Page 11 - Yahwehs Book

In this chapter, I want to pay particular attention to the books of the ancient covenant, that which
Christians today commonly call the Old Testament. These books were delivered to the descendants
of Abraham, the Hebrew people. Many Christians are surprised to learn that the Scriptures used by
the Hebrews in the time of Christ did not contain 39 books as are found in the Old Testament of our
Bibles today. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in the first century A.D. stated that the
Jews had only 22 books of sacred writings.

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting
one another, but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are
justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the
traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three
thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia,
who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their
times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the
conduct of human life.
[Flavius Josephus, Against Apion]

The Scriptures that Yahshua and His disciples used in their day included only 22 books. Christians
should not be alarmed at this, however, for these 22 books contained all of the writings that comprise
the Old Testament of their Bibles today. The books were merely arranged differently. This was no
doubt in part due to the fact that writing at the time was done primarily on scrolls of animal skin, or
papyrus. Many of the Old Testament books are small, and it would have been prohibitively
expensive to create an individual scroll for each prophet’s writing. Therefore, certain books were
combined into a single scroll. Following is a listing of how the Jews of Yahshua’s day divided their
holy writings.

• The Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: 5 books
• The Prophets: Joshua, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah-Lamentations, Ezekiel,
The book of the twelve (Hosea to Malachi): 7 books
• The Writings: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth-Judges, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel,
Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles: 10 books

You can see by this list, that many books that are listed separately in Bibles today were formerly
combined. I and II Samuel were one book. I and II Kings were one book. I and II Chronicles were
one book. Jeremiah and Lamentations were combined as one book. Ruth and Judges were one book.
Ezra and Nehemiah were one book. Then there were the twelve books of the minor prophets (Hosea
to Malachi) which were all combined into one book which was referred to as “The Twelve.”

There were other reasons that the Jews numbered their holy writings as 22, besides cost and the
convenience of combining multiple books on a single scroll. In a writing titled The Book of Jubilees,
found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, some Jewish teachers set forth the theological underpinning for
this number. They wrote:

God made 22 things on the six days of creation. These 22 events paralleled the 22 generations from
Adam to Jacob, the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the 22 books of the Holy Scripture.