What the Catholic Church calls the Old Testament contains more books than are recognized either among the Jews or the Protestants. The Catholic Church believes, and has so defined, that there are forty six inspired books in the Old Testament. The books of the Old Testament are classified as follows: the Pentateuch/Torah, Historical Books, Wisdom Books, and the Prophets. The books of the Pentateuch also known as the books of Torah or books of Moses are five: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Historical books are sixteen: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, two books of Samuel, two books of Kings, two books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther and two books of Maccabees. Wisdom books are seven: Psalms, Job, Song of Songs, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Sirach and Wisdom. Books of the Prophets are eighteen and they include the four major prophets who are Isaiah, Jeremiah (with Lamentations), Ezekiel and Daniel and the minor prophets who are Hosea, Amos, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, Micah, Jonah, Obadiah, Baruch, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. We can draw an important conclusion from the historical sequence of the Old Testament. It shows that the Bible began with the origin of the Chosen People, and that God’s revelation was only gradual. It spanned about two thousand years, from the twentieth to the first century before Christ. As a result, we find a remarkable development in biblical Old Testament revelation. Relatively obscure truths become more clear, general injunctions become more specific, predictions of the Messiah become more detailed. All of this is part of God’s providential plan to prepare His People for the coming of the Savior. This fact of progress in Old Testament revelation with new and distinct truths added to previous ones, tells us many things. Note that there is a need of seeing the Old Testament as a whole, and not depending on any single book as definitive on some doctrine of faith or morals. One passage will shed light on another; one book will add to the preceding. In practice, this calls for a wider and deeper understanding of Old Testament Scriptures than most people, even well-educated Catholics, commonly have.

From the analysis above, it is now obvious that when a Catholic comes across a Bible with thirty nine books of the Old Testament he/she can easily discover that it is not a Catholic Bible. It is a Protestant Bible which they took from the Jewish Old Testament. The Catholics and Jewish/Protestants agree in majority of the books in the Old Testament except for seven books. There are Seven books of the Old Testament which are in the Catholic Canon of Scripture but not in the Jewish/Protestant Canon. These books are called Deuterocanonical books or books of the second canon. When the Bible was originally written down in Hebrew language it contained only thirty nine books in the Old Testament. But when it was translated into Greek, it came out with seven more books in the Old Testament and it raised the number to forty six. The Jews did accept these books but the Catholic church accepted and that is why they are called books of the second canon. These books are Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, Wisdom and First and Second Maccabees.

So far as the New Testament is concerned, Protestants are in agreement with Catholics. The number of books is the same for both: twenty seven.

The books of the New Testament are commonly divided into three groups: historical, didactic or instructional, and prophetic. The historical group covers the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles; the didactic are the thirteen epistles written by Paul, the Letter to the Hebrews, the two epistles of Peter, three epistles of John, epistle of James and the epistle of Jude; and there is only one prophetic book, the Apocalypse of St. John.

A lamb is simply a young and therefore small sheep. Many of the nearly two hundred biblical references to lambs are therefore synonymous with those for the broader category.

Lambs are associated with gentleness, innocence and dependence. Thus, God as shepherd gathers lambs in his arms because they are helpless (Is 40:11). In Nathan’s parable of David’s greed, it is the lamb that stands for helpless innocence. In the coming millennium it is the lamb that will feed and lie down with the wolf (Is 65:25; 11:6). When a prophet wishes to paint a picture of heightened helplessness and innocence, he chooses the lamb that is led to the slaughter (Jer 51:40). The Suffering Servant too is like a lamb led to the slaughter without uttering a sound (Is 53:7). When Jesus paints a picture of the vulnerability of his disciples, he describes himself as sending them out as lambs into the midst of wolves (Lk 10:3).

Even more numerous are passages that associate the lamb with sacrifice. Lambs are specifically mentioned in connection with sacrifices more than eighty times in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. This sacrificial motif reaches its fulfillment in Christ, who is called “the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29, 3) and the “paschal lamb” (1 Cor 5:7) whose blood is “like that of a lamb without defect or blemish” (1 Pet 1:19). The grand climax is the book of Revelation, where “the Lamb” as an epithet for Christ appears twenty-eight times.

Occurring in the Bible as often as it does, the figure of three is an evocative image, rich with connotations. On the surface it is simply a tidy number; partly due to its prevalence in literature, its familiarity to the reader can make it seem a more natural quantity than two or four. Jonah is stuck in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights (Jon 1:17).

But the significance of three as a literary motif is not purely arbitrary. Three is the minimum number necessary to establish a pattern of occurrences. A single event can be pure chance; a pair can be mere coincidence; but three consecutive occurrences of an event serve as a rhetorical signal indicating special significance. For example, only after the Lord calls to Samuel for the third time does Eli realize that it is the word of the Lord coming to the boy (1 Sam 3:8).

Because the number three conveys a sense of significance, biblical episodes that occur in sequences of three often generate a sense of expectation; once an event has occurred for the third time, something new and unexpected is likely to happen. For instance, the angel of the Lord appears in the path of Balaam’s donkey but is invisible to Balaam; when the donkey turns aside, Balaam beats it. After this episode has occurred three times over, the donkey suddenly speaks to Balaam (Num 22:28). Similarly, Elijah has a sacrifice and altar on Mt. Carmel doused with water a full three times before the fire of the Lord comes down to consume it (1 Kings 18:34). In the New Testament Jesus prays in Gethsemane three times over and each time discovers his disciples sleeping; only then does the mob arrive to arrest him (Mt 26:36–47; Mk 14:32–43). In each of these instances the triple occurrence of an episode generates an expectation in the reader that a new and significant turn of events is about to take place.

Thus an episode occurring in threes is a motif that points to further developments yet to unfold. But three also conveys a sense of completeness or thoroughness to the episode itself; when an event happens three times over, the reality of that event gains emphasis. When Peter denies for the third time that he knows Jesus, it conveys the sense that he has denied Jesus utterly; the denial is seemingly permanent (Mt 26:74; Mk 14:71; Lk 22:60; Jn 18:27). Jesus restores Peter’s relationship to him in a manner that emphasizes the certainty of his restoration as thoroughly as Peter’s earlier denial was emphasized. The threefold occurrence of each episode underscores its reality and significance.

The figure three also establishes a sense of finality and completeness in the account of Jesus’ death and resurrection. When Jesus rises on the third day, the ordeal that he had so dreaded a few nights before in Gethsemane is finished, and his victory over sin and death is complete; three days is enough. Three speaks of the totality and sufficiency of the work of Jesus Christ. Here as well, the figure three connotes significance, sufficiency and completeness.

Of the numbers that carry symbolic meaning in biblical usage, seven is the most important. It is used to signify completeness or totality. Underlying all such use of the number seven lies the seven-day week, which, according to Genesis 1:1–2:3 and Exodus 20:11, belongs to the God-given structure of creation. God completed his own work of creation in seven days (Gen 2:2), and seven days constitute a complete cycle of time.

The symbolism of completeness occurs in a wide variety of uses of the number seven. For example, sprinkling the blood of a sacrifice seven times (Lev 16:14, 19) indicates complete purification. The seven “eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth” (Zech 4:10), indicate the completeness of God’s sight of everything in his creation. When the apostle John sees the Lamb, an image of Christ, “having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (Rev 5:6), the seven spirits are the fullness of the divine Spirit, going out into the world as the Spirit of Christ with complete power (“seven horns”) and complete knowledge and insight (“seven eyes”). The seven heads of the dragon (Rev 12:3) and the beast (Rev 13:1; 17:3, 9–11) represent the totality of Satanic opposition to God and the complete sequence of rulers opposed to God’s rule. Since seven is the number of completeness, a specific series of seven can function as representative of the whole. The seven “signs” in the Gospel of John, the first two of which are numbered (Jn 2:11; 4:54) to encourage the reader to continue to count up to seven (five other events are called “signs”: Jn 6:2; 6:14, 26; 9:16; 12:18; 2:18–19), are representative of the “many other signs” Jesus did (Jn 20:30). The seven parables in Matthew 13, the seven churches in Revelation 2–3, the seven characteristics of wisdom in James 3:17 and the seven disciples in John 21:2 are in each case representative of all.

Sometimes the number seventy functions like seven. Seventy years are the full human life span (Ps 90:10; Is 23:15). The table of the nations in Genesis 10 lists seventy nations, representing all the nations of the world, and the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus (Lk 10:1) may be symbolically connected with this idea.

As a symbol, twelve is also one of the most important numbers in the Bible. The importance of the number twelve arose, in part, from the culture of the ancient Near East, where there were twelve months in the lunar calendar and twelve was prominent in the number system. However, in the Bible the importance of this number derives from the emergence of the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen 49:28).

Following the exodus, Moses built twelve pillars on Mount Sinai, according to the twelve tribes (Ex 24:4). In anticipation of the conquest of the Promised Land, twelve spies were sent to spy out the land (Num 13:1–16; Deut 1:23). When Joshua led the people of Israel across the Jordan River, twelve men, one from each tribe, were commanded to gather twelve stones as a memorial of the crossing (Josh 3–4). Twelve stones were attached to the breast piece of the priestly vestments, bearing the names of the twelve tribes (Ex 39:8–14).

The significance of twelve carries over into the New Testament. Jesus appointed twelve apostles (Mk 3:14), probably as a symbol of the restoration of Israel. Similar symbolism is probably intended in the gathering up of the twelve baskets of fragments following the feeding of the five thousand (Mk 6:43; 8:19). Jesus’ promise that the Twelve would someday sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28; Lk 22:30) probably had to do with his desire to restore Israel. James’s reference to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion (Jas 1:1) in all probability reflects similar thinking.

The symbolism of twelve appears frequently in the book of Revelation. Twelve thousand persons from each of the twelve tribes of Israel are sealed, totaling 144,000 in all (Rev 7:5–8). The woman who gives birth to the child is crowned with “twelve stars,” probably an allusion to the twelve tribes (Rev 12:1–2). The new Jerusalem, which will descend from heaven (Rev 21:1–4), is rich with symbolism, much of which revolves around the number twelve. The eschatological city will have twelve gates, twelve angels as gatekeepers, and the names of the twelve tribes written on the gates (Rev 21:12). We are told that these gates are twelve pearls (Rev 21:21). The wall of the city will rest on twelve foundations, on which will be inscribed the names of the twelve apostles (Rev 21:14). The city will be twelve thousand stadia square (Rev 21:16). Finally, the tree of life, an image that surely is meant to recall the tree of life that once stood in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:9; 3:22), will stand in the city and bear twelve kinds of fruit every month, for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:2).

The NT’s adoption of symbolism of twelve is testimony to the enduring power of this Old Testament image. Underlying this interest in the number twelve is the conviction that ultimately God will fulfill his promises of redemption. It is a number that clearly is associated with the twelve tribes and thus with divine election.

The period of forty days or years is an important one in Scripture and in Jewish tradition. As the church fathers observed, it is most often associated with hardship, affliction and punishment. The flood of judgment in Noah’s day lasts forty days (Gen 7:4). So does the fasting of Moses (Ex 24:18; Deut 9:9) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:8). The generation in the wilderness wanders for forty years (Ex 16:35; Ps 95:10). Israel is in the hand of the Philistines for forty years (Judg 13:1). Forty days is the length of time Ezekiel lies on his side to symbolize the punishment of Judah (Ezek 4:6). Jonah prophesies that Nineveh will be destroyed in forty days-a prophecy which proves to be contingent because the forty days become a period of repentance that nullifies the forecast (Jon 3:4).

In Matthew 4:2 Jesus’ experience of “forty days and forty nights” recapitulates Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Like Israel he is tempted by hunger (Ex 16:1–8), tempted to put God to the test (Ex 17:1–3) and tempted to idolatry (Ex 32). Furthermore, in his answers to Satan, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:13, 16 and 8:3-texts about Israel’s wilderness experience.

In the Bible as elsewhere, the figure of a hundred suggests a quantity of substantial size. This is particularly so when applied to age: Abraham is one hundred years old when Sarah bears Isaac (Gen 17:17). The fact that he is exactly one hundred underscores the magnitude of the miracle and, correspondingly, the magnitude of God’s faithfulness in his promise to Abraham. Similarly, Isaiah describes the vast blessing of life in the new heaven and new earth in terms of great age, such that “he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth” (Is 65:20).

Since a hundred equals ten tens, the figure also conveys an image of a round, complete number. Consequently, units of Israel’s soldiers appear repeatedly in groups of either hundreds or thousands (ten hundreds, 2 Sam 18:4). Likewise, when Jacob buys land from the sons of Hamor at Shechem, the sum is one hundred pieces of silver (Gen 33:19). While Jezebel is killing of the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah hides a hundred of them in two caves, bringing them food and water (1 Kings 18:4).

In the New Testament the figure of one hundred vividly conveys the sense of a complete number. In Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep (Mt 18:12–14; Lk 15:4–7), when one sheep out of a hundred wanders off, the number of those remaining seems lacking and incomplete by comparison. Only when the man has found his hundredth sheep is he satisfied. To grasp the power of a hundred as an image of completeness, one need only consider hypothetical variations on the parable. If Jesus had told a story of a man with ninety-nine sheep who loses one and is left with ninety-eight, the sense of completeness in the numbers would be substantially less, as would the rhetorical power of the parable.

Because it conveys the notion of a large, complete number, a hundred is also a significant biblical image describing factors of return. For example, the first season that Isaac plants crops in Gerar, the Lord blesses him with a hundredfold yield (Gen 26:12). Here the image is that of complete blessing, according to God’s promise to Abraham. When God promises the land of Canaan to Israel, he commands their obedience, for which he promises to reward them with astounding victories against their more numerous enemies-first at a ratio of one to twenty, then at a ratio of one to one hundred (Lev 26:8).

In the New Testament this imagery is echoed by Jesus in his parable of the sower (Mt 13:3–8; Mk 4:3–8; Lk 8:5–8). The one who receives the seed of the word of God and keeps it will produce a hundredfold crop (Lk 8:15). More explicitly, Jesus promises a hundredfold return for those who deny themselves the comforts of this world for his sake. Then, to this already monumental promise of reward, Jesus adds a still greater promise-eternal life (Mt 19:29; Mk 10:29–30). As the crown of his promise, the blessing of eternal life towers above even the magnificent blessing of a hundredfold return for one’s sacrifice. In these instances, the image of hundred as a factor of return speaks of the vast and complete blessing that God can produce in and for his people.

Thousand, whether used alone or in some multiple, clearly represents a round number for a large group.

Most often thousand represents the largest round figure that can exist in multiples for counting. The actual number may or may not be intended as precisely literal yet the objective is to convey actual details. The numbers of soldiers in Israel’s and its enemies’ armies, the numbers of those killed in battles, and the numbers of members of the various tribes of Israel are typically given in quantities of thousands

Thousand means “large quantity.” It can indicate some precision- presumably Mark meant to distinguish between five thousand and four thousand who feasted as the result of Jesus’ miracles (Mk 8:19–20). Certainly “twenty-three thousand” deaths in 1 Corinthians 10:8 indicates some specificity. Thousand may indicate relatively large numbers (cf. one king with ten thousand soldiers versus another with twenty thousand; Lk 14:31). Or thousand can simply be “a very big number” with no intention to specify how big.