Old Testament

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 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 Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox include an additional 15 books, called the Deuterocanon, 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.

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.

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See also: Biblical canon; books of the Bible; biblical figures; Bible; Septuagint