A New Twist for the Café: The Smallest Books of the Bible

In last week’s “Things Biblical” stream on the Café blog, I touched upon the formation of the Biblical canon [admittedly in broad strokes], specifically how the Church collectively defined the “library” of sacred books containing the entirety of God’s revelation. The formation of the Canon/Scripture was a long and arduous task for both the Jewish and Christian traditions. It may surprise you that the final binding pronouncement of the New Testament books was not formally proclaimed until the Catholic Council of Trent [1545-1563], though by this time the list of the 27 New Testament books was an accepted fact for about a millennium. Trent also established the Jewish Canon or Old Testament at 45 books for Christian usage; Luther, in translating the bible into German, had omitted several Jewish books a few decades before Trent’s deliberations. Hence the expression “Catholic Bible vs. Protestant Bible.”
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It is remarkable to stand back and look at the full canon of the Judeo-Christian bible and consider that each work was selected for a reason under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The theological principles underlying the selection process for the New Testament appear to have been [1] Apostolicity, the belief that the sacred authors were faithfully rendering the actual teachings of Jesus as heard and conveyed by the Apostles; [2] doctrinal soundness, or coordination with developing beliefs within the Church, such as the full human nature of Christ; and [2] liturgical usage and circulation, i.e., the texts were commonly used in Eucharistic celebrations and preaching.

If you sat down with a piece of paper and listed every book of the Bible you could name, how well would you do? If you could recall 20, you would be close to three-quarters short. The Gospels, of course, capture our attention, as well they should. But our ancestors in faith included 68 other books. Some are long and majestic, others amazingly terse. What I am going to do next is list the books of the Bible by length, specifically the number of chapters in each. [If you see a book you’ve never heard of, click this link to the USCCB Bible site and then click the book for a brief introduction.]
 
150   Psalms
66     Isaiah
52     Jeremiah
51     Sirach
50     Genesis
48     Ezekiel
42     Job
40     Exodus
34     Deuteronomy
36     Numbers
36     2 Chronicles
31     1 Samuel
31     Proverbs
29     1 Chronicles
27     Leviticus
25     2 Kings
24     2 Samuel
24     Joshua
22     1 Kings
21     Judges
19     Wisdom
16     Judith
16     1 Maccabees
15     2 Maccabees
14     Daniel
14     Hosea
14     Tobit
13     Nehemiah
12     Ecclesiastes
10     Esther
10     Ezra
9       Amos
8       Song of Songs
7       Micah
6       Baruch
5       Lamentations
4       Ruth
4       Joel
4       Jonah
3       Nahum
3       Habakkuk
3       Malachi
3       Zephaniah
2       Haggai
1       Obadiah
 
28     Matthew
28     Acts of the Apostles
24     Luke
22     Revelation
21     John [Gospel]
16     Letter to Romans
16     1 Letter to Corinthians
13     2 Letter to Corinthians
13     Letter to Hebrews
6       Letter to Galatians
6       Letter to Ephesians
6       1 Letter to Timothy
5       1 Letter to Thessalonians
5       Letter of James
5       1 Letter of Peter
5       1 Letter of John
4       Letter to Philippians
4       Letter to Colossians
4       2 Letter to Timothy
3       2 Letter to Thessalonians
3       Letter to Titus
3       2 Letter of Peter
1       Letter to Philemon
1       2 Letter of John
1       3 Letter of John
1       Letter of Jude
 
It is true that the larger works—for example, the Law Books and the major prophets in the Hebrew Canon, and the Gospels and St. Paul’s Letters in the New Testament canon—tend to lay out the panorama of God’s plan in a majestic sweep. But the smaller texts contribute mightily to the unified message of salvation, and for this reason I propose to spend the next several months looking at the “smallest” texts, those under ten chapters. In no particular order, let me cite the advantages of studying these texts, with their usefulness in grasping the full message of the Bible and introducing new students of the Bible to its styles and ways of teaching.
 
[1] The small texts are easy to handle if you are just starting an adult study on your own. The Prophet Obadiah runs to a mere twenty-one verses. Within that limited framework the reader can see one of the general themes of prophetic preaching, that God’s enemies will be eventually be crushed and that a glorious “day of the Lord” will come set things right.
 
[2] The small texts provide a window into Christian attempts to live faithfully. The three Letters of John reiterate the message of John’s Gospel that the greatest gift of God is love, personified in the person of Jesus Christ. These letters press the point that love of Christians for one another is the highest moral imperative.
 
[3] The small texts give us a taste of how the Church addressed its internal problems, how moral reasoning developed. Paul’s Letter to Philemon discusses a runaway slave named Onesimus. Paul evidently had baptized Onesimus and now found himself in the dilemma of whether to send him back to his owner, another Christian.
 
[4] The small texts can give insight into the development of doctrine and how true belief was separated from error. A major problem for the post-apostolic Church was wholesale belief that Jesus was not truly a man but only appeared to be. Our belief in the Incarnation was solidified by writers such as John, who in his letters refuted Christians who held such beliefs.
 
[5] Some smaller works established balance in the early Church’s theological teaching. In Romans 5 Paul establishes that we are justified only by the direct gift of God, and not by our own works. In the brief Letter of James [2:14ff] the author responds that “if someone says he has faith but does not have works…can that faith save him?” The Church, in its wisdom, retained both works in its repository of faith.
 
[6] Some small works branch into a variety of forms, including satire. Thus it is with Jonah, a psychological profile that speaks volumes of later Israel’s ideas about the role of prophesy and the men who filled it.
 
Some of these works we can cover in one Tuesday’s post. With others we will take the time we need. By my counting, there are 29 biblical works of under ten chapters in the entire bible. My primary source will be The Paulist Biblical Commentary [2018], though I will use other commentaries and cite them with links if your interests take you further. The PBC runs to about 1700 pages and presently costs about $100, give or take. It is not necessary for our purposes here to own one, but if you are involved in ministry, it is not a bad investment, for every book in the Bible is treated in the PBC and you would not have to purchase individual commentaries on each book unless you plan on going on to higher studies…which I hope some of you would.