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Scripture can be used to properly sequence the books of the Bible. The outline of Isaiah is the framework the stories of the Bible follow. Books connect together thematically. Translated book titles form a message about the Bible.
Each passage in Isaiah matches a story in the Bible in order. In matching stories in the Bible Isaiah selects the stories he wants the reader to consider, a thread from the larger Bible. The result, in addition to revealing the proper sequence of the books, is a unique treatment by Isaiah of many familiar stories in the Bible.
Every book in the Bible uniquely matches a chapter in the book of Isaiah. The rest of this page offers a sampling of those matches with brief explanation so you can see how this idea works.
No one would expect Genesis to be anything other than the first book of the Bible, but God has attested in Isaiah chapter 1 that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Isaiah chapter 1 matches stories from the first four chapters of Genesis with a focus on the Garden and Cain.
Exodus sits in slot 2 of the book order as expected. Isaiah chapter 2 matches stories in the second half of Exodus beginning with meeting God at the mountain and the law going forth.
Leviticus matches into the first half of Isaiah chapter 3. The focus is on the ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests and events surrounding.
The book of Numbers matches the second half of Isaiah chapter 3 and Isaiah chapter 4. Numbers sits in slot 4 of the book order. The focus is on Miriam and the second census.
Deuteronomy matches Isaiah 5 with a focus on the song Moses sang to Israel and the blessings he spoke over the tribes of Israel.
Joshua matches Isaiah 6 wonderfully. The matches focus on the events surrounding the fall of Jericho and the contract at the end of the book.
The story of Daniel is fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 39. Thus Daniel sits in slot 39 of the book order as the last book of the Old Testament. That Daniel is the end of the Old Testament is curious considering it's regularly studied in tandem with Revelation, the last book of the New Testament.
The Gospel of John takes slot 40 in the book order, the first book of the New Testament. John begins with the words "In the beginning" as an echo to Genesis, the first book of the Bible, so it makes sense for John to be the beginning of the New Testament. The matches between John and Isaiah 40 are numerous and span across the entire Gospel.
Isaiah 41 maps into the first four chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. The matches begin with Abraham and cover stories like the temptation of Jesus.
Books connect end-to-end via themes. The local context for any book is always the previous book (Isaiah provides remote context). The result, beyond confirming the book order, is a Bible that reads as a singleminded work.
The discovery that the books of the Bible connect together thematically began several years ago while attending a college lecture. One of my favorite Bible professors took a rabbit trail from the lecture, or so it seemed. What I learned that day stuck and grew into this study on the Book Chain.
The end of Jeremiah records three waves of deportations of Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon. Lamentations laments how the city that was full of people is now empty.
Lamentations ends with a prayer for restoration. Ezra begins with a decree, asking those who would, to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.
Before closing, Micah makes an odd statement. It says Yahvah will cast sins into the sea. Then Jonah is cast into the sea.
Jonah shows God's mercy toward Nineveh while Amos lists places God will not absolve.
Amos talks about a wife turned prostitute while Hosea takes a prostitute as his wife.
Hosea mentions walking in Yahvah's ways and Yahvah says consider your ways in Haggai.
Zephaniah refers to God's song, a perfect seque to Psalms.
Psalms says "everything with breath praise Yahvah." Job does this, even after calamity strikes.
Job's contentment contrasts Solomon's depression in Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes mentions Solomon's proverbs, a nice bridge to the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs asks who can find a "virtuous woman" and Ruth answers.
Ruth's wedding leads to the Song of Solomon.
Habakkuk describes beheading the wicked, which is Saul in First Chronicles.
Daniel ends the beginning and John begins the end.
Second John ends planning a visit and Second Timothy begins remembering a visit.
Second Timothy requests grace for "all of us" while First Corinthians extends grace to "every place."
First Corinthians curses not loving Jesus, Galatians preaching a false gospel.
Jacob ends with some erring, but Timothy stays the path and can bring them back.
Titus is urged to provision travelers and in Third John Gaius is praised for provisioning travelers.
Third John is written to request a visit while Revelation is a visit that requests to be written.
Revelation anticipates the coming of Jesus, then he appears in Genesis.
Translating the titles of the books of the Bible, in order, yields a simple message conducive with the content of the Bible. The result, besides further confirmation of the book order, is a summarizing of the Bible's overall message.
We had finished working out the order of the books. A few weeks later we were visiting friends at our monthly fellowship. They had apparently been looking at how genealogies in Scripture often form sentences when the names in the genealogy are translated. Though I already knew this, several friends came up to me and privately explained how this works. After the 3rd time I decided something was up, and that I needed to apply the same strategy on the names of the Bible's books.
There are places in the Bible where genealogical lists of names form sentences. This is a strange literary style since modern English readers rarely assign meaning to proper names. But, in the Bible, all names have meaning, which allows for these odd literary devices. Of course the 66 books of the Bible also have names. Does this list of words with rich meaning form a story? Yes.