How many books are in the Bible? 66, 73, and the rest
66 books in Protestant Bibles, 73 in Catholic, about 76 to 78 in Orthodox and 81 by the Ethiopian church's count. Every canon side by side, and why they differ.
The short answer
The Protestant Bible has 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. The Catholic Bible has 73, adding Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch. Orthodox Bibles have about 76 to 78, depending on the edition and how its books are counted, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church counts 81. All of them share the same 27 New Testament books. The Hebrew Bible counts the writings of the Protestant Old Testament as 24 books.
In this guide
- How many books are in the Bible, by tradition
- How many books are in the Old and New Testaments?
- Why the Catholic Bible has 73 books
- Why Protestant Bibles have 66 books
- How many books are in the Orthodox Bible?
- How many books are in the Ethiopian Bible?
- Why the Hebrew Bible has 24 books
- Questions people ask
- Sources
Ask a Protestant, a Catholic and an Orthodox Christian how many books are in the Bible, and you can get three different numbers, all of them right. The traditions agree on the New Testament and differ on the Old, and each count has a history behind it. The chapter counts and reading times come from our own book table, and every claim about a tradition comes from a source listed at the foot of the page.
- 66books in the Protestant Bible
- 39of them in the Old Testament
- 27in the New, shared by every tradition
- 73books in the Catholic Bible
How many books are in the Bible, by tradition
The Protestant Bible has 66 books, the Catholic Bible 73, and the Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles more again. Here are the five canons we count, each with its chapters and the time it takes to read silently at an average adult pace:
| Canon | Books | Chapters | Old + New Testament | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Protestant | 66 | 1,189 | 929 + 260 | 53 hours |
| Catholic | 73 | 1,334 | 1,074 + 260 | 60 hours |
| With Apocrypha | 76 | 1,360 | 1,100 + 260 | 62 hours |
| Orthodox | 78 | 1,386 | 1,126 + 260 | 63 hours |
| Ethiopian | 80 | 1,564 | 1,304 + 260 | 59+ hours* |
Reading time is silent reading at 238 words a minute, the adult average, over our own word count of the World English Bible. *Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Baruch and the Meqabyan have no public-domain English text to count, so the Ethiopian figure leaves them out.
A canon is the list of books a church reads as scripture. The With Apocrypha row is a Protestant or Anglican Bible printed with its Apocrypha section: the Catholic books plus 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. The Orthodox row is the fullest Orthodox list, and the Ethiopian row is the Old Testament of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church with the 27 New Testament books. Both are explained further down, because their counts vary more than the others.
More books also means a longer read. The Catholic Bible has 145 more chapters than the Protestant one and, by our count of the World English Bible, about 14% more words. For the chapters in every book, see how many chapters are in the Bible.
How many books are in the Old and New Testaments?
The Old Testament has 39 books in a Protestant Bible, 46 in a Catholic one, 49 to 51 in Orthodox Bibles, and 46 or 54 in the Ethiopian, depending on which list is followed and how its books are divided. Every one of them has the same 27 New Testament books.
| Bible | Old Testament | New Testament | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) | 24, the same writings as the Protestant 39 | none | 24 |
| Protestant | 39 | 27 | 66 |
| Catholic | 46 | 27 | 73 |
| King James Bible of 1611 | 39, plus 14 in the Apocrypha | 27 | 80 |
| With Apocrypha (our count) | 49 | 27 | 76 |
| Eastern Orthodox | 49 to 51 | 27 | about 76 to 78 |
| Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo | 46 (the church’s count) or 54 (the scholars’ narrower canon) | 35 or 27 | 81 |
The New Testament is the part all these Christian Bibles share: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts, the 21 letters and Revelation. The one larger count is the Ethiopian church’s own 35, which adds eight books of church order and instruction, among them the Didascalia and the book of Clement, to the 27.
The count belongs to the canon an edition follows, not to the translation. The NIV has 66 books, and so does a King James Bible as it is usually printed today, though the same King James text had 80 books in 1611. To tell which canon a Bible on your shelf follows, look at its table of contents. If Tobit and Judith appear among the Old Testament books, it follows a Catholic or Orthodox canon; if they sit in a section of their own, it prints them as the Apocrypha; if they are missing, it has 66.
Why the Catholic Bible has 73 books
The Catholic Bible has 73 books because its Old Testament includes seven that Protestant Bibles leave out: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch. Catholics call them the deuterocanonical books. Catholic Bibles also read Esther and Daniel in their longer Greek forms. The Council of Trent approved the present Catholic canon on April 8, 1546.
| Book | In the Catholic Bible | Chapters added |
|---|---|---|
| Tobit | A whole book. A journey with an angel in disguise. | 14 |
| Judith | A whole book. A widow walks into an enemy camp. | 16 |
| Esther | 6 more chapters: the Greek additions | 6 |
| 1 Maccabees | A whole book. The revolt and the rededicated temple. | 16 |
| 2 Maccabees | A whole book. The same revolt, told for the heart. | 15 |
| Wisdom | A whole book. Greek thought meets Hebrew faith. | 19 |
| Sirach | A whole book. A grandfather's practical advice. | 51 |
| Baruch | A whole book. Jeremiah's secretary, writing from exile. | 6 |
| Daniel | 2 more chapters: the Greek additions | 2 |
| From 1,189 chapters to 1,334 | +145 | |
Those seven books and the longer Esther and Daniel come to 145 chapters, a little over a tenth of the Catholic Bible. Why the two traditions hold different lists, and what is in each book, is in our guide to the Catholic and Protestant Bibles.
Why Protestant Bibles have 66 books
Protestant Bibles have 66 books because the Reformation churches kept to the books of the Jewish scriptures, which Christians count as 39, and set the others apart. Martin Luther moved Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch into a section he called the Apocrypha, as books “which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read.”
For English Presbyterians, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) settled the question more firmly: “The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture.” The list of the canon it gives is the 66 books found in most Protestant Bibles today.
The 1611 King James Bible had 80 books
The original King James Version of 1611 had 80 books: 39 in the Old Testament, 14 in a section between the testaments headed “the Books called Apocrypha”, and 27 in the New Testament. Every King James Bible printed before 1666 included that section. Later printings increasingly left it out, and once stereotype printing brought mass editions early in the 19th century, they nearly always did. That is why a King James Bible bought today usually has 66 books.
The 14 are the two books of Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the rest of Esther, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasseh, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. They are the same writings as the With Apocrypha row in our table. The King James counted the addition to Esther and the three additions to Daniel as four books of their own, where our table reads them inside Esther and Daniel, so 80 becomes 76. What happened to these books afterward is the subject of were books removed from the Bible?
Two names for the same books
Catholic usage calls Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees the deuterocanonical books and reads them as scripture. Protestant and Anglican usage calls them the Apocrypha, a word that in Anglican Bibles also covers 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. The name says how a tradition holds the books, not what is in them. Our guide to the deuterocanonical books and the Apocrypha goes through them one by one.
How many books are in the Orthodox Bible?
Orthodox Bibles have about 76 to 78 books, because no single list has been made binding on every Eastern Orthodox church. The Synod of Jerusalem set out a canon in 1672, but, as OrthodoxWiki puts it, “there has been no official acceptance of the canon outlined at Jerusalem.” The Orthodox canon includes everything in the Catholic one, with some additions: 1 Esdras, 3 and 4 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151.
Whether those additions count as separate books depends on the edition. 4 Maccabees is generally printed in an appendix, along with the Prayer of Manasseh, and the Greek Orthodox generally consider Psalm 151 part of the Book of Psalms. Bible Gateway gives about 76 books, 49 of them in the Old Testament. Our Orthodox row is the fullest form of the list, 78 books with 51 in the Old Testament: it counts 1 and 2 Esdras, 3 and 4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh as books in their own right, and reads Psalm 151 as part of the Psalms. Greek Bibles do not include 2 Esdras: their two books of Esdras are 1 Esdras and Ezra–Nehemiah.
| Book | In the Orthodox Bible | Chapters added |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Esdras | A whole book. The return from exile, told a second way. | 9 |
| 2 Esdras | A whole book. Seven visions, and a question God does not dodge. | 16 |
| 3 Maccabees | A whole book. A crowd, some elephants, and a rescue. | 7 |
| 4 Maccabees | A whole book. Reason against pain, argued at length. | 18 |
| Psalms | Psalm 151 | 1 |
| Prayer of Manasseh | A whole book. The worst king in Judah, asking for mercy. | 1 |
| From 1,334 chapters to 1,386 | +52 | |
The Orthodox Bible guide has which books each tradition includes, and why the lists vary.
How many books are in the Ethiopian Bible?
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church counts 81 books, the most of any major Christian Bible. Its own website lists 46 in the Old Testament and 35 in the New. Scholars also describe a narrower canon of 81, as 54 Old Testament books and the usual 27, counting Proverbs as two books.
Its Old Testament holds books found in no other canon in our table: Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Baruch and the three books of Meqabyan, which share a name with Maccabees but are different books; 1 and 2 Maccabees themselves are not in the Ethiopian canon. Our table counts the narrower canon’s Old Testament as 53 books, 80 in all: we keep Proverbs whole and the Letter of Jeremiah inside Baruch, and count on its own the Prayer of Manasseh, which the Ethiopian canon reads within 2 Chronicles. The Ethiopian Bible guide goes through every book.
Why the Hebrew Bible has 24 books
The Hebrew Bible has 24 books, and they are the same writings as the 39 books of the Protestant Old Testament, counted and ordered differently. The Tanakh, as Jewish tradition calls it, has three parts: the Torah (5 books), the Prophets or Nevi’im (8) and the Writings or Ketuvim (11).
Five joined books account for the difference. 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles are one book each, Ezra and Nehemiah are one, and the twelve minor prophets from Hosea to Malachi are a single book called the Twelve. Split those apart and 24 becomes 39. The order differs too: the Hebrew Bible ends with Chronicles rather than Malachi.
So when two people give different numbers, each is usually counting the Bible in front of them correctly. They share the same 27 New Testament books and, on the Old Testament side, read either a longer list or the same list cut in different places.
Questions people ask
Why does the Catholic Bible have 7 more books than the Protestant Bible?
The two lists parted in the 16th century. The Council of Trent approved the present Catholic canon in 1546, with Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch among its books. The Reformation churches kept to the books of the Jewish scriptures, 39 as Christians count them, and Luther moved those seven into a separate section he called the Apocrypha.
How many books did the original 1611 King James Bible have?
Eighty: 39 in the Old Testament, 14 in a section between the testaments headed “the Books called Apocrypha”, and 27 in the New Testament. Every King James Bible printed before 1666 included the Apocrypha. Later printings increasingly left it out, and the mass editions of the 19th century nearly always did, which is why a King James Bible bought today usually has 66 books.
Why does the Hebrew Bible have 24 books but the Old Testament 39?
They are the same writings, counted differently. The Hebrew Bible treats 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles as one book each, joins Ezra and Nehemiah, and counts the twelve minor prophets, Hosea to Malachi, as a single book called the Twelve. Split those back apart and 24 becomes 39.
How many books are in the Ethiopian Bible, 81 or 88?
81 is the figure the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church gives on its own website, as 46 Old Testament books and 35 New Testament books. Scholars describe a narrower canon that also comes to 81, as 54 and 27. We did not find 88 in the church's list or in the descriptions of its canon we checked. The lists differ in how they divide some books and in what they place in the New Testament.
Were books removed from the Bible?
Not from Catholic or Orthodox Bibles, which still contain them. Protestant reformers set seven Old Testament books apart as the Apocrypha, and early Protestant Bibles, the 1611 King James among them, still printed them in a section of their own. Over the following centuries most Protestant printings dropped that section, and in 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society decided that none of its funds would pay for printing it.
Sources
- Jacob Edson, Bible Gateway (March 23, 2026): how many books are in the Ethiopian Bible, with the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox counts
- Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church: the canonical books of the Bible
- Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon, Wikipedia
- Biblical canon, Wikipedia
- Tanakh, Wikipedia
- King James Version, Wikipedia
- Biblical apocrypha, Wikipedia
- Fr. Charles Grondin, Catholic Answers (August 30, 2019): Do Catholics and Orthodox have the same Bible?
- Old Testament Canon, OrthodoxWiki
- The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1, Orthodox Presbyterian Church
- New International Version (NIV), Bible Gateway
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
- World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
- King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
