Old Testament

Heard in the wild

The longer version

What it means

The Bible is two collections. The Old Testament is the scriptures of ancient Israel: the Law (Genesis through Deuteronomy), the histories (Joshua through Esther), the poetry and wisdom (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs), and the prophets (Isaiah through Malachi). It's the Bible Jesus read and quoted. The New Testament is the Christian addition: four Gospels telling Jesus' life, Acts telling the early church's story, letters from Paul and others to the first churches, and Revelation.

Christians read the two together: the Old Testament as promise and preparation, the New as fulfillment, with Jesus as the hinge. That's why Christian Bibles include both and why the Old Testament is never treated as discarded — Jesus said He came to fulfill it, not abolish it.

Why people say it

Naming the halves helps Christians navigate a very long book and describe how they read it. "The Old Testament says…" and "in the New Testament…" locate a passage and signal something about how it applies — Christians believe the new covenant changed how certain Old Testament laws (sacrifices, food rules) function, which is why they don't keep kosher but do keep the Ten Commandments. The distinction is the first thing a Bible reader learns and one of the most argued-over.

How to respond

If a Christian cites the Old Testament and you wonder why it still counts, the answer is that Christians see it as God's word too, read through Jesus. If they cite the New Testament, they're on the ground most central to their faith. If you want to read the Bible and don't know where to begin, the New Testament — a Gospel first — is the usual advice; the Old Testament's Genesis, Psalms, and Isaiah come next. Leviticus can wait.

If you hear it in different churches

Universal, with the canon difference: Catholics and Orthodox have longer Old Testaments. Liturgical churches read from both testaments every Sunday by a fixed cycle. Evangelicals preach through both but lean New. Some scholars and churches say "Hebrew Bible" or "First Testament" to honor its Jewish origin. Jews use the Tanakh and, naturally, don't call it "old."

Where does “Old Testament” come from?

Jesus refers to "the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms" (Luke 24:44), the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible. Jeremiah 31 promised a "new covenant," and the letter to the Hebrews calls the Mosaic one "old" (8:13); the Latin testamentum translated "covenant," giving the two collections their names by the 200s. Marcion's attempt to reject the Old Testament (around 144) was condemned, fixing the church's commitment to both. The Greek Septuagint included the deuterocanonical books; Jerome's doubts and the Reformation's decision to follow the Hebrew canon produced the Protestant 39-book Old Testament, and Luther set the Apocrypha apart in 1534.

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