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157-521: The Old Testament is the first section of the two-part Christian biblical canon ; the second section is the New Testament . The Old Testament includes the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or protocanon , and in various Christian denominations also includes deuterocanonical books . Orthodox Christians , Catholics and Protestants use different canons, which differ with respect to

314-418: A Jewish priest . His older full-blooded brother was also, like his father, called Matthias. Their mother was an aristocratic woman who was descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty . Josephus's paternal grandparents were a man also named Joseph(us) and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman—distant relatives of each other. Josephus's family was wealthy. He descended through his father from

471-607: A virgin (Greek παρθένος ) that shall conceive. While the Hebrew text was, according to Irenaeus, at that time interpreted by Theodotion and Aquila (both proselytes of the Jewish faith) as a young woman that shall conceive. According to Irenaeus, the Ebionites used this to claim that Joseph was the (biological) father of Jesus. From Irenaeus' point of view that was pure heresy, facilitated by (late) anti-Christian alterations of

628-602: A Greek Jewish woman from Crete , who was a member of a distinguished family. They had two sons, Flavius Justus and Flavius Simonides Agrippa. Josephus's life story remains ambiguous. He was described by Harris in 1985 as a law-observant Jew who believed in the compatibility of Judaism and Graeco-Roman thought, commonly referred to as Hellenistic Judaism . Josippon , the Hebrew version of Josephus, contains changes. His critics were never satisfied as to why he failed to commit suicide in Galilee, and after his capture, accepted

785-476: A Roman onslaught. In Upper Galilee , he fortified the towns of Jamnith , Seph , Mero , and Achabare , among other places. Josephus, with the Galileans under his command, managed to bring both Sepphoris and Tiberias into subjection, but was eventually forced to relinquish his hold on Sepphoris by the arrival of Roman forces under Placidus the tribune and later by Vespasian himself. Josephus first engaged

942-551: A brief visit to Rome in the early 60s ( Life 13–17). In the wake of the suppression of the Jewish revolt, Josephus would have witnessed the marches of Titus 's triumphant legions leading their Jewish captives, and carrying treasures from the despoiled Temple in Jerusalem . It was against this background that Josephus wrote his War . He blames the Jewish War on what he calls "unrepresentative and over-zealous fanatics" among

1099-584: A complete list of the canonical books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament (also known as the 'Gelasian Decree' because it was reproduced by Gelasius in 495), which is identical with the list given at Trent ." Albeit that users of the two lists will have differed slightly in applying them, in that the 'first book of Ezra' in the Old Latin version was commonly cited as representing

1256-609: A detailed examination of all the available manuscripts, mainly from France and Spain. Henry St. John Thackeray and successors such as Ralph Marcus used Niese's version for the Loeb Classical Library edition widely used today. On the Jewish side, Josephus was far more obscure, as he was perceived as a traitor. Rabbinical writings for a millennium after his death (e.g. the Mishnah ) almost never call out Josephus by name, although they sometimes tell parallel tales of

1413-462: A later date of 1056 AD, as written in the manuscript. Audet notes that it summarizes 27 books, which by traditional grouping forms 22 books of the canon: "Jesus (son of) Naue" was an old name for the Book of Joshua . The "Two of Esdras" are linked in the list to Esdras A and Esdras B from the surviving pandect witnesses to Septuagint , but otherwise Audet proposed that the 'further' book of Esdras in

1570-670: A person of great experience in everything belonging to his own nation, he attained to that remarkable familiarity with his country in every part, which his antiquarian researches so abundantly evince. But he was controlled by political motives: his great purpose was to bring his people, the despised Jewish race, into honour with the Greeks and Romans; and this purpose underlay every sentence, and filled his history with distortions and exaggerations. Josephus mentions that in his day there were 240 towns and villages scattered across Upper and Lower Galilee , some of which he names. Josephus's works are

1727-462: 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

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1884-608: 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

2041-640: 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

2198-531: 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

2355-917: A significant, extra-Biblical account of the post-Exilic period of the Maccabees , the Hasmonean dynasty, and the rise of Herod the Great . He also describes the Sadducees , the Pharisees and Essenes , the Herodian Temple, Quirinius 's census and the Zealots , and such figures as Pontius Pilate , Herod the Great , Agrippa I and Agrippa II , John the Baptist , James the brother of Jesus , and Jesus . Josephus represents an important source for studies of immediate post-Temple Judaism and

2512-405: A single manuscript book called a 'pandect bible'. Pandect volumes in the subsequent centuries, up to the ninth century, demonstrate how the formal canon lists of Christian scriptures were applied in practice. Altogether, seven (relatively complete) Greek manuscripts of the whole bible now survive, with a further two relatively complete Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament. Four of these pre-date

2669-524: A systematic order, proceeding topically and logically" and included all relevant material for their subject. Antiquarians moved beyond political history to include institutions and religious and private life. Josephus does offer this wider perspective in Antiquities . The works of Josephus are major sources of our understanding of Jewish life and history during the first century. His first work in Rome

2826-548: 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

2983-642: 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

3140-468: Is damaged in some places. In the Life , Niese follows mainly manuscript P, but refers also to AMW and R. Henry St. John Thackeray for the Loeb Classical Library has a Greek text also mainly dependent on P. André Pelletier edited a new Greek text for his translation of Life . The ongoing Münsteraner Josephus-Ausgabe of Münster University will provide a new critical apparatus. Late Old Slavonic translations of

3297-560: Is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them. Josephus mentions Ezra and Nehemiah in Antiquities of

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3454-490: Is intentional, or whether they were originally present in pages that are no longer extant. Together with the, slightly later Codex Alexandrinus , Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are the earliest extant complete Christian Bibles. Alexandrinus includes all four Books of Maccabees, both books of Esdras, Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah ; and also the Book of Odes , which is not otherwise commonly presented as canonical. Psalm 151

3611-530: 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

3768-550: 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

3925-537: Is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed, with some scholars arguing that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty (140-40 BCE), while others arguing that it was not fixed until the 2nd century CE or even later. According to Marc Zvi Brettler , the Jewish scriptures outside the Torah and the Prophets were fluid, with different groups seeing authority in different books. Michael Barber says that

4082-423: Is repentance: in later life he felt so bad about the traitorous War that he needed to demonstrate … his loyalty to Jewish history, law and culture." However, Josephus's "countless incidental remarks explaining basic Judean language, customs and laws … assume a Gentile audience. He does not expect his first hearers to know anything about the laws or Judean origins." The issue of who would read this multi-volume work

4239-615: Is retitled as 'the autobiographical Psalm 1'. There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon , however, Jerome (347–420), in his Prologue to Judith , makes the claim that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures". In these complete bibles: - the books of Tobit , Judith , Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach are always included; - except for

4396-735: 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

4553-423: 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

4710-538: Is unresolved. Other possible motives for writing Antiquities could be to dispel the misrepresentation of Jewish origins or as an apologetic to Greek cities of the Diaspora in order to protect Jews and to Roman authorities to garner their support for the Jews facing persecution. Josephus was a very popular writer with Christians in the 4th century and beyond as an independent source to the events before, during, and after

4867-605: 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 ,

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5024-652: The Decretum Gelasianum is correctly associated with it, issued a biblical canon list substantially identical with that given at Trent , or if not the list is at least a 6th-century compilation claiming a 4th-century imprimatur. He was encouraged his personal secretary, Jerome , in the Vulgate translation of the Bible. Damasus's commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible was instrumental in

5181-612: The Haskalah ("Jewish Enlightenment") in the 19th century, when sufficiently "neutral" vernacular language translations were made. Kalman Schulman finally created a Hebrew translation of the Greek text of Josephus in 1863, although many rabbis continued to prefer the Yosippon version. By the 20th century, Jewish attitudes toward Josephus had softened, as he gave the Jews a respectable place in classical history. Various parts of his work were reinterpreted as more inspiring and favorable to

5338-411: The nomen Flavius from his patrons, as was the custom amongst freedmen . Vespasian arranged for Josephus to marry a captured Jewish woman, whom he later divorced. Around the year 71, Josephus married an Alexandrian Jewish woman as his third wife. They had three sons, of whom only Flavius Hyrcanus survived childhood. Josephus later divorced his third wife. Around 75, he married his fourth wife,

5495-482: 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,

5652-738: 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

5809-526: 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

5966-461: The Church of Constantinople . Athanasius ( Apol. Const. 4 ) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else 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 may be examples of these Bibles. Those codices include substantially all of

6123-651: The Egyptians , who, in turn, taught the Greeks . Moses set up a senatorial priestly aristocracy, which, like that of Rome, resisted monarchy . The great figures of the Tanakh are presented as ideal philosopher-leaders. He includes an autobiographical appendix defending his conduct at the end of the war when he cooperated with the Roman forces. Louis H. Feldman outlines the difference between calling this work Antiquities of

6280-513: 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

6437-462: The Maccabees , which disputation exists whether the Hebrews of his day regarded the Maccabees as canonical or not. For Origen himself quotes Maccabees and the rest of the related apocryphal books continuously throughout his writings as scripture and testifies that the churches use books which the Hebrews do not. Origen also refers to doubts about the canonicity of the book of Wisdom . The books of

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6594-658: The Roman army led by military commander Vespasian after the six-week siege of Yodfat . Josephus claimed the Jewish messianic prophecies that initiated the First Jewish–Roman War made reference to Vespasian becoming Roman emperor . In response, Vespasian decided to keep him as a slave and presumably interpreter . After Vespasian became emperor in AD ;69, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed

6751-578: 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

6908-705: 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

7065-623: 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

7222-625: The 'confirmation of the doctrine of the Church', to borrow Jerome's phrase." Following Martin Luther , Protestants regard the deuterocanonical books as apocryphal (non-canonical). According to J. N. D. Kelly , "It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church… always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deuterocanonical books." After Melito's canon (ca 170), perhaps

7379-617: The 17th century. The 1544 Greek edition formed the basis of the 1732 English translation by William Whiston , which achieved enormous popularity in the English-speaking world. It was often the book—after the Bible—that Christians most frequently owned. Whiston claimed that certain works by Josephus had a similar style to the Epistles of St. Paul . Later editions of the Greek text include that of Benedikt Niese , who made

7536-419: The 27 books of the New Testament . In compiling his index of the Old Testament, Luther drew from the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, which was still an open canon as late as 200 and probably even after the Catholic canon was set in 382. Following Jerome 's Veritas Hebraica (truth of the Hebrew) principle, the Protestant Old Testament consists of the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but the order and division of

7693-490: The Apocrypha from the Bible, leading to the removal of these books in later Nonconformist Protestant Bible publications in the English-speaking world, though Lutherans and Anglicans retained these books as an intertestamental section that are regarded as non-canonical but useful for instruction. To counter the growing influence of the Reformers, the fourth session of the Catholic Council of Trent in 1546 confirmed that listed deuterocanonical books were equally authoritative as

7850-410: The Books of Samuel and Kings , explains the following: "To the third class belong the Hagiographa , of which the first book begins with Job, ... the eighth, Ezra, which itself is likewise divided amongst Greeks and Latins into two books; the ninth is Esther." In the Septuagint version 1 Esdras is 'Esdras A' and Ezra–Nehemiah is 'Esdras B'. Pope Damasus I is often considered to be the father of

8007-461: The Catholic canon. Purporting to date from a " Council of Rome " under Pope Damasus I in 382, the so-called "Damasian list" appended to the Decretum Gelasianum gives the same list as that which would be accepted by Canon of Trent and, though the text may in fact not be Damasian, it is at least a valuable sixth century compilation. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church states that, "A council probably held at Rome in 382 under St. Damasus gave

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8164-448: The Codex Vaticanus, some of the books of Maccabees are always included, varying as to which; - in the Greek and Old Latin tradition, both 1 Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah are included separately, in the Syriac and Vulgate traditions only Ezra-Nehemiah is included; - Ezra-Nehemiah is never split into two books, although the Codex Alexandrinus and the Syriac tradition introduce a sub-heading, "the words of Nehemiah son of Achalia" where

8321-497: The Deuterocanonicals, Ezekiel, Ruth, Lamentations and Ecclesiastes. The Early Christian Church used the Greek texts since Greek was a lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time, and the language of the Greco-Roman Church ( Aramaic was the language of Syriac Christianity ). The Septuagint seems to have been a major source for the Apostles , but it is not the only one. St. Jerome offered, for example, Matt 2:15 and 2:23, John 19:37, John 7:38, 1 Cor. 2:9. as examples not found in

8478-399: The Emperor's family name of Flavius . Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship . He became an advisor and close associate of Vespasian's son Titus , serving as his translator during Titus's protracted siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, which resulted in the near-total razing of the city and the destruction of the Second Temple . Josephus recorded

8635-414: The Essenes perhaps did not esteem the book of Esther highly as manuscripts of Esther are completely absent in Qumran, likely because of their opposition to mixed marriages and the use of different calendars. Philo referred to a threefold canon of the Old Testament, but never made a clear list of all the books of the canon, he cites the books of Moses as inspired, but never quotes Daniel, the Song of Songs,

8792-408: The Galileans and by the Romans; he was guilty of shocking duplicity at Jotapata, saving himself by sacrifice of his companions; he was too naive to see how he stood condemned out of his own mouth for his conduct, and yet no words were too harsh when he was blackening his opponents; and after landing, however involuntarily, in the Roman camp, he turned his captivity to his own advantage, and benefited for

8949-445: The Great Jewish Revolt (AD 66–70), including the siege of Masada . His most important works were The Jewish War ( c.  75 ) and Antiquities of the Jews ( c.  94). The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Greek and Roman audience. These works provide insight into first-century Judaism and

9106-444: The Greek also exist, but these contain a large number of Christian interpolations. Author Joseph Raymond calls Josephus "the Jewish Benedict Arnold " for betraying his own troops at Jotapata, while historian Mary Smallwood , in the introduction to the translation of The Jewish War by G. A. Williamson , writes: [Josephus] was conceited, not only about his own learning, but also about the opinions held of him as commander both by

9263-428: The Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes,

9420-426: 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

9577-417: The Hebrew Bible had been conventionally recorded on scrolls , commonly a separate scroll for each book; except for the twelve Minor Prophets which were always written as a single scroll. But the developing technology of the codex had, by the beginning of the 4th century CE, advanced to the point where it had become possible to gather the whole of the Christian Old Testament, and indeed the entire bible, into

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9734-404: The Hebrew Bible was "Holy Scripture" but was to be understood and interpreted in the light of Christian convictions. While deuterocanonical books were referenced by some fathers as Scripture, men such as Athanasius held that they were for reading only and not to be used for determination of doctrine. Athanasius includes the Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah in the list of the Canon of

9891-415: The Hebrew Bible, translated from the Greek and Aramaic, or derived from the Old Latin . His Preface to The Books of Samuel and Kings includes the following statement, commonly called the Helmeted Preface : Old Testament 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:

10048-488: 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

10205-433: The Hebrews given by Origen of Alexandria : The twenty-two books of the Hebrews are the following: That which is called by us Genesis; Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers; Jesus, the son of Nave (Joshua book); Judges and Ruth in one book; the First and Second of Kings (1 Samuel and 2 Samuel) in one; the Third and Fourth of Kings (1 Kings and 2 Kings) in one; of the Chronicles, the First and Second in one; Esdras (Ezra–Nehemiah) in one;

10362-410: The Jewish canon, although scholars were still wrestling with problems of the authority of certain writings at the time that he was writing. Barber says that Josephus' 22 books were not universally accepted, since other Jewish communities used more than 22 books. In 1871, Heinrich Graetz concluded that there had been a Council of Jamnia (or Yavne in Hebrew) which had decided Jewish canon sometime in

10519-409: The Jews (Book XI, Chapter 5) and Esther (during the rule of Artaxerxes) in Chapter 6. The canon is until the reign of Artaxerxes as mentioned by Josephus in Against Apion (Book 1, Paragraph 8). For a long time, following this date, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny. According to Gerald A. Larue , Josephus' listing represents what came to be

10676-412: The Jews (cf. Life 430) – where the author for the most part re-visits the events of the War and his tenure in Galilee as governor and commander, apparently in response to allegations made against him by Justus of Tiberias (cf. Life 336). Josephus's Against Apion is a two-volume defence of Judaism as classical religion and philosophy , stressing its antiquity, as opposed to what Josephus claimed

10833-411: The Jews , completed during the last year of the reign of the Emperor Flavius Domitian , around 93 or 94 AD. In expounding Jewish history, law and custom, he is entering into many philosophical debates current in Rome at that time. Again he offers an apologia for the antiquity and universal significance of the Jewish people. Josephus claims to be writing this history because he "saw that others perverted

10990-517: The Jews instead of History of the Jews . Although Josephus says that he describes the events contained in Antiquities "in the order of time that belongs to them," Feldman argues that Josephus "aimed to organize [his] material systematically rather than chronologically" and had a scope that "ranged far beyond mere political history to political institutions, religious and private life." An autobiographical text written by Josephus in approximately 94–99 CE – possibly as an appendix to his Antiquities of

11147-419: The Jews than the Renaissance translations by Christians had been. Notably, the last stand at Masada (described in The Jewish War ), which past generations had deemed insane and fanatical, received a more positive reinterpretation as an inspiring call to action in this period. The standard editio maior of the various Greek manuscripts is that of Benedictus Niese , published 1885–95. The text of Antiquities

11304-477: The Jews, who led the masses away from their traditional aristocratic leaders (like himself), with disastrous results. For example, Josephus writes that " Simon [bar Giora] was a greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves." Josephus also blames some of the Roman governors of Judea , representing them as corrupt and incompetent administrators. The next work by Josephus is his 21-volume Antiquities of

11461-763: The LXX as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages. The Eastern Orthodox also use LXX (Septuagint) untranslated where Greek is the liturgical language, e.g. in the Orthodox Church of Constantinople , the Church of Greece and the Cypriot Orthodox Church . Critical translations of the Old Testament , while using the Masoretic Text as their basis, consult the Septuagint as well as other versions in an attempt to reconstruct

11618-647: The Old Latin version. After the 9th century, pandect bibles in the Latin West become much more common, and following the emergence of the Paris Bibles in the 13th century they are numbered in thousands, but these late medieval bibles (and all the printed editions derived from them) differ greatly in text, arrangement and contents from the Vulgate Latin bibles in their original form. In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for

11775-584: 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 the 24 books of

11932-405: 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

12089-527: The Old Testament, and excludes the Book of Esther . According to the Catholic Encyclopedia , "the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to

12246-400: 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

12403-593: 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

12560-403: The Roman army at a village called Garis , where he launched an attack against Sepphoris a second time, before being repulsed. At length, he resisted the Roman army in its siege of Yodfat (Jotapata) until it fell to the Roman army in the lunar month of Tammuz , in the thirteenth year of Nero 's reign. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands;

12717-442: The Roman forces and became prisoners. In 69 AD, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, during which time his parents were held as hostages by Simon bar Giora . While being confined at Yodfat (Jotapata), Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation that later led to his speech predicting Vespasian would become emperor. After

12874-648: 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

13031-423: The Septuagint as presenting a "variety of versions" (exemplaria varietas) of the same Hebrew text; Jerome consequently translated Hebrew Ezra-Nehemiah as a single book, replacing both Greek Esdras A and Esdras B. In the prologue to Ezra Jerome further rejects the "third and fourth" books of Ezra as apocryphal. These apocryphal books correspond to 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras In the same way Jerome, in his Preface of

13188-459: 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

13345-526: The Septuagint, but in Hebrew texts. (Matt 2:23 is not present in current Masoretic tradition either, though according to St. Jerome it was in Isaiah 11:1.) The New Testament writers, when citing the Jewish scriptures, or when quoting Jesus doing so, freely used the Greek translation, implying that Jesus, his Apostles, and their followers considered it reliable. In the Early Christian Church ,

13502-735: The Syriac Peshitta , the Latin Vulgate , the Greek Septuagint , the Ethiopian Bible and other canons, are more substantial. Many of these canons include books and sections of books that the others do not. For a more comprehensive discussion of these differences, see Books of the Bible . The Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) consists of 24 books of the Masoretic Text recognized by Rabbinic Judaism . There

13659-734: 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

13816-665: 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

13973-460: The actions of both parties with accuracy." Josephus confesses he will be unable to contain his sadness in transcribing these events; to illustrate this will have little effect on his historiography, Josephus suggests, "But if any one be inflexible in his censures of me, let him attribute the facts themselves to the historical part, and the lamentations to the writer himself only." His preface to Antiquities offers his opinion early on, saying, "Upon

14130-459: The ancient geography of the region: Outside of the Scriptures, Josephus holds the first and the only place among the native authors of Judaea; for Philo of Alexandria, the later Talmud, and other authorities, are of little service in understanding the geography of the country. Josephus is, however, to be used with great care. As a Jewish scholar, as an officer of Galilee, as a military man, and

14287-470: The apocrypha is overstated". Augustine simply wanted a new version of the Latin Bible based on the Greek text since the Septuagint was widely used throughout the churches and translation process could not rely on a single person (Jerome) who could be fallible; he in fact held that the Hebrew and the Septuagint were both equally inspired, as stated in his City of God 18.43-44. For most Early Christians,

14444-427: The background of Early Christianity . Josephus's works are the chief source next to the Bible for the history and antiquity of ancient Israel , and provide an independent extra-biblical account of such figures as Pontius Pilate , Herod the Great , John the Baptist , James, brother of Jesus , and Jesus of Nazareth . Josephus was born into one of Jerusalem's elite families. He was the second-born son of Matthias,

14601-563: The book of Psalms; the Proverbs of Solomon; Ecclesiastes; the Song of Songs; Isaiah; Jeremiah, with Lamentations and the epistle (of Jeremiah) in one; Daniel; Ezekiel; Job; Esther. And besides these there are the Maccabees. Origen's list excludes the Twelve Minor Prophets , apparently by accident; but includes the Epistle of Jeremiah (perhaps referring Baruch as an appendix to Jeremiah ) and

14758-495: The books are different. Protestants number the Old Testament books at 39, while the Hebrew Bible numbers the same books as 24. The Hebrew Bible counts Samuel , Kings , and Chronicles as one book each, the 12 minor prophets are one book, and also Ezra and Nehemiah form a single book . The differences between the modern Hebrew Bible and other versions of the Old Testament such as the Samaritan Pentateuch ,

14915-536: 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

15072-595: 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 ,

15229-537: The canonical book of Ezra in the 4th and 5th centuries; while the corresponding Latin version of 3 Esdras found in the Vulgate tradition in the 16th century was not to be recognised as canonical in the Council of Trent. In his Vulgate's prologues , Jerome argued for Veritas Hebraica , meaning the truth of the Hebrew text over the Septuagint and Old Latin translations. Vulgate Old Testament included books outside of

15386-685: The context of early Christianity . A careful reading of Josephus's writings and years of excavation allowed Ehud Netzer , an archaeologist from Hebrew University , to discover what he considered to be the location of Herod's Tomb , after searching for 35 years. It was above aqueducts and pools, at a flattened desert site, halfway up the hill to the Herodium , 12 km south of Jerusalem—as described in Josephus's writings. In October 2013, archaeologists Joseph Patrich and Benjamin Arubas challenged

15543-478: The deuterocanonical books is found in the early Koine Greek Septuagint translation of the Jewish scriptures. This translation was widely used by the Early Christians , survives as the Old Testament in the early Greek pandect Bibles, and is the one most often quoted (300 of 350 quotations including many of Jesus' own words) in the New Testament when it quotes the Old Testament. Other, older versions of

15700-524: The difference between history and philosophy by saying, "[T]hose that read my book may wonder how it comes to pass, that my discourse, which promises an account of laws and historical facts, contains so much of philosophy." In both works, Josephus emphasizes that accuracy is crucial to historiography. Louis H. Feldman notes that in Wars , Josephus commits himself to critical historiography, but in Antiquities , Josephus shifts to rhetorical historiography, which

15857-465: 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

16014-477: The earliest and most explicit evidence of a Hebrew canonical list comes from Jewish historian Josephus (37CE – c. 100CE) who wrote about a canon used by Jews in the first century AD. In Against Apion (Book 1, Paragraph 8), Josephus in 95 CE divided sacred scriptures into three parts: 5 books of the Torah , 13 books of the prophets, and 4 books of hymns: For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as

16171-822: The earliest reference to a Christian canon is the Bryennios List which was found by Philotheos Bryennios in the Codex Hierosolymitanus in the library of the monastery of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1873. The list is written in Koine Greek letters, transcribing Aramaic or Hebrew names, each with a corresponding book title from the Greek Septuagint; and is dated to the first or early second century by Jean-Paul Audet in 1950. Some scholars believe it should be assigned

16328-432: The entourage of Titus. There, he became a Roman citizen and client of the ruling Flavian dynasty . In addition to Roman citizenship , he was granted accommodation in the conquered Judaea and a pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works. Although he only ever calls himself "Josephus" in his writings, later historians refer to him as "Flavius Josephus", confirming that he adopted

16485-580: 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". Josephus Flavius Josephus ( / dʒ oʊ ˈ s iː f ə s / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Ἰώσηπος , Iṓsēpos ; c.  AD 37  – c.  100 ) or Yosef ben Mattityahu ( Hebrew : יוֹסֵף בֵּן מַתִּתְיָהוּ )

16642-488: The fall of Jerusalem , and the subsequent fall of the fortresses of Herodion, Macharont and Masada and the Roman victory celebrations in Rome, the mopping-up operations, Roman military operations elsewhere in the empire and the uprising in Cyrene . Together with the account in his Life of some of the same events, it also provides the reader with an overview of Josephus's own part in the events since his return to Jerusalem from

16799-605: 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 the world; and the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God. The books that compose

16956-583: The fixation of the canon in the West . This list, given below, was purportedly endorsed by Pope Damasus I: (only shown the Old Testament part) In the Old Latin bible as shown in the Vercelli manuscript, the two books of Esdras refer to 1 Esdras and Ezra–Nehemiah , corresponding respectively to Esdras A and Esdras B in the Septuagint. In the prologue to Ezra Jerome criticises the two books of Esdras in

17113-514: The founder of the Arabs , the connection of "Semites", "Hamites" and "Japhetites" to the classical nations of the world , and the story of the siege of Masada . Scholars debate about Josephus's intended audience. For example, Antiquities of the Jews could be written for Jews—"a few scholars from Laqueur onward have suggested that Josephus must have written primarily for fellow Jews (if also secondarily for Gentiles). The most common motive suggested

17270-449: The identification of the tomb as that of Herod. According to Patrich and Arubas, the tomb is too modest to be Herod's and has several unlikely features. Roi Porat, who replaced Netzer as excavation leader after the latter's death, stood by the identification. Josephus's writings provide the first-known source for many stories considered as Biblical history, despite not being found in the Bible or related material. These include Ishmael as

17427-526: The late 1st century ( c. 70–90). This became the prevailing scholarly consensus for much of the 20th century. However, the theory of the Council of Jamnia is largely discredited today. 2 Esdras refers to the canon of 24 books which likely refers to the same canon as the Talmud has. We do not know much about the canon of the Essenes , and what their attitude was towards the apocryphal writings, however

17584-474: 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

17741-620: The life of Jesus of Nazareth . Josephus was always accessible in the Greek-reading Eastern Mediterranean. His works were translated into Latin, but often in abbreviated form such as Pseudo-Hegesippus 's 4th century Latin version of The Jewish War ( Bellum Judaicum ). Christian interest in The Jewish War was largely out of interest in the downfall of the Jews and the Second Temple, which

17898-634: The list might have denoted an Aramaic targum . The 22 number of books is common in Jewish lists of antiquity. However, R.T. Beckwith asserts that the Bryennios list "mixes the Prophets and Hagiographa indiscriminately together, it must be of Christian rather than Jewish authorship, and since the use of Aramaic continued in the Palestinian church for centuries, there is no reason to date it so early (first or second century CE)." Marcion of Sinope

18055-432: The meaning of the Hebrew text whenever the latter is unclear, undeniably corrupt, or ambiguous. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches canons include books, called the deuterocanonical books, whose authority was disputed by Rabbi Akiva during the first-century development of the Hebrew Bible canon , although Akiva was not opposed to a private reading of them, as he himself frequently used Sirach . One early record of

18212-594: The modern book of Nehemiah begins. - in the Greek tradition, Baruch , Lamentations and the Letter of Jeremiah are generally distinguished as separate books; in the Syriac tradition, Lamentations is included within Jeremiah, and the other two are separate; in the Vulgate tradition, Lamentations is included within Jeremiah, and Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah are omitted. Pope Damasus I 's Council of Rome in 382, if

18369-684: The ninth century. Pandect bible volumes were also produced for versions of the Bible (and Old Testament) in other languages. Seven complete manuscripts of the Old Testament survive in Syriac, of which three predate the ninth century. Two complete Latin Bibles survive from before the ninth century; of which one, the Codex Amiatinus is entirely in Jerome's Vulgate version, while the other, the León palimpsest mixes books with Vulgate text with others in

18526-567: The order and number of books in the Hebrew Bible, instead seems to follow the order of the books presented in the Septuagint. Melito's list, as cited by Eusebius, as follows: According to Archibald Alexander , "Wisdom" in Melito's list is thought by many to be referring to the Book of Wisdom , which is part of the Deuterocanon , but which others dispute. Book of Esther does not appear in the list. Eusebius also records 22 canonical books of

18683-465: 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

18840-400: The patronage of Romans. The works of Josephus provide information about the First Jewish–Roman War and also represent literary source material for understanding the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls and late Temple Judaism. Josephan scholarship in the 19th and early 20th centuries took an interest in Josephus's relationship to the sect of the Pharisees . Some portrayed him as a member of

18997-708: The people of Tiberias appealed to King Agrippa 's forces to protect them from the insurgents. Josephus trained 65,000 troops in the region. Josephus also contended with John of Gischala who had also set his sight over the control of Galilee. Like Josephus, John had amassed to himself a large band of supporters from Gischala (Gush Halab) and Gabara , including the support of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Josephus fortified several towns and villages in Lower Galilee , among which were Tiberias, Bersabe , Selamin , Japha , and Tarichaea , in anticipation of

19154-480: The philosophical school of the Pharisees as a matter of deference, and not by willing association. The works of Josephus include useful material for historians about individuals, groups, customs, and geographical places. However, modern historians have been cautious of taking his writings at face value. For example, Carl Ritter , in his highly influential Erdkunde in the 1840s, wrote in a review of authorities on

19311-484: The phrase " Old Testament ", which is associated with Supersessionism . The first list of Old Testament books compiled by a Christian source is recorded by the 4th century historian Eusebius . Eusebius describes the collection of a 2nd century bishop, Melito of Sardis . Melito's list , dated to circa 170, the result of a trip to the Holy Land (probably the famous library at Caesarea Maritima ) to determine both

19468-454: The prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. Josephus wrote that his revelation had taught him three things: that God, the creator of the Jewish people, had decided to "punish" them; that "fortune" had been given to the Romans; and that God had chosen him "to announce the things that are to come". To many Jews, such claims were simply self-serving. In 71 AD, he went to Rome as part of

19625-407: The presumption that the Septuagint (LXX) was translated by Jews before the era of Christ, and that the Septuagint at certain places gives itself more to a christological interpretation than 2nd-century Hebrew texts was taken as evidence that "Jews" had changed the Hebrew text in a way that made them less Christological. For example, Irenaeus concerning Isaiah 7:14 : The Septuagint clearly writes of

19782-456: The priestly order of the Jehoiarib , which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem . Josephus calls himself a fourth-generation descendant of " High Priest Jonathan", referring to either Jonathan Apphus or Alexander Jannaeus . He was raised in Jerusalem and educated alongside his brother. In his mid twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for

19939-493: The primary source for the chain of Jewish high priests during the Second Temple period. A few of the Jewish customs named by him include the practice of hanging a linen curtain at the entrance to one's house, and the Jewish custom to partake of a Sabbath-day 's meal around the sixth-hour of the day (at noon). He notes also that it was permissible for Jewish men to marry many wives ( polygamy ). His writings provide

20096-494: The prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation

20253-431: The protocanonical and the deuterocanonical books. According to this, some Church Fathers accepted the inclusion of the deuterocanonical books based on their inclusion in the Septuagint (most notably Augustine ), while others disputed their status based on their exclusion from the Hebrew Bible (most notably Jerome ). Michael Barber argues that this time-honored reconstruction is grossly inaccurate and that "the case against

20410-460: The protocanonical in the Canon of Trent . in the year Luther died. The deuterocanonical books were previously held to be canonical by the Council of Rome (382 AD), the Synod of Hippo (in 393), followed by the Council of Carthage (397) , the Council of Carthage (419) and the Council of Florence (1442) The New Testament quotations are taken from the Septuagint texts used by the authors of

20567-485: The release of some Jewish priests. Upon his return to Jerusalem, at the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War , Josephus was appointed the military governor of Galilee . His arrival in Galilee, however, was fraught with internal division: the inhabitants of Sepphoris and Tiberias opted to maintain peace with the Romans; the people of Sepphoris enlisted the help of the Roman army to protect their city, while

20724-555: The rest of his days from his change of side. In the Preface to Jewish Wars , Josephus criticizes historians who misrepresent the events of the Jewish–Roman War , writing that "they have a mind to demonstrate the greatness of the Romans, while they still diminish and lessen the actions of the Jews." Josephus states that his intention is to correct this method but that he "will not go to the other extreme ... [and] will prosecute

20881-491: The same events that Josephus narrated. An Italian Jew writing in the 10th century indirectly brought Josephus back to prominence among Jews: he authored the Yosippon , which paraphrases Pseudo-Hegesippus's Latin version of The Jewish War , a Latin version of Antiquities , as well as other works. The epitomist also adds in his own snippets of history at times. Jews generally distrusted Christian translations of Josephus until

21038-472: 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

21195-404: The scripture in Hebrew, as evident by the older, pre-Christian, Septuagint. When Jerome undertook the revision of the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint, he checked the Septuagint against the Hebrew texts that were then available. He broke with church tradition and translated most of the Old Testament of his Vulgate from Hebrew rather than Greek. His denigration of the Septuagint text

21352-466: The sect and as a traitor to the Jewish nation—a view which became known as the classical concept of Josephus. In the mid-20th century, a new generation of scholars challenged this view and formulated the modern concept of Josephus. They consider him a Pharisee but describe him in part as patriot and a historian of some standing. In his 1991 book, Steve Mason argued that Josephus was not a Pharisee but an orthodox Aristocrat-Priest who became associated with

21509-702: 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:

21666-452: 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

21823-473: The survivors committed suicide. According to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 AD. The Romans (commanded by Flavius Vespasian and his son Titus, both subsequently Roman emperors ) asked the group to surrender, but they refused. According to Josephus's account, he suggested a method of collective suicide; they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, and Josephus happened to be one of two men that were left who surrendered to

21980-544: 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

22137-442: 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

22294-418: The texts commonly recognised in the Septuagint ; Vaticanus is only lacking 1–4 Maccabees and Sinaiticus is lacking 2–3 Maccabees. Both Vaticanus and Sinaiticus include Psalm 151 ; though in Vaticanus this psalm is supernumerary, while in Sinaiticus it is listed as canonical. 1 Esdras , Ezra-Nehemiah , Baruch and Letter of Jeremiah are also missing in Sinaiticus, but it cannot be determined whether this

22451-419: The texts in Hebrew, Aramaic , and Greek, have since been discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls and the Cairo Geniza . Nevertheless, the exact content of none of the surviving early Christian Old Testament Greek codex agrees exactly with any of the others, so there is no single definitive list. The traditional explanation of the development of the Old Testament canon describes two sets of Old Testament books,

22608-417: The texts that are included in the Old Testament. Martin Luther , holding to concurrent Jewish and some ancient precedent, excluded all deuterocanonical books from the Old Testament of his translation of the Bible , placing them in a section he labeled " Apocrypha " ("hidden"). The Westminster Confession of Faith , published in 1647, was one of the first Reformed confessions in the English language to exclude

22765-435: 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

22922-485: The truth of those actions in their writings", those writings being the history of the Jews. In terms of some of his sources for the project, Josephus says that he drew from and "interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures" and that he was an eyewitness to the wars between the Jews and the Romans, which were earlier recounted in Jewish Wars . He outlines Jewish history beginning with the creation, as passed down through Jewish historical tradition. Abraham taught science to

23079-457: 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,

23236-465: The whole, a man that will peruse this history, may principally learn from it, that all events succeed well, even to an incredible degree, and the reward of felicity is proposed by God." After inserting this attitude, Josephus contradicts Berossus: "I shall accurately describe what is contained in our records, in the order of time that belongs to them ... without adding any thing to what is therein contained, or taking away any thing therefrom." He notes

23393-405: Was Marcion who usually called his Bible testamentum [Latin for testament]". In the same chapter, Ferguson also says that Tertullian criticizes Marcion regarding the naming of the books in his list. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia , the Marcionites "were perhaps the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known". Other scholars propose that it was Melito of Sardis who originally coined

23550-411: Was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing The Jewish War , he was born in Jerusalem —then part of the Roman province of Judea —to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry . He initially fought against the Roman Empire during the First Jewish–Roman War as general of the Jewish forces in Galilee , until surrendering in AD 67 to

23707-402: 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

23864-422: Was an account of the Jewish War, addressed to certain "upper barbarians"—usually thought to be the Jewish community in Mesopotamia —in his "paternal tongue" ( War I.3), arguably the Western Aramaic language . In AD 78 he finished a seven-volume account in Greek known as the Jewish War ( Latin Bellum Judaicum or De Bello Judaico ). It starts with the period of the Maccabees and concludes with accounts of

24021-482: 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,

24178-469: Was severely criticized by Augustine , his contemporary; a flood of still less moderate criticism came from those who regarded Jerome as a forger. While on the one hand he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds, on the other, in the context of accusations of heresy against him, Jerome would acknowledge the Septuagint texts as well. The Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers to use

24335-431: Was the first Christian leader in recorded history (though later, considered heretical ) to propose and delineate a uniquely Christian canon. He explicitly rejects the Old Testament and pushes his version of the New Testament to be the Christian canon. Irenaeus wrote: With different perspective, Tertullian said: Everett Ferguson, in chapter 18 of The Canon Debate , makes a note that: "[Wolfram] Kinzig suggests that it

24492-520: Was the norm of his time. Feldman notes further that it is significant that Josephus called his later work "Antiquities" (literally, archaeology) rather than history; in the Hellenistic period, archaeology meant either "history from the origins or archaic history." Thus, his title implies a Jewish peoples' history from their origins until the time he wrote. This distinction is significant to Feldman, because "in ancient times, historians were expected to write in chronological order," while "antiquarians wrote in

24649-519: Was widely considered divine punishment for the crime of killing Jesus . Improvements in printing technology (the Gutenberg Press ) led to his works receiving a number of new translations into the vernacular languages of Europe, generally based on the Latin versions. Only in 1544 did a version of the standard Greek text become available in French, edited by the Dutch humanist Arnoldus Arlenius . The first English translation, by Thomas Lodge , appeared in 1602, with subsequent editions appearing throughout

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