Bible Book Order

The First Edition of the New Testament by David Trobisch suggests all Greek manuscripts share a single common ancestor which David calls "the first edition of the New Testament."

David's argument rests on the fact that nearly all Greek manuscripts have the same book order, which is unlikely unless there was a definitive first edition that set the book order for Greek Bibles that subsequent editions followed.

David does not suggest when, where or who produced the first edition, but makes the case that it was probably earlier than later in the scheme of things since all known manuscripts follow the same book order.

The book winds to an end with examples of how the New Testament is more coherent when the books are arranged in the order of the First Edition, which is essentially the same as the modern order except the books of James, First and Second Peter and First, Second and Third John precede Paul's letters. David suggests modern New Testaments should be printed in the order of the First Edition.

Take Away: Though our project advances a better book order, better because it doesn't rely on history or tradition, but scripture, without this book we would never have known to ask the question of book order in the first place.

The Mystery of the Menorah: and the Hebrew Alphabet by J.R. Church and Gary Stearman are really two books in one. Only the second part, dealing with the Hebrew alphabet, is of interest here.

The second half of the book covers the meaning of the individual letters of the Hebrew alphabet and suggests a map between the letters and the books of the New Testament. The strategy proposed by J.R. and Gary is to span the first 22 books of the New Testament with the Hebrew letters and the last 5 books with 5 special letters that are drawn differently when they end a word. With the letters and books matched the overall theme of each book is said to correspond with the meaning or picture of the matching letter.

Take Away: This book was previewed in a classroom setting where we were learning the ancient pictorial meanings of the Hebrew letters. The instructor had no idea we were studying book order, but after learning about the book we had to see how J.R. and Gary were mapping the letters and whether they had veered from the modern book order. Turns out they did not. With 66 books in the Bible we were able to just overlay the Bible three times with the alphabet and test it against the order discovered in Isaiah and other scripture. Amazingly the Hebrew alphabet provides considerable insight into the text of the Bible and provides further support of the book order.