Analysis of Inter-Testamental References Reveal Five Groups of Books in the Christian Bible

TL;DR

This study uses string comparison of biblical texts to identify patterns of references, revealing five distinct groups of books in the Christian Bible and their interrelations.

Contribution

It introduces a simple algorithmic approach to classify biblical references, uncovering five groups of books based on their citation patterns.

Findings

Old Testament books cluster into three groups of common use

New Testament books cluster into two groups of common use

New Testament references to Old Testament vary significantly

Abstract

The Bible is packed with references from start to finish. This study aims to analyze a specific branch of these references: citations. While there are several types of references, both explicit and implicit, this study focuses on the types of references that can be detected with a simple algorithmic string comparison, or an n-gram string comparison. Words were compared by their Strong's Concordance numbers so they could be compared without conjugation or declension. We searched through the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) and Greek New Testament manuscripts for direct quotations from the former in the latter. Our analysis of these references leads us to believe Old Testament books cluster into three groups of common use, and that New Testament books cluster into two books of common use. We analyze these clusters to show explicitly how they differ, and discover that New Testament books reference vastly different portions of the Old Testament.