This landmark work represents an imaginative and important new analysis of the basic development of the Scriptures through the centuries. Christensen explores the overall unity of the entire Bible, not just as a collection of sixty-six or seventy-two individual books, nor just as the Old and New Testaments, but as a single literary work that comprises today's Christian Bible. He shows how it emerged over the course of centuries in distinct stages. The Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament developed in three steps from the formation of the Pentateuch and Prophets that took place up to the time of Josiah in the seventh century B.C.E., followed by the production of the Deuteronomic Canon during and following the Exile, and then the completion of the whole Hebrew Canon as we now have it. This was followed by a second major phase - the development of the Apostolic writings to be added to the First Testament as a Second (or New) Testament.

After tracing the growth of the Bible in these stages, Christensen examines the structure and literary art of each major section from the Pentateuch (Torah) to the New Testament.