Old Testament

The Old Testament

The Hebrew scriptures were far more than ancient writings. They are still revered today as a love letter from God. To grasp what the Old Testament is about, think of them as revolving around some key concepts:

Providence - The Old Testament manifests a constant awareness that the God who created all is involved with His creation and active in human history.

People - The people who are descended from the great patriarchs--Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--are chosen and set apart by God for unique service in, to, and for the world.

Place - The land of Israel promised to this people by God if they would faithfully follow Him.

Promise - This people and God were united by a covenant, or agreement, that God would be with them, guide them, bless them, if they would follow His ways.

Prophecy - Warnings against injustice, idolatry, and social evil, and prophecy predicting future events, including the coming Messiah to save and deliver.

The Old Testament Books

Law
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy

History
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 and 2 Samuel
1 and 2 Kings
1 and 2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Ester

Wisdom
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiates
Song of Solomon

Prophets
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel

Minor (or shorter)
Prophets
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

Gathering the Collection

The Old Testament collection was written over many centuries as we have noted. Scholars observe that there were oral traditions as well as written accounts. Stories were told over and over, detail by detail, when the covenant people gathered around their campfires. And the stories were preserved on parchment, or animal skins, so the account of God's dealing with His people would never be forgotten. The parchments were rolled up into scrolls. Over the centuries more scrolls were written and added to the collection. Some were recognized as having special importance and came to be regarded as sacred text or holy scripture.

Of course, none of the original scroll writings has been preserved. Scrolls would ear out and were given an honored burial. But before they wore out, copies would be made and then copies of copies.

Inasmuch as the books were written over at least a thousand-year period, there was an ongoing process to gather the collection. The early books of the law were stored in the ark of the tabernacle (Deuteronomy 31:26). The nation reconsecrated its devotion to the sacred writings at different times (2 Kings 23:1-3, Nehemiah 8:1ff).

By the time Jesus, it seems that there was general agreement on what constituted the recognized collection of sacred scrolls for the Jewish people. They are summed up in Jesus' reference to the three main sections of the Hebrew scriptures when He noted that "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms" (Luke 24:44).

A major tragedy in the life of the Jewish nation occurred in 70 AD when the Jewish temple, the center of Jewish religious life, was destroyed by the Romans under Titus Livy. It is commonly thought that at a gathering of rabbis in the city of Jamnia in 90 AD there was a re-affirmation and confirmation of what fully and finally constituted the Hebrew scriptures.

The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the early 90's AD in his Against Apion, observed: For we have not countless books among us, disagreeing and contradicting one another but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine. . and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one hath been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them, but it has 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.

Amazingly Reliable Preservation

Are the copies of the Old Testament writing we have today anything like what was originally written down so long ago? Quite amazingly, the answer is yes. For the most part we can be confident that what we have today is nearly identical to the ancient copies. We back that up by drawing your attention to the scribes and the scrolls.

The Scribes

The copies of the scrolls of Hebrew scripture were made by a special group known as scribes. Israelite scribes learned their craft as a kind of holy profession in family-like guilds as is attested in the Bible that mentions "Clans of Scribes who inhabit Jabez" (1 Chronicles 2:55).

The Hebrew word for scribe is sofer. Its root meaning is "to count." and scribes indeed were careful counters, making sure every word and letter were accounted for. They worked under very strict conditions and regulations. They went about their work with a seriousness many would consider almost fanatical today.

For example, the Jewish Masoretic scribes, who made hand written copies of the Bible worked under rules designed to insure utmost accuracy:

No word or letter could be written from memory (the scribe had to say the word loud).

Before writing the sacred name of God, the scribe had to pause and wipe his pen.

A scroll was discarded if spelling errors were found.

Perhaps most important--after copying, every single word and every letter was counted to verify accuracy and to be sure they matched the original.

Before beginning his work, a scribe would cleanse himself in a ritual bath--a vivid evidence of the seriousness and sacredness of the task of writing a scroll. He was going to write the names of God and must do so with proper devotion and ritual purity.

The Scrolls

Maybe you have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the fascinating story of how a Bedouin shepherd boy in 1947 was out with his flock along the cliffs on the northwest side of the Dead Sea. He thoughtlessly threw a rock into one of the caves. He heard something break. He investigated and found ancient scrolls stored in large pottery jars.

The lad had accidentally stumbled across the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times. Many of these crolls date back to before the time of Jesus, and they include copies of sections of every Old Testament book except Esther. There is an almost complete copy of the book of Isaiah. Up until the discovery of the scrolls, the oldest available copies of the Hebrew scriptures dated from around 900 AD. These Dead Sea scrolls provided Hebrew text that was one thousand years earlier and would show if the text had been corrupted and changed over ten centuries. So it was a priceless opportunity to see if copies done so much later in any way resembled much earlier copies, that were themselves, of course, that much closer to the originals.

So, just how well had the scribes done their job over so many generations? Scholars analyzed and discovered there were some differences. This is not the surprising part. What is surprising is that there were so few differences and they were primarily on small matters such as minor spelling variations. This is so amazing that it would almost seem impossible. The first ancient Qumran texts led to just thirteen minor yet clarifying alterations in the modern Revised Standard version of the Bible.