The Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures (also called the Hebrew Bible) constitutes the first major part of the Bible according to Christianity. It is usually divided into the categories of law, history, poetry (or wisdom books) and prophecy. All of these books were written before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the subject of the subsequent Christian New Testament. The Bible of Jesus is the Old Testament, specifically according to the Gospel of Luke 24:44–45 "written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms .. the scriptures".

Historicity of the Old Testament

Current debate concerning the historicity of the Old Testament can be divided into several camps. One group has been labeled "biblical minimalists" by its critics. Minimalists (e.g., Philip Davies, Thompson, Seters) see very little reliable history in any of the Old Testament. Conservative Old Testament scholars, "biblical maximalists", generally accept the historicity of most Old Testament narratives (save the accounts in Gen 1–11) on confessional grounds, and Fundamentalist Christian Egyptologists (e.g., Kenneth Kitchen) argue that such a belief is not incompatible with the external evidence. While other scholars (e.g., William Dever) are somewhere in between: they see clear signs of evidence for the monarchy and much of Israel's later history, though they doubt the Exodus and Conquest. The vast majority of scholars at American universities are somewhere between biblical minimalism and maximalism; there are still many maximalists at conservative/evangelical seminaries, while there are very few biblical minimalists at any American universities. Interestingly, both Kitchen and archaeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University are probably the only scholars from the maximalist and minimalist camps who are sufficiently trained to address these questions with the necessary sophistication—both are giants in their fields—and both come to different conclusions.

Contemporary Israeli archaeologists have now rejected much of the Deuteronomistic history of the Old Testament. Notably, Finkelstein and Neal Asher Silberman have written popular books detailing the now widespread consensus that many of the most well known Biblical stories are incompatible with the archaeology of the region. Among the Biblical events now adjudged to be largely, if not completely ahistorical include the patriarchal histories, the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, the Exodus, the sojourn of the Israelites in the Sinai Peninsula, the conquest of Cannan by Joshua and a united kingdom under David and Solomon. The very existence of David and Solomon is a matter of debate but the archaeology of the region shows that Judea, during the alleged time of David and Solomon, was little more than a small local chiefdom in the southern highlands which never controlled the much richer and more populated regions of the north.

See also Biblical archaeology and The Bible.

Naming of the Old Testament

This may be understood to be the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel

And in book 4, chapter 6, he wrote:

For it is certain that the whole aim at which he has strenuously laboured even in the drawing up of his Antitheses, centres in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to this rival god, and as alien from the law and the prophets.

Lactantius, in the 3rd century, in his Divine Institutes, book 4, chapter 20, wrote:

But all Scripture is divided into two Testaments. That which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old; but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The Jews make use of the Old, we of the New: but yet they are not discordant, for the New is the fulfilling of the Old, and in both there is the same testator, even Christ, who, having suffered death for us, made us heirs of His everlasting kingdom, the people of the Jews being deprived and disinherited. As the prophet Jeremiah testifies when he speaks such things: [Jer 31:31–32] "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new testament to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they continued not in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord." .. For that which He said above, that He would make a new testament to the house of Judah, shows that the old testament which was given by Moses was not perfect; but that that which was to be given by Christ would be complete.

The Vulgate translation, in the 5th century, used testamentum in 2 Corinthians 3:

(6) Who also hath made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter but in the spirit. For the letter killeth: but the spirit quickeneth. (Douay-Rheims)(14) But their senses were made dull. For, until this present day, the selfsame veil, in the reading of the old testament, remaineth not taken away (because in Christ it is made void). (Douay-Rheims)

However, the more modern NRSV translates these verses from the Koine Greek as such:

(6) Who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.(14) But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside.

The term "Old Testament" is a translation of the Latin Vetus Testamentum, which translates the Greek η Παλαια Διαθηκη, hē Palaia Diathēkē, meaning "The Old Covenant (or Testament)". Some believe Christians came to call this group of books the Old Testament because of a belief taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews and based on Jeremiah 31:31–34 that Jesus of Nazareth established a New Covenant or testament between God and mankind. This new covenant is said to be in contrast with the covenant made through Moses during the Exodus (Heb 8:9; Jer 31:32). Books written after Jesus established this new covenant or testament are thus called the books of the new covenant/testament, or simply the New Testament. The earlier books are then called the books of the Old Testament in contrast. This is due to a level of ambiguity concerning the translation of diatheke—which can be read as either testament or covenant. Also, though not a commonly held view, not all Christians believe there is a contrast, first proposed by Marcion of Sinope, between the Old and New Testaments.

Most Jews accept as Scripture the same books as those found in the Protestant Old Testament, though the ordering of the books in the Jewish Bible differs from that of the Protestant English Old Testament. However, because Judaism does not accept the books of the New Testament as Scripture, they do not label their Bible "the Old Testament". For Jews the books of the Protestant Old Testament are simply "the Bible". Since the books of the Jewish Bible were written primarily in Hebrew (with some Aramaic see also: Aramaic of Jesus), the Bible of Judaism is also called "the Hebrew Bible". The term "Hebrew Bible" is a theologically neutral term as compared with "the Old Testament", which is distinctively Christian. Another Jewish term for the Jewish Bible/Old Testament is Tanakh, which is short for Torah, Nebi'im, and Ketubim, or Law, Prophets and Writings, the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible.

Twenty-first-century Christian theologian Marva Dawn has advocated calling the Old Testament the First Testament, freeing the writings from any trace of irrelevancy associated with aging in western culture. However, Dawn's label has not yet gained much popularity, although teachers of religious education in the United Kingdom have been advised to avoid using "Old Testament" because of the same reasons.

Christian view of the Law

While some Christians from time to time have deduced from statements about the law in the writings of the apostle Paul that Christians are under grace to the exclusion of all law (see antinomianism, hyperdispensationalism), this is not the usual viewpoint of Christians. An example of one more common approach is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), which divides the Mosaic laws into three categories: moral, civil, and ceremonial. In the view of the Westminster divines, only the moral law such as most of the Ten Commandments directly applies to Christians today. Others limit the application of the Mosaic laws to those commands repeated in the New Testament. In the 1970s and 1980s, a movement known as Christian Reconstructionism (Theonomy) argued that the civil laws as well as the moral laws should be applied in today's society as part of establishing a modern theonomic state. Others are content to grant that none of the Mosaic laws apply as such and that the penalties attached to the laws were limited to the particular historical and theological setting of the Old Testament, and yet still seek to find moral and religious principles applicable for today in all parts of the law. The topic of Paul and the law is still frequently debated among New Testament scholars, for example, see New Perspective on Paul.

In the late 20th century, some Christian groups, primarily those found in or influenced by Messianic Judaism, have asserted that Torah laws should be followed by Christians. Due to a different understanding of Biblical passages such as those referenced above, dietary laws, seventh day Sabbath, and Biblical festival days are observed in some way within such segments of Christianity. As with Orthodox Judaism, capital punishment and sacrifice are not practiced because there are strict Biblical conditions on how these are to be practiced. Most Christians who attempt to follow Torah law do not do such works in order to achieve justification and hence salvation, but rather because they believe is it a way of more fully obeying God.

see also: books of the bible