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118-716: The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors produced over a period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: the first five books or Pentateuch (which corresponds to the Jewish Torah ); the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon ; the poetic and " Wisdom books " dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in

236-572: A Gospel in "Hebrew" ( Aramaic , the language of Judea). Modern scholars interpret the tradition to mean that Papias, writing about 125–150 CE, believed that Matthew had made a collection of the sayings of Jesus. However, Papias's description does not correspond well with the Gospel of Matthew : it was most probably written in Greek, not Aramaic or Hebrew; it depends on the Greek Gospel of Mark and on

354-562: A century later than what had been largely accepted for two millennia. Much of the content of Chronicles is a repetition of material from other books of the Bible, from Genesis to Kings , and so the usual scholarly view is that these books, or an early version of them, provided the author with the bulk of his material. It is, however, possible that the situation was rather more complex, and that books such as Genesis and Samuel should be regarded as contemporary with Chronicles, drawing on much of

472-563: A distinct book in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE, with the contents having their origin in special mourning observances in Exilic and post-Exilic Jewish communities. The Book of Esther was composed in the late 4th or early 3rd century BCE among the Jews of the eastern diaspora. The genre of the book is the novella or short story, and it draws on the themes of wisdom literature; its sources are still unresolved. The Book of Daniel presents itself as

590-551: A high level of cross-reference. The usual explanation, the two-source hypothesis , is that Mark was written first and that the authors of Matthew and Luke relied on Mark and the hypothetical Q document . Scholars agree that the Gospel of John was written last, using a different tradition and body of testimony. In addition, most scholars agree that the author of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles , making Luke-Acts two halves of

708-541: A member of Jesus' inner circle, most scholars today consider this passage to be a later addition (see below). Many scholars argue that the Gospels were written by anonymous figures rather than the disciples traditionally associated with them. Justin Martyr in his book named " 1 apology " explicitly refers to the apostles as "uneducated" or "illiterate" (Acts 4:13), which has led scholars to question their ability to write

826-670: A pious Jew in exile. The generally recognised date of composition is the early 2nd century BCE. The Book of Judith is set in Israel in the time of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Assyria. It has strong Persian elements, which suggests a 4th-century BCE date; it also has strong parallels with the Hasmonean period, which suggests a 2nd-century date. It is typically labeled Pharisaic , but an origin in Sadducee circles has also been suggested. The canonical Psalms contains 150 entries. Psalm 151

944-418: A prayer from the wicked, but now penitent, king Manasseh (or Manassas) from his exile in Babylon. The actual author is unknown, and the date of composition is probably the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE. Sirach names its author as Jesus ben Sirach . He was probably a scribe, offering instruction to the youth of Jerusalem. His grandson's preface to the Greek translation helps date the work to the first quarter of

1062-461: A professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University 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." He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. By about the 5th century BC, Jews saw the five books of

1180-502: A prologue – there is some question whether this happened before or after the Exile (587 BCE). The remaining collections are probably later, with the book reaching its final form around the 3rd century BCE. The Talmud refers to Samuel as the author of Ruth , but this conflicts with several details inside the book. It has been proposed that the anonymous author was a woman, or if a man then one who took women's issues seriously. The book

1298-607: A school known as biblical minimalism rejected the historical value of the Hebrew Bible for the study of ancient Israel during the Iron Age, "but this extreme approach was rejected by mainstream scholarship." The first five books— Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , book of Numbers and Deuteronomy —reached their present form in the Persian period (538–332 BC) , and their authors were the elite of exilic returnees who controlled

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1416-639: A separate section called Apocrypha . The Old Testament contains 39 (Protestant), 46 (Catholic), or more (Orthodox and other) books, divided, very broadly, into the Pentateuch (Torah) , the historical books , the "wisdom" books and the prophets. The table below uses the spellings and names present in modern editions of the Christian Bible, such as the Catholic New American Bible Revised Edition and

1534-529: A set period and be followed by the other-worldly age or World to Come . Some thought the Messiah was already present, but unrecognised due to Israel's sins; some thought that the Messiah would be announced by a forerunner, probably Elijah (as promised by the prophet Malachi , whose book now ends the Old Testament and precedes Mark 's account of John the Baptist ). However, no view of the Messiah as based on

1652-531: A single underlying text with lengthy later additions and amendments to underline certain interests such as the cult or the priesthood. The Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches include some or all of the following books in their Bibles. The Greek text of the Book of Daniel contains additions not found in the Hebrew/Aramaic version. All are anonymous. The Prayer of Azariah (one of Daniel's companions)

1770-477: A single work. According to tradition and early church fathers, first attested by Papias of Hierapolis , the author is Mark the Evangelist , the companion of the apostle Peter . The gospel, however, appears to rely on several underlying sources, varying in form and in theology, which tells against the tradition that the gospel was based on Peter's preaching. Various elements within the gospel, including

1888-547: Is ... part folklore and part record. History is ... written by the victors, and the Israelis , when they burst through [ Jericho ( c.  1400 BC )], became the carriers of history." In 2007, a historian of ancient Judaism Lester L. Grabbe explained that earlier biblical scholars such as Julius 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

2006-643: Is based on the belief that the historical Jesus is also the Christ , as in the Confession of Peter . This belief is in turn based on Jewish understandings of the meaning of the Hebrew term Messiah , which, like the Greek "Christ", means "anointed". In the Hebrew Scriptures, it describes a king anointed with oil on his accession to the throne: he becomes "The L ORD 's anointed" or Yahweh's Anointed. By

2124-498: Is believed to have reached its final form in the Persian period (538–332 BCE), although there is disagreement over whether this was early or late. For the individual books, scholars usually assume that there exists an original core of prophetic tradition which can be attributed to the figure after whom the book is named. The noteworthy exception is the Book of Jonah , an anonymous work containing no prophetic oracles, probably composed in

2242-543: Is considered likely. The book's claim of Solomon as author is a literary fiction; the author also identifies himself as "Qoheleth", a word of obscure meaning which critics have understood variously as a personal name, a nom de plume , an acronym, and a function; a final self-identification is as "shepherd", a title usually implying royalty. Lamentations is assigned by tradition to the Prophet Jeremiah ; linguistic and theological evidence point to its origin as

2360-656: Is found in most Greek translations, and the Hebrew version was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls . Psalms 152–155 are part of the Syriac Peshitta Bible, some of which were found at Qumran . The gospels (and Acts) are anonymous, in that none of them provide the name of the author within their text. While the Gospel of John might be considered something of an exception, because the author refers to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved" and claims to be

2478-399: Is general acceptance that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles originated as a two-volume work by a single author addressed to an otherwise unknown individual named Theophilus . This author was an "amateur Hellenistic historian" versed in Greek rhetoric, that being the standard training for historians in the ancient world. According to tradition, first attested by Irenaeus ,

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2596-525: Is general agreement that the book as we have it today is the product of a highly educated priestly circle that owed allegiance to the historical Ezekiel and was closely associated with the Temple. The Minor Prophets are one book in the Hebrew Bible, and many (though not all) modern scholars agree that the Book of the Twelve underwent a process of editing which resulted in a coherent collection. This process

2714-529: Is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are examples of these Bibles. Together with the Peshitta and Codex Alexandrinus , these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles. There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on

2832-499: Is largely a unity, although the genealogy of David appears to be a later addition. The Song of Songs was traditionally attributed to Solomon , but modern scholars date it around the 3rd century BCE. Scholars still debate whether it is a single unified work (and therefore from a single author), or more in the nature of an anthology. The Book of Ecclesiastes is usually dated to the mid-3rd century BCE. A provenance in Jerusalem

2950-608: Is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon". The Synod of Hippo (in 393), followed by the Council of Carthage (397) and the Council of Carthage (419) , may be the first council that explicitly accepted the first canon which includes the books that did not appear in the Hebrew Bible ; the councils were under significant influence of Augustine of Hippo , who regarded

3068-592: Is not by Jeremiah; the author apparently appropriated the name of the prophet to lend authority to his composition. Nor is it by Jeremiah's secretary Baruch , although it appears as the last chapter of Baruch in the Catholic Bible and the KJV. Internal evidence points to a date around 317 BCE, with the author possibly a Jew in Palestine addressing Jews of the diaspora . The Prayer of Manasseh presents itself as

3186-448: Is that its closing sentence is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah. In antiquity, such repeated verses, like the "catch-lines" used by modern printers, often appeared at the end of a scroll to facilitate the reader's passing on to the correct second book-scroll after completing the first. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a single scroll and had to be continued on another scroll. The latter half of

3304-636: Is the final book of the Hebrew Bible , concluding the third section of the Jewish Tanakh , the Ketuvim ("Writings"). It contains a genealogy starting with Adam and a history of ancient Judah and Israel up to the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BC. The book was translated into Greek and divided into two books in the Septuagint in the mid-3rd century BC. In Christian contexts Chronicles is referred to in

3422-639: Is the group of five books made up of Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers , and Deuteronomy and stands first in all versions of the Christian Old Testament. There is a tradition within Judaism and Christianity that Moses wrote the Torah. The Torah itself attributes certain sections to Mosaic authorship . In later biblical texts, such as Daniel 9 :11 and Ezra 3 :2, it is called the " Torah of Moses ". According to Rabbinic tradition ,

3540-734: Is to be read." They are present in a few historic Protestant versions; the German Luther Bible included such books, as did the English 1611 King James Version. 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 the Latin Vulgate , formerly the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of

3658-416: Is to worship , or the one "true God", that only Yahweh (or YHWH ) is Almighty. The Old Testament stresses the special relationship between God and his chosen people , Israel, but includes instructions for proselytes as well. This relationship is expressed in the biblical covenant (contract) between the two, received by Moses . The law codes in books such as Exodus and especially Deuteronomy are

Old Testament - Misplaced Pages Continue

3776-604: The Septuagint (Latin for 'Seventy') from the supposed number of translators involved (hence its abbreviation " LXX "). This Septuagint remains the basis of the Old Testament in the Eastern Orthodox Church . 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 of Maccabees ,

3894-481: The Babylonian 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 like Ezekiel and Jeremiah , and in the wisdom books like Job and Ecclesiastes. 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,

4012-738: The Biblical 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 modern Protestant Bibles. Catholics, following the Canon of Trent (1546), describe these books as deuterocanonical, while Greek Orthodox Christians, following the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) , use the traditional name of anagignoskomena , meaning "that which

4130-425: The Book of Nehemiah were originally one work, Ezra-Nehemiah . H.G.M Williamson (1987) proposed three basic stages leading to the final work: (1) composition of the various lists and Persian documents, which he accepts as authentic and therefore the earliest parts of the book; (2) composition of the "Ezra memoir" and "Nehemiah memoir", about 400 BCE; and (3) composition of Ezra 1–6 as the final editor's introduction to

4248-525: The Book of Wisdom , Sirach , and Baruch . Early modern biblical 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 the Masoretes in their work. The Septuagint was originally used by Hellenized Jews whose knowledge of Greek

4366-516: The Hellenistic period (332–167 BCE). While a number of the Psalms bear headings which seem to identify their authors, these are probably the result of the need to find a significant identification in tradition. The individual psalms come from widely different periods: "some ... presuppose a reigning king and an established cult in the Temple; others clearly presuppose and mention the events of

4484-453: The Hellenistic 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. 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 as the only god who exists , he is always depicted as the only God whom Israel

4602-595: The Kingdom of Judah , with occasional references to the northern Kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 10–36). The final chapter covers briefly the reigns of the last four kings, until Judah is destroyed and the people taken into exile in Babylon . In the two final verses, identical to the opening verses of the Book of Ezra , the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquers the Neo-Babylonian Empire , and authorises

4720-576: The Temple at that time. The books of Joshua , Judges , Samuel and Kings follow, forming a history of Israel from the Conquest of Canaan to the Siege of Jerusalem c.  587 BC . There is a broad consensus among scholars that these originated as a single work (the so-called " Deuteronomistic History ") during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BC. The two Books of Chronicles cover much

4838-811: The Torah (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; beyond that, the Jewish scriptures were fluid, with different groups seeing authority in different books. Hebrew texts began to be translated into Greek in Alexandria in about 280 BC and continued until about 130 BC. These early Greek translations – supposedly commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus – were called

Old Testament - Misplaced Pages Continue

4956-565: The post-exilic period , the Pentateuch reached its final form with the addition of the Priestly source ( c.  5th century BCE ). The consensus around the documentary hypothesis began to break down in the 1970s, and this approach has since seen various revisions. While the identification of distinctive Deuteronomistic and Priestly theologies and vocabularies remains widespread, they are used to form new approaches suggesting that

5074-622: The protocanonicals . The Talmud (the Jewish commentary on the scriptures) in Bava Batra 14b gives a different order for the books in Nevi'im and Ketuvim . This order is also cited in Mishneh Torah Hilchot Sefer Torah 7:15. 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

5192-414: The we passages are usually regarded as fragments of a second document, part of some earlier account, which was later incorporated into Acts by the later author of Luke-Acts, or simply a Greek rhetorical device used for sea voyages. John 21:24 identifies the source of the Gospel of John as "the beloved disciple," and from the late 2nd century tradition, first attested by Irenaeus , this figure, unnamed in

5310-425: The 17th century. Today, the majority of scholars agree that the Pentateuch does not have a single author and that its composition took place over centuries. The rise of historical criticism in the 19th century led scholars to conclude that multiple authors wrote the Pentateuch over a long period. By the mid-20th century, the documentary hypothesis had gained nearly universal consensus among scholars. According to

5428-480: The 1990s some scholars began to question the existence of a Deuteronomistic history and the question of the origin of these books continues to be debated. Modern scholars divide the Book of Isaiah into three parts, each with a different origin: "First Isaiah" , chapters 1–39, containing the words of the historical 8th century BCE prophet Isaiah and later expansions by his disciples; " Deutero-Isaiah " (chapters 40–55), by an anonymous Jewish author in Babylon near

5546-477: The 20th century, amid growing skepticism in academia regarding history in the Biblical tradition, saw a reappraisal of the authorship question. Though there is a general lack of corroborating evidence, many now regard it as improbable that the author of Chronicles was also the author of the narrative portions of Ezra–Nehemiah. These critics suggest that Chronicles was probably composed between 400 and 250 BC, with

5664-675: The 24 books of the Tanakh , with some differences of order, and there are some differences in text. The greater count of books reflects the splitting of several texts ( Samuel , Kings , Chronicles , Ezra–Nehemiah , and the Twelve Minor Prophets ) into separate books in Christian Bibles. The books that are part of the Christian Old Testament but that are not part of the Hebrew canon are sometimes described as deuterocanonical books . These books are ultimately derived from

5782-517: The 2nd century BCE, probably between 196 BCE and the beginning of the oppression of the Jews by Antiochus IV , who reigned 175–164 BCE. The Wisdom of Solomon is unlikely to be earlier than the 2nd century BCE, and probably dates from 100 to 50 BCE. Its self-attribution to Solomon was questioned even in the medieval period, and it shows affinities with the Egyptian Jewish community and with Pharisee teachings. The Book of Esther itself

5900-490: The 4th century BCE, long after most biblical books had been written. Ancient Greeks believed that a text's authority depended on its author, and Jewish tradition was pressured to identify authors for its writings. The first division of the Jewish Bible is the Torah , meaning ' Instruction ' or ' Law ' . In scholarly literature, it is frequently called by its Greek name, the Pentateuch ( ' five scrolls ' ). It

6018-622: The 5th-century BC figure Ezra , who gives his name to the Book of Ezra ; Ezra is also believed by the Talmudic sages to have written both his own book (i. e., Ezra–Nehemiah ) and Chronicles up to his own time, the latter having been finished by Nehemiah . Later critics, skeptical of the long-maintained tradition, preferred to call the author " the Chronicler ". However, many scholars maintain support for Ezra's authorship, not only based on centuries of work by Jewish historians, but also due to

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6136-475: The Bible . The majority of scholars believe that most of the books of the Bible are the work of multiple authors and that most have been edited to produce the works known today. The following article outlines the conclusions of the majority of contemporary scholars, along with the traditional views, both Jewish and Christian. The rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud held that God wrote the Torah in heaven in letters of black fire on parchment of white fire before

6254-419: The Bible into Latin (the Vulgate ) contained four books of Esdras (i.e. Ezra ); Jerome's 1 and 2 Esdras were eventually renamed Ezra and Nehemiah ; the remaining books each moved up two places in most versions, but the numbering system remains highly confused. The present 1 Esdras takes material from the Book of Chronicles and the Book of Ezra , but ignores Nehemiah entirely; it was probably composed in

6372-403: The Epitomist before 63 BCE. 3 Maccabees concerns itself with the Jewish community in Egypt a half-century before the revolt, suggesting that the author was an Egyptian Jew, and probably a native of Alexandria. A date of c. 100–75 BCE is "very probable". 4 Maccabees was probably composed in the middle half of the 1st century CE, by a Jew living in Syria or Asia Minor. The Letter of Jeremiah

6490-423: The Exile." The unknown author of the Book of Job is unlikely to have written earlier than the 6th century BCE, and the cumulative evidence suggests a post-Exilic date. It contains some 1,000 lines, of which about 750 form the original core. The Book of Proverbs consists of several collections taken from various sources. Chapters 10:1–22:16 are probably the oldest section, with chapters 1–9 being composed as

6608-508: The Former Prophets, recapitulating in modern terms the traditional idea that Jeremiah wrote both his own book and the Books of Kings. The Book of Ezekiel describes itself as the words of Ezekiel ben-Buzi, a priest living in exile in the city of Babylon between 593 and 571 BCE. The various manuscripts, however, differ markedly from each other, and it is clear that the book has been subjected to extensive editing. While Ezekiel himself may have been responsible for some of this revision, there

6726-402: The Gospel itself, was identified with John the son of Zebedee . Today, however, most scholars agree that John 21 is an appendix to the Gospel, which originally ended at John 20:30–31. However, there is considerable debate about how and when the appendix was added, and by whom. For example, several scholars argue it was added after "the beloved disciple" had died. The majority of scholars date

6844-422: The Gospel of John to c . 80–95, and propose that the author made use of two major sources, a "Signs" source (a collection of seven miracle stories) and a "Discourse" source. 1 Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( Hebrew : דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים Dīvrē-hayYāmīm , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books ( 1–2 Chronicles ) in the Christian Old Testament . Chronicles

6962-425: The Hebrew Masoretic Text . 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, the King James Version references some of these books by the traditional spelling when referring to them in the New Testament, such as "Esaias" (for Isaiah ). In

7080-487: 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 the language of Jesus : these are called the Aramaic Targums , from a word meaning "translation", and were used to help Jewish congregations understand their scriptures. For Aramaic Christians, there

7198-403: The Old Testament predicted a Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of all people. The story of Jesus' death, therefore, involved a profound shift in meaning from the Old Testament tradition. The name "Old Testament" reflects Christianity's understanding of itself as the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy of a New Covenant (which is similar to "testament" and often conflated) to replace

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7316-399: 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 of Jonah and Daniel , which were written much later. The "wisdom" books— Job , Proverbs , Ecclesiastes , Psalms , Song of Songs —have various dates: Proverbs possibly was completed by

7434-446: The Protestant Revised Standard Version and English Standard Version . The spelling and names in both the 1609–F10 Douay Old Testament (and in the 1582 Rheims New Testament ) and the 1749 revision by Bishop 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

7552-430: The Protestant version of the Old Testament . The order used here follows the divisions used in Jewish Bibles. Most of the Hebrew Bible was written between the late 8th century BCE and early 6th century BCE. Biblical texts were written by scribes ( Hebrew : sofer ), the literate class of bureaucrats in a mostly non-literate, oral culture. The question of biblical authorship was not important until Hellenization in

7670-435: The Septuagint "occurs in the most suitable place", namely with the conclusion of David's reign as king and the initiation of Solomon's reign. The Talmud considered Chronicles one book. The last events recorded in Chronicles take place in the reign of Cyrus the Great , the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC; this sets the earliest possible date for this passage of the book. Chronicles appears to be largely

7788-449: The Septuagint ( 3 Ezra and 3 and 4 Maccabees are excluded); the Anglicans after the English Civil War adopted a compromise position, restoring the 39 Articles and keeping the extra books that were excluded by the Westminster Confession of Faith , both for private study and for reading in churches but not for establishing any doctrine, while Lutherans kept them for private study, gathered in an appendix as biblical apocrypha . While

7906-457: 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 of Jericho and Nicopolis : these were added to Origen's Octapla. In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople . Athanasius recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else

8024-417: The Western Church, specifically as the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate , while the Churches in the East continued, and continue, to use the Septuagint. Jerome, however, in the Vulgate's prologues , describes some portions of books in the Septuagint not found in the Hebrew Bible as being non- canonical (he called them apocrypha ); for Baruch , he mentions by name in his Prologue to Jeremiah and notes that it

8142-439: The author refers to having eyewitness testimony "handed down to us" and to having undertaken a "careful investigation", but the author does not mention his own name or explicitly claim to be an eyewitness to any of the events, except for the we passages . And in the we passages , the narrative is written in the first person plural— the author never refers to himself as "I" or "me". To those who are skeptical of an eyewitness author,

8260-419: The author was Luke the Evangelist , the companion of the Apostle Paul , but many modern scholars have expressed doubt and opinion on the subject is evenly divided. Instead, they believe Luke-Acts was written by an anonymous Christian author who may not have been an eyewitness to any of the events recorded within the text. Some of the evidence cited comes from the text of Luke-Acts itself. In the preface to Luke,

8378-404: The biographic prose material (Type B) by an admirer writing c. 580–480 BCE, and the remainder (Type C) from later periods. There has been considerable debate over Mowinckel's ideas, notably the extent of the Jeremiah material and the role of Baruch, who may have been the author of the Type B material. It is generally agreed that the book has strong connections with the Deuteronomistic layers from

8496-538: The book of Deuteronomy, which had already been composed during the reign of Josiah (last quarter of the 7th century), selecting, editing and composing it to produce a coherent work. Frank Moore Cross later proposed that an earlier version of the history was composed in Jerusalem in Josiah's time; this first version, Dtr1, was then revised and expanded to create Noth's second edition, or Dtr2. Still later scholars have discovered further layers and further author-editors. In

8614-508: The books were combined gradually over time by the slow accumulation of "fragments" of text, or that a basic text was "supplemented" by later authors/editors. At the same time there has been a tendency to bring the origins of the Pentateuch further forward in time, and the most recent proposals place it in 5th century BCE Judah under the Persian empire . Deuteronomy is treated separately from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. Its place in

8732-531: The canon as already closed. 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. Rome then officially adopted a canon, the Canon of Trent , which is seen as following Augustine's Carthaginian Councils or the Council of Rome , and includes most, but not all, of

8850-662: The canon. However, Jerome (347–420), in his Prologue to Judith , claims that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures". In Western Christianity or Christianity in the Western half of the Roman Empire , Latin had displaced Greek as the common language of the early Christians, and in 382 AD Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome ,

8968-484: The combined earlier texts, about 300 BCE. Lester Grabbe (2003) puts the combination of the two texts Ezra and Nehemiah, with some final editing, somewhat later, in the Ptolemaic period, c. 300–200 BCE. Chronicles is an anonymous work from Levitical circles in Jerusalem, probably composed in the late 4th century BCE. Although the book is divided into two parts (1st and 2nd Chronicles), the majority of studies propose

9086-568: The consistency of language and speech patterns between Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah. Professor Emeritus Menahem Haran of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explains, "the overall unity of the Chronistic Work is … demonstrated by a common ideology, the uniformity of legal, cultic and historical conceptions and specific style, all of which reflect one opus." One of the most striking, although inconclusive, features of Chronicles

9204-584: The disciples lived. This is further supported by Catherine Hezser’s research on Jewish literacy in Roman Palestine, which highlights the rarity of literacy among common people during this period. Therefore, it is widely accepted among scholars that the Gospels were likely written by anonymous authors rather than the disciples themselves. There is general agreement among scholars that the Synoptic Gospels ( Matthew , Mark and Luke ) show

9322-403: The divine dictation model and emphasised the role of the human authors. As a result, even many conservative scholars now accept, for example, that the Book of Isaiah has multiple authors and that 2 Corinthians is two letters joined. The Hebrew Bible , or Tanakh, is the collection of scriptures making up the Bible used by Judaism . The same books, in a slightly different order, also make up

9440-405: The documentary hypothesis is anomalous, as it, unlike the other four, consists of a single "source". The process of its formation probably took several hundred years, from the 8th century to the 6th, and its authors have been variously identified as prophetic circles (because the concerns of Deuteronomy mirror those of the prophets, especially Hosea ), Levitical priestly circles (because it stresses

9558-523: The documentary hypothesis, the Pentateuch was created by combining four originally independent documents. The Jahwist source ( c.  10th  – c.  9th century BCE ) and the Elohist source ( c.  8th century BCE ) were the first to be combined into one document. In the 7th century BCE, the Deuteronomist produced Deuteronomy, which was later added to the combined document. In

9676-399: The earlier Septuagint , the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and are also Jewish in origin. Some are also contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls . In general, Catholic and Orthodox churches include the deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament. Most Protestant Bibles do not include them in their canon, but some versions of Anglican and Lutheran Bibles place such books in

9794-500: The end of the Babylonian captivity ; and "Trito-Isaiah" (chapters 56–66), by anonymous disciples of Deutero-Isaiah in Jerusalem immediately after the return from Babylon (although some scholars suggest that chapters 55–66 were written by Deutero-Isaiah after the fall of Babylon). This orderly sequence of pre-exilic, exilic and post-exilic material is somewhat misleading, as some scholars note that significant editing appears to have taken place in all three parts. Jeremiah lived in

9912-526: The existing covenant between God and Israel ( Jeremiah 31:31 ). 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". Authorship of the Bible There is much disagreement within biblical scholarship today over the authorship of

10030-507: The first part of the second division of the Hebrew Bible, the Nevi'im , which translates as "Prophets". In Christian Bibles the Book of Ruth , which belongs in the final section of the Hebrew Bible, is inserted between Judges and Samuel. According to Jewish tradition dating from at least the 2nd century CE, the Book of Joshua was by Joshua , the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel were by

10148-501: The five books of the Torah were written by Moses, with the exception of the last eight verses of Deuteronomy which describe his death. Moses would have lived in the 2nd millennium BCE , before the development of Hebrew writing . Scholars date the Torah to the 1st millennium BCE . The Torah may, however, incorporate older oral traditions , such as proverbs, stories, and songs. Most Jews and Christians believed in Mosaic authorship until

10266-510: The hypothetical Q document ; it is not a collection of sayings; and it is unlikely to have been written by an eyewitness. Although the identity of the author of our Gospel of Matthew is unknown, the internal evidence of the Gospel suggests that he was an ethnic Jewish male scribe from a Hellenised city, possibly Antioch in Syria , and that he wrote between 70 and 100 CE using a variety of oral traditions and written sources about Jesus. There

10384-407: The idea seems inappropriate, since much of Genesis–Kings has been copied almost without change. Some modern scholars proposed that Chronicles is a midrash , or traditional Jewish commentary, on Genesis–Kings, but again this is not entirely accurate since the author or authors do not comment on the older books so much as use them to create a new work. Recent suggestions have been that it was intended as

10502-445: The importance of the authority of Peter and the broadness of the basic theology, suggest that the author wrote in Syria or Palestine for a non-Jewish Christian community which had earlier absorbed the influence of pre-Pauline beliefs and then developed them further independent of Paul. Early Christian tradition, first attested by Papias of Hierapolis , held that the apostle Matthew , the tax-collector and disciple of Jesus, had written

10620-428: The late 7th and early 6th centuries BCE. The Book of Jeremiah presents Baruch ben Neriah as the prophet's companion who writes his words on several occasions, and there has accordingly been much speculation that Baruch could have composed an early edition of the book. In the early 20th century Sigmund Mowinckel identified three types of material in the book, Jeremiah 1–25 (Type A) being the words of Jeremiah himself,

10738-586: The leading scholar of the day, to produce an updated Latin Bible to replace the Vetus Latina , which was a Latin translation of the Septuagint. Jerome's work, called the Vulgate , was a direct translation from Hebrew, since he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds. His Vulgate Old Testament became the standard Bible used in

10856-464: 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]." In 2022, archaeologist Avraham Faust wrote that in the 1990s

10974-470: The period 200–100 BCE. 2 Esdras has no connection with the other Esdras books beyond taking Ezra as its central character. It was probably written soon after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. The author of the Book of Baruch is traditionally held to be Baruch the companion of Jeremiah , but this is considered unlikely. Some scholars propose that it was written during or shortly after

11092-612: The period 350–300 BC the most likely. This timeframe is achieved by estimates made based on genealogies appearing in the Greek Septuagint . This theory bases its premise on the latest person mentioned in Chronicles, Anani. Anani is an eighth-generation descendant of King Jehoiachin according to the Masoretic Text . This has persuaded many supporters of the Septuagint's reading to place Anani's likely date of birth

11210-538: The period of the Maccabees . The anonymous author of 1 Maccabees was an educated Jew and a serious historian; a date around 100 BCE is most likely. 2 Maccabees is a revised and condensed version of a work by an otherwise unknown author called Jason of Cyrene, plus passages by the anonymous editor who made the condensation (called "the Epitomist"). Jason most probably wrote in the mid to late 2nd century BCE, and

11328-544: The plural as the Books of Chronicles , after the Latin name chronicon given to the text by Jerome , but is also referred to by its Greek name as the Books of Paralipomenon . In Christian Bibles , they usually follow the two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah , the last history-oriented book of the Protestant Old Testament. The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam, Seth and Enosh , and

11446-552: The prophet Samuel (with some passages by the prophets Gad and Nathan ), while the two Books of Kings were by Jeremiah . Since 1943 most scholars have accepted Martin Noth 's argument that Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings make up a single work, the so-called " Deuteronomistic history ." Noth believed that the history was the work of a single author writing in the time of the Babylonian exile (586–539 BCE). This author/editor took as his starting point an early version of

11564-463: The restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem and the return of the exiles. Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint , a Greek translation produced in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. It has three broad divisions: Within this broad structure there are signs that the author has used various other devices to structure his work, notably through drawing parallels between David and Solomon (the first becomes king, establishes

11682-515: The role of the Levites ), and wisdom and scribal circles (because it esteems wisdom, and because the treaty-form in which it is written would be best known to scribes ). Deuteronomy was later used as the introduction to the comprehensive history of Israel written in the early part of the 6th century, and later still it was detached from the history and used to round off the Pentateuch. The Former Prophets (נביאים ראשונים, Nevi'im Rishonim ), make up

11800-468: The same material as the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic history and probably date from the 4th century BC. Chronicles, and Ezra–Nehemiah , was probably finished during the 3rd century BC. 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

11918-456: The same material, rather than a source for it. Despite much discussion of this issue, no agreement has been reached. It is also likely that Chronicles preserved ancient heterodox traditions regarding Israel's history. The translators who created the Greek version of the Jewish Bible (the Septuagint ) called this book Paralipomenon , "Things Left Out", indicating that they thought of it as a supplement to another work, probably Genesis–Kings, but

12036-489: The sophisticated Greek texts of the New Testament. Bart Ehrman, a leading New Testament scholar, supports this view, explaining that the socio-economic background of Jesus' disciples—many of whom were fishermen or peasants—makes it unlikely that they could have authored these works. Ehrman also notes that literacy rates in first-century Palestine were extremely low, particularly in rural areas like Galilee, where most of

12154-702: The spirit of ecumenism , more recent Catholic translations (e.g. the New American Bible , Jerusalem Bible , and ecumenical translations used by Catholics, such as the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition ) use the same "standardized" (King James Version) spellings and names as Protestant Bibles (e.g. 1 Chronicles as opposed to the Douaic 1 Paralipomenon, 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings instead of 1–4 Kings) in those books which are universally considered canonical:

12272-557: The stories of the Pentateuch may derive from older sources. Scholars such as Andrew R. George point out the similarity of the Genesis flood narrative and the Gilgamesh flood myth . Similarities between the origin story of Moses and that of Sargon of Akkad were noted by psychoanalyst Otto Rank in 1909 and popularized by 20th-century writers, such as H. G. Wells and Joseph Campbell . Jacob Bronowski writes that, "the Bible

12390-472: The story is then carried forward, almost entirely through genealogical lists , down to the founding of the United Kingdom of Israel in the "introductory chapters", 1 Chronicles 1–9. The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after a brief account of Saul in chapter 10, is concerned with the reign of David . The next long section concerns David's son Solomon , and the final part is concerned with

12508-543: The term to refer to a pledge. Further themes in the Old Testament include salvation , redemption , divine judgment , obedience and disobedience, faith and faithfulness, among others. Throughout there is a strong emphasis on ethics and ritual purity , both of which God demands, although some of the prophets and wisdom writers seem to question this, arguing that God demands social 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

12626-494: The terms of the contract: Israel swears faithfulness to God, and God swears to be Israel's special protector and supporter. However, The Jewish Study Bible denies that the word covenant ( 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

12744-533: The time of Jesus, some Jews expected that a flesh-and-blood descendant of David (the " Son of David ") would come to establish a real Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem, instead of the Roman province of Judaea. Others stressed the Son of Man , a distinctly other-worldly figure who would appear as a judge at the end of time . Some expounded a synthesised view of both positions, where a messianic kingdom of this world would last for

12862-456: The vulnerable, and the duty of those in power to administer justice righteously. It forbids murder, bribery and corruption, deceitful trading, and many sexual misdemeanours . All morality is traced back to God, who is the source of all goodness. The problem 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,

12980-600: The work of a prophet named Daniel who lived during the 6th century BCE; the overwhelming majority of modern scholars date it to the 2nd century BCE. The author, writing in the time of the Maccabees to assure his fellow-Jews that their persecution by the Syrians would come to an end and see them victorious, seems to have constructed his book around the legendary Daniel mentioned in Ezekiel, a figure ranked with Noah and Job for his wisdom and righteousness. The Book of Ezra and

13098-516: The work of a single individual. The writer was probably male, probably a Levite (temple priest), and probably from Jerusalem. He was well-read, a skilled editor, and a sophisticated theologian. He aimed to use the narratives in the Torah and former prophets to convey religious messages to his peers, the literary and political elite of Jerusalem in the time of the Achaemenid Empire . Jewish and Christian tradition identified this author as

13216-638: The world was created, and that Moses received it by divine dictation. The early Church Fathers agreed that the scriptures were inspired or dictated by God, but not on which writings were scriptural: as a result, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches treat some books (the Apocrypha ) as inspired, but the Protestant tradition does not. In the 20th century the vast majority of theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, moved away from

13334-572: The world; and the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God. The books that compose the Old Testament canon and their order and names differ between various branches of Christianity . The canons of the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches comprise up to 49 books; the Catholic canon comprises 46 books; and the most common of the Protestant canons comprises 39 books. There are 39 books common to essentially all Christian canons. They correspond to

13452-401: The worship of Israel's God in Jerusalem, and fights the wars that will enable the Temple to be built, then Solomon becomes king, builds and dedicates the Temple, and reaps the benefits of prosperity and peace). 1 Chronicles is divided into 29 chapters and 2 Chronicles into 36 chapters. Biblical commentator C. J. Ball suggests that the division into two books introduced by the translators of

13570-509: Was a Syriac translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Peshitta , as well as versions in Coptic (the everyday language of Egypt in the first Christian centuries, descended from ancient Egyptian ), Ethiopic (for use in the Ethiopian church , one of the oldest Christian churches), Armenian (Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as its official religion), and Arabic . Christianity

13688-538: 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 the lingua franca of the early Church. The three most acclaimed early interpreters were Aquila of Sinope , Symmachus the Ebionite , and Theodotion ; in his Hexapla , Origen placed his edition of the Hebrew text beside its transcription in Greek letters and four parallel translations: Aquila's, Symmachus's,

13806-432: Was composed probably around 400 BCE by Jews living in the eastern provinces of the Persian empire and reached its final form by the 2nd century BCE; concerns over the legitimacy of certain passages in the Hebrew text led to the identification of the additions to Esther in the Greek translation of Esther of the late 2nd or early 1st century BCE. Tobit is set in the 8th century BCE and is named after its central character,

13924-618: Was probably composed around 169/8–165/4, when Antiochus IV was oppressing the Jews. The Song of the Three Holy Children (i.e., the three thrown into the furnace) may have been composed by priestly circles in Jerusalem. Susanna may have been composed around 170–130 BCE in the context of the Hellenisation struggle. Bel and the Dragon is difficult to date, but the late 6th century is possible. Jerome 's translation of

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