Ask · Scripture & How We Got It
Why does the Bible have 66 books?
The short answer
Because those are the books the people of God recognised as carrying his authority: the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms that Jesus himself named, and the writings of his apostles. Thirty nine books of the Old Testament and twenty seven of the New. The number was never a target. It is simply the shape of what was received.
The fuller answer
For the Old Testament, start with Jesus's own table of contents. On the road after the resurrection he explained what was written about him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms: the threefold division of the Hebrew Bible, the same books Christians count as thirty nine. Josephus, writing in the first century, counts the Jewish books as twenty two, which is the same collection counted differently, the twelve minor prophets bound as one book, and so on. He says of them that during the long ages since, no one has been bold enough to add anything to them, take anything from them, or change anything in them.
Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
Luke 24:44 (BSB)
Jesus also treated that Scripture as unbreakable. The writings were closed and authoritative for him, and he argued from them as the final court. The section of this site called How We Got the Bible traces how the same boundary held on the Christian side.
If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—
John 10:35 (BSB)
For the New Testament, the twenty seven books are the apostolic writings: the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation. Athanasius listed exactly these in AD 367, distinguishing them from books appointed to be read for instruction and from apocryphal writings altogether. Other godly books exist and are worth reading. These are the ones the church recognised as the rule.
Sources
- Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
- Josephus, Against Apion 1.8
- Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (AD 367)
Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.
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