Understanding the Chronological Order of the Old Testament

The Bible is sorted by genre rather than historical order, based on law books, history, poetry, prophecy, gospels, and letters. I help you understand the Old Testament Bible books in chronological order.

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The Old Testament Timeline

For those of you feeling like there’s no way you can ever make sense of the Bible, I challenge you to look at it with a new perspective.

So where should you start?

Let’s begin with this little fact that blew my mind when I first found out:

The books of the Bible aren’t presented in chronological order.

Yes, you read that right. The Bible is completely out of order.

Why?

Because during its compilation, they sorted the books by genre rather than historical order. These groups are based on:

First Five Books by Moses (called The Pentateuch)
History Books
Wisdom and Poetry Books
Major Prophets
Minor Prophets

And that’s just the Old Testament.

Look at the Bible as a collection of connected documents that tell the same stories in a different way. Some stories contain poetry (Psalms), others as circumstantial rules (Leviticus), while others repeat the same story from different viewpoints (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

Learn About the Chronological Order of the Old Testament Books

I’ve created a printable that will walk you through the process in this Old and New Testament Summary and then you can add on the rest of the books of the Bible as you go.

Here are a few tips on the Old Testament books before we dive in:

No one is exactly sure when Job was written, but most agree it was probably before the exodus from Egypt.
Exodus through Deuteronomy are all books about Moses’ life
The story of Ruth occurred during the time of the judges
1 & 2 Chronicles mirrors a lot of what is written in the books of Kings and Samuel, also covering the details of the Kingdom split into Israel and Judah
The Israelites in both kingdoms were eventually captured by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, and then allowed to return home when they were taken over by the Persians.
After the exile, they restore Jerusalem and then there were 400 more years of silence before the New Testament began.

To help make sense of and simplify the organization of events in the Old Testament, here’s the printable to cover the main connections between each book of the Bible. You can print it from my shop below:

SHOP THE OLD TESTAMENT PRINTABLE

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So a few years ago, I made this Old and New Testament Summary Printable, and then I worked my way through each book of the Bible! To get the rest of the printables, check out my Timeline Bundles for the best deal:

Timeline Bundles