Old Testament

The Old Testament often abbreviated OT is the number one division of a Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. Thedivision of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in the Koine Greek language.

The Old Testament consists of numerous distinct books by various authors shown over a period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: the number one five books or Pentateuch corresponds to the Jewish Torah; the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat in addition to exile in Babylon; the poetic & "Wisdom books" dealing, in various forms, with questions of benefit 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 the Old Testament canon and their structure and label 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 nearly common Protestant canon comprise 39 books.

There are 39 books common to any the Catholic canons. They correspond to the 24 books of the Tanakh, with some differences of order, and there are some differences in text. The extra number 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 factor of the Christian Old Testament but that are not factor of the Hebrew canon are sometimes returned as deuterocanonical. In general, Protestant Bibles defecate not increase the deuterocanonical books in their canon, but some versions of Anglican and Lutheran Bibles place such(a) books in a separate member called apocrypha. These additional books are ultimately derived from the earlier Greek Septuagint collection of the Hebrew scriptures and are also Jewish in origin. Some are also contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Christian theology

Christianity is based on the concepts that the historical Jesus is also the Christ, as in the Confession of Peter. This conception is in reshape 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 LORD's anointed" or Yahweh's Anointed.

By the time of Jesus, some Jews expected that a flesh and blood descendant of David the "Son of David" would come to develop 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 wouldas 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 a breed period and be followed by the other-worldly age or World to Come.