Old Testament
From Wikinfo
The Old Testament constitutes the first major part of the Christian Bible, usually divided into the categories law, history, poetry and prophecy. All of those books were written before the birth of Christ.
The Protestant Old Testament consists of the same books as the Tanakh, but the order of the books is different. The Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments contain other books not included in the Tanakh; see apocrypha and deuterocanonical books.
The exact number of the Old Testament books depends on whether certain disputed books are included, of which all Christian groups agree on 39 books. (The Jewish tradition counts them as 24 books. Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah as one each. The 12 minor prophets as one book rather than 12.) The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox include additional books, called the Deuterocanonical books, which Protestants exclude as apocryphal.
The Old Testament text used by the earliest Greek-speaking, Christians was the Septuagint, a Greek translation that was widely held by Jews in the first century to be authoritative and which included the Deuterocanon.
The major difference between the Old Testament and the Jewish scripture, the Tanach, is in the order of the books. The order of the books of the Old Testament is:
- 1. Genesis
- 2. Exodus
- 3. Leviticus
- 4. Numbers
- 5. Deuteronomy
- 6. Joshua
- 7. Judges
- 8. Ruth
- 9. 1 Samuel
- 10. 2 Samuel
- 11. 1 Kings
- 12. 2 Kings
- 13. 1 Chronicles
- 14. 2 Chronicles
- 15. Ezra
- 16. Nehemiah
- 17. Tobit *
- 18. Judith *
- 19. Esther **
- 20. First Book of Maccabees *
- 21. Second Book of Maccabees *
- 22. Job
- 23. Psalms
- 24. Proverbs
- 25. Ecclesiastes
- 26. Song of Songs
- 27. Wisdom *
- 28. Sirach *
- 29. Isaiah
- 30. Jeremiah
- 31. Lamentations
- 32. Baruch *
- 33. Ezekiel
- 34. Daniel **
- 35. Hosea
- 36. Joel
- 37. Amos
- 38. Obadiah
- 39. Jonah
- 40. Micah
- 41. Nahum
- 42. Habakkuk
- 43. Zephaniah
- 44. Haggai
- 45. Zechariah
- 46. Malachi
* Deuterocanonical book not included with some editions of the Bible, or included separately as Apocrypha.
** Some editions include deuterocanonical passages in this book that are omitted from other editions, or included separately as Apocrypha.
The naming of the Old Testament
Christians call this group of books the Old Testament, because of a belief (taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews) that there is a new covenant or testament between God and mankind, after the coming of Jesus. Jews themselves do not accept the New Testament or the characterization of the Tanach as the Old Testament (although many Jews accept Jesus as a historical figure and even as a student of a Tannaitic Sage). There is some debate among Protestant scholars over the issue of whether the New Testament applies to Jewish people, but there is very little debate over its applicability to Gentiles. Similarly, the degree to which the Old Testament and its laws applies to Christians is a debated point.
Thus, some scholars prefer Hebrew Bible as a term that covers the commonality of the Tanakh and the Old Testament while avoiding sectarian bias.
The New Testament text however does contain many references to the Old Testament, especially in relation to the fulfillment of prophecies concerning the promised messiah, whom Christians believe to be Jesus. In Christian theological views this expectation, present fulfillment and eschatological fulfillment of the divine, eternal kingdom under the headship of Christ are the thread running through both Testaments.
See also: Biblical canon; books of the Bible; biblical figures; Bible; Septuagint
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Old Testament" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament January 3, 2004
