticus or Ben Sira	Wisdom Books 18) Job 19) Psalms (150) 20) Proverbs 21) Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) 22) Song of Solomon
.	Prophets 33) Hosea 34) Amos 35) Micah 36) Joel 37) Obadiah 38) Jonah 39) Nahum 40) Habakkuk 41) Zephaniah 42) Haggai 43) Zechariah 44) Malachi 45) Isaiah 46) Jeremiah 47) BARUCH 48) Lamentations 49) LETTER of JEREMIAH 50) Ezekiel 51) Daniel (2 chapters listed separately): 52) SUSANNA 53) BEL and the DRAGON	Prophets 29) Isaiah 30) Jeremiah 31) Lamentations 32) BARUCH (incl. LETTER of JER.) 33) Ezekiel 34) Daniel (14 chapters) 35) Hosea 36) Joel 37) Amos 38) Obadiah 39) Jonah 40) Micah 41) Nahum 42) Habakkuk 43) Zephaniah 44) Haggai 45) Zechariah 46) Malachi	Prophets 23) Isaiah 24) Jeremiah 25) Lamentations 26) Ezekiel 27) Daniel (only 12 chapters) 28) Hosea 29) Joel 30) Amos 31) Obadiah 32) Jonah 33) Micah 34) Nahum 35) Habakkuk 36) Zephaniah 37) Haggai 38) Zechariah 39) Malachi

Additional Resources:

Old Testament Statistics
Glossary of Biblical Terms
Jewish Publication Society Bible
The Septuagint Online
Porównanie: Biblia Hebrajska - a Polish translation of this webpage

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