Talk:Old Testament/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Relationship with Tanakh

Shouldn't this page be redirected to the one on Tanach, and this material added there? There are many Wikipedia pages that are unnecessary duplicates, like this one, and the ones on Go/Pente and the ones on Jehovah/Yahweh. RK

I would say not. The view that the Tanakh and the Old Testament are the same is a very Christian view, not supported by most Jewish people I know. The discussion on Communion, the Lord's Supper, the Last Supper, and the Eucharist, clearly pointed out an advantage of Wiki is not paper.

I don't follow this; there must be some linguistic confusion here. For a few sentences here and there, Jews and Christians disagree over the text - but for the vast majority of the text, over 99% of it - they agree that it is precisely the same thing. Is this debate over a few sentences here and there what those Jewish people you know were referring to? Or do they believe that Christians added entire new books to the Hebrew Bible? Chrisitians, in fact, did not do this. But they did add the New Testament and Apocrypha; however, Chrisitians have never claimed that these books are part of the Old Testament/Tanach. RK

You're right, they did not, RK. We need to decide what to do with different terms for similar rites and liturgical phenomena. I do agree that in this case there is little difference. However I still think it should have two entries, or at least a double title. Someone familiar with Christianity will no doubt have trouble finding the Old Testament under 'Tanach'. The case of Eucharist/Communion as I see it deserves two separate entries, since the liturgical practice of each version of the 'Last Supper' and the theological doctrines behind them differ significantly, and could each probably be regarded typical of Roman Catholicism and of Protestantism.--TK

---

Could someone tell me more about which Christian scholars think the New Testament doesn't apply to Jews and why? Clearly Jews would think it doesn't apply to them, but the New Testament authors were mostly Jews, if not all of them, and their audiences clearly included both Jews and Gentiles. This is especially obvious in the Gospel according to St. Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews. I don't mind including that view here, but it would be helpful to include the rationale as well, I would think. --Wesley

---

As I had never heard of the "Tanach" until coming here, the idea that it is identical with the Old Testament is certainly new to me. It would have been impossible for someone like myself, who is rather well-read in a variety of subjects, including the bible, to find the Old Testament if there were only an entry labeled "Tanach". -- Zoe

---

Ok, enough back and forth. Regarding the Old Testament and the Jewish canon, I would agree based on what others have written in the Biblical canon article that the Jewish canon did not change in the second century, simply because it had not been formally discussed and approved until then, around the time of the Council of Jamnia if I'm not mistaken. Before that time, it's clear that many Jews used the Septuagint, and that most extant manuscripts of the Septuagint include part or all of the books generally called Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal. When the Jews did officially designate a canon, it was of course based on Hebrew manuscripts that did not include these books. Would not those Jews and synagogues who discontinued use of the Septuagint in favor of Hebrew manuscripts, not also at least informally have discontinued use of the Deuterocanonical books? Or am I reading into history something that didn't happen?

The larger point is that I think this article should avoid saying that the Jewish Tanach as used today is synonymous with the Christian Old Testament. For the first 1,500 years of its history, the Christian Church included the 'deuterocanonical' books in its Old Testament; the Tanach corresponds only to the Protestant Old Testament which has those books removed. The two canons are still very similar, but they are not identical. Wesley 04:23 Oct 29, 2002 (UTC)

I see no reason to assume that the Jews used the same manuscripts for the septuagint as non-Jews. Perhaps not all books were part of the original septuagint and additional books were translated separately into Greek and incorporated without note into the non-Jewish version. Ezra Wax

Well, the reason to assume it is that AFAIK there aren't any septuagint manuscripts that correspond to the Tanach canon, although some manuscripts omit a couple of books that others contain, like IV Maccabees or the 151st Psalm. However, some differences like the prayers in the book of Esther or the Song of the Three Youths in the book of Daniel are interspersed with the main text, and (in my purely amateur opinion) unlikely to have been translated separately. Is there any particular reason or evidence to suppose there were separate 'jewish' and 'non-jewish' versions of the septuagint? But I should probably do some additional research and see whether the scholars who study these things have a more informed opinion. Wesley

---

This paragraph is quite problematic:

The Christian Old Testament, for the most part, is identical to the Tanach. The first difference encountered is that they have a slightly different order of books. The second major difference is that the Christian Old Testament also includes many books that have extra paragraphs that do not exist in the Jewish version of the Bible. This is because the Christian Old Testament comes from the Septuagint, while the Jewish Tanach draws from a similar, but distinct textual tradition.

I have no problem for the first difference; however, there are major difficulties (mainly failure of nuance and precision) in the second difference. For one, the base text of the O.T. for Protestants is not the Septuagint (LXX) as implied in the article, but the Hebrew Massoretic text. Eastern Orthodoxy still uses the LXX, and the article should also incorporate the Roman Catholic position as well. SCCarlson 01:11 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

OT laws fragment

In the section, "The naming of the Old Testament" in the paragraph beginning "The relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament is controversial among Christians," there seems to be a fragment: "Similarly, the degree to which the Old Testament and its laws applies to Christians." This does not seem to me to be a sentence. I would edit it, but I'm not sure exactly what is intended or how to fix it cleanly.

--Jberk 16:48, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have to say that the term 'Old Testament' is Offensive. There is nothing old in a book that is the basis of 3 major religions (recognized or not). The term is degrading and is be only used to give more importance to the writings of the Christian bible and others based on it's laws and stories. The tem would be "Hebrew Bible."

Foglinerider —Preceding unsigned comment added by Foglinerider (talk • contribs) 21:49, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Foglinerider, I'm sorry that you're offended by the title of a portion of the Christian Bible. If it makes you feel any better, the reason that these Jewish writings were kept and augmented as Sacred Scripture by Christians was because of the esteem in which they were held. (Granted, some within early Christianity just wanted to do away with them entirely, but their position was rejected.) Ironically (given your unease with the term "old"), part of the esteem accorded these works by both Christians and even some others in the Graeco-Roman world was due to the fact that they were "old". The modern notion that that which is new is good and that which is old is bad would have been entirely foreign to people in the ancient world. For them, the more ancient something was, the better it was; that which was new and novel was to be regarded at best with suspicion. This may not alleviate your offense, but I hope it at least allows you to see the way that Christianity has generally assessed their Old Testament and why they referred to it that way.91.46.247.63 (talk) 12:21, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

"the Old Testament is a translation and modification of the Tanach"

User:Jesus Saves! removed edits to this page indicating that the Old Testament is a translation, that the translation includes modifications. He retained the portion of the edit that indicates the books are reordered. (Though he did introduce that idea that Kings I and Kings II are separate books, as opposed to two volumes of a single book.) I propose that the previous edit be restored. OneVoice 01:24, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think you've got the Old Testament and the LXX mixed up; the LXX does include a lot of changes, and it's in fact the only text which includes the Apocrypha. However, Christians do not need the LXX; the Masoretic Text is widely used in translations of the Old Testament.

This would be folly for NT scholars. Quotes from the OT that appear in the NT are clearly from the LXX. There's really no debate about that. The LXX was used by the NT writers and is therefore very important. Also, your use of the term "Apocrypha" puts you in a Protestant camp and your neutral point of view is therefore compromised. AstralisLux

Perhaps so, but I think not. The Masoretic Text contains both kri and ktiv...this concept is lost in translation. In addition, some passages are translated to further a particular viewpoint, one that holds that the Old Testament foretells the birth and life of Jesus rather than possibly better translations that would not fit the widely accepted account(s) of the life of Jesus. I would rather not enter into a detailed discussion of each passage and how it could/should be translated. The fact of translation means that one must choose between words in English, or whichever language, that do not match the original text. This choice of words in the translated language often contains significant editorial content. The act of translation inherently contains acts of modification of meaning. A simple example is that several names are used to God in the Tanach, any faithful translation must use the same word for each name of God each time it appears. This is not the case in any translation that I have ever seen. Another conflict-free (hopefully) indication is how to translation malachah as opposed to avodah. Hence, the claim that the Old Testament is a translation and modification of the Tanach. OneVoice 02:41, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I deleted this phrase: Judaism accepts 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.

To: Most Jews accept...

The reason is that Judaism is not monolithic. There are many Jews, (Ethiopian Jews, for example) who accept books that are found in the Catholic bible, which are called Deuterocanonical by Catholics and apocryphal by Protestants. To claim that Judaism rejects these books is false. The strains of Judaism around the globe who accept the deuterocanonicals as part of their canon are just as ancient as the Palestinian Jews who are the most common. AstralisLux 13:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is that any picture of Judiasm that implies that it considers JUST these books to be the whole of Scriptural knowledge is actually more of a Protestant Christian view than a Jewish one. Judiasm certainly has a special place for Scripture, but Scripture is and understanding Scripture is actually a much much broader rnge of sources, tranditions, and so forth. What I'm saying is that in Judiasm, the implied "Sola Scriptura" concept doesn't really apply or make sense. Judiasm is far far more fluid and compromising as to what sources and citations it considers important to understanding the religion.

Jews and Christians need to be given the freedom to interpret and define their scriptures as they wish. So, it is important to have a separate page. Just give the similarities and connections with both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.242.17.164 (talk) 10:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

"Jews count the 12 "minor" prophets as a single book"?

The page indicates that Jews count the 12 "minor" prophets as a single book. does anyone have a reference to this? OneVoice 00:31, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If you were to look into any copy of the Tanach you would see that they are treated as one book called "Trei Asar" meaning (the book of) Twelve. Ezra Wax

Yes, indeed, but is it an indication that they are one book? The Torah has five distinct books yet we have one name for it. Could the Trei Asar, a collection of 12 independent books, be a section of Neviim rather like Neviim Rishonim and Neviim Achronim? OneVoice 00:48, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I recall that the reason why the books were included in one book was because they were so small that the Rabbis were worried that they would get lost if they weren't put together into one book. I don't, however, have a source for you. Ezra Wax

Surely that would be one scroll rather than one book. Each is an independent work, no? Indeed Ovadiah could be easily misplaced. Not his fault really. ;) OneVoice

I was thinking about whether to call it a book or a scroll. I don't think it makes a difference. In hebrew it's sefer. The same word for both book and scroll. Ezra Wax

Yes, indeed, but its not the same in English. This is one small indication of the dangers of translation. Something as simple as one sefer, is it one book or one scroll? Which makes sense from the point of view of the Amoraim? The Torah is one scroll, yet it is five books. Would it not make sense to place the 12 books of the Trei Asar in one scroll? (not one book.) OneVoice 01:14, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Do either of you actually know what you are talking about? A scroll is a megillah (rolled on only one side). A sefer is generic and refers to any other text (scroll rolled on both sides or a bound book with pages). And yes, Trei Asar is traditionally counted as one book. Danny 01:17, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes. You are pointing out another confusing translation. The word scroll can refer to either two sided scroll or a one sided scroll, while the word sefer can refer to a two sided scroll or a book but not a one sided scroll. And a one sided scroll is specifically a megillah. There you have it. The ganze megillah. Ezra Wax

Danny, can you provide a source for "And yes, Trei Asar is traditionally counted as one book." OneVoice 01:22, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's a gemara in the first perek of Megillah where they count the books of the Tanach and describe what goes in. Don't have it here, but if you have a Shas look it up, with the Rishonim. Danny 01:23, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Which daf? I looked there before, but somehow I kept on missing it. Ezra Wax

Don't remember offhand. Try dalet or vav. Danny 01:29, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

All I can find is on daf zayin where it talks about koheles, shir hashirim, and esther. Are you sure it is in Megillah? Is it perhaps in Sanhedrin? Ezra Wax

Could be Danny 02:34, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

---

In his prologues to the Vulgate, Jerome enumerates 24 books in the Old Testament, counting the 12 minor prophets as one book (liber). He says the 24 books are the 24 elders who threw their crowns before the Lamb in the Book of Revelation. Rwflammang 00:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject

Based on a suggestion in Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, I have started the skeleton of a WikiProject to try to cut down on the overlap between the various presentations of the canon. I think that a lot of people working here will want input on this. Feel free! Mpolo 13:28, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

NPOV re: Jesus of Nazareth / Christ

Dear Jfdwolff: my editing on 7 June 2005 of the last sentence of the first para resulting in "Judaism ... does not recognise or accept Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Saviour and Christ of God, nor therefore the New Testament" was intended to deal precisely with the problem exisitng in the text as I found it ("Judaism ... does not recognize or accept Jesus and the New Testament"), namely that in this form it did injustice to the position of those of the earlier Covenant, the Jewish people. You cannot deny the accuracy of the logic of my emendation. This is precisely what separates Christians from Jews, not that either of them seriously denies that Jesus of Nazareth has ever lived, but that Christians believe him to be the Saviour and Christ of G-d promised in the Hebrew Scriptures, whilst Jews do not. Jews are awaiting the first coming of G-d's promised Saviour, Christians his second. –- Furthermore, with genuine respect for your sensitivity in this matter, Jesus Who?? e.g. Jesus ben Sirach? What is the problem with identifying him at the earliest opportunity in this article as Jesus of Nazareth? I have previously been wrapped over the knuckles, and quite rightly so, that this encyclopedia aims to inform the hitherto uninformed. Portress 13:36, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

P.S.: Having just gone back to the article and glanced over the rest of it – I have to admit that I still have not read it in full as I chanced across it, and it is not my priority –, I am highly amused to find that it has hitherto aroused no NPOV criticism that several times the office/name "Christ" has been used (which, remember, means "the Anointed One", and if used of Jesus of Nazareth the claim "of G-d" is always implied), without the qualification I would certainly expect in a universal encyclopedia article dealing with a subject that concerns essentially Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. The belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of G-d promised in the Hebrew Scriptures is not shared by the Muslims either, despite their high regard for him (and for his mother Mary for that matter). Portress 14:06, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

NPOV: BC (and AD)

NPOV requires BCE (and CE), even though this takes into account only the Jewish and the Chrisian position, since there is no universally accepted year numbering. Portress 14:21, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Christian POV?

Article seems very Christian-centric. I have not yet found any discussion on which books Islam accepts - or not --JimWae 07:36, 2005 July 13 (UTC)

Islam doesn't accept any of the Old Testament officially, saying that the texts are corrupt and untrustworthy. Their only scripture is the Quran. I suppose this might be worth mentioning. The article is Christian-centric because it's about a Christian text. Hebrew Bible and Talmud, for instance, are separate articles, partly because they would never call this the "Old Testament." Wesley 15:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Concerning Dietary Laws

Christians do not follow the dietary restricions proscribed in the Hebrew Bible, due to a passage in Christian Bible's Mark 7:19, where Jesus makes "all foods clean." There is also in Christian Bible's Acts 11:5-10, where a Christian disciple has a vision (or dream?) about eating anything.

Still, how Christians pick which laws to obey from the Old Testament is quite inconsistent. Neither do they seem interested in applying the barbaric punishments for breaking them.

Shame on you. Just read the text. What "barbaric punishments" does the Torah actually indicate for violating the dietary laws? JFW | T@lk 09:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with dietary laws. Christians have the loopholes as I mentioned above. The other laws have barbaric punishments" Lev. 10:6, where God will kill everyone if just the priests misbehave; Lev. 20:9, any child cursing his ma or pa will be put to death; Exodus 21:29, where if someone's ox accidentally gores someone to death, the ox will be stoned to death and the owner killed; Numbers 15:32, where the Israelites stone someone to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath... ad nauseum. The bizarre, cruel, and ritualistic killing of animals (as commondanded by God). The shame is not mine.

Those that have the 10 Commandments monument fetish here in the U.S. really should add the punishments for breaking them. Exodus 20:3, e.g., requires the stoning to death of those who do not worship God (or their version thereof).

Your language remains offensive, and your Biblical literacy leaves much to be desided. I don't think there is the slightest point in offering rebuttals until you moderate your language. Here's for starters: the Mishnah (tractate Makkot) relates that religious courts rarely passed the death verdict more than once every 70 years. That is a better track record than Texas and Florida. Now go terrorise a blog somewhere and stop trolling Wikipedia. JFW | T@lk 17:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

The language is the Bible's, not mine. Those *are* the punishments. Look them up yourself. "Biblical literacy?" You think I made those verses up?

"bizarre, cruel, and ritualistic" is certainly not the Bible's. Anyway, have a nice day. JFW | T@lk 14:27, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

That a court inspired by a religion does not do what its scripture says it should, does not change what that scripture indicates it should do. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.252.5.178 (talk • contribs) 22:48, 21 May 2007.

Template: Old Testament

I am willing to edit the template from the New Testament article if we can decide on an acceptable means of displaying the differences in canon by religion. This might just be a can of worms better left closed though. Rkevins82 08:35, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, the New Testament template assumes Catholic, Protestant and Greek Orthodox but excludes the additional books of the Armenian Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox. An Old Testament template could likewise just cite the Catholic, Protestant and Greek Orthodox, as is done at Books of the Bible, or one could include the other faiths also, as is done at Biblical Canon.

and potentially offensive?

i take offence to the "The term Old Testament is considered outdated and potentially offensive to a multi-religious audience." sentence. Any self-resecting religion recognizes and respects other religions' beliefs. If you are Christian call it Old Testament, if you are Jewish, it's the Tanakh, same as the British and old Commonwealth countries have 'colour' and Americans have 'color'. Has anyone thought that indeed 'Hebrew Testament' might ALSO be deemed offensive by a multi-religious audience? (Just sayin') We should add a link to a 'Hebrew perspecive' or something (the Tanakh article), and remove the 'offensive' crap. It's always been the Old Testament. It always will be the Old Testament as far as Christians are concerned. All Bibles I have ever seen have the thing listed as 'Old Testament' -- Hexagon1 14:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. In addition, that sentence was really espousing a POV in a dab note that should be just to inform, as the rest of the note already does. It's gone now. Wesley 07:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Please see my comments below at [1] Josh-Levin@ieee.org 02:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Question on Judaism, Christianity & Islam

Most Muslims take the Qur'an as the verbatim word of Allah. I have heard it said that Christians and Jews throughout history have generally take their own scriptures as divinely "inspired" and yet humanly mediated reports, not usually as verbatim words of God. If so, there has always been a bit more distance between the Jews and their scriptures and the Christians and their scriptures than between Muslims and the Qur'an. Huston Smith and Daniel Boorstin both wrote that the Muslims believe in the "Inlibration" of God in the Qur'an. I imagine most Jews have for centuries or even millennia considered their own scriptures not as "Inlibrations" of God, but rather as paradoxically or problematically both proximate to and yet distant from God, both eloquent of the divine yet distinct from the divine. Am I on the right track in thinking this true of most of Judaism and its history? Can anyone help me back this idea up with facts?

I'm not very familiar with Muslim attitudes to the Qur'an, but my understanding is, as you say, that they believe it literally dictated word for word by Allah; that is why it is preferred to be read in Arabic. I can tell you that Christians don't believe the same about the Bible. They believe that God inspired the biblical writers through their own natural gifts and particular focusses (as well as the Holy Spirit) to produce the works they did. That's one reason why the fact that there are four Gospels is no problem - it's possible to believe that each Gospel reflects the concerns and viewpoint of the human authors as well as being the Word of God. DJ Clayworth 15:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Orthodox Jews believe that G-d wrote the Torah (Tanakh, Old Testament). Most other Jews believe it was divinely inspired.Sposer (talk) 17:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

For Christians holding to the verbal, plenary inspiration theory, the idea is not that there is more distance between the reader and God's original words, as if the human writers were a "filter" that diluted the message of God. Rather, the idea is that the Holy Spirit used the writers' individual personalities and experiences in such a way that the resulting texts were 100% human, but also 100% the words that God desired. Hence, interpreters in that school of thought will often speak of "what God was saying through Moses" (e.g.) OR of "what Moses is saying." The Presbyterian Church in America takes this position [2].

Christians who do *not* hold to the verbal, plenary inspiration theory will go a step further and posit that the human writers did introduce a certain distance or filtering of God's word. So the Presbyterian Church, USA will call the Bible an "authoritative" record of God's word, but not an "inerrant" one [3].jrcagle 02:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Warfield, representing the plenary verbal inspiration school, put it like this:

God is Himself the author of the instruments He employs. . .and has framed them into precisely the instruments He desired. . . There is just ground for the expectation that He will use all the instruments He employs according to their natures; intelligent therefore as intelligent beings, moral agents as moral agents. . . If God wished to give His people a series of letters like Paul's, He prepared a Paul to write them, and the Paul He brought to the task was a Paul who spontaniously would write just such letters. (The Biblical Idea of Revelation, pp. 92-93).

» MonkeeSage « 05:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Multiple reverts: 'Original Testament'

Note that there have been at least two attempts -- perhaps more -- to search-and-replace the term "Old Testament" with "Original Testament." Is there anyway to permanently stop this bit of vandalism? The Editrix 20:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection? Clinkophonist 22:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added a simple sentence to the introduction, mentioning "Original Testament". It is far less derogatory to Jews, and will be understood, and can be used by, Jews and Christians alike. I hope that, eventually, "Original Testament" will become the accepted term. It also carries an implication that the "Original Testament" is sufficient as the covenant between God and the Jews, independent of the Christian "New Testament".

I would appreciate an e-mail from the editrix (or editor) on this matter. Josh-Levin@ieee.org 16:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Christian View of the Ten Commandments

I have attempted a couple of times to clarify the paragraph which states:

"On the other hand, the New Testament repeats and applies to Christians a number of Old Testament laws, including "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18; cf. Golden Rule), "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and strength" (Deut 6:4, the Shema), as well as every commandment of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1–17)."

It has been reverted twice by unregistered users. My point to clarify is that the New Testament restates 9 of the 10 commandments. It does not explicitly restate observance of the Sabbath. This isn't a matter of faith, it's a matter of reading the text to see what is there. The latest revert claimed that prohibitions against murder and theft are not explicitly restated, so here are the cites: Matthew 19:18-19, Mark 10:18-19, Romans 13:9, James 2:11. That took about five seconds with a search engine.

My point is that if the entry explicitly says "every commandment of the Decalogue", that is simply textually inaccurate. Either include a notation concerning the Sabbath or change the phrase to something like "most of the Decalogue".

--shift6 05:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I just removed the phrase "every commandment of" to be explicitly clear. While it may be interpreted that "the whole law" includes a reiteration of the ten commandments, the specific commandment concerning the Sabbath itself was not restated.

--shift6 17:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

"The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath", etc. See Sabbath in Christianity for details. Some people think only 6 of the commandments were selected by Jesus, see Hang Six: "What�s intriguing is that, in theological terms, Christianity should have Six Commandments, not Ten. Jesus deliberately snipped out four of the commandments, endorsing only six. The six he favored are moral standards that could readily be posted in any public structure, without violating the line between church and state. It is the Six Commandments, not the Ten, that ought to be central to this debate. ... Christianity honors the Old Testament, but views it as amended by the New--and in the New Testament, Jesus consciously rejects the Ten Commandments, replacing them with the Six Commandments. The story of the Six Commandments comes when a young man asks Jesus what a person must do to obtain entry to heaven. Jesus replies, "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." (Christ often simply said "life" to mean "eternal life," implying that the spirit world is the reality and the physical world is the veil.) Instructed to "keep the commandments," the young man then inquires, "Which ones?" Which ones? Aren�t there a famously invariant Ten Commandments? Debating which laws mean more than others was a favorite exercise of the rabbinical tradition in which Jesus was educated. Still, Talmudic commentators did not take it upon themselves to pick and choose among the Commandments that God gave to humanity etched in stone. Jesus, on the other hand, in Christian thinking holds a divine license to amend the scripture. And here�s what he says: "And Jesus said, �You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.�" (Matthew 19:17-19, New Revised Standard Version. A parallel telling of the Six Commandments exchange is found at Mark 10:17-23.) Six count �em Six Commandments, not Ten. Can you name the missing four? " See also Cafeteria Christianity.

(unsigned)

Could we please avoid original research ? Clinkophonist 12:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Since there is conflict, even among biblical scholars, on how many and which of the ten commandments are re-inforced by Jesus, the article should stay as stating "some" since that is a more accurate view of the situation. Or alternatively, we could have a technical article that discusses the various arguments in-depth, if anyone wants to do that. Wjhonson 19:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Is 9 of 10 acceptable? With the Sabbath command noted as controversial? That's how I did my latest edit. As for an indepth discussion, seems like that's better held elsewhere, like at Ten Commandments, Sabbath in Christianity, Antinomianism, Expounding of the Law#Antithesis of the Law, Cafeteria Christianity. 64.149.83.182 20:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

When and how was the OT written?

I think this is an important omission here, or maybe deserves its own article. What do we know about the time and historical process in which the OT was written?

Dianelos 10:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this would be good... but I'm afraid that it will get sabatoged by fundamentalist scholars who want to believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (because of theological reasons), even though nearly every scholar at a major university thinks otherwise.

These kind of things are the reason Wikipedia is starting to lose its appeal for me. I came looking for some information on the documentary hypothesis (forgot the name, so was looking it up on this page). The fact that it is not mentioned at all, seems to be a big problem. --145.9.226.69 15:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Historicity Section is APOLOGIA, not history?

This section claims that "For a time during that era, one group of scholars claimed that most of the societies mentioned in the Bible, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were allegedly fictional due to a (then) lack of archaeological evidence. This view had to be abandoned when the ruins of Nineveh, Babylon, Ashur, and other cities were found, complete with extant tablets describing many of the same events mentioned in the Old Testament, such as the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib during the reign of Hezekiah."

Who were these scholars? Who was this group? I've seen this claim bfore, but always on evangelical websites, and the scholars or their views are never quoted, nor is any reference given to a credible discussion of the field at that time. People that I've seen look into this issue generally find that when these sorts of claims are made, they tend to be a gross misrepresentation of the issues discussed, even in the 19th century: http://www.eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?p=10252

The point, of course, to make it look like any doubts to the historicity of the OT are always absurdly overzealous and quickly proven wrong.

There is also this later on: "a return to the 19th century idea that anything not confirmed by current archaeology should be dismissed." Well, I'm no expert here, but I don't ever remember that simplistic rule being a principle, in the 19th century or otherwise. Modern challenges to the historicity of the OT are not _merely_ arguments of abscence: they marshall lots of evidence that contradicts the stories and even gives insight on why or where they came from. There certainly are some arguments about why evidence we would expect to find if the stories were true is conspicuously missing: but they are a lot more involved than just "we haven't found evidence yet." See here for some discussion of these views: http://www.bibleandscience.com/bible/reviews/unearthed.htm

Thus, I think this section should be put under strong suspicion of a POV-violation unless there is a truly rigorous evidence presented for the claims it makes. I'm not going to revise it without some discussion, but there should definately be some discussion! Plunge 20:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Another user: "Moderator" your points are completely accurate and the poster who keeps repasting these strawman arguments clearly has a fundamentalist agenda. It is spurious and dishonest rhetoric and the user should be ashamed of himself for deliberate lying... all to support his idea that the Bible must be totally historically accurate by claiming that people in respected academic circles make silly claims of absolute positivism. And his arguments about the gaellic wars? We aren't talking about the 13th century MT that has been handed down (e.g. a later copy) but being written later. Two different things. Too boot, his citation is an Egyptologist--not a biblical scholar. While K. Kitchen has done excellent work in Egyptian chronology, his book has been panned by every major journal and has only been praised in fundamentalist publications. Even Biblical Archaeology Review (R. Hendel), a source that would have been charitable to K. Kitchen was critical. He is uncomfortable even with the idea of doubt and that it is a matter of debate...

This objection has been here for several months, it fits with my (very) brief investigation and no sources have been forthcoming. I have removed the passage in question and reorganized the section slightly for style. Elliotreed 08:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The History section is illogical and obviously represents a fundamentalist agenda. K. Kitchen is not a biblical scholar, but an Egyptologist--nor does he represent mainstream scholarship. Citing Gaellic Wars is a non-sequitor. Nobody thinks that since the earliest manuscripts date from the 2nd century BC that the text has to be close to Pentateuch was written by that time; scholars date it later because it includes anachronisms, has late Hebrew, and generally reflects an Iron Age IIB perspective. Looking carefully at the text is not a return to Voltaire. Voltaire was the radical skeptic who questioned the Hittites--he, too, was not a biblical scholar and to quote him is a strawman fallacy.

This is the most absurdly bad entry I have yet to read in Wikipedia. It's written by a fundamentalist who is not only ingnorant and uninformed, but the logic is deceptive, designed to advocate a view that the "Bible fell out of heaven." This article belongs on conservapedia--it is just that vapid and idiotic. The two most fundamental problems seem to be no dialogue with actual biblical scholarship, citing K. Kitchen, an Egyptologist and U. Cassuto (who wrote before much archaeology took place), and some romantic notion that one archaeological confirmation somehow confirms the rest of the Bible. Even in most fundamentalist seminaries this type of logic would result in a failing grade. Discovering that David existed doesn't mean the world is 6000 years old (or that there was a flood). I can say without reservation that the vast majority of biblical scholarship sees no evidence for a 6000 year old earth, a flood, the tower of Babel, Adam and Eve, a large exodus, the conquest, a northern kingdom that was un-Yahwistic. The list continues. There seems to be some zealous fundamentalist policing this entry with his KJV Bible, trying to warn heathen of the rapture in his spare time. 76.100.84.108 01:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

jewish feasts

the jewish feast were in the spring

These feast were held mostly to celibrate being free or to celibrate God and all of his wounderful makings and also to get together and become one with there naighbors and friends —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.161.172.196 (talk)

Actually, that is not true. --ArmadilloFromHell 17:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Page name

This article had been moved to Old Testament (Tanakh). I have reverted that change. Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Parentheses are for disambiguation. For example, if Old Testament was a disambiguation page and there were pages like Old Testament (rock group), Old Testament (movie), Old Testament (city), etc, then Old Testament (Tanakh) would make sense. But preference is given to the term that most English speakers would recognize and 99.999% of English speakers consider the Old Testament to be this article. Hence, there is no need for a disambiguation page or patenthetical name. BigDT 20:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Bible citations

Citations to passages which discuss "the Law" are not relevant to a specific discussion of the "Ten Commandments". If you want to discuss how Paul views the "Law" you should be quite clear and specific in your phrasing. Wjhonson 08:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Epiphanius

This citation [4]: "We found this fellow perverting the nation and destroying the law and the prophets". See also Adherence to the Law and Antithesis of the Law.

is not going to fly. It's a page of a GREEK language edition of Ephiphanius with a few English footnotes. It says nothing about what the page is. This page here, is for English readers. We can't cite Greek texts with no comment. And we can't add our own comments on them. So tomorrow or so, I'm going to have to remove the cite. Feel free to find an English-language translation of what this page is supposed to say. Wjhonson 07:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ante-Nicene Fathers: Tertullian: Against Marcion: Dr. Holmes' Note: "In chap. xxiii. 2, after the words "perverting the nation," Marcion added, "and destroying the law and the prophets;" 75.0.7.56 10:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Community ban of the Joan of Arc vandal

This article has been targeted in recent weeks by CC80, a sockpuppet of the Joan of Arc vandal. This and similar articles may be targeted again by other sockpuppets of the same person.

A vandal who has damaged Wikipedia's Catholicism, Christianity, cross-dressing, and homosexuality articles for over two years has been identified and community banned. This person will probably attempt to continue disruption on sockpuppet accounts. Please be alert for suspicious activity. Due to the complexity of this unusual case, the best place to report additional suspicious activity is probably to my user talk page because I was the primary investigating administrator. Durova^Charge! 17:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The Bible

Can the information in this article be moved to the Old testament section in the Bible article? There is no information in the Bible articles "Old Testament" section. --69.244.153.46 22:58, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I would think the two should be synced up, but I think this article is significant enough to warrant more detailed coverage. (Cf. also my proposals in the next section.) --Flex (talk/contribs) 15:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Christian view of the Law

I'd like to propose branching the section on the "Christian view of the Law" off into its own article, not least because a number of other articles link to it which makes me think it is worthy of a separate article. Doing this would replace a large chunk of the current text with a summary (cf. WP:SUMMARY), but I'd suggest that that should be the purpose of this article -- viz., it should be a "central" article for summarizing a number of subtopics. Hence, I'd also suggest that the article should be expanded to include summary discussions of the prophets, wisdom literature, and histories, relation to the Apocrypha and New Testament, schools of interpretation, etc. What do you think? --Flex (talk/contribs) 13:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the section of the "Christian view of the Law" really should be an article on its own. As it stands right now, the "Christian view of the Law" section is unbalanced because it omits major perspectives such as the Lutheran view while highlighting more minor perspectives. I also favor expanding summaries to include the topics you mentioned, and I'm willing to contribute...Lamorak 16:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

• I also agree that "Christian view of the Law" could and should be its own article. If it is created, for the sake of clarity I propose that it be called "Christian view of the Mosaic Law" or "...of the Law of Moses" to distinguish it from Canon Law, "Christ's Law", etc.
• I am also willing to contribute.
• I added a great deal of content to this section and organized it into the clearer categories that it's in now. Previously, it mainly consisted of unorganized statements saying "this verse could mean...". Currently, I think it is balanced because it fulfills the purpose of this section, describing the Christian views of the Law. There is no one view, so all should be given space. In my research, I found the Lutheran and Reformed views of the Law to be indistinguishable, but if this is incorrect and editors are knowledgable on the differences, then I agree a section should be added for the Lutheran viewpoint. If the Lutheran viewpoint just needs representation, but is not significantly different from the Reformed view, it can easily be incorporated.Namikiw 20:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The Lutheran view of the law should definitely be added. The article Law_and_Gospel points out some of the major differences between the Lutheran and Reformed views. In reality the dispensational view is just a slight variation of the Lutheran view. The Reformed Theonomist view places far more emphasis on the Law than other Reformed views, and so is distinct enough to warrant its own section. Lamorak 21:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I may research and edit this when I have a chance if no one gets to it first.Namikiw 13:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Support. I have thought for several months that such an article is importantly needed. It could be called Law in Christianity to be consistent with other Christian articles such as Sabbath in Christianity etc. Yet the term "law" is also ambiguous - we are not talking about Christian views about government legal systems (the usual use of the word "law") but Christian views of law in the Bible. A more specific title would also be more wordy. The article should be about both Old and New Testaments, including interpretations of nomos, torah, Christ's law, etc. Naturally it would include the beliefs of various major Christian denominational affiliations (which I find is usually represented well in Wikipedia articles), but also views of major contemporary scholars (which I find generally underrepresented in Wikipedia Christianity articles), e.g. Bultmann, Dunn, Sanders, F. F. Bruce, Cranfield, New Perspectives on Paul, N. T. Wright, etc. Colin MacLaurin 10:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

New article created, Law in Christianity, about Christian views of biblical law. Colin MacLaurin 15:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• I copied the relevant content in this article to Law in Christianity. It may be a good idea to look over the differences to see what else should be transferred vs. left here, and how the content here should be summarized. -Namikiw 16:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Catholic view edit on 7/10

This addition was made: "One major distinction or characteristic of the Catholic Church is the heavy dependence on the formality of the Old Testament; it's traditions, doctrines and mysterious nature; including the overwhelming priority of the Priest and his office and responsibilities."

I'm removing it because it's very vague and therefore unhelpful. Furthermore, it's un-cited and un-linked. If the original author is reading and would like to source this, it will need citations and clarity. What is meant by "formality" and how is this distinct from other Christian views? Who has made this distinction and described it as "mysterious?" Which priesthood is referred to here - the Levitical priesthood or Catholic?Namikiw 13:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Tanakh categories

The "Tanakh" categories have continually been removed from this page. Regardless to what extent, "Tanakh" and "Old Testament" are closely related and the categories are entirely relevant to this article; this is a perfectly encyclopedic link. Therefore, I am replacing them. If anyone thinks these categories are unencyclopedic, please discuss it here before reverting.

(edit) It appears the Tanakh category has been completely eliminated so I am entering Hebrew Bible categories. Namikiw 20:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

There is now a clear hierarchy of Hebrew Bible categories for articles that are of mutual relevance to Christians and Jews. Where required, there are super-categories named "Old Testament" for articles covering OT apocrypha or specifically Christian topics. This was discussed here. I've now added explanatory templates to the category pages. - Fayenatic london (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I was unaware of that discussion. Namikiw 16:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

RfC Christian Torah-submission

Would any interested editors please comment on the rename proposal at Talk:Christian_Torah-submission#Requested_move. The term "Christian Torah-submission" is suggested to be a neologism requiring modification to "Christian Old Testament-submission" or similar. As there is a section in Old Testament entitled "The Torah-submissive view", the consensus on the rename will directly affect this article. Daniel^C/_T+ 14:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Book of Micah

Why isn't this listed? Its article says it's a book of the OT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.115.62.62 (talk) 05:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

You must be look at the Template:Books of the Old Testament box. The Book of Micah is one of the Minor prophets. Don't know whay they are not all in there by name-- problly either for space or that the Jews list the as a single book in their list. --Carlaude (talk) 13:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

shouldn't we talk about the after life?

It's been shown that the original interpretation of the old testament had no afterlife. Yet christians still claim it predicts the new testament. YVNP (talk) 06:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC) The Old Testaments are dated back to anciet times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.230.167.195 (talk) 00:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

An Unholy Mess of an Article

This article is almost laughable for its total lack of consideration for ordinary readers who consult an encyclopedia for basic information. Typical product of specialists.

It should go: Introduction: The Old Testament, by which we mean the first, bigger part of the two parts of the Christian Bible(s), is what manner of thing? First section: It is made up of which books, in order? Which deal with what? Genesis, Exodus, etc. Clean, simple, plainly structured, written in plain language for ordinary readers.

(If you think this is covered elsewhere, then for heaven's sake redirect 'Old Testament' there and call this article something else. Do not be afraid to repeat information under 'Bible', for example. There's a nice-ish fussy table under 'Books of the Bible' that may help, but that simply lists the books without mentioning content.)

Then, and only then, do we maybe get into canonical history and differences with Jewish scripture. 'Extracts from Herodotion' my foot: all that sort of stuff can be bundled under a single heading.

The introduction as it stands is way too long, messy and mostly beside the point.

I'm sorry to be negative, and for the experts who labored over this it must seem terribly rude, but as an encyclopedia entry this really is worthless in its present form. Please anyone with some knowledge of the subject help improve it. I'd love to help myself, but I am one of those pig-ignorant readers for whom the article should be written. Sartoresartus (talk) 11:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Much better now

I feel, thanks. Sartoresartus (talk) 08:54, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Controversy over use of work of Bernard Leeman

In the past few days the many references to Dr Bernard Leeman's book "Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholarship" (www.scribd.com) has been systematically removed from Wikipedia, including this article (It is his work not Salibi's that refers to Ethiopia). It is clear that his work, which supports Kamal Salibi's hypothesis, is deeply disturbing certain Biblical "scholars" who share the Nazi penchant for book burning, albeit in an electronic form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ntsukunyane Mphanya (talk • contribs) 12:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

His ideas are not at all disturbing. As you must know, the point is that his book is not a reliable source (see WP:RS. Self-published, for a start. A doctorate in cultural tourism plus one on political organisations, teaching in a variety of institutions on a variety of subjects (didn't he teach business administration as well?), none of this makes him a reliable source. Attacking editors by likening them to Nazis is a very bad idea, see WP:NPA, Dougweller (talk) 13:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I should add that if you have a personal relationship with Leeman, as I presume you do, you probably should read WP:COI. Dougweller (talk) 13:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

When you say that it is "clear" that his work is disturbing to those of us who have deleted references to it, you make it clear that you are choosing to pretend that the actual reasons for the deletion have not been spelled out to you, that you have not been directed to Wikipedia's guidelines that clarify why those references have been removed, and that you cannot imagine that there can possibly be any reason other than feelings of disturbance. This is a show of really bad faith on your part. —Largo Plazo (talk) 22:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Cafeteria Christians

I removed the link to Cafeteria Christianity to support the elimination of Wikipedia hurling insults at the majority of Christians. I'm not against it in principle if it was called for, though, but this doesn't seem much like NPOV. See discussion of Biblical law in Christianity for more information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephen Lee Williamson (talk • contribs) 05:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Old Testament characters

• Abraham - Amenemhet I
• Jacob - Yakubher
• Moses - Thuthmose III
• David - Psusennes I
• Solomon - Siamun

-- WillBildUnion (talk) 15:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Why? Sources? Plausiblility? Anyone? (Solomon does appear to be historical, and quite distinct from Siamun.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:50, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

WillBildUnion, see the original research guidelines and the reliable source guidelines. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:09, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Im aware of the guidelines, this is not original research, and it's on talk page so it should not be problem. The hyksos were hebrews and hebrews rose in power in Egypt. This is not original research. All this can be backed up by university sources, but at this point I only leave this to the talk page.WillBildUnion (talk) 17:44, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Putting it on the talk page does not make it "not original research." Provide those sources with proper citations, or else it remains in the realm of original research. Also, the identification between the Hebrews and the Hyksos is not universally accepted among scholars. At most, you would be able to put "John Smith in This is my book on history, believes that..." Ian.thomson (talk) 18:21, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Show your sources. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:34, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

NT Scribe: What this, uuuuh? OT Scribe: Try to be 17% more articulate, you troglodyte!

Is this true? I wouldn't be shocked if it were but I think that this statement needs sourcing and additional explanation to clarify what the claim actually is:

The Old Testament is written with a vocabulary of about 5,800 words. The New Testament is written with a vocabulary of about 4,800 words.

Is this for real? Did Jesus only speak in the present tense? Did Zacchaeus climb a plant? Did Jesus warn his disciples on the Mount of Plants? Who says? Are they including place names and personal names or not? Are verb tenses included, what about plurals? Are only irregular verbs/plurals included? Considering that the Hebrew Bible was written in two languages (Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic) and the New Testament in only one language (Koine Greek), what exactly is being compared in order to support this claim?

I don't know much about Biblical studies, but I'm pretty sure the Hebrew Bible was at least partially written by priests prior to it being compiled/redacted, and the Christian Bible was written by people who were not quite as high in the pecking order, so there might be some truth to the discrepancy in vocabulary, but I think this statement calls for not only a citation but also an elaborate explanation that fleshes out what is being measured and how it is being measured. --Antigrandiose (talk) 20:41, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

'What exactly is being compared to support this claim?' The size of the vocabulary, dear. I think we can fit the words 'olive' and 'tree' into the available quantity, seeing as we don't have much use for 'infantile' and 'troll'.Sartoresartus (talk) 02:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Ouch hon, that hurt. Thanks for at least trying to be clever, but you didn’t even seem to try to address my concerns.

For instance, if one were to compare English and Spanish, how would you tally up “you are” and “es”? Would es count as one or two, given that it expresses two words in the language that it’s being compared with? What about words with prefixes and suffixes? Does one language use these more than another and are they counted as separate words? Is “clueless” and “retard” counted as a separate words from “clue” and “tard”? Wouldn't a language that had an inflected vocabulary be at a disadvantage compared to one that didn’t if words were counted as different based only on their roots? What about compound words? Is "dimwit" distinct from "dim" and "wit"? What if it is, and the language it‘s being compared with doesn‘t have compound words? Or what if they aren’t counted as distinct and the other language uses an equivalent word that the first language might not have due to a lack of need?

I think there’s a little more to making determinations as to the number of words than your question-begging “size of vocabulary” answer. If you plan on responding to this please read and understand the points I’m trying to make. I would love to really have an “Oh….. now I get it” moment here, but your somewhat silly attempt at an answer doesn’t really get me any closer. And it hurts my feelings. --AntigrandiosË^Talk 04:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Minor problem of paragraph coherence

"The Hebrew text differs in some passages that Christians hold to prophesy Christ, and the Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers to use the Septuagint as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages."

This sentence doesn't seem to make sense without more explanation, and perhaps the whole paragraph could be explained better. Can someone who understands the background fix up the paragraph?

Mikeblyth (talk) 21:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

First two paragraphs in History section

"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article..."

Wikipedia:Verifiability

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Testament&diff=434050241&oldid=433357586

--StormCommander (talk) 20:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

In answer to StormCommander's comment, I've made some revisions to those two paragraphs and also others, so that the first half of the article is now (I hope) more informative and better referenced. PiCo (talk) 02:04, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Meaning of "Hebrew bible"

Just to explain some terminology: the phrase "Hebrew bible" means the same thing as the current Jewish bible - it's the term used in academic biblical scholarship. The text of the Hebrew bible/current Jewish bible is, and has been for a long time, the Massoretic text. The MT can be traced back to the 2nd century CE (the text seems to have become stable in the period between 70-135 CE). It's at that point that we can start speaking of a "Hebrew bible", even though it had not, even then, started being written in codex form (and a bible is, literally, a codex, as opposed to9 a scroll).

So what does this mean for the Old Testament? Simply that the LXX is older than the MT. But it's not that simple: the vast majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with the MT, despite the fact that some of them agree with the LXX. (Or more accurately, they agree in some places). So the conclusion is that in the first 2 centuries of the CE, there was NO standard text - not the LXX, not the MT. Nor for that matter was the LXX a single text - there were many LXX texts, and they were constantly being revised. So in the process of canonisation, first came "scripture" - books recognised as authoritative because of their age and supposed authorship; next came collections, like the LXX and MT; finally came canons, the canons of the 4th century codices for the Roman Christian Church, the Tiberian canon for Judaism. Even then it didn't end - the Catholic canon was only fixed by the Council of Trent, other Christian canons even later.

So where does this lead? Just that we're trying to reduce a very complex set of events to a few paragraphs. PiCo (talk) 04:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

What a narrow view. Hebrew Bible doesn't mean a thing. The LXX was written from the collected scrolls. It wasn't created ex nihilo, which is what your order suggests. You make it seem as though the canon was closed and the MT was devised in the 2nd century, but that's not the entire history. Qumran has scrolls. Jesus read from scrolls. It's an unsupportable position and takes too narrow a view. You might want to incorporate referenced elements from Development of the Jewish Bible canon into this text and restore the original, logical order. Feel free to add a new section if required and rename the existing section to something along the lines of "The closing of the Hebrew canon". --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:17, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I very much appreciate the recent changes to this section, but you're not starting with the scrolls. You still start with the LXX. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:38, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I do think it's a mistake to exclude the Josephus reference though. It shows that canon was close to the MT by the 1st century. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

As of now, all references to the Masoretic Text are missing. This is a serious problem. Also, you don't indicate that the abbreviation of Septugint is LXX> I don't know that we need to go into the reason for the term. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:01, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Part of the problem - maybe a lot of it - is that I'm trying to write for a particular audience. While we have to use scholarly sources, Wikipedia's readership isn't scholars - even an undergrad who based his essays on Wikipedia would deserve to get ploughed. The audience I write for is around senior high school level, or else an interested layperson, looking for a basic introduction to and overview of the subject. So it has to be simple. Nuances get lost, inevitably.

If you'd like to add something about scrolls, go ahead.

The Josephus reference isn't really proof that the canon was closed in the 1st century. For one thing, J. is only one writer - there's the evidence of the existence of the LXX which shows that there was no fixed number of holy books. Barr has some interesting things to say on this (I don't think he's in the bibliography, but I can add him).

The MT: do we really need to mention it? It developed slowly, over centuries. The truly important thing that happened by the mid 2nd century was agreement on a fixed canon. It's important because it influenced the development of the Vulgate and the Protestant OT. We do mention that. PiCo (talk) 05:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is, the way it reads now, is it seems like the LXX came out of thin air. Why were the books that were translated into Greek selected? Why weren't others? As for the mentioning of the MT, I think it does need to be mentioned since they closed their canon partially in response to the Christians closing theirs, and partially because of the diaspora (if memory of my OT survey course serves me correctly). Mentioning why the OT and MT don't line-up would be helpful, especially to a Jewish reader of the article.

I have noticed a dumming-down of the article, which I don't think is necessary. Leave that for the simple English edition of the article. If you read some of the other technical articles, particularly the medical ones, there is a brief introduction that can be understood by a high-school graduate, and then they hit the rest hard. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Walter: I'm going to leave this article now. Everyone's an editor on Wiki, and I did what I did here because I was asked to help out. I actually went rather beyond what was asked. I hope I've improved it. But anyway, as I said, everyone's an editor, and I feel confident that you have the knowledge and skills to make it a really great article - who knows, maybe even formal GA status! My only request to you is to finish off the Theology section - I haven't really finished it, and it looks very ragged. All the best. PiCo (talk) 10:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Tetragrammaton gets new pronunciation

Taken from my talk page since I don't like hiding discussions: it was unwarranted for a number of reasons. The edit was good-faith, accurate, and DOES have sources for it. So your reason for reverting ("no source for that pronunciation") was incorrect. I already found one... And will put it. But instead of rudely rerverting like you did (likely because of some kind of bias no doubt), why did you assume there would be "no source" for it, and maybe instead look for one? Here's one...here. Where it says on that page "Scholars believe it to have sounded like Yehowah or Yahweh." Which is one of a number of refs. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 00:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The new addition should be removed because I don't know of any modern scholars who pronounce it that way. Also, the urban dictionary, to my knowledge, is not a reliable source. What do I know? Only that the pronunciation offered was a transliteration used in the 1800s. Shall we include all the possible variants of pronunciation or just the most common? Tetragrammaton#Pronunciation: the question of which vowels. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:27, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Lol, come on. Urbandictionary as a source? that's not gonna fly. Jer ^{Hit me up} 00:43, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. If you don't like that source, or it's not considered strong enough, what about Nehemiah Gordon? Which is used quite extensively AS a source in other WP articles? That pronunciation (or thereabouts) is found here. (By the way, it's not really a "new pronunciation"...but "Yehowah" or "Yehovah" has been a known and established Hebrew transliteration or pronunciation for some time now.) Hashem sfarim (talk) 00:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly my point "Yahweh and there is a virtual scholarly consensus concerning this name". I'm not arguing that it's not the Hebrew pronunciation, but this is the English Wikipedia. And the phrase is: "In Hebrew, God has a name, generally pronounced as ". It is generally pronounced as Yahweh or Jehovah. It is not generally Yehowah. That pronunciation is reserved for a small minority. So either fix the whole sentence or remove the minority pronunciation. Oh, and Hashem sfarim, may I request that you stop writing on my talk page. This article is on my watchlist and I'll see when you or other update it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I just removed the new addition. Neither the Urban dictionary nor the Karaite Korner is a reliable source. If you can find reliable sources that suggest the name YHWH is pronounced Jehovah by more than a fringe minority, we can discuss putting it back in the article. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Technically it's Yehowah, with a short e. I do know that this is the Masoretic way of pronouncing it, but I think that discussion is better suited for the Tetragrammaton, the Yahweh, and the Jehovah articles, not here. The point is, it's a passing comment and not meant to dig deeper. If it's an issue, why not change the phrase to exclude any pronunciation, explain that it usually never uttered, and keep the remainder of the point: "the national god of the Israelites, became the universal Lord."? Which I don't buy anyway because of all the times he says "There is no God besides me." --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:27, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Malik is COMPLETELY wrong in saying that "Jehovah" (which is not even the name that I was referring to anyway) is used only by "fringe minority". That's not even close to the truth. "Jehovah" is used by MANY scholarly sources. Also he's wrong in saying that that Karaite source is "not reliable". According to whom? Malik and his dogmatic biases maybe? That source is used in MANY WP articles, with solid support. So he's wrong on both counts, on both his remarks. ("Jehovah" is a well established form and has been used by MANY MORE than just "fringe"...sighs. And Gordon is considered reliable on Wikipedia, by many. So, sorry, Malik, but your comment is UTTER FAIL.) But regardless, the issue was not even that word anyway really, but rather the Hebraic "Yehowah" or "Yehovah". And I do admit that Walter makes a valid point that though it's used, it's not "generally" used. So that part of it has to be kept in mind, I agree. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 04:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

In agreement with WALTER, per his own words, where he said "generally pronounced as Yahweh or Jehovah", I put it that way. Malik's inaccurate comments on that can be disregarded. It's nonsense to say "only a fringe" use that. That's totally incorrect. And is arguably POV bias pushing, with no real basis in fact or reality. "Yahweh" may be THE most common, but not the only form used, and "Jehovah" is by no means pronounced "only by a fringe minority." (The number of reference works, books, etc, that use it are enormous... See the "Jehovah" article to see that fact verified.) Either through the decades or centuries, or currently. So if Malik removes that, he's edit-warring, POV-pushing, and going against current consensus on this very section, as careful analysis shows that Walter agrees that "Jehovah" is also "generally pronounced." Walter's own clear words here. (NOT "Yehowah", though, that's true.) Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 04:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you should read WP:BURDEN and WP:IRS. While you're reading, you might want to read WP:Edit warring as well. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 06:18, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• Tangential comment: I would argue that scholars use Yahweh or YHWH more often than Jehovah and pastors and, even more-so laypeople, use Jehovah. And, I wrote "generally pronounced as Yahweh or Jehovah" not of. Just wanted to clarify that last point. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:24, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, that was a typo. I meant to put "or". I just fixed it. Also, if Malik (lol) thinks that there are no reliable sources for the form "Jehovah" or that it doesn't meet WP "Burden", then like I said, I can't take him seriously. Not to be too rude, or too blunt, but he shows utter ignorance with this, and EXTREME bias. (And there's no place for that stuff on Wikipedia.) "Jehovah" has been so established and sourced, it's like not funny. See the "Jehovah" article and all the refs and points there, to prove that, or just do a google search, and look honestly at what comes up, not conveniently ignoring what's there. I know that you agree Walter, but Malik seems to have an unfounded prejudice against that form of the name. Thinking that it's "only fringe" or "unsourced". Huh?? That simply is not true. Personal feelings should not cloud actual facts. "Yahweh" is used a bit more (wrongly it could be argued, but that's another matter), but I've heard "Jehovah" used by secular people, atheists, Protestants, and in writings, and ref works, and devotionals, etc, past and present, and also scholarly arguments FOR that form too, and it's quite a number of reputable Bible versions (Geneva, Bishop's, KJV, RV, ASV, NEB, etc) it's not even debatable that it's "sourced" and used by way more than just a "small fringe." Regards...Hashem sfarim (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• It is misleading (at best) to simply insert "or Jehovah", even if it is common, because it is a mispronouncation of the name. Jehovah— of course, from the comes from the Latin consonants JHVH (YHWH) and the vowel points of Adonai (lord), a very different word. ^{şṗøʀĸşṗøʀĸ: τᴀʟĸ} 16:32, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

That's just your opinion and the opinion of some other scholars, but not all. Many reputable sources and scholars and historians don't consider it so much a "mis-pronunciation" necessarily anymore than what's been called by some scholars the "wild guess" of "yahweh", which is considered wrong for a number of reasons, like being only two syllables, when the Tetragram was originally considered to have three. Also we use "J" in English for Jacob, Jesus, Jeremiah, with no problem. Etc. (And those were NOT the original pronunciations of those words either.) "Jehovah" preserves the four Hebrew consonants (YWVH) with J in English, which is the main matter anyway. Not which vowels were from maybe from where (not even total agreement on that point either). There are sources on both sides of that issue, (see Jehovah article to see the proponents and arguments for the tri-syllabic form, etc) but is not even the specific issue in this matter anyway. The issue it what form(s) are commonly used today, and whether we personally like it or not, both "Yahweh" AND "Jehovah" have been (and still are) used in many reference works, pulpits, and situations. "Yahweh" more, no doubt, that's true, but "Jehovah" a lot too, and is NOT just by a small tiny fringe. Saying that is what is "nonsense" (or just plain ignorance maybe). peace. Hashem sfarim (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

That's just your opinion and the opinion of some other scholars LOL If it's the opinion of many scholars, it's not "just [Carlaude's] opinion", is it? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:00, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Carlaude: There was no J in Latin until after 1400(ish). At this point, since how the tetragrammaton is pronounced in English is not central to the point being made in the paragraph--one with which I still disagree--I would not object to its removal. In fact the discussion around the correct translation of the tetragrammaton may not be appropriate for the article as the subject is the nature and contents of the OT, not individual authors or characters therein. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:24, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree, that paragraph itself is questionable. Jehovah or Yahweh was NOT just some tribal god. By the way, there's been some disagreement (I myself am not sure one way or the other) on whether the "J" sound was ever pronounced in Hebrew. Some say that "Y" was actually in many words pronounced as "J". And I think some say that in Latin it was pronounced depending on how the letters were arranged or understood in a word. Not sure. Regardless, though, the matter is that factually both "Yahweh" and "Jehovah" are THE most common forms used today, as well as in the past. Those are the two most common and known. And WP, per complete reflection of what's out there, should tell that, minus personal biases, likes, dislikes, or emotions, or desires. "Jehovah" is overwhelmingly sourced, and used, even if "Yahweh" is a bit more. Thanks for your help, fairness, and consideration to this matter. Hashem sfarim (talk) 17:29, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you're going on about, Hashem sfarim. The sentence as you wrote it was untrue. YHWH is not "generally pronounced" Jehovah in Hebrew, as the sentence said after your edit. Walter Görlitz rewrote the sentence to say that it's commonly pronounced that way in English. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:00, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

That is actually true. The Tetragram is NOT pronounced in Hebrew as "Jehovah". That is very true. That is more the Anglicized rendering. But then again, if you remember, I did not put "Jehovah" but rather "Y^ehowah". That IS used as a Hebrew rendering of the YHWH Tetragram. But as Walter pointed out, "Yehovah" or "Yehowah" is not GENERALLY used that much. But only sometimes. Hence the confusion. But yes, this I agree with you on. "Jehovah" is not the HEBREW pronunciation of the Tetragramatton, but rather more the Latinized or English. Established for some time now. But if it's the Hebrew pronunciation that is more at issue, then I understand. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 18:34, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The end of history

An IP editor just pointed out that our table of the books of the bible says that for Jews, "history [is] at an end" at the close of the Hebrew Bible, and that for Christians, "history will end" in the New Testament. The IP made the point that this ignores each religion's eschatology. Is there a better way to phrase the language in the table? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:10, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there even a source for the claim (that Jewish history ends with the Hebrew Bible and Christian history ends with the New Testament) or is this just more wikipedia original research? Since both religions have a rather developed eschatology this claim of history ending must be bogus. 75.0.4.230 (talk) 18:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Inspired?

hi. I don't know if this necessarily warrants a thing on the article talk page, but then again I don't know if putting "held...inspired" by "Christians" warrants a blatant removal like you did. Look at the wording of the lede. Obviously professed "Christians" (if they hold the "OT" as "sacred") generally hold it as "inspired." You mentioned in your edit comment about "you sure Jones does?"...as if that matters much to the overall point. Even if some PROFESSED "Christians" may not hold the "Old Testament" as inspired, wouldn't you agree that many do? (Otherwise why hold it so "sacred" then?) And shouldn't the word "inspired" (for "Biblical inspiration") be at least SOMEWHERE in that article? If not in the lede, but at least somewhere? The point, again, is that I don't think it matters much that some phony "Christians" (or just nominal or professed ones) may doubt the Old Testament's divine inspiration. (Probably for wrongly thinking it has no good science in it, from sloppy distortions of Atheists, who think that "four corners" was some kind of scientific dissertation, instead of simply a figure of speech of the day, like we use today...another topic.) Because the main fact is that many professed Christians also do officially believe that the Hebrew Scriptures were divinely inspired (if they go around calling themselves "Christians" usually, presumably). Why is it wrong to simply say that? (If you want to bring this to the article talk, then do so, but I do intend to put "inspired" back, just letting you know, because your rationale for removal did not satisfy me, nor is it correct for that context. There was no big need to remove that. "Jones" is not the overall determining factor, and never will be.) Holler. Hashem sfarim (talk) 18:07, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Also...if there was doubt about "Jones" because of his ref, then why not simply find another ref (like I just did, which I'm sure some uptight ones will say is "not a reliable source" dogmatically), that clearly states that "Christians" view the OT as "inspired", instead of simply removing that word from the article? WP policy recommendation is to NOT "delete" or "revert", but to maybe make better by finding refs etc. Why didn't you do that? Because it's an OVERWHELMINGLY sourced fact that many "Christians" hold the OT as "inspired." And plenty of references and sources clearly confirm that. Hashem sfarim (talk) 18:32, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

The reasons I removed it were twofold

1. The source does not contain the term inspired.
2. Liberal (protestant) theologians (of which I'm not a part) would object to the term. Also, I'm not sure where RC and Orthodox stand on the use of the term.

I only included the first reason when reverting. Jones is the determining factor when he carries the reference. Find another, as I see you've done, and the term will be acceptable. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz edit-warring and not understanding that he does not own any article

Instead of responding to what I wrote on his talk, and to the actual points, this character just rudely and arrogantly reverts AGAIN, with no real explanation, or discussion, even though I said on his talk to take to article talk first.

This is what I wrote:

Not sure what you're problem is, but if you think I'd ever put up with what you just did, rudely and arrogantly, you're sadly and sorrily mistaken. You don't own any article, yet you're acting as if you do. You just reverted good-faith and accurate modifications, with NO real explanation, but this nonsense of "unsupported changes". Without explaining just how they're unsupported. WP policy and recommendation (if one bothers to read the policy on this) is that you DON'T revert, if it's accurate, sourced, and good faith. Which my edits were. Unless you're maybe referring to that I did not put any real comment in the edit, or explanation. Maybe I should have, but that's not a good enough reason to just hastily revert something. But your front argument of "unsupported changes" is bogus, to be frank, as everything I put in is either supported or just more neutral in tone. So I'll take em one by one.

I put:

"Bible as an affirmation of the oneness and supremacy of the God of Israel,"

before it was:

"bible as an affirmation of the oneness of God,"

You'll notice that the word "bible" before was not capitalized, which is NOT correct. And also, my addition here was "supremacy". Now tell me...just HOW is "supremacy" in this context "unsupported"? And also the words "of Israel" that I added. Or is it you just removed that stuff along with the "Septuagint" modification, without carefully considering everything, because you maybe kinda think you own this "Old Testament" article? And can dismiss any change or modification that you think is unnecessary or that you just don't like? It aint happening... Seriously. Because attitudes and actions like yours would discourage "bold" editing, which is simply not cool or right.

Here was my other edit, that you just hastily got rid of for no good reason

"It is believed that Hellenised Jews who produced the Septuagint consistently translated this as kyrios, meaning "Lord". This is seen by many as a crucial change of meaning: Yahweh, the national god of the Israelites, became the universal Lord.[1]"

and the way that previously was:

"The Hellenised Jews who produced the Septuagint consistently translated this as kyrios, meaning "Lord". This is seen as a crucial change of meaning: Yahweh, the national god of the Israelites, became the universal Lord.[2]"

The change I put was "It is believed that the Hennized Jews". Why did I put it like that? Because not all believe that the original Septuagint lacked the Tetragrammaton. There was some evidence in the 1960s that the original Septuagint contained the divine name in Hebrew characters inserted in the Greek text. For real. But even so, the NPVO tone would be "it is believed", instead of stating at as dogmatic fact, as there's not 1000% consensus on that anyway.

Also I put the word "many" in the other sentence, where it originally said "This is seen". I simply put the word "many" as in "This is seen by many". Because, again, the majority may have that view, but not necessarily every single Bible scholar or historian. If you have a problem with this, the WP policy is to modify not necessarily to completely remove. You honestly thought that I would put those edits, only for you to remove them completely a few hours later, because you seem to have a certain bias about some matters, or whatever the reason is, with me just taking it? And not simply reverting you for doing that? (From your edit history, I can see that you like reverting things you don't like.) Please bring this to the article talk, before doing anything, because you'll be edit-waring if you don't do that first.

Again, the first thing I added was totally correct and "supported", the point about "supremacy" (and not just "oneness") and "of Israel". No reason to remove that. As, to repeat, you have no business removing or reverting things simply because "you don't like it" or would prefer it another way. It's all supported, and the other thing I did was for more neutral tone. Otherwise please discuss it further on article Talk. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 00:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Odd. I just responded after you did. Sorry. I didn't see this. I think I've answered your concerns below: you are changing the meaning of references and don't have any WP:RS. Sorry you feel it's an edit war, when it's you who are in violation of policy and more importantly, logic. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:26, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You didn't really address specifically my response below, about how "supremacy" even if the exact word is not in that exact reference does not mean that the thought or drift is not supported overall. Not sure if WP policy demands that precise words (if the basic point is still there and not contradicted at all in the ref) be there. It seems to be a bit stickler-ish. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 02:34, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, "supremacy" is not in the reference. If you want to show the supremacy of YHWH, you'll need a new sentence and reference. I did address that. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:41, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Hashem sfarim's additions

Let's look at Hashem sfarim's edits that he reverted. "minor elab... "capitalized Bible, which is fully supported by WP:MOSCAPS, but changing that phrase to "oneness and supremacy of the God of Israel" is not supported by the reference. If you want to add that somewhere else, feel free to do so, but find a reference for it. This edit similarly changes "The" to "It is believed that", which isn't supported by the reference (or the facts). It was the Hellenized Jews who produced the LXX, and they translated YHWH to kyrios, which is of course supported by a reference. Finally, is just adding a WP:WEASEL WORD, but again is changing a referenced point (one that I disagree with personally).

So perhaps next time, instead of lashing-out at another editor, you can assume good faith and follow the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle and take the conversation to the talk page instead. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem with your argument is that you think that because the very word "supremacy" may not have been on the actual specific source that (per stickler wiki hyper lawyering which runs too rampant with some editors on WP) that therefore the DRIFT of the word is not supported. No. WP policy does not call for every single jot and tittle to be necessarily in the reference, as long as arguably the overall thought is there. You'll say that in that reference or any reference in the article the point of "supremacy" is not there? As far as the "believed by many" for the Septuagint, your bias shows again, because you said "(or the facts". That's simply not true if you bothered to actually read what I wrote at first in your talk page, which you obviously dodged, by quickly blanking it. There's been evidence to show that the Hebrew Tetragrammaton was inserted in the Septuagint, in Hebrew Characters, in the Greek text. Not a well-known fact, but still a fact. And yeah, admittedly better if a ref was put in for that. But I did not actually state those words, but simply "it is believed by many", which happens to be more NPOV and true. (Regarding "many believing" that the Tetramgram was replaced.) Not all necessarily believe that the original Septuagint lacked the Tetragram, in Hebrew characters. So I said "many". (As regards to "many believing that the Tetragram was somehow forever replaced by the generic title "Lord".) Just because you don't know about that OR DON'T LIKE THAT FACT, does not mean there's no fact or support for it. Yes, you're right that it's not in that specific reference, but you'll notice that I did not say "inserted in Greek text" anywhere in my modification, but simply said "believed by many" etc, which is arguably supported in drift by the source, and is simply more NPOV. Which you obviously don't like. But the thing with "supremacy" to remove was ridiculous, because of the argument that that specific word not being in that specific ref. Even if the basic drift or thought is there. Meaning, that if one is honest, the modifications that were put in COULD have been left, theoretically, even if the exact word was not in ref per se. Will you argue that the "supremacy" point is in contradiction to the specific ref? Hashem sfarim (talk) 01:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem with your argument is that you're changing the meaning of referenced material. Period. If you want to add your opinion material follow WP:RS. I have no bias, sorry, you have WP:WEASEL words. As for the insertion of YHWH into LXX in Hebrew, if it's a fact, it should be added, with a WP:RS, until then, don't change the referenced information. Add a counter-claim with your reference. It's not what I like, it's what's in the source. I won't argue anything, only support it with a RS.

PS: "jot and tittle". --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:01, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's look at Hashem sfarim's edits that he reverted. "minor elab... "capitalized Bible, which is fully supported by WP:MOSCAPS, but changing that phrase to "oneness and supremacy of the God of Israel" is not supported by the reference. If you want to add that somewhere else, feel free to do so, but find a reference for it. This edit similarly changes "The" to "It is believed that", which isn't supported by the reference (or the facts). It was the Hellenized Jews who produced the LXX, and they translated YHWH to kyrios, which is of course supported by a reference. Finally, is just adding a WP:WEASEL WORD, but again is changing a referenced point (one that I disagree with personally).

So perhaps next time, instead of lashing-out at another editor, you can assume good faith and follow the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle and take the conversation to the talk page instead. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, I never said in my actual edit that the Tetragram was inserted in the Greek text. I never stated that in the modification. All I put was the word "many" and "it is believed". (In regard to the notion that the Septuagint apparently never even had the Tetragram in it, and that somehow "Lord" was now the only word to ever use, as if the Septuagint was infallible...though that's another topic.)

But all I put was "many believe" so and so. THAT WAS IT. And you claim that is so "weaselish", when arguably all it is was more neutral and objective sounding, and less dogmatic sounding. That's all that was meant by that. I tried to make it more NPOV. That's how I meant it. So who is assuming "bad faith" here?? So what I mean, by what kind of person you are? You get annoyed if someone seems to accuse YOU of "bad faith" or "bias", yet it's ok for you to IMMEDIATELY assume that about me and my minor modification. Not cool and not fair. Again, to repeat, in the actual edit, I never even put that in there, if you notice, about "Hebrew Tetragram inserted in Septuagint".

It was only the word "many" and "many believe", regarding "many believe" the Tetragram was never there and was somehow forever replaced by the generic title "Lord". "Many believe" that. Which uh happens to be a simple fact. (Not every single scholar or historian on the planet believes this notion about the current Septuagint copies we still have lacking the Tetragram therefore meaning "Lord" replaced "Jehovah" permanently. Not everyone buys that conclusion. Not all scholars and historians necessarily agree with that.)

As far as the ref, not sure if that specific ref says "this is viewed by everyone." It's dangerous to state things like this as dogmatic unquestionable totally-agreed-upon "fact", when they actually aren't. Not all Biblical Scholars and Linguists buy this notion about YHVH etc. So please spare me this uptight thing already. I already let this go a couple of hours ago. I've moved on. It's whatever. You obviously have taken control of this article, and want everything scrupulously sourced within each syllable. That's your thing, fine. I don't care that much anymore.

Again, I just put the word "many believe" which you assume bad faith as "weasel-ish", instead of an honest attempt to make it more NPOV sounding. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 05:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

No. In your actual edit you never said anything about the Tetragramaton, you simply added the weasel words "It is believed that" when the reference states this as a fact and added "by many" which is more weasel words. It's not making it more neutral, it's adding weasel words. While you meant it one way, it came across as another. I never assumed that it's in bad faith. Do not ever put words in my mouth again. It is a weasel word. Go read some of the policies and guidelines I've pointed you to. I have not taken control of this article because I've reverted your edits, I am applying policies and guidelines here as I do in other locations. Don't confuse the two and do assume good faith. I did when I reverted your changes, however, when an edit changes the meaning of a reference and adds weasel words, it has to be reverted. However, you should not assume that because someone reverts your edits that you are being singled-out for some special punishment. If you have simple facts you may add those facts, with reliable sources as references, but do not edit an existing referenced statement. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:25, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that "the many believe" thing is considered "weaselish" by many in the WP community, but also be aware of this "IGNORE ALL RULES"...is also stated in WP policy, meaning that not everything is always so black and white, in every instance. Sometimes it's case by case. I mean, goodness, the way that particular paragraph is worded, it's stated as dogmatic hard unquestionable "fact". Which WP is not really supposed to do. Especially in matters like this! You honestly think that every Biblicist and Linguist buys this nonsense that because current copies of the Septuagint lack the Tetragram, that that negates the original Hebrew, that does contain the Tetragram over 6000 times? Or that somehow because of the Septuagint that therefore it means the generic "Lord" replaced the Memorial Name of "Jehovah" forever? Also, as I said, a not-widely-known fact is that some evidence has been uncovered (lol) that shows that the ORIGINAL "Septuagint" actually had the Tetragram inserted in Hebrew characters IN the Greek text. And did you know that Wikipedia itself states this? lol. Right here. The point is this, the current wording right now (regardless of whether you agree or not) in that specific paragraph has a bit of a POV tone in it, and is too dogmatic. Also, it's assumed that because that particular ref itself states something incorrect or dogmatic that that somehow makes it ok and correct. There are other sources that refute or challenge what that ref said. In general I'm speaking. Regards. Hashem sfarim (talk) 05:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you believe that Wikipedia:Ignore all rules applies to WP:RS as well? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

3RR

I've posted to your talk pages to point out that you are at 3RR - settle this here (or at WP:RSN or wherever, DRN?). Dougweller (talk) 06:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I am trying to resolve this here. I thought that the first edit was more that 24 hours ago. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:56, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This is what I wrote to Dougweller.

I've been engaged in discussion as you can see, and I try hard not to violate 3RR. Thanks. Hashem sfarim (talk) 07:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that you have not come close to WP:3RR, which states that you cannot change another editor's work. You added, I reverted, you reverted, I reverted, you reverted, I reverted. However, this was clearly an edit war "a series of back-and-forth reverts". I am at three reverts, you are at two, but the policy goes on to state "Even without a 3RR violation, an administrator may still act if they believe a user's behavior constitutes edit warring, and any user may report edit-warring with or without 3RR being breached. The rule is not an entitlement to revert a page a specific number of times". --Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the policy. Don't think I have not read the stuff you have, because I have. And I already know that edit warring can be without 3RR. Which is why I said (if you recall, or if you had read what I wrote on your talk page originally) to go to Talk before reverting, because it would be edit-warring if you don't do that first. And I know that was not 3RR yet. So I'm fully aware that edit-warring can be other ways in general. But going beyond 3RR (as we all know) is just a clearer "bright line". I try hard never to do that. Regards... Hashem sfarim (talk) 07:35, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I was edit warring: "a series of back-and-forth reverts". Yes?

You were edit warring too based on that definition. Yes?

"Even without a 3RR violation, an administrator may still act if they believe a user's behavior constitutes edit warring". Yes?

Good night. If you get the time, please respond to my question above, if you're interested in continuing the conversation. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

In fact I misread Hashem's first edits, he is at 2RR, you are at 3RR as your first reversion was about 19 hours ago. Glad to see you all are trying to talk it out. Dougweller (talk) 09:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Table used in the Content section

I just revised the table since the previous one didn't wrap well on larger monitors. I think it would be a better idea to use a sorting table and list the books in the left column and then have the MT be the second column and we could indicate in which section of the Tanakh the book appears, if at all, and do the same for the LXX. We would also remove the notes from the table and make them true notes that appear at the bottom. I would also think that Wikilinking to the article on the book would be appropriate. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:36, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Go for it - edit boldly :) PiCo (talk) 03:16, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Islamic views on Old Testament

I think that Islamic standpoint is missing, especially given that the Christian one is given. I am not an expert on this, but I think some points would be:

- fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophesy through Muhammad and Quran

- commonness/similarities of some stories — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirinsirine (talk • contribs) 20:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

But the Old Testament is a Christian document. The Jewish version is the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. Is either regularly used in Islam? If it isn't and we add this view, then it opens up the permission for other world religions which makes no sense. I suppose if it's added to those other articles, it could be added here. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Tawrat (thought to correspond to Torah), Injil (thought to correspond to gospel) and Zabur (thought to correspond to possibly to psalms) are regarded in Islam as word of God, but believed to have been changed by people. Because they are changed, they cannot be regarded as a reliable source for Islamic theology, but they are still sometimes referred to, for example, when only small details of a story are provided in Quran (though some stories differ as well).

While you might be right about not direct connection, there are no other major Abrahamic religions apart from Christianity, Judaism and Islam and Quran has lots of common points to the older books. Sirinsirine (talk) 20:30, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You evaded the question. Are the books of the Old Testament regularly used in Islam? If not, it doesn't matter what Islam thinks.

Also, my original point was that there are three articles about the collection of works Christians call the "Old Testament" and you have to look at all of them to understand the request you're making and why it's not even remotely reasonable let alone feasible.

Finally, there's no section on what Christianity and Judaism have to say about the Koran so why should the readers of these three articles care about Islam has to say about this document? For the record, I could show you several books that discuss the inconsistencies and outright mistakes in the Koran. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:42, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I have already stated the extent to which old testament is used. To be more precise, an example is translation of Quran into Turkish by for example Suat Yildirim: it uses some quotes from Old/New Testaments. Parts of Old Testement being regarded as in some sense word of God in Islam makes it worth of mention in this article in my opinion.

Furthermore, testaments books are predating Quran, so obviously they cannot (at least directly) comment on it. If you are aware of such mention, then it should be added to the article about Quran, people would have a right to know that. Main point is that if there are different version of one story in different books, a universal encyclopedia should make a mention of that. These books are telling different versions of the same stories and similar ideas.

I do not see the relation of possible inconsistencies in Quran to the topic (even though I personally have not seen an acceptable demonstration from any source that claims to show them, but that's not our topic here). Sirinsirine (talk) 13:28, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

By used I mean during Friday prayers.

The fact that the Koran mentions this document does not give the religion founded on that book to comment on it.

The only reason I mention mistakes and errors, not simply inconsistencies in the Koran, is that that is what I would have to add to the article on that book to maintain WP:BALANCE in the way you're suggesting should be done here. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems I am stressing commonness rather than usage as opposed to you. If there was substantial mention of material in the Old Testament in the ancient Egyptian texts, than that should have been included as well. So rather than practice issue, this is a commenness and reference issue. Maybe I should have named this discussion as relation to Quran rather than Islam (though it does directly shape the viewpoint of Islam). This is encyclopedic knowledge in my view.

Friday prayers consist of salah (and that definitely would not include parts of Old Testament) and a talk to congragation, which may include parts but does not have to, and mostly won't include. (For information, Friday prayers are not the most common prayer type performed by Muslims). Still, I don't think this is of any crucial importance. The stress is on the similarity of the parts/stories/... of these books.

I still cannot see any relation of some possible inconsistencies to WP:BALANCE, completely different statements... Sirinsirine (talk) 15:10, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Returning to your original point: "I think that Islamic standpoint is missing, especially given that the Christian one is given". The reason "the Christian one is given" is that this is a Christian document. That's what I was saying by referencing the Tanakh and Hebrew Bible articles. This isn't an opinion of the Tanakh, it is used in regular worship of Christians, which is why it has its own article. Its use and selection of material has a separate history. In some cases the numbering of books and verses is different. The fact that the original document was translated into Greek and that Greek document was quoted by writers of the New Testament is mentioned. The decision by the early church fathers as to which books to include and which to exclude is discussed. This article and the collection of books it is related to is not an interpretation (or misinterpretation as sources related to the Koran's view of it would show) of the Tanakh, it's actually a document that is part of the foundation of Christianity. If you would like to start a new article related to Islamic views of Hebrew and Christian scriptures feel free to. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I still think commenness should be stressed, but given this is a short article, I think it also make sense to for example to restrict on inclduing into "see also" for example this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_narratives_and_the_Quran Sirinsirine (talk) 15:26, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Query about the subheading "Minor Prophets"

Why ever is it that immediately under the sub-heading "Minor prophets" we find the name "Isaiah"? The Book of Isaiah is the longest book of the prophetic books and has long been considered to be a major prophet, not a minor prophet. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't a sub-heading, it was an indication that the 12 minor prophets were included in this organization of the canon. I have fixed it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:45, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

"better table"?

There are elements in this series of edits that I like, particularly in the table, but it loses a lot as well. I suppose that those elements can be discovered in Tanakh, but the comparison is missing. The Original language column is useful. However, there is now no distinction between the accepted Old Testament canon and the deuterocanonical books. This is a serious problem. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Final Testament

I have noticed that the term 'Final Testament' has been removed from the 'See also' list in the article here, which seems good. A wiki search, though, shows that 'Final Testament', redirects to 'Quran'. This seems inapropriate because there are many people who do not believe in the Quran as such. A Google search for "Final Testament' shows that the said phrase is also used at the start of a title of a novel which is controversial. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to put 'Final Testament' in a better perspective. RCNesland (talk) 04:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Ezra Nehemiah Chronicles

In Jewish tradition, the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles are the final books in their sacred cannon. In early times, Chronicles was considered a single book rather than there being a first and second Chronicles and I will treat it as one in that which follows. Ezra the scribe is generally considered responsible for compiling these books and he ended the book of Chronicles with a reference to the first year of the reign of Cyrus, King of Persia(Cyrus the Great). the book of Ezra began with reference to that year also. The book of Ezra-Nehemiah was more current at the time and repeting the same message in a similar manner was likely intended to remind the readers when they were looking after the end of Chronicles that the material from the first of Ezra refers to more recent times. Ezra would have considered it more important to gain an understanding of Ezra-Nehemiah because of the material being closer to their current times while The book of Chronicles was like archive material for later. RCNesland (talk) 13:21, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're saying, but if you're suggesting doing something to this article to reflect the Hebrew ordering and grouping of the books, I would state that this not appropriate for an article about the Christian ordering and grouping of the books. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

From someone who admits to having no idea what I'm saying, the alegation that I may be suggesting inappropriate changes to the article seems unfair. i did not suggest a change to the article. The info I placed on this talk page is purely supplimentary. I do suspect there are better places, though, for comments on Jewish tradition. RCNesland (talk) 03:57, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, no allegation that you are suggesting inappropriate changes, simply asking you to explain yourself better. The place to discuss Jewish tradition would be in an article about the Hebrew scriptures rather than a Christian ordering and grouping of those books. Perhaps in Hebrew Bible: Timeline, Development of the Old Testament canon, Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:32, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Excessive Editing

When an article has a slight imperfection, it may not need to be edited. If it will not likely mislead someone, it might as well be left as it is. It appears that one editor replaced a lower case 's' on 'scriptures with an upper case 'S' and another editor reverted it back. To me it seems the changes were so minor that neither editor needed to bother. Now it seems that a bot has been introduced towards standardizing some things. At this point I don't think there is a reliable enough standard of english so as to justify standardizing things. Moderation should be used when standardizing. I don't believe that the Old Testament article here is reliable enough, yet, for it to serve as a model. Sincerely: RCNesland (talk) 05:33, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

"English" is always capitalized in the English language.

Please explain what you mean by the word "moderation". Do you mean that individual editor should moderate their behaviour or do you mean a moderator should be asked to oversee editing? Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:35, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Table

Walter (you seem to be the most active editor), could you have a look at that table?To my mind it seems to give far too much prominence to the Hebrew Bible. The whole point of the Christian order of books is that it ends with Malachi (a prophet) instead of Ezra-Nehemiah (history) - the point being that Malachi ends with a prediction of the birth of Christ, while Ezra-Nehemiah ends with Israel restored in the Temple. It's quite a difference, theologically speaking. PiCo (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

It's the protestant order of books and it does end with Malachi and the appendix is included as an appendix. I'm not sure what you'd like to see. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:18, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I guess what disturbs me is that the Jewish bible's order of books is so out of order. That might be because I always view the bible from a Jewish perspective. Maybe it doesn't matter. PiCo (talk) 09:57, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I think this article was rather better in the past than it is now.PiCo (talk) 12:17, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I understand your frustration about the order, but as the hat note states, "This article is about the Old Testament canon of the Christian Bible. For the Jewish Tanakh, see Hebrew Bible." Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Christian Books

Can someone please add a Christian (not Catholic) table I'm having trouble making one. 173.20.102.126 (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Do we need the Koine Greek spelling in the lede?

It's not discussed in the article and it's not really necessary. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:50, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

All Wikipedia articles on religious works and literary works in general contain the original titles of those works and occasionally notable translations of them to other languages (cf. New Testament and The Republic (Plato)). The English title of the Old Testament ultimately comes from the Greek one so it is a matter of etymology. I also suggest adding the Vulgate version of the title as especially notable (source for the Greek and Latin titles). This is common Wikipedia practice. --Omnipaedista (talk) 15:59, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

If no one else opposes the addition I am going to undo this revert. --Omnipaedista (talk) 16:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Did you read what I wrote? Let me re-write it: It's not discussed in the article.

Don't say "all" and then qualify it with "in general". Weasel words don't impress me at all. And the last I checked, Plato did not write any religious works. Walter Görlitz (talk)

I referred to Plato's text as an example of "literary works in general". See Ecclesiastes for another example. The "not discussed in the article" argument is not particularly relevant. --Omnipaedista (talk) 16:18, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. Yes it is. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:20, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I will add an 'etymology' section then. --Omnipaedista (talk) 16:22, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

For the record, "in general" qualified literary works that are not religious. --Omnipaedista (talk) 16:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:Bible

There is an RfC at Talk:Bible#RfC: inclusion of the Lim quote concerning the quote from Timothy Lim that is also included in this article. Please participate in the RfC over there, but I suggest that the consensus there be followed here as well. StAnselm (talk) 05:38, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

"Christians" or "Christian denominations"

per https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Testament&curid=22326&diff=667356266&oldid=667352292

It doesn't really matter if the groups consider themselves to be "denominations" or not, the term is accurate and a collective noun. It should be restored. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:51, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

While yes, you are correct that there are associations that do not like the term "denomination" (Calvary Chapel, for example), there are also independent churches not affiliated with any denomination. So for the sake of not excluding these independent churches, the term "Christians" is probably better than denominations. --B (talk) 16:31, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place to bow to such sensitivities. I know several other denominations that do not believe in the term, Roman Catholics being the largest one, but rather Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and we technical terms to refer to things. "Christians" here is not sufficiently precise. "Christian Churches" is also not precise enough, because it could mean two congregations that meet in adjacent buildings or that are in close proximity. The distinction, in this case, is primarily between protestants, Roman Catholics, and several Eastern branches of Christianity. How do we accurately reflect this idea? Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:52, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Table colors

Guys, the Bible contents table has color-coded fields, which looks useful, but there's no explanation anywhere what the colors mean. --Anon|10:39, 15 November 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.253.34.207 (talk)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Old Testament/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Dear Mr what do you think about my cvestion: Is Mouseus contacted whit Extr terestrial big intilegence./UFO/. Which best whis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.162.147.138 (talk) 18:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 18:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 01:47, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

by "MOST"?

from the first paragraph: "... a collection of religious writings by ancient Israelites[1] believed by most Christians and Jews to be the sacred Word of God.[2]" It may seem like a very small point, but I don't think "most" is the right word to use here. I know it is CLAIMED by the religious authorities, but it is VERY unclear how many Christians and Jews actually believe it to be the sacred Word of God. The introduction in an edition of the Bible can hardly be a neutral REliable Source on this issue. I suggest changing "most" to "many". Ratagonia (talk) 04:18, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Since the reference, http://bible.oremus.org/nrsvae/preface.html, does not support "most", I can't see why it can't be changed. In fact, I'm not sure "sacred Word of God" is supported there as the source indicates "written Word of God". There are large groups of Christians, I am one of the, would claim that the Logos (Christianity), or "word of God" "is a name or title of Jesus Christ". While word of God (Bible) redirects to Authorship of the Bible#Divine authorship. So while you're cleaning that up, you could phrase it different and link it correctly. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:02, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

"the canon of the Hebrew Bible was established already by about the 3rd century BC"

WP:UNDUE WP:FRINGE, much? Most scholars date the Book of Daniel (in the canonical Hebrew/Aramaic form accepted by Jews and Protestants) to the 160s BCE. If what is meant is that the canon began to be formed, or had reached something resembling its final form, then this should be clarified in the text, because it certainly doesn't look like that. There are two cited sources: one an introductory book from OUP, and the other a text the citation quotes. The quote from the latter (which dates the canon formation to the late second or early first century) directly contradicts the text; the former is from the same publisher as the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible, which, on pp. 2185-2188, gives a much more nuanced picture. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:05, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

"Theologically loaded term"

See here ("Because the term "Old Testament" is a theologically loaded term, it sort of suggests the doctrine that the New Testament has somehow fulfilled or surpassed or antiquated the Bible of ancient Israel, you're going to hear me refer to the object of our study as the Hebrew Bible. You may certainly use any other term, and you may certainly use the term Old Testament, as long as it's clear we're talking about this set of 24 books and not some of the other things that are in the Old Testament that aren't in the traditional Hebrew Bible. It means you're studying less, so that might be a good thing. So, it's fine with me if you want to use that but I will prefer the more accurate term "Hebrew Bible."") and here ("We just use different terms, because for the Jews, of course, Hebrew scripture is not old, in the sense of passé."

See also here (4:04~4:23, especially "I didn't pick the name").

This term is avoided in scholarly discourse in religious studies departments in universities that aren't Christian universities, and apparently when it is used it is used as a concession to popular understanding and quickly clarified that it is problematic. Christians use the term to imply that, with the coming of Jesus, the Hebew Bible is antiquated (the use of "New" to distinguish another set of books written almost 2,000 years ago from the "Old" Testament makes this clear). This clarification should probably be added somewhere to the article body, and perhaps also the lead. The above lectures (and introduction to a seminar) are probably not the best sources for the claim, though. The fact that in the third video the presenter grins and laughs and that everyone in the audience appears to be "in on the joke" implies that other sources that clearly discuss the problem should not be difficult to find, mind you.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC) (edited 02:34, 27 October 2016 (UTC))

Are you suggesting a move? If so, say so. If not, please state what you're discussing here. In short, it's the WP:COMMONNAME of the book in English. I know of several who call it "Hebrew Bible" and even fewer who call it "Hebrew Scriptures", but again, they are in a minority. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:21, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I'm not suggesting a move. I explicitly stated that what I was suggesting was that we cite the fact hat this is a theologically loaded term within the article. I might have also directly stated that since the term "Old Testament" actually refers to a different set of concepts to "Bible" (which the JPS prefers to either "Hebrew Bible" or "Tanakh"), "Hebrew Bible", "Tanakh", "Greek Orthodox Old Testament", "Roman Catholic Old Testament" and "Protestant Old Testament", maintaining a separate article with the title "Old Testament" (rather than implicitly conflating it with one or more of the other terms)makes sense. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:12, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

By the way, I grew up in Ireland in the 1990s, and my parents are Catholic -- I have no reason to think that the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament are the same thing. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:27, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Aren't there Wikipedia articles on Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, Masoretic text, Deuterocanon, etc., which make the distinctions clear? TomS TDotO (talk) 16:19, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

If those articles point out issues related to the term "Old Testament" and the Old Testament article doesn't (and I haven't read them so I don't know), that is a problem. Currently, the closest this article comes to it is the paragraph beginning The name "Old Testament" reflects Christianity's understanding of itself, which ... really doesn't seem to get it. Or rather, it appears to get it but is worded in such a way as to mislead our readers into not getting it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:26, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

There is the hatnote to the present article which says: This article is about the Old Testament Scripture canon of the Christian Bible. For the related Jewish canon, see Tanakh. For its Hebrew and Aramaic text, see Hebrew Bible. For the major textual tradition of that text, see Masoretic Text. For the ancient Greek version, see Septuagint. For the theological concept of the Old Covenant, see Mosaic covenant. TomS TDotO (talk) 06:02, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Dudes, how are you not getting my point? My original post was not that long -- why would you think I'm talking about moving the page or about disambiguation? I'm talking about discussing the terminology issue in the text of the article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:13, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

We're not getting your point because you're not making it well. The terminology is fine, and the COMMONNAME. Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:49, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

"The terminology is fine" is your opinion, but the scholars I quoted above disagree, and WP:COMMONNAME has nothing whatsoever to do with what I am saying. COMMONNAME is for establishing the titles of articles, and cannot be used to filibuster proposed additions to the article content. Please actually read my comments before replying or insisting that I am not making my point well. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:04, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

But the scholars are an insignificant percentage of those using the term. Adding a sourced sentence to support alternate use is acceptable. Anything else is WP:UNDUE as pastors, laity and adherents far outnumber adherents. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:09, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

So you are saying that the view embraced by the majority of scholars in universities, and the view of virtually all Jews (followers of the religion of the people that original wrote the work, mind you), is FRINGE and not even worth noting in the article per UNDUE? Are we seriously having this discussion? Do you want me to take this to the noticeboards or start an RFC? Because I guarantee you the result will embarrass you. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:45, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Additionally, your equation of the "Old Testament" with the Hebrew Bible is actually a minority view among Christians: Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Ethiopian Christians all use the term "Old Testament" with meanings different to mainstream Protestants. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:49, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Tanakh is linked in the hatnote. Hebrew Bible is as well. As usual, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I'm done in this discussion. Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:14, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Given how important this topic is, and how widely it has been covered in top-quality scholarly literature, the current 3,000-word length of our article is pitiful. I think one area that needs to be expanded is discussion of the name itself. The only mention of this in the article at present is the sentence about Jeremiah's prophecy. I provided some reliable sources above that address the topic, but I said that some other sources would probably be better. If you are not going to help finding such sources, then you should stay out of my way while I search, and you shouldn't have driven this discussion down a garden path about hatnotes and RMs as you have. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:31, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, we should have a discussion in the article about terminology, how the word "Old" is used in contrast to the New Testament and how Hebrew Bible is often used as a more neutral term. And how Tanakh (mostly) covers the same thing. (Also, a few scholars in the past have used "Older Testament", but that usage never really caught on.) But yes - the video is not the best source, and we certainly shouldn't be saying that "Hebrew Bible" is somehow "more accurate". (The term "Hebrew Bible" has its own problems, of course, since a significant portion of it is written in Aramaic.) StAnselm (talk) 04:33, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Agree. A sentence or so, is sufficient. Walter Görlitz (talk)

(edit conflict)@StAnselm: From what I can tell, "Tanakh" and "Hebrew Bible" are near-synonyms, except where "Hebrew Bible" is used as a neutral term for the "Protestant Old Testament" rather than the "Jewish Bible" and so follows the Christian ordering of the books, while "Old Testament" by itself is more ambiguous because, depending on the Christian denomination, it refers to slightly different sets of books. (The Hayes lectures I linked above are weird. Apparently someone higher up than her in Yale gave it the title "Introduction to the Old Testament" while she herself rejects the term in favour of "Hebrew Bible", or often "Bible". And if you examine the ordering of the lectures closely, she seems to be following the Jewish canon rather than the Christian, so "Old Testament" isn't even technically accurate from a Protestant perspective, because the order she discusses the books in makes it clear she is talking about the Jewish Bible.) As for the linguistic problem with "Hebrew Bible", there are a whole bunch of issues to unpack and I think we should probably take a "wheat and weeds" approach to it in the short run and throw it all in as it comes, and clean it up (possibly splitting peripherally relevant material off to our Hebrew Bible and Tanakh articles) later. One example of another problem that would not be entirely out of place in this article but would in the long run be better off in the "Hebrew Bible" article is the fact that Jewish Study Bible (and presumably other JPS publications) avoids the phrase "Hebrew Bible" for the reason that within Judaism it is redundant. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:49, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, "Hebrew Bible" most often refers to the book with the Jewish ordering. StAnselm (talk) 06:01, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

@WG: A sentence or so is sufficient? Why would you think that? The term is "theologically loaded", which implies to me that it has been the subject of much discussion of the subject. The fact that while most of the people who wrote, compiled and first canonized these texts were Jews (all of them were either "Israelites" or "Jews") modern Jews see the phrase as problematic is almost certainly worthy of more than a sentence or so. And why did you uncollapse the above off-topic discussion where you repeatedly accused me of stealth-proposing a rename or merge and cited policies to argue against this strawman you propped up? Are you proud of that and want all the world to see it? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:49, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't see anything problematic in >聖's suggestion, which I understand is that we note the theological significance of the term "old testament" (i.e., it implies the new testament). I'm not sure whether this ext point is in the article, but the very order of the books in the OT carries that significance: Daniel is treated as a prophetic book predicting the coming of the Christ, for example, and the last book is Malachi instead of Chronicles, which reverses the message of the Hebrew Bible. Definitely worth drawing this out.PiCo (talk) 22:14, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Except that in using the Septuagint order it is (perhaps) actually drawing on pre-Christian traditions. (I also don't think the difference with Malachi is as big as all that since in the Hebrew Bible it is still the last book of the Nevi'im.) Anyway, there seems to be a rough consensus to include a section, perhaps under the heading "Terminology". I think it would be helpful to say how the OT connects to Septuagint. StAnselm (talk) 05:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

If you really have the time and inclination to follow this up (I don't), you might like to look at this book which explains the theological significance of ending the OT with Malachi. There's also John Barton's "Canons of the Old Testament" in Text in Context - he notes how there is great fluidity around the Hebrew Bible order of books, and I think notes a few of the theological implications. Anyway, 聖 is quite right, the order of books in the OT isn't accidental, it's full of theological significance. PiCo (talk) 09:36, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

49 or 50 books?

The lede says "Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches choose the Old Testament version with 49 books." However, the table lists 50 books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.101.180.78 (talk) 23:05, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, in fact the numbers suggested inconsistently by the article are 49, 50, 52:

...and Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches choose the Old Testament version with 49 books.

       Eastern Orthodox
       Old Testament
       (50 books)
       
       Eastern Orthodox
       Old Testament
       (50 books)
       
   1	Genesis
   2	Exodus
   3	Leviticus
   4	Numbers
   5	Deuteronomy
   6	Joshua (Iesous)
   7	Judges
   8	Ruth
   9	1 Samuel (1 Kingdoms)[f]
   10	2 Samuel (2 Kingdoms)[f]
   11	1 Kings (3 Kingdoms)[f]
   12	2 Kings (4 Kingdoms)[f]
   13	1 Chronicles (1 Paralipomenon)
   14	2 Chronicles (2 Paralipomenon)
   15	1 Esdras[g][h]
   16	Ezra (2 Esdras)[f][i][j]
   17	Nehemiah (2 Esdras)[f][i]
   18	Tobit (Tobias)[g]
   19	Judith[g]
   20	Esther[k]
   21	1 Maccabees[g]
   22	2 Maccabees[g]
   23	3 Maccabees[g]
   24	3 Esdras[g]
   25	4 Maccabees[m]
   26	Job
   27	Psalms[n]
   28	Prayer of Manasseh[o]
   29	Proverbs
   30	Ecclesiastes
   31	Song of Songs (Aisma Aismaton)
   32	Wisdom[g]
   33	Sirach[g]
   34	Isaiah
   35	Jeremiah
   36	Lamentations
   37	Baruch[p][g]
   38	Letter of Jeremiah[q][g]
   39	Ezekiel
   40	Daniel[s]
   41	Hosea
   42	Joel
   43	Amos
   44	Obadiah
   45	Jonah
   46	Micah
   47	Nahum
   48	Habakkuk
   49	Zephaniah
   50	Haggai
   51	Zechariah
   52	Malachi

The Old Testament consists of translations?

In the article we read, "The Old Testament consists of translations of many distinct books". I find this hard to grasp. It seems that the OT exists in Hebrew, and that there are translations of it into e.g. English, but the (original) OT itself is not a translation. Perhaps I'm missing an important point, but this assertion seems, on the face of it, a little bizarre. Can anyone clarify? --88.151.31.18 (talk) 16:21, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

I think it should be removed. The article talks a lot about translations, but I don't think we can say the OT is the Septugaint or the Vulgate or some other translation. StAnselm (talk) 18:44, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. StAnselm (talk) 18:31, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Nietzsche?

Why would the assessment of the Old versus New Testments, coming from an atheist (Nietzche), whose best-known statement is "God is dead," be inserted into this article? His assessment is that the OT appeals to his literary tastes more than the NT does, but so what? He didn't believe any of it, so who cares? This article is about the OT, so why bring the NT into it for the sole purpose of disrespecting it? The NT was first written in Greek, by people whose first language might have been Aramaic, whereas the OT was written in Hebrew by people whose native language was Hebrew, and it may well be better, as literature, for this reason. For religious people, it is the content that is important, and for a bombastic atheist to prefer the literary style of the OT to that of the NT is irrelevant.77Mike77 (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

We can start the topic by conceding that, just as no modern expert on Plato is expected to be a Platonist (even of the Middle or Neo- sort), no Bible expert should be expected to accept the ideas it puts forth, far less believe in its god(s) or its divine origin.

— Philip R. Davies, Reading the Bible Intelligently

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:40, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Bart Ehrman doesn't "believe" any of it either. Nietzche is a well-known philosopher whose views on this topicc are frequently cited by scholars (e.g., here), so why wouldn't we do so as well? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:34, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Daniel

Last I checked, Daniel was in the grouping of minor prophets. @Dimadick: {https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Testament&curid=22326&diff=868605298&oldid=868596350 removed it] stating "The Book of Daniel is not one of the "Prophets" Books of the Old Testament, and dates to the 2nd century BC. It does not fit wth the rest of the sentence". Walter Görlitz (talk) 08:23, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

It is included in the Ketuvim ("writings"), not the [[Nevi'im] ("Prophets"). It dates to the 2nd century BC, specifically the 160s BC) not in the 8th to 6th century BC as the other books mentioned in the sentence. Daniel (biblical figure) is specifically excluded from the Prophets in the main article, because:

• "He is not a prophet in Judaism"
• "Daniel is not a prophet in Judaism: prophecy is reckoned to have ended with Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. In the Hebrew Bible his book is not included under the Prophets (the Hebrew Bible has three sections, Torah, Prophets and Writings), perhaps because its content does not match the prophetic books; but nevertheless the eight copies found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and the additional tales of the Greek text are a testament to Daniel's popularity in ancient times." Dimadick (talk) 08:32, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is not one of the prophets. But this article is about the Old Testament, where is is included in the prophets. StAnselm (talk) 09:20, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

That was my underlying point: he is a minor prophet in the various Christian collections. I don't know that he should be listed along with the major prophets and the remainder of the minor prophets should be listed only as a link to that article. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:15, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

You are not going to address how the restored sentence reads? :"Daniel and the twelve "minor prophets" – were written between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, with the exceptions of Jonah and Daniel" Dimadick (talk) 19:29, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

No need. I see that all sources that support a 6th century writing of the book have been removed. There are scholars who still support that early date. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:35, 13 November 2018 (UTC)