UPDATE: A summary chart is now available:

Mate honestly how you've taken a channel about what's basically graphs and made it so bloody interesting and worth watching I'm stunned to understand.

The one thing that is so often sorely missing from a standard university Biblical lit class is a nice bird's eye view (I guess, they just figure they can throw you into the weeds and you can construct one yourself???). This series (along with your several other videos on the Bible) is just absolutely excellent. Rock on!

"it's up to you how you want to interpret those scriptures, but please know that there several options available."

The bible's history is pretty interesting

Never been more excited for a Useful Charts video. It’s a lot easier to find information on the Torah/Pentateuch than on the Prophets

You are an artist, a historian, and a scholar, yet delightful deliverer

You're doing amazing work, Matt. Thank you so much for these looks into the past! As an ex-Christian, I still have a nagging interest in the history of the Bible and the people who wrote it, and with every video I get more bits to ponder and research further. You and Religion For Breakfast (including the Patheos channel) have almost solely opened my mind up for history and past anthropological studies. I just want to say thank you for a very scientific and broad look into these topics. Even for myself, its easy to be biased and say "Blah! This didnt happen!"; but being able to distinguish factual from folklore-ish writing while giving the benefit of the doubt in some places really helps to understand the world and people around me. Keep it up, and reach out or say if you ever need assistance or a break, I can tell some of these take a lot of time and energy!

1:09

as usual, I always learn something new... thumbs up again, can't wait for the Ketuvim and the Apocrypha episodes... 👍

YOOO I just rewatched part one last night, woke up and opened my sub box to see this "uploaded 48 seconds ago". LOSING IT RIGHT NOW

As an ex-evangelical, I am actually most excited about when you tackle revelations. As a kid, revelations always sort of frightened me. Cant wait to hear the historical approach behind who wrote it and when!

As someone who loves biblical textual criticism (yay, Ehrman!) and the historical and literary analysis of the bible, this was awesome. So incredibly well done! I love the chart, timeline, and history section around

My favorite line in the bible is a fairly popular one, and it's Micah 6:8. "God has shown you, oh human, what is good. And what does the Lord ask of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Even when I was an atheist that one made me emotional! And I knew I would love my church when I walked up the first time and that was quoted outside the building--on a rainbow flag. (I'm Episcopalian.)

Note that nobody claims Samuel was written by Samuel, since he dies in the middle of the part Xtians call I Samuel. The traditional view is that it was a written by The Prophet Nathan , though he was commanded to edit in sections by the Prophets Gad and Samuel. It is called Samuel because it begins with the nativity of Samuel, and everything in was set in motion by Samuel, besides the fact that Gad and Nathan were close disciples of Samuel.

Syrain orthodox , and ethipian bible also have more books.

I am Indonesian Christian, in our country, speaking about how scholars explained the Holy Scriptures (Bible or Koran) are very taboo. Many people will mad if their religion was critized. But I love how you explain about the Bible, very intersting and fascinating. Before i watch your videos about Bible, I have been knew several how scholars explained about Bible. Suprisingly although i watched your videos and i can accept it, but I always keep my faith.

I am LOVING this series. Something that would be an interesting modified chart would be one that attempted to also place the books on a timeline of the events that they describe rather than their actual dates of writings. And perhaps on a continuum ranging from "mostly historical" to "mostly myth/legend" I feel like one of your previous videos discussed that aspect a little, too. Anyway this series is AMAZING and makes me want to pick up a Bible to read critically.

I love how people just having a nice discussion and conversation in your comment section even tho we're having different religion and background. Nice videos as always.

Taught OT for the first time this year to 6th Graders (7th, NT; 8th Church History), and it is really helpful to teach with essentially this understanding of the history. Seeing how the history of the Jews during XYZ period really helped us understand why various books were written (for example: seeing the debate between different parties of Jews during the resettlement of Judah after the Exile: Ezra-Nehemiah being against Gentile marriage/what they saw as the corruption of the people; Malachi arguing that the people needed to stay faithful to their marriage vows [Do we not all have one Father?...I hate divorce, etc]; Tobit extolling marriage within the people/faithfulness to the Torah; Ruth and Esther showing the benefits of Gentile marriage [no Jews married to Gentiles, no David!]; and Jonah showing a Jewish prophet angry at God's mercy toward the Gentiles--all of them are wrestling with those same themes: how do we stay faithful Jews under Gentile rule? How do the Gentiles fit into the plan?)