The Christian bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, in the fourth century ce, first used the term “histories” for this section of the Bible, which comprises the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. It is a misleading title, since these books include many genres and often are not historical in modern senses of the word; they recount a past, but do not necessarily recount the past accurately. Furthermore, the Bible contains several books that are similar to some of these “historical books,” yet they are found in different sections of the Bible.
