The Old Testament

[davey-land]

How many books are there in the Old Testament ?

[Clanad]

That's a difficult question... the Hebrew Tanach usually thought to be the most valid rendition of the Canon contains 24. But one must understand the Hebrew Scriptures are divided only into Torah (The Law), Nevi'im (The Prophets, including the so called Minor Prophets), and the Ketuvi'im (The Writings, Psalms, Proverbs, etc.). The Protestant Old Testament contains all of these, but are broken down into individual Books, some of which are further divided into 1st and 2nd (Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are examples). At any rate this Old Testament contains 39 Books.
The Roman Catholic Old Testament contains 46 Books since, not only do they add the 1st and 2nd as referenced, they also add additional Books that are considered non-canonical, such as 1st and 2nd Edras, 1 Macabees and 2 Macabees. The Eastern Orthodox Church further compounds the situation by adding an additional Psalm (151) as well as two more Macabees texts...

[Tom Braider]

Why not just count the ones in the nearest Bible? They're all over the place!

Oh, all right: there are 39 in the Authorised (King James) Bible -

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
First book of Samuel
Second book of Samuel
First book of Kings
Second book of Kings
First book of Chronicles
Second Book of Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Songs (Song of Solomon, Canticles)
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi.