Book of Malachi Book of Malachi Malachi (or Malachias; , "") is the last book of the Neviim contained in the Tanakh, the last of the Twelve Minor Prophets (canonically) and the final book of the Neviim. In the Christian ordering, the grouping of the Prophetic Books is the last section of the Old Testament, making Malachi the last book before the New Testament. The book is commonly attributed to a prophet by the name of "Malachi," as its title has frequently been understood as a proper name, although its Hebrew meaning is simply "My messenger" (the Septuagint reads "his messenger") and may
Development of the Old Testament canon "Apocrypha" ("hidden"). To counter Luther's "heresy", the fourth session of the Catholic Council of Trent in 1546 confirmed that the deuterocanonical books were equally authoritative as the protocanonical in the Canon of Trent in the year Luther died. Following Jerome's "Veritas Hebraica" (truth of the Hebrew) principle, the Protestant Old Testament consists of the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but the order and division of the books are different. Protestants number the Old Testament books at 39, while the Hebrew Bible numbers the same books as 24. The Hebrew Bible counts Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles as one book each,