Old Testament Inspiration
God
chose men such as Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel
to receive His words and to write them down. Their writings became the
books of the Old Testament.
Each
of the authors of the Old Testament books received God's word in
different ways. Some received messages directly from God. While in the
presence of God on Mount Sinai, Moses was given the Commandments
inscribed on a stone. David received divine inspiration to foretell
events relating to Christ's ministry on earth a thousand years later.
God told some of His prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, exactly
what to say; so when they gave a message, it was God's word, not their
own. The phrase "Thus says the Lord" appears more than two thousand
times in the Old Testament. Others received the word of God in visions
or dreams. Ezekiel and Daniel recorded exactly what they say, whether
they understood it or not. Still others, such as Samuel and Ezra, were
directed by God to record events in the history of Israel.
Four
hundred years after Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, was
written, Jesus Christ came to earth, as prophesied. In His sermons,
Christ affirmed the divine authorship of the Old Testament, quoting
from it frequently. Moreover, Jesus often pointed to passages in the
Old Testament as having predicted events in His own life.
The
authors of the New Testament also affirmed the divine inspiration of
the Old Testament. In a familiar passage found in 2 Timothy 3:16, the
Apostle Paul says that, "All Scripture is inspired by God." The Apostle
Peter likewise affirmed the validity of Scripture in 2 Peter 1:20-21,
when he said, No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own
interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man,
but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."
Background
The Old Testament is the first of the two major sections of the Christian Bible. The Old Testament contains the
sacred writings of the Jews. It was written over the period of roughly 1000 B.C. to 100 B.C., but it includes narration
of events that occurred many centuries earlier and had been passed from generation to generation in oral form.
The Old Testament was originally written in the Hebrew language with a few sections written in the Aramaic language.
There was no "official" list of accepted books of Jewish scripture until
around 100 A.D. when Jewish rabbis revised their Scripture and established an official canon of Judaism, rejecting
some books not found in Hebrew versions of the Scripture. This revision accounts for the fact that Protestant,
Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians use slightly different versions of the Old Testament.
Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity, was born a Jew and practiced
Judaism all His earthly life. Christianity began as a sect of Judaism and only emerged as a separate religion after
large numbers of Gentiles had been converted. The Jewish Scripture had predicted the coming of a savior, the Messiah,
and Jesus fulfilled that role. So it is natural that Christians would retain the Jewish Scripture as part of their
Bible.
Synopsis
The Old Testament tells the story of God's chosen people, the Hebrews,
who were later known as Israelite's or Jews. Sometime around 1800 B.C., God made a covenant with a man named Abraham
to make of his descendants a great nation. The first few of these descendants migrated to Egypt to escape a famine
in their own land. After many generations they had greatly increased their numbers but had become enslaved to the
Egyptians. God sent a great leader and prophet, Moses, to lead the Hebrews out of captivity and into the Promised
Land of Israel. During this time God gave Moses the Ten Commandments which are still considered the basis for a
moral life by both Jews and Christians.
In addition to the Ten Commandments, the Old Testament lists many other laws about
circumcision, dietary restrictions, blood sacrifices, Sabbath observance, tithing, social welfare, crimes, social
behavior, armies, qualifications of leaders, etc. These laws regulated almost every aspect of Hebrew life.
God intended for the Israelite's to live according to His commandments and to show
the truth of God to all the world (Genesis 12:1-3). However, time and again, the Israelites lost sight of their
mission and lapsed into idolatry, sin or narrow-minded nationalism. On these occasions, God called prophets, such
as Elijah, Samuel, Jonah, Isaiah and many others, to lead them back to the right path. The Old Testament writings
make no attempt to hide the fact that the Israelites and their leaders had many failings and flaws. Yet, through
these flawed people, God was able to accomplish His purposes in the world.
The later Hebrew prophets foresaw the coming of a Messiah (meaning "anointed
one"), a king who would usher in a golden era of peace and prosperity. More than any other nation, the Israelite's
looked to the future, to the coming of the Messiah, and to the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham to make
of his descendants a great nation.
What is the Difference Between Protestant and Catholic
Bibles?
The Old Testament
The First Christian Bible
At the time the Christian Bible was being formed, a Greek translation of Jewish Scripture, the Septuagint, was in common use and Christians
adopted it as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. However, around 100 A.D., Jewish rabbis revised their Scripture
and established an official canon of Judaism which excluded some portions of the Greek Septuagint. The material
excluded was a group of 15 late Jewish books, written during the period 170 B.C. to 70 A.D., that were not found
in Hebrew versions of the Jewish Scripture. Christians did not follow the revisions of Judaism and continued to
use the text of the Septuagint as the Old Testament.
Protestant Bibles
In the 1500s, Protestant leaders decided to organize the Old Testament material according to the official canon
of Judaism rather than the Septuagint. They moved the Old Testament material which was not in the Jewish canon
into a separate section of the Bible called the Apocrypha. So, Protestant Bibles then included all the same material as the earlier Bible, but it
was divided into two sections: the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. Protestant Bibles included the Apocrypha until
the mid 1800s, and the King James Version was originally published with the Apocrypha. However, the books of the
Apocrypha were considered less important, and the Apocrypha was eventually dropped from most Protestant editions.
Catholic and Orthodox Bibles
The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches did not follow the Protestant
revisions, and they continue to base their Old Testament on the Septuagint. The result is that these versions of
the the Bible have more Old Testament books than most Protestant versions. Catholic Old Testaments include 1st and 2nd Maccabees,
Baruch, Tobit, Judith,
The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther,
and the stories of Susanna and
Bel and the Dragon which are included
in Daniel. Orthodox Old Testaments include these plus 1st and 2nd Esdras,
Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151 and 3rd
Maccabees.
The New Testament
The Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox New Testaments are identical.