3.  The Psalms, including the five poetical books.

The Books of the Bible

The books of the Old and New Testaments may each be divided into three or five groups as follows: 

First Into three groups.

1.  History.
  (1) Old Testament-Genesis-Esther (17 books).

  (2) New Testament-Matthew-Acts (5 books).

2.  Doctrine.

  (1) Old Testament-Job-Song of Solomon (5 books).

  (2) New Testament-Romans-Jude (21 books).

3.  Prophecy. (1) Old Testament-Isaiah-Malachi (17 books).

  (2) New Testament-Revelation (1 book).

Second, into five groups.

1.  Old Testament.

  (1) Pentateuch-Genesis-Deuteronomy (5 books).

  (2) Historical Books-Joshua-Esther (12 books).

  (3) Poetical Books-Job-Song of Solomon (5 books).

  (4) Major Prophets-Isaiah-Daniel (5 books).

  (5) Minor Prophets-Hosea-Malachi (12 books).

2.  New Testament.

  (1) Gospels-Matthew-John (4 books).

(2) Acts-Acts (1 book). (3) Pauline Epistles-Romans-Hebrews (14 books).

  (4) General Epistles-James-Jude (7 books).

  (5) Revelation-Revelation (1 book).

Direction For Study. (1) Drill on the Scripture divisions, Jewish divisions and the three and five groups of each Testament. (2) Drill on the number of chapters in each book and on the abbreviation of each. (3) Drill on books having the same number of chapters, as all those having one chapter, two chapters, etc.

* * * * *

Chapter VI.

The Dispensations.  A dispensation is a period of time during which God deals in a particular way with man in the matter of sin and responsibility.  The whole Bible may be divided into either three or seven dispensations.

Three Dispensations.

1._The Patriarchal Dispensation_.  From creation to the giving of the Law, Gen. 1-Ex. 19 and Job.

2. The Mosaic Dispensation.  From the giving of the Law to the birth of Christ, Ex. 20-Mal. 4.

3. The Christian Dispensation.  From the birth of Christ to his second coming, Matt.-Rev.

Seven Dispensations.  In each of these, man is put in a given state or condition, has a responsibility in it, fails to meet the responsibility, and suffers consequent Judgment.

1. The Dispensation of Innocence.  From creation to the expulsion from the garden, Gen. 1-3.  In this period.  Adam and Eve were under obligations to keep their innocence by abstaining from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Their failure has been the most destructive and for reaching of all man’s failures.

2. The Dispensation of Conscience.  From the fall to the flood, Gen. 4-9.  Man had a natural conscience, or knew good from evil, and was under obligation to do good and not evil.  The time covered B. C. 4004-2348=1636 years for 1 and 2.