The Old Testament tells the story of how God has revealed himself to people on Earth. This includes telling the story of how the ancient state of Israel came to be and the history of the Jewish people until the birth of Christ.

This is a long story and includes a lot of history and detail. For example, one whole book describes how to perform ancient worship rituals, who was allowed to be one of the ancient priests, and how they should behave. Other parts of the Old Testament contain laws that people should live by and long lists of family trees. Some of the books of the Old Testament tell the same story, but in slightly different ways

To help you understand what you read in the Old Testament, here is an outline of what you will find.

Genesis: The beginning
Genesis begins with the creation of the world by God. The first 11 chapters of this book include the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, and Noah and the flood. The rest of the book (chapters 12-50) tells the story of Abraham and his children. God promises Abraham that he will be the leader of a great nation if Abraham agrees to worship only God. Abraham agrees and goes through many trials before coming to the land that God promised to him, called Canaan (the Promised Land).

The book then describes what happens to the children and grandchildren of Abraham. It ends when Abraham’s grandson Jacob (who is renamed Israel by God) and his twelve sons and their families all flee to Egypt to escape famine.

Exodus: Slavery and deliverance
As the book of Exodus begins, we find out about how the Hebrews are made into slaves while they are in Egypt.

Moses becomes the leader of the Hebrews and God promises to deliver them from slavery and lead them back to the Promised Land. God sends 12 plagues to Egypt, and parts the Red Sea. Moses leads the Hebrews out of slavery and into the desert.

In the desert, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments and makes a new agreement with the Hebrews that He will protect them if they agree to worship only Him. At first the Hebrews do not agree and begin to worship a golden calf, but then they repent and agree to follow God.

Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy: in the desert
The book of Numbers tells the story of how the Hebrews spent 40 years wandering in the desert before they reached the Promised Land. Numbers also describes the battles that the Hebrew fought in order to conquer the Promised Land (Canaan) before they can live there.

In the book of Leviticus, Moses writes down all of the rules and laws which the Hebrews must follow. These include how to conduct worship, what to do on the Sabbath (Holy Day), who may be a priest and lead worship, how to make offerings, how to build an altar for conducting worship and many other things.

The book of Deuteronomy begins on the bank of the Jordan River. As the Hebrews are about to cross and enter the Promised Land, Moses retells the story of their journey and reminds the Hebrews of their promises to obey God’s laws. At the end of the book, Moses blesses the Hebrews and then dies. Joshua takes over as leader of the Hebrew people and leads them across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land.

The Historical Books: the time of kings
The next twelve books of the Old Testament describe the history of ancient Israel. It begins with the book of Joshua, which tells the story of how Joshua led the Hebrews across the Jordan River, conquered the land of Canaan and divided it up among the twelve tribes of Hebrews.

For many generations the Hebrews defended the land against outside attacks. At first, the land is ruled by men called judges, but they do not do a good job and the people demand a king. Under the kings Saul, David and Solomon, the Hebrew Kingdom (Israel) is founded.

Saul becomes the first king over Israel, but Saul’s leadership creates serious problems and leaves the kingdom in a weakened state. After Saul’s death, David becomes king and he makes Israel into a stronger country.

David is succeeded by Solomon, who makes Jerusalem the capital and builds the Temple there. When Solomon dies the kingdom splits apart into a Northern Kingdom (called Israel) and Southern Kingdom (called Judah). The Northern Kingdom is eventually destroyed by its neighbours. The Southern Kingdom is conquered by the Babylonian Empire in 587 B.C., and the Jews are brought to Babylon as captives. The historical books are where you can find the stories of the Battle of Jericho (Joshua 3-6), Samson and the lion (Judges 13-14), Samson and Delilah (Judges 16), David and Goliath ( I Samuel 17), the reign of Solomon (I Kings), the Queen of Sheba (I Kings 10) and many others.

Prophets: Captivity and Return
These sixteen books largely tell the story of how Israel was conquered by the Babylonian Empire, and what happened to the Jewish people after this. These books contain many stories of suffering and exile, but also of hope. The writers were writing at a time of great suffering for the Jewish people and they are also trying to explain why this suffering is happening and that God still loves the Jewish people.

Eventually the Babylonians were beaten by the Persians and the Jews allowed to return to their homeland to rebuild Jerusalem.

The Old Testament closes at about 400BC when all of the lands of the Middle East came under the Greek rule of Alexander the Great and then fell under the control of the Romans. In these books you can find the stories of Daniel in the lions den (Daniel 6), how Esther saves the Jews (Esther), the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ezra 1, Nehemiah 1-8), Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1-4) and many more.

The Wisdom writings
This part of the Old Testament is made up of five books, called Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. All of these writings are in praise of God.

The book of Job describes a god-fearing man, Job. Satan challenges God to test Job’s faith. God then tests Job by making him suffer terribly: his children die and he loses everything he has. Job asks himself why good people suffer and he questions God’s justice. Eventually, God speaks to Job and Job repents for ever questioning God.

The books of Psalms was originally written as a prayer book to be used during worship. They contain poems and prayers in praise of God that were meant to be sung as part of worship.

The proverbs in the book of Proverbs were written in order to teach important lessons in a very simple way. The proverbs give advice for correct behaviour, such as encouraging hard work, honesty, and avoiding pride and arrogance.

Ecclesiastes means “Teacher”, and the author of this book writes about how we cannot really know the wisdom of God and must rely instead on faith to give life meaning.

The Song of Songs is also called the Song of Solomon, because it was written by King Solomon. It is a long and beautiful poem about love and the love of God.

The Apocrypha
Did you know that not all Bibles have the same number of Old Testament books? The Jewish Bible contains twenty-four books, the Protestant Old Testament, thirty-nine books, the Eastern Orthodox, forty-three books, and the Roman Catholic, forty-six books.

In some cases, the books are simply divided up differently. For example, the book in the Jewish Bible called “The Twelve”, which contains writings of twelve prophets, is split out into twelve separate books in the Protestant Bible.

The additional books in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Bibles include material that Jews and Protestants do not accept as sacred. They put them in a separate category called “The Apocrypha.” The nine books of the Apocrypha were written between the fourth century B.C. and the time of Jesus. They mostly tell stories of the time when Jews were held captive in Babylonia.