How many books are in the Bible?

The standard counts

• Protestant Bible: 66 books (39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament).
• Catholic Bible: 73 books (46 Old Testament including the deuterocanonical books, 27 New Testament).
• Eastern Orthodox Bibles: 78–81 books depending on tradition.

The New Testament — 27 books — is the same across all three traditions.

What differs

The difference lies in the Old Testament. The Protestant Bible follows the Hebrew Masoretic canon for the OT, which contains 24 books in Jewish reckoning (the 12 Minor Prophets count as one book; Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles each count as one rather than two; Ezra-Nehemiah counts as one). These same 24 books, when divided according to Christian reckoning, become 39.

The Catholic OT adds seven books and several additions to existing books, drawn from the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible used in the early church). These are called the deuterocanonical books — “second canon” — by Catholics and “apocrypha” by Protestants:

• Tobit
• Judith
• 1 Maccabees
• 2 Maccabees
• Wisdom of Solomon
• Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
• Baruch (including the Letter of Jeremiah)
• Additions to Daniel (Susanna; Bel and the Dragon; Prayer of Azariah)
• Additions to Esther

The Eastern Orthodox addition

Eastern Orthodox canons include the deuterocanonical books that Catholics accept and additionally several more: 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, and the Prayer of Manasseh. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Bible is the broadest, including books such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees not found in any other Christian canon.

What the differences mean

The differences reflect a disagreement that crystallised at the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers, following the Jewish canon, did not consider the deuterocanonical books authoritative scripture; the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent (1546) affirmed them. The KJV originally printed the apocryphal books in a separate section between the testaments; later Protestant editions usually omitted them.