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The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites. [1]
- When Was The Old Testament Written—And Who Wrote It?
- How Was The Old Testament written?
- Old Testament Texts and Versions
- How Did People Decide What Belonged in The Old Testament?
- What Does “Canon” Mean?
- Conclusion
As a collection of works, the Old Testament was composed over many years by numerous authors. The texts that comprise the Old Testament are believed to have been written over a thousand-year period roughly spanning the mid-second to the mid-first millennium BC. While the New Testament understands God to be the author of the Old Testament—by inspira...
The text of the Old Testament was originally recorded in two languages, classical Hebrew and imperial Aramaic (Genesis 31:47; Jeremiah 10:11; Ezra 4:8–6:18; 7:12–26 only). It contains five basic literary genres or types—law, historical narrative, poetry, wisdom, and prophetic utterance. People in the ancient Near East used a variety of materials as...
Over the centuries, the Old Testament has been copied and translated countless times. There are literally thousands of copies available in different languages from various time periods. Naturally, the extended hand-copying process created errors of transmission. These human errors of sight, hearing, writing, memory, and judgment are called variants...
We don’t know a lot about the exact process that resulted in a fixed Hebrew canon. Unfortunately, we have no ancient documents from the scribes detailing the various steps of the procedure that culminated in a Hebrew Bible. Two things do seem certain: 1. The process was lengthy and involved. 2. It probably took place in stages over several centurie...
The word canon isn’t found in the Bible, but the root word occurs in 1 Kings 14:15 and Job 40:21. Originally qānehmeant a “reed” or “stalk” of papyrus, oil-grass, or sweet cane. Since reeds were used as measuring rods or ruling sticks for making straight lines, “canon” came to mean “measure” or “measuring reed.” The term canonwas first used as a th...
For thousands of years, the Old Testament has largely remained true to its original form. While we don’t know exactly how the original Hebrew books were selected, we have every reason to believe that the decisions were guided by the same Holy Spirit who inspired the dozens of Old Testament authors. Together, these written works represent a body of ...
Jan 4, 2022 · Most of the Old Testament was originally written in Ancient Hebrew, which was the language of the people of Israel. (Some portions of the book of Daniel and the transcription of a couple of court documents in Ezra were written in Aramaic, the language of the Babylonian Empire.)
Jul 8, 2024 · The Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew, the ancient Middle Eastern language spoken by the Jewish people. A few parts of the Old Testament — namely, Daniel 2:4b–7:28 and Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26 — were written in Aramaic.
- Jacob Edson
Oct 25, 2024 · Definition. Old Testament is the Christian name for the books of the Jewish scriptures that constitute the first half of the Christian Bible. "Old" in this sense was a means to distinguish Judaism from Christianity at the creation of the New Testament beginning in the 2nd century CE Jewish believers do not consider their scriptures old, as in ...
Jan 12, 2023 · Also known as the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible was composed over a long span of time. Numerous opinions exist as to when the earliest and latest biblical traditions were first put down in writing.
Sep 14, 2024 · The Old Testament, a name coined by Melito of Sardis in the 2nd century ce, is longer than the Hebrew Bible, in part because Christian editors divided particular works into two sections but also because different Christian groups consider as canonical some texts not found in the Hebrew Bible.
