The Old Testament is the first section of the two-part Christian biblical canon; the second section is the New Testament. The Old Testament includes the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or protocanon, and in various Christian denominations also includes deuterocanonical books. Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants use different canons, which differ with respect to the texts that are included in the Old Testament.

Following Jerome's Veritas Hebraica (truth of the Hebrew) principle, the Protestant Old Testament consists of the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but the order and division of the books are different. Protestants number the Old Testament books at 39, while the Hebrew Bible numbers the same books as 24. The Hebrew Bible counts Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles as one book each, the 12 minor prophets are one book, and also Ezra and Nehemiah form a single book.

In the Catholic Church, the books of the Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, were previously held to be canonical by the Council of Rome (382 AD), the Synod of Hippo (in 393), followed by the Council of Carthage (397), the Council of Carthage (419), the Council of Florence (1442) and finally the Council of Trent (1546).

The New Testament quotations are taken from the Septuagint used by the authors of the 27 books of the New Testament.

The differences between the modern Hebrew Bible and other versions of the Old Testament such as the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac Peshitta, the Latin Vulgate, the Greek Septuagint, the Ethiopian Bible and other canons, are more substantial. Many of these canons include books and sections of books that the others do not. For a more comprehensive discussion of these differences, see Books of the Bible.

Table of books +Books of the Christian Old Testament See also Torah, Samaritan Torah See also Hebrew Bible#Books of the Tanakh Included by Catholics, Orthodox, but excluded by most Protestants Included by Eastern Orthodox (Synod of Jerusalem): Included by Armenian Apostolic and Ethiopian Orthodox: Included by Ethiopian Orthodox and Beta Israel: Included in Greek Septuagint, Syriac Peshitta and other early Christian manuscripts: Included by Syriac Peshitta Bible: Included by Beta Israel:

Hebrew Bible canon

The Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) consists of 24 books of the Masoretic Text recognized by Rabbinic Judaism.For the number of books of the Hebrew Bible see: Darshan, G. "The Twenty-Four Books of the Hebrew Bible and Alexandrian Scribal Methods,", in: M.R. Niehoff (ed.), Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters: Between Literary and Religious Concerns (JSRC 16), Leiden: Brill 2012, pp. 221–244. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed, with some scholars arguing that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty (140-40 BCE),Philip R. Davies in The Canon Debate, page 50: "With many other scholars, I conclude that the fixing of a canonical list was almost certainly the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty." while others arguing that it was not fixed until the 2nd century CE or even later.McDonald & Sanders, The Canon Debate, 2002, page 5, cited are Neusner's Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine, pages 128–145, and Midrash in Context: Exegesis in Formative Judaism, pages 1–22. According to Marc Zvi Brettler, the Jewish scriptures outside the Torah and the Prophets were fluid, with different groups seeing authority in different books.

Michael Barber says that the earliest and most explicit evidence of a Hebrew canonical list comes from Jewish historian Josephus (37CE – c. 100CE) who wrote about a canon used by Jews in the first century AD. In Against Apion (Book 1, Paragraph 8), Josephus in 95 CE divided sacred scriptures into three parts: 5 books of the Torah, 13 books of the prophets, and 4 books of hymns:

Josephus mentions Ezra and Nehemiah in Antiquities of the Jews (Book XI, Chapter 5) and Esther (during the rule of Artaxerxes) in Chapter 6. The canon is until the reign of Artaxerxes as mentioned by Josephus in Against Apion (Book 1, Paragraph 8). For a long time, following this date, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny.Henshaw, T. The Writings: The Third Division of the Old Testament Canon. George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1963, pp. 17 According to Gerald A. Larue, Josephus' listing represents what came to be the Jewish canon, although scholars were still wrestling with problems of the authority of certain writings at the time that he was writing. Barber says that Josephus' 22 books were not universally accepted, since other Jewish communities used more than 22 books.

In 1871, Heinrich Graetz concluded that there had been a Council of Jamnia (or Yavne in Hebrew) which had decided Jewish canon sometime in the late 1st century (c. 70–90). This became the prevailing scholarly consensus for much of the 20th century. However, the theory of the Council of Jamnia is largely discredited today.Anchor Bible Dictionary Vol. III, pp. 634–7 (New York 1992).McDonald & Sanders, editors, The Canon Debate, 2002, chapter 9: Jamnia Revisited by Jack P. Lewis.

2 Esdras refers to the canon of 24 books which likely refers to the same canon as the Talmud has.

Not much is known about the canon of the Essenes, and what their attitude was towards the apocryphal writings, however the Essenes perhaps did not esteem the book of Esther highly as manuscripts of Esther are completely absent in Qumran, likely because of their opposition to mixed marriages and the use of different calendars.

Philo referred to a threefold canon of the Old Testament, but never made a clear list of all the books of the canon, he cites the books of Moses as inspired, but never quotes Daniel, the Song of Songs, the Deuterocanonicals, Ezekiel, Ruth, Lamentations and Ecclesiastes.

Septuagint

The Early Christian Church used the Greek texts"The translation, which shows at times a peculiar ignorance of Hebrew usage, was evidently made from a codex which differed widely in places from the text crystallized by the Masorah (..) Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation. This distrust was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith [Christianity] (..) In course of time it came to be the canonical Greek Bible (..) It became part of the Bible of the Christian Church." since Greek was a lingua franca of the Roman Empire at the time, and the language of the Greco-Roman Church (Aramaic was the language of Syriac Christianity).

The Septuagint seems to have been a major source for the Apostles, but it is not the only one. St. Jerome offered, for example, Matt 2:15 and 2:23, John 19:37, John 7:38, 1 Cor. 2:9.St. Jerome, Apology Book II. as examples not found in the Septuagint, but in Hebrew texts. (Matt 2:23 is not present in current Masoretic tradition either, though according to St. Jerome it was in Isaiah 11:1.) The New Testament writers, when citing the Jewish scriptures, or when quoting Jesus doing so, freely used the Greek translation, implying that Jesus, his Apostles, and their followers considered it reliable.H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, revised by R.R. Ottley, 1914; reprint, Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1989."The quotations from the Old Testament found in the New are in the main taken from the Septuagint; and even where the citation is indirect the influence of this version is clearly seen (..)"

In the Early Christian Church, the presumption that the Septuagint (LXX) was translated by Jews before the era of Christ, and that the Septuagint at certain places gives itself more to a christological interpretation than 2nd-century Hebrew texts was taken as evidence that "Jews" had changed the Hebrew text in a way that made them less Christological. For example, Irenaeus concerning Isaiah 7:14: The Septuagint clearly writes of a virgin (Greek παρθένος) that shall conceive. While the Hebrew text was, according to Irenaeus, at that time interpreted by Theodotion and Aquila (both proselytes of the Jewish faith) as a young woman that shall conceive. According to Irenaeus, the Ebionites used this to claim that Joseph was the (biological) father of Jesus. From Irenaeus' point of view that was pure heresy, facilitated by (late) anti-Christian alterations of the scripture in Hebrew, as evident by the older, pre-Christian, Septuagint.Irenaeus, Against Herecies Book III.

When Jerome undertook the revision of the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint, he checked the Septuagint against the Hebrew texts that were then available. He broke with the majority of Latin translations of his time and translated most of the Old Testament of his Vulgate from Hebrew rather than Greek. His denigration of the Septuagint text was severely criticized by Augustine, his contemporary; a flood of still less moderate criticism came from those who regarded Jerome as a forger. While on the one hand he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds, on the other, in the context of accusations of heresy against him, Jerome would acknowledge the Septuagint texts as well.Rebenich, S., Jerome (Routledge, 2013), p. 58.

The Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers to use the LXX as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages. The Eastern Orthodox also use LXX (Septuagint) untranslated where Greek is the liturgical language, e.g. in the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the Church of Greece and the Cypriot Orthodox Church. Critical translations of the Old Testament, while using the Masoretic Text as their basis, consult the Septuagint as well as other versions in an attempt to reconstruct the meaning of the Hebrew text whenever the latter is unclear, undeniably corrupt, or ambiguous.Ernst Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, trans. Errol F. Rhodes, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. Eerdmans, 1995.For example, the Jerusalem Bible Foreword says, "... only when this (the Masoretic Text) presents insuperable difficulties have emendations or other versions, such as the ... LXX, been used." Jerusalem Bible Readers Edition, 1990: London, citing the Standard Edition of 1985The Translator's Preface to the New International Version says: "The translators also consulted the more important early versions (including) the Septuagint ... Readings from these versions were occasionally followed where the MT seemed doubtful ..." "Life Application Bible" (NIV), 1988: Tyndale House Publishers, using "Holy Bible" text, copyright International Bible Society 1973

The protocanonical and deuterocanonical books