10325. The books of the Word are all those which have the internal sense; books which do not have it are not the Word. The books of the Word in the Old Testament are: The five Books of Moses; the Book of Joshua; the Book of Judges; the two Books of Samuel; the two Books of Kings; the Psalms of David; and the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. And in the New Testament they are: The four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; and the Book of Revelation.

What books comprise the Bible? Different Christian traditions have different opinions, which isn't too surprising. The sacred scriptures of the Christian faith date back thousands of years. They come from different sources, and were written by various people. Scholars have pored over them and debated about them. If a book is deemed to be canonical, then it is regarded, at least by one group of people, as being part of the Bible.

What books are in the canon of the New Christian Bible? The determining factor is whether or not a book has a continuous internal sense, that is, that it was written using the "correspondences" between natural and spiritual things.

Here's an excerpt from Swedenborg's work entitled The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 266:

"266. Which are the Books of the Word. The books of the Word are all those which have an internal sense; but those books which have no internal sense, are not the Word.

The books of the Word, in the Old Testament, are: the five Books of Moses, the Book of Joshua, the Book of Judges, the two Books of Samuel, the two Books of Kings, the Psalms of David, the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

In the New Testament: the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; and the Book of Revelation.

The rest have no internal sense. See Arcana Coelestia 10325."

That list makes the New Christian canon relatively short. Swedenborg doesn't altogether write off the other books of the Protestant canon, calling them good books for the church -- and he sometimes cites them in his theological works.

In the New Christian Bible Study, we have opted to show all the books of the Bible translations that we offer, so that readers can find what they're searching for. We highlight words that have inner meanings, even when they're in books that don't have a continuous internal sense. That could be misleading in some cases, but it will also help readers see that there are inner meanings in the Bible.

For example, the Book of Job is from the Ancient Church (which predated the Israelitish church), and was written using some correspondences, even in the internal sense is not solely about the Lord and His kingdom. (See Arcana Coelestia 3540).