Old Testament

The Old Testament is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in Koine Greek.
The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors produced over a period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: the first five books or Pentateuch ; the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon; the poetic and wisdom literature, which explore themes of human experience, morality, and divine justice; and the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God.
The Old Testament canon differs among Christian denominations. The Catholic canon contains 46, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches include up to 49 books, and the Protestant Bible typically has 39. Most of these books are shared across all Christian canons, corresponding to the 24 books of the Tanakh but with differences in order and text. Some books found in Christian Bibles, but not in the Hebrew canon, are called deuterocanonical books, mostly originating from the Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Catholic and Orthodox churches include these, while most Protestant Bibles exclude them, though some Anglican and Lutheran versions place them in a separate section called Apocrypha.
While early histories of Israel were largely based on biblical accounts, their reliability has been increasingly questioned over time. Key debates have focused on the historicity of the Patriarchs, the Exodus, the Israelite conquest, and the United Monarchy, with archaeological evidence often challenging these narratives. Mainstream scholarship has balanced skepticism with evidence, recognizing that some biblical traditions align with archaeological findings, particularly from the 9th century BC onward.

Content

The Old Testament contains 39, 46, or more books, divided, very broadly, into the Pentateuch, the historical books, the "wisdom" books and the prophets.
The table below uses the spellings and names present in modern editions of the Christian Bible, such as the Catholic New American Bible Revised Edition and the Protestant Revised Standard Version and English Standard Version. The spelling and names in both the 1609–10 Douay Old Testament and the 1749 revision by Bishop Challoner and in the Septuagint differ from those spellings and names used in modern editions which are derived from the Hebrew Masoretic Text.
For the Orthodox canon, Septuagint titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. For the Catholic canon, the Douaic titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. Likewise, the King James Version references some of these books by the traditional spelling when referring to them in the New Testament, such as "Esaias".
In the spirit of ecumenism, more recent Catholic translations use the same "standardized" spellings and names as Protestant Bibles in those books which are universally considered canonical: the protocanonicals.
The Talmud in Bava Batra 14b gives a different order for the books in Nevi'im and Ketuvim. This order is also cited in Mishneh Torah Hilchot Sefer Torah 7:15. The order of the books of the Torah is universal through all denominations of Judaism and Christianity.
The disputed books, included in most canons but not in others, are often called the Biblical apocrypha, a term that is sometimes used specifically to describe the books in the Catholic and Orthodox canons that are absent from the Jewish Masoretic Text and most modern Protestant Bibles. Catholics, following the Canon of Trent, describe these books as deuterocanonical, while Greek Orthodox Christians, following the Synod of Jerusalem, use the traditional name of, meaning "that which is to be read." They are present in a few historic Protestant versions; the German Luther Bible included such books, as did the English 1611 King James Version.
Empty table cells indicate that a book is absent from that canon.

Christian order	Protestant Old Testament	Catholic Old Testament	Orthodox Old Testament	Hebrew Bible	Hebrew order	Original language
1	Genesis	Genesis	Genesis	Bereshit	1	Hebrew
2	Exodus	Exodus	Exodus	Shemot	2	Hebrew
3	Leviticus	Leviticus	Leviticus	Vayikra	3	Hebrew
4	Numbers	Numbers	Numbers	Bamidbar	4	Hebrew
5	Deuteronomy	Deuteronomy	Deuteronomy	Devarim	5	Hebrew
6	Joshua	Joshua	Joshua	Yehoshua	6	Hebrew
7	Judges	Judges	Judges	Shoftim	7	Hebrew
8	Ruth	Ruth	Ruth	Rut	18	Hebrew
9	1 Samuel	1 Samuel	1 Samuel	Shmuel	8	Hebrew
10	2 Samuel	2 Samuel	2 Samuel	Shmuel	8	Hebrew
11	1 Kings	1 Kings	1 Kings	Melakhim	9	Hebrew
12	2 Kings	2 Kings	2 Kings	Melakhim	9	Hebrew
13	1 Chronicles	1 Chronicles	1 Chronicles	Divrei Hayamim	24	Hebrew
14	2 Chronicles	2 Chronicles	2 Chronicles	Divrei Hayamim	24	Hebrew
15			1 Esdras			Greek
16	Book of Ezra	Book of Ezra	Ezra–Nehemiah	Ezra–Nehemiah	23	Hebrew and Aramaic
17	Nehemiah	Book of Nehemiah	Ezra–Nehemiah	Ezra–Nehemiah	23	Hebrew
18		Tobit	Tobit			Aramaic and Hebrew
19		Judith	Judith			Hebrew
20	Esther	Esther	Esther	Ester	21	Hebrew
21		1 Maccabees	1 Maccabees			Hebrew and Greek
22		2 Maccabees	2 Maccabees			Greek
23			3 Maccabees			Greek
24			2 Esdras			Greek
25			4 Maccabees			Greek
26	Job	Job	Job	Iyov	16	Hebrew
27	Psalms	Psalms	Psalms	Tehillim	14	Hebrew
28			Prayer of Manasseh			Greek
29	Proverbs	Proverbs	Proverbs	Mishlei	15	Hebrew
30	Ecclesiastes	Ecclesiastes	Ecclesiastes	Qohelet	20	Hebrew
31	Song of Solomon	Song of Songs	Song of Songs	Shir Hashirim	17	Hebrew
32		Wisdom	Wisdom			Greek
33		Sirach	Sirach			Hebrew
34	Isaiah	Isaiah	Isaiah	Yeshayahu	10	Hebrew
35	Jeremiah	Jeremiah	Jeremiah	Yirmeyahu	11	Hebrew
36	Lamentations	Lamentations	Lamentations	Eikhah	19	Hebrew
37		Baruch	Baruch			Hebrew
38		Baruch	Letter of Jeremiah			Greek
39	Ezekiel	Ezekiel	Ezekiel	Yekhezqel	12	Hebrew
40	Daniel	Daniel	Daniel	Daniyyel	22	Aramaic and Hebrew
41	Hosea	Hosea	Hosea	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
42	Joel	Joel	Joel	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
43	Amos	Amos	Amos	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
44	Obadiah	Obadiah	Obadiah	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
45	Jonah	Jonah	Jonah	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
46	Micah	Micah	Micah	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
47	Nahum	Nahum	Nahum	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
48	Habakkuk	Habakkuk	Habakkuk	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
49	Zephaniah	Zephaniah	Zephaniah	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
50	Haggai	Haggai	Haggai	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
51	Zechariah	Zechariah	Zechariah	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew
52	Malachi	Malachi	Malachi	The Twelveor	13	Hebrew

Several of the books in the Eastern Orthodox canon are also found in the appendix to the Latin Vulgate, formerly the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.