How Many Books Are in the Bible? Counts by Tradition

The Bible has 66 books in Protestant tradition, 73 in Catholic tradition, varying totals in Eastern Orthodox churches, and commonly 81 in Ethiopian Orthodox tradition; the Jewish Tanakh has 24. These figures reflect both the writings each community recognizes as scripture and the way those writings are counted. A biblical canon is that recognized collection, so a book total makes sense only alongside the tradition it describes.

This guide sets out the counts by tradition, then traces how the collections developed. It explains the Catholic and Protestant differences, the varying Orthodox collections, and the Ethiopian count before placing noncanonical writings in context and pointing to related guides.

The short answer by tradition

Book totals measure more than the presence or absence of particular writings. The Jewish Tanakh contains substantially the same writings as the Protestant Old Testament, but its arrangement produces a different number. Its three divisions are Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim, meaning Teaching, Prophets and Writings. The Hebrew Bible is written chiefly in Hebrew, with some passages in Aramaic.

The Jewish count treats the twelve minor prophets as a single book. Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah are also each counted as one. These groupings explain why a smaller total does not necessarily mean a smaller collection of writings. Elsewhere, differences concern which works a community accepts, rather than simply how it divides and orders them.

Why the numbers differ: how the canon developed

The Jewish canon developed over centuries, not at one securely documented council. Mainstream scholarship does not accept the once-common claim that a council at Jamnia definitively closed it around 90 CE. The Septuagint is a collection of ancient Greek translations of Jewish scriptures; translation of the Torah began in Alexandria during the third century BCE. Its surviving ancient manuscripts do not all contain the same books.

Greek Jewish scriptures strongly shaped early Christian biblical usage, but Christian communities did not immediately agree on either testament's boundaries. Nicaea in 325 did not establish the canon. Regional councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 endorsed lists corresponding to the Catholic canon. Reformation-era Protestants generally followed the Hebrew Jewish collection for the Old Testament; Trent formally reaffirmed the Catholic canon in 1546.

The Protestant 66 and the Catholic 73

The seven additional Catholic Old Testament books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. Catholic Bibles also contain additions to Esther and Daniel. The Daniel additions are the Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon. The Letter of Jeremiah forms the final chapter of Baruch in Catholic Bibles.

Catholics call these disputed Old Testament writings deuterocanonical, not a separate third testament. In Protestant usage, Apocrypha commonly means Old Testament writings accepted as scripture by Catholics or Orthodox Christians but not by Protestants. Many early Protestant Bibles nevertheless printed them in a separate section, as the original 1611 King James Bible did. Their presence in a volume therefore does not by itself establish their canonical status.

Why Eastern Orthodox totals vary

Eastern Orthodox Old Testaments commonly contain 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151 beyond the Catholic collection. Some Greek Orthodox Bibles also print 4 Maccabees as an appendix rather than as an ordinary canonical book. That distinction matters to a total: a volume's contents can extend beyond the writings it presents as its ordinary canon, and publishing traditions do not all arrange those contents alike.

A figure such as 76 therefore identifies a particular enumeration, not a universally agreed Eastern Orthodox total. There is no single number that represents every church and publishing tradition in this family. Eastern Orthodox churches and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church also belong to different ecclesiastical families, so their scriptural collections cannot be treated as one uniform Orthodox list.

The Ethiopian Orthodox canon: commonly 81 books

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo canon is commonly given as 81 books: 46 in the Old Testament and 35 in the New Testament. Ethiopian tradition distinguishes narrower and broader forms of its canon. The broader New Testament contains church-order writings beyond the familiar 27 books. Ge'ez is the classical scriptural and liturgical language of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.

This broader biblical tradition accepts works such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees. Its books of Meqabyan are different works from the Greek books of Maccabees. The identity of Enoch is also specific: acceptance of 1 Enoch does not extend to every work attributed to that figure. Neither 2 Enoch nor 3 Enoch belongs to the Ethiopian Orthodox canon, and neither does the Book of Giants.

Where writings outside the canons fit, and where to go next

Noncanonical writings can be historically important: the Dead Sea Scrolls contain biblical and noncanonical works, while Nag Hammadi consists chiefly of Coptic religious writings, not extra Ethiopian biblical books. Related guides cover books removed from the Bible, the Apocrypha and the Septuagint. The Complete 88-Book Ethiopian Bible is the library's edition of the Ethiopian canon; the edition on this site uses a count of 88 books in its title, explained in the guide to the Ethiopian Bible.

Keep exploring

• All 88 books of the Ethiopian Bible
• The Apocrypha
• The Septuagint, explained
• Every book removed from the Bible, and why
• The lost books of the Bible: the complete list