The Bible was written over a period of about 1000 years. It is assumed that what the Christians call the Old Testament, would be the result of the activity of about 100-150 different writers, coming from the scholars who are in the service of the political and clerical leaders of the kingdoms of Israel and ancient Judea. These books were assembled in the 1st-2nd centuries AD. to form the first Hebrew Bible, Tanach or Hamikrá and later, with the addition of the Gospels and additional books, the Christian Bible, or Holy Scripture, which contains both the Old Testament (commonly known as the "Hebrew text"), as well as and the New Testament (generally known as the "Greek text", because of the language in which it gained public character and notoriety).

The books of the Bible are listed differently in the canons of Judaism or by the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Slavic Orthodox Church, the Georgian Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syrian Church or the Ethiopian Ethiopian Church.