One thing I have learned from studying the Bible is that there are better ways that it could be put together - especially the New Testament.
We all learned early on that the four gospels are
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke and
John.
But as it turns out, that is not the order in which they were written, according to most biblical scholars. Rather, it seems that Mark was written first and was then used as source material for both Matthew and Luke, both of which quote from Mark extensively. And John was written later.
So a more reasonable order to list them would appear to be...
Mark
Matthew
Luke
John
But then, you find out as well that Acts of the Apostles or Acts is believed to have been written by the same author as Luke, thus making it almost like a Luke Part 2. So then maybe the order should be ...
Mark
Matthew
Luke
Acts
John
And then we come to the Letters of Paul. There are 13 of them, but only seven are undisputed as having been written by Paul while there is debate about the other six with some scholars arguing that they were likely written later by followers of Paul due to sharp differences in grammar, style and content. Scholars have also dated the letters according to when they think they may have been written. But in the Bible, for reasons that are not entirely clear, they are listed in order of length with Romans being first because it is the longest and so forth.
But if we were to list them in chronological order starting with the seven undisputed letters it would look like this...
First Thessalonians
Galatians
First Corinthians
Philippians
Philemon
Second Corinthians
Romans
And we could follow that with the disputed letters ...
Colossians
Ephesians
Second Thessalonians
First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus
Hebrews could come next. It was once attributed to Paul, but practically no one today claims it was written by Paul.
And then the rest of the letters, all of which are disputed as to their authorship...
James
First Peter
Second Peter
First John
Second John
Third John
Jude
Revelation
The author of Revelation identifies himself as John of Patmos and church tradition has long taught that this is the same John who was a disciple of Jesus and the author of John's gospel. But this is disputed by many scholars who believe John of Patmos to be an entirely different person.
