The Old Testament consists of many distinct booksby various authors produced over a period of centuries.[2] Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:[3] the first five books or Pentateuch (which corresponds to the JewishTorah); the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from theirconquest of Canaan to theirdefeat and exile in Babylon; the poetic andwisdom literature, which explore themes of human experience, morality, and divine justice; and the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God.
The Old Testament canon differs among Christian denominations. TheCatholic canon contains 46, theEastern Orthodox andOriental Orthodox Churches include up to 49 books, and theProtestant Bible typically has 39.[4] Most of these books are shared across all Christian canons, corresponding to the 24 books of theTanakh but with differences in order and text. Some books found in Christian Bibles, but not in the Hebrew canon, are calleddeuterocanonical books, mostly originating from theSeptuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.Catholic andOrthodox churches include these, while mostProtestant Bibles exclude them, though someAnglican andLutheran versions place them in a separate section calledApocrypha.
While early histories ofIsrael were largely based on biblical accounts, their reliability has been increasingly questioned over time. Key debates have focused on the historicity of thePatriarchs, theExodus, the Israelite conquest, and theUnited Monarchy, with archaeological evidence often challenging these narratives. Mainstream scholarship has balanced skepticism with evidence, recognizing that some biblical traditions align with archaeological findings, particularly from the9th century BC onward.[5]
The Old Testament contains 39 (Protestant), 46 (Catholic), or more (Orthodox and other) books, divided, very broadly, into thePentateuch (Torah), thehistorical books, the"wisdom" books and the prophets.[6]
The table below uses the spellings and names present in modern editions of the Christian Bible, such as the CatholicNew American Bible Revised Edition and the ProtestantRevised Standard Version andEnglish Standard Version. The spelling and names in both the 1609–10 Douay Old Testament (and in the 1582Rheims New Testament) and the 1749 revision byBishop Challoner (the edition currently in print used by many Catholics, and the source of traditional Catholic spellings in English) and in the Septuagint differ from those spellings and names used in modern editions which are derived from the HebrewMasoretic Text.[a]
For the Orthodox canon, Septuagint titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. For the Catholic canon, the Douaic titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. Likewise, theKing James Version references some of these books by the traditional spelling when referring to them in the New Testament, such as "Esaias" (forIsaiah).
TheTalmud (the Jewish commentary on the scriptures) inBava Batra 14b gives a different order for the books inNevi'im andKetuvim. This order is also cited inMishneh Torah HilchotSefer Torah 7:15.[clarification needed] The order of the books of the Torah is universal through all denominations of Judaism and Christianity.
The disputed books, included in most canons but not in others, are often called theBiblical apocrypha, a term that is sometimes used specifically to describe the books in the Catholic and Orthodox canons that are absent from the Jewish Masoretic Text and most modernProtestant Bibles. Catholics, following theCanon of Trent (1546), describe these books as deuterocanonical, whileGreek Orthodox Christians, following theSynod of Jerusalem (1672), use the traditional name ofanagignoskomena, meaning "that which is to be read." They are present in a few historic Protestant versions; the GermanLuther Bible included such books, as did the English 1611 King James Version.[b]
Empty table cells indicate that a book is absent from that canon.
Several of the books in the Eastern Orthodox canon are also found in the appendix to theLatin Vulgate, formerly the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.
In 2007, a historian of ancient JudaismLester L. Grabbe explained that earlier biblical scholars such asJulius Wellhausen (1844–1918) could be described as 'maximalist', accepting biblical text unless it has been disproven. Continuing in this tradition, both "the 'substantial historicity' of the patriarchs" and "the unified conquest of the land" were widely accepted in the United States until about the 1970s. Contrarily, Grabbe says that those in his field now "are all minimalists – at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. ... [V]ery few are willing to operate [as maximalists]."[18]
In 2022, archaeologistAvraham Faust summarized recent scholarship arguing that while early histories of Israel were heavily based on biblical accounts, their reliability has been increasingly questioned over time. He continued that key debates have focused on the historicity of thePatriarchs, theExodus, the Israelite conquest, and theUnited Monarchy, with archaeological evidence often challenging these narratives. He concluded that while the minimalist school of the 1990s dismissed the Bible’s historical value, mainstream scholarship has balanced skepticism with evidence, recognizing that some biblical traditions align with archaeological findings, particularly from the9th century BC onward.[19]
The twoBooks of Chronicles cover much the same material as the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic history and probably date from the 4th century BC.[22] Chronicles andEzra–Nehemiah were probably finished during the 3rd century BC.[23] Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments contain two (Catholic Old Testament) to four (Orthodox)Books of the Maccabees, written in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.
These history books make up around half the total content of the Old Testament. Of the remainder, the books of the various prophets—Isaiah,Jeremiah,Ezekiel, and the twelve "minor prophets"—were written between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, with the exceptions ofJonah andDaniel, which were written much later.[24] The "wisdom" books—Job,Proverbs,Ecclesiastes,Psalms,Song of Songs—have various dates: Proverbs possibly was completed by theHellenistic time (332–198 BC), though containing much older material as well; Job was completed by the 6th century BC; Ecclesiastes by the 3rd century BC.[25]
Throughout the Old Testament, God is consistently depicted as the one who created the world. Although the God of the Old Testament is not consistently presented asthe only god who exists, he is always depicted asthe only God whom Israel is to worship, or the one "true God", that onlyYahweh (orYHWH) is Almighty.[26]
The Old Testament stresses the special relationship between God and hischosen people, Israel, but includes instructions forproselytes as well. This relationship is expressed in thebiblical covenant (contract)[27][28][29][30][31][32] between the two, received byMoses. The law codes in books such asExodus and especiallyDeuteronomy are the terms of the contract: Israel swears faithfulness to God, and God swears to be Israel's special protector and supporter.[26] However,The Jewish Study Bible denies that the wordcovenant (brit in Hebrew) means "contract"; in the ancient Near East, a covenant would have been sworn before the gods, who would be its enforcers. As God is part of the agreement, and not merely witnessing it,The Jewish Study Bible instead interprets the term to refer to a pledge.[33]
Further themes in the Old Testament includesalvation,redemption,divine judgment, obedience and disobedience,faith and faithfulness, among others. Throughout there is a strong emphasis onethics andritual purity, both of which God demands, although some of the prophets and wisdom writers seem to question this, arguing that God demandssocial justice above purity, and perhaps does not even care about purity at all. The Old Testament's moral code enjoins fairness, intervention on behalf of the vulnerable, and the duty of those in power to administer justice righteously. It forbids murder, bribery and corruption, deceitful trading, and manysexual misdemeanours. All morality is traced back to God, who is the source of all goodness.[34]
Theproblem of evil plays a large part in the Old Testament. The problem the Old Testament authors faced was that a good God must have had just reason for bringing disaster (meaning notably, but not only, theBabylonian exile) upon his people. The theme is played out, with many variations, in books as different as the histories of Kings and Chronicles, the prophets likeEzekiel andJeremiah, and in the wisdom books like Job and Ecclesiastes.[34]
The interrelationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, according to theEncyclopaedia Biblica (1903). Some manuscripts are identified by theirsiglum. LXX here denotes the original Septuagint.
The process by which scriptures became canons and Bibles was a long one, and its complexities account for the many different Old Testaments which exist today. Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible andSecond Temple Judaism at theUniversity of Edinburgh, identifies the Old Testament as "a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing."[2] He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written byGod and passed to mankind. By about the 5th century BC, Jews saw the five books of theTorah (the Old Testament Pentateuch) as having authoritative status; by the 2nd century BC, the Prophets had a similar status, although without quite the same level of respect as the Torah.[35]
Hebrew texts began to be translated into Greek inAlexandria in about 280 BC and continued until about 130 BC.[36] These early Greek translations – supposedly commissioned byPtolemy II Philadelphus – were called theSeptuagint (Latin for 'Seventy') from the supposed number of translators involved (hence its abbreviation "LXX"). This Septuagint remains the basis of the Old Testament in theEastern Orthodox Church.[37]
It varies in many places from the Masoretic Text and includes numerous books no longer considered canonical in some traditions:1 Esdras,Judith,Tobit, the books ofMaccabees, theBook of Wisdom,Sirach, andBaruch.[38] Early modernbiblical criticism typically explained these variations as intentional or ignorant corruptions by the Alexandrian scholars, but most recent scholarship holds it is simply based on early source texts differing from those later used by theMasoretes in their work.
The Septuagint was originally used byHellenized Jews whose knowledge ofGreek was better than Hebrew. However, the texts came to be used predominantly by gentile converts to Christianity and by the early Church as its scripture, Greek being thelingua franca of the early Church. The three most acclaimed early interpreters wereAquila of Sinope,Symmachus the Ebionite, andTheodotion; in hisHexapla,Origen placed his edition of the Hebrew text besideits transcription in Greek letters and four parallel translations: Aquila's, Symmachus's, the Septuagint's, and Theodotion's. The so-called "fifth" and "sixth editions" were two other Greek translations supposedly miraculously discovered by students outside the towns ofJericho andNicopolis: these were added to Origen's Octapla.[39]
InWestern Christianity or Christianity in theWestern half of the Roman Empire, Latin had displaced Greek as the common language of the early Christians, and in 382 ADPope Damasus I commissionedJerome, the leading scholar of the day, to produce an updated Latin Bible to replace theVetus Latina, which was a Latin translation of the Septuagint. Jerome's work, called theVulgate, was a direct translation from Hebrew, since he argued for the superiority ofthe Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds.[43] His Vulgate Old Testament became the standard Bible used in the Western Church, specifically as theSixto-Clementine Vulgate, while theChurches in the East continued, and continue, to use the Septuagint.[44]
Jerome, however, in theVulgate's prologues, describes some portions of books in the Septuagint not found in the Hebrew Bible as being non-canonical (he called themapocrypha);[45] forBaruch, he mentions by name in hisPrologue to Jeremiah and notes that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon".[46] TheSynod of Hippo (in 393), followed by theCouncil of Carthage (397) and theCouncil of Carthage (419), may be the first council that explicitly accepted the first canon which includes the books that did not appear in theHebrew Bible;[47] the councils were under significant influence ofAugustine of Hippo, who regarded the canon as already closed.[48]
In the 16th century, the Protestant reformers sided with Jerome; yet although most Protestant Bibles now have only those books that appear in the Hebrew Bible, the order is that of the Greek Bible.[49]
While the Hebrew, Greek and Latin versions of the Hebrew Bible are the best known Old Testaments, there were others. At much the same time as the Septuagint was being produced, translations were being made into Aramaic, the language of Jews living in Palestine and the Near East and likely thelanguage of Jesus: these are called the AramaicTargums, from a word meaning "translation", and were used to help Jewish congregations understand their scriptures.[54]
For Aramaic Christians, there was aSyriac translation of the Hebrew Bible called thePeshitta, as well as versions inCoptic (the everyday language of Egypt in the first Christian centuries, descended fromancient Egyptian),Ethiopic (for use in theEthiopian church, one of the oldest Christian churches),Armenian (Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as its official religion), andArabic.[54]
Christian interpretation refers to the "Old Testament" as such only because there is a "New Testament" to which it relates. The name "Old Testament" reflects Christianity's understanding of itself as thefulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy of aNew Covenant (which is similar to "testament" and often conflated) to replace the precedingcovenant between God and Israel (Jeremiah 31:31).[55][1] The emphasis, however, has shifted from Judaism's understanding of the covenant as a racially or tribally based pledge between God and the Jewish people, to one between God and any person of faith who is "in Christ".[56]
Relating the Old and New Testaments, theSecond Vatican Council outlines aCatholic theology wherein "God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New".[57] Dennis Hamm sees the Council's teaching as a counter to the "perennial temptation ... to dismiss the Old Testament as irrelevant for Christians".[58]
Christianity draws from its belief that thehistorical Jesus is also theChrist, as in theConfession of Peter. This belief is in turn based on Jewish understandings of the meaning of the Hebrew termMessiah, which, like the Greek "Christ", means "anointed". The Hebrew Scriptures describes a king anointed with oil on his accession to the throne: he becomes "The LORD's anointed" or Yahweh's Anointed.
By the time of Jesus, some Jews expected that a flesh-and-blood descendant ofDavid (the "Son of David") would come to establish a real Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem, instead of theRoman province of Judaea.[59] Others stressed theSon of Man, a distinctly other-worldly figure who would appear as ajudge at the end of time. Some expounded a synthesised view of both positions, where a messianic kingdom of this world would last for a set period and be followed by the other-worldly age orWorld to Come.
Some[who?] thought the Messiah was already present, but unrecognised due to Israel's sins; some[who?] thought that the Messiah would be announced by a forerunner, probablyElijah (as promised by the prophetMalachi, whose book now ends the Old Testament and precedesMark's account ofJohn the Baptist). However, no view of the Messiah as based on the Old Testament predicted a Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of all people.[59] The story of Jesus' death, therefore, involved a profound shift in meaning from the Old Testament tradition.[60]
^ Generally due to derivation from transliterations of names used in the LatinVulgate in the case of Catholicism, and from transliterations of the Greek Septuagint in the case of the Orthodox (as opposed to the derivation of translations, instead of transliterations, of Hebrew titles) suchEcclesiasticus (DRC) instead ofSirach (LXX) orBen Sira (Hebrew),Paralipomenon (Greek, meaning "things omitted") instead ofChronicles, Sophonias instead ofZephaniah, Noe instead ofNoah, Henoch instead ofEnoch,Messias instead ofMessiah, Sion instead ofZion, etc.
^ The foundationalThirty-Nine Articles ofAnglicanism, inArticle VI, asserts these disputed books are not used "to establish any doctrine", but "read for example of life." Although the Biblical Apocrypha are still used inAnglican Liturgy,[7] the modern trend is to not even print the Old Testament Apocrypha in editions of Anglican-used Bibles
^The numbering of books is for comparison with the Hebrew order of books. It does not directly represent the order of any specific canon as some books are moved and combined in specific Bibles, as notes detail.
^abcdThe books of Samuel and Kings are often called First through Fourth Kings in the Catholic tradition, much like the Orthodox.
^abcdeNames in parentheses are the Septuagint names and are often used by the Orthodox Christians.
^Samuel is considered one book in the Hebrew Bible.
^Kings is considered one book in the Hebrew Bible.
^Chronicles is considered one book in the Hebrew Bible.
^In Slavic language BiblesἜσδρας Aʹ corresponds to1 Esdras. In the Vulgate it is called3 Esdras.
^In the Vulgate the Book of Ezra is called 1 Esdras.
^In Slavic language BiblesἜσδρας Bʹ corresponds toEzra-Nehemiah and is called2 Esdras. In the VulgateEzra is called1 Esdras andNehemiah is called2 Esdras respectively.
^Some Eastern Orthodox churches follow theSeptuagint and Hebrew Bibles by considering the books ofEzra and Nehemiah as one book.
^Ezra–Nehemiah is considered one book in the Hebrew Bible.
^In theVulgate the Book of Nehemiah is called 2 Esdras.
^abThe Catholic and Orthodox Book of Esther includes 103 verses not in the Protestant Book of Esther.
^1 Maccabees is hypothesized by most scholars to have been originally written in Hebrew; however, if it was, the original Hebrew has been lost. The surviving Septuagint version is in Greek.[8]
^In Slavic language Bibles2 Esdras is called3 Esdras. In the Vulgate it is called4 Esdras.
^ In Greek Bibles, 4 Maccabees is found in the appendix.
^The latterflood myth appears in a Babylonian copy dating to 700 BC,[11] though many scholars believe that this was probably copied from theAkkadian:Atra-Hasis, which dates to the 18th century BC.[12] George points out that the modern version of theEpic of Gilgamesh was compiled bySîn-lēqi-unninni, who lived sometime between 1300 and 1000 BC.[13]
^The Apocrypha, Bridge of the Testaments(PDF), Orthodox Anglican, archived fromthe original(PDF) on 5 February 2009,Two of the hymns used in the American Prayer Book office of Morning Prayer, theBenedictus es andBenedicite, are taken from the Apocrypha. One of the offertory sentences in Holy Communion comes from an apocryphal book (Tob. 4: 8–9). Lessons from the Apocrypha are regularly appointed to be reason Sunday, Sunday, and the special services of Morning and Evening Prayer. There are altogether 111 such lessons in the latest revised American Prayer Book Lectionary [Books used are: II Esdras, Tobit, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Three Holy Children, and I Maccabees.]
^Driver, Samuel Rolles (1911)."Bible" . InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 849–894, see page 853, third para.Jeremiah.....were first written down in 604 B.C. by his friend and amanuensis Baruch, and the roll thus formed must have formed the nucleus of the present book. Some of the reports of Jeremiah's prophecies, and especially the biographical narratives, also probably have Baruch for their author. But the chronological disorder of the book, and other indications, show that Baruch could not have been the compiler of the book
^abBarton 2001, p. 9: "4. Covenant and Redemption. It is a central point in many OT texts that the creator God YHWH is also in some sense Israel's special god, who at some point in history entered into a relationship with his people that had something of the nature of a contract. Classically this contract or covenant was entered into at Sinai, and Moses was its mediator."
^Berman 2006, p. unpaginated: "At this juncture, however, God is entering into a "treaty" with the Israelites, and hence the formal need within the written contract for the grace of the sovereign to be documented.30 30. Mendenhall and Herion, "Covenant," p. 1183."
^Berlin & Brettler 2014, p. PT194: 6.17–22: Further introduction and a pledge. 18: This v. records the first mention of the covenant ("brit") in the Tanakh. In the ancient Near East, a covenant was an agreement that the parties swore before the gods, and expected the gods to enforce. In this case, God is Himself a party to the covenant, which is more like a pledge than an agreement or contract (this was sometimes the case in the ancient Near East as well). The covenant with Noah will receive longer treatment in 9.1–17.
^ The Canon Debate, pp. 414–15, for the entire paragraph
^Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913)."Book of Judith" .Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Canonicity: "..." the Synod of Nicaea is said to have accounted it as Sacred Scripture" (Praef. in Lib.). No such declaration indeed is to be found in the Canons of Nicaea, and it is uncertain whether St. Jerome is referring to the use made of the book in the discussions of the council, or whether he was misled by some spurious canons attributed to that council".
^McDonald & Sanders, editors ofThe Canon Debate, 2002, chapter 5:The Septuagint: The Bible of Hellenistic Judaism by Albert C. Sundberg Jr., page 72, Appendix D-2, note 19.
^Everett Ferguson, "Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon", inThe Canon Debate. eds. L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (Hendrickson, 2002) p. 320; F. F. Bruce,The Canon of Scripture (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 230; cf. Augustine,De Civitate Dei 22.8
Farmer, Ron (1991),"Messiah/Christ", in Mills, Watson E; Bullard, Roger Aubrey (eds.),Mercer dictionary of the Bible, Mercer University Press,ISBN978-0-86554-373-7
Lancaster, D Thomas (2005),Restoration: Returning the Torah of God to the Disciples of Jesus, Littleton \: First Fruits of Zion.
Papadaki-Oekland, Stella (2009),Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, Brepols,ISBN978-2-503-53232-5.
von Rad, Gerhard (1982–1984),Theologie des Alten Testaments [Theology of the Old Testament] (in German), vol. Band 1–2, Munich: Auflage.
Rouvière, Jean-Marc (2006),Brèves méditations sur la Création du monde [Brief meditations on the creation of the World] (in French), Paris: L'Harmattan.
