Jeremiah (33,000+ words), Genesis, Psalms and
Ezekiel stand out from the crowd. Exodus, Isaiah and Numbers form a second
tier. At just shy of 20,000 words, Luke is the longest NT book, well down the
list. And as far as apocryphal writings go, Ecclesiasticus weighs in at a
staggering 26,741 words, longer than all but five canonical books.
“When words are many, transgression is not lacking,” wrote King Solomon. We rightly make an exception
to that rule when we know a writer was carried along by the Holy Spirit.
The question is, was Joshua ben Sira “carried along”,
or was he just unusually verbose?
