Old Testament

The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon. It is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites, but differs from the Jewish canon in order, textual tradition, and, in some Christian traditions, contents. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in Koine Greek. 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 Pentateuch or the first five books (which corresponds to the Jewish Torah); the Historical books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon; the Poetic Books, which explore themes of human experience, morality, and divine justice; and the Prophetic books, warning of the consequences of turning away from God. The Old Testament canon differs among Christian denominations. The Catholic canon contains 46, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches include up to 49 books, and the Protestant Bible typically has 39. Most of these books are shared across all Christian canons, corresponding to the 24 books of the Tanakh but with differences in order and text. Some books found in Christian Bibles, but not in the Hebrew canon, are called deuterocanonical books, mostly originating from the Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Catholic and Orthodox churches include these, while most Protestant Bibles exclude them, though some Anglican and Lutheran versions place them in a separate section called Apocrypha. Because the term "Old Testament" is used within Christianity, the same texts may be interpreted differently in Christian and Jewish traditions. Christian interpretation has often read passages of the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, while Jewish interpretation does not treat these writings as part of an "old" covenant superseded by a New Testament. While early histories of the ancient Israel and Judah were largely based on biblical accounts, their reliability has been increasingly questioned over time. Key debates have focused on the historicity of the Patriarchs, the Exodus, the Israelite conquest, and the United Monarchy, with archaeological evidence often challenging these narratives. Mainstream scholarship generally takes a skeptical but balanced approach to historical material from the 9th century BC onward; some chronologically later biblical traditions align with archaeological findings.