The original language of most of the Old Testament is Hebrew, but a few portions ( Ezra 4:8–6:18 7:12–26 Jer. Preservation of the Text of the Old Testament. The books called Apocrypha have generally not been printed in the non-Catholic Bibles in the past century, although in recent years these books have been gaining in popularity. The Bible used by most non-Catholic churches today has 66 books-39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The books of the New Testament have varied in sequence somewhat through the centuries but are generally in this order: the four Gospels and Acts, being primarily historical the epistles of Paul (arranged according to length, except Hebrews) the general epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude and the Apocalypse or Revelation of John. In this case the books are classified according to subject matter, such as historical, poetical, and prophetical. The Bible used by the Christian world is based on a different arrangement of the Old Testament books and was set up by a Greek translation called Septuagint. This arrangement was according to the Jews’ evaluation of the importance of the books based on the identity of the author.
In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) the books were divided into three groups: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (or Hagiographa). Thus we have the record called the Old and the New Testaments. Since they had strayed, even from the law of Moses, it was a new covenant to them. When the Savior came in the meridian of time, He restored the gospel to the Jews in Palestine.
However, a lesser law was given to Moses for the children of Israel (see Law of Moses). The title Old Testament is a misnomer since all the prophets, beginning with Adam, had the fulness of the gospel of Christ, with its ordinances and blessings. The New Covenant is the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament the word testament represents a Hebrew word meaning “covenant.” The Old Covenant is the law that was given to Moses. With regard to the word testament, the Greek word diatheke, of which testament is a translation, meant in classical Greek an arrangement, and therefore sometimes a will or testament, as in an arrangement for disposal of a person’s property after his death. (For an account of the way in which these two collections of sacred writings were gradually made, see Canon.) The books of the Old Testament are drawn from a national literature extending over many centuries and were written almost entirely in Hebrew, while the books of the New Testament are the work of a single generation and were written in Greek (with the possible exception of the Gospels of Matthew and John, which may have been written originally in Aramaic). The New Testament contains writings belonging to the apostolic age, selected by the Church and regarded as having the same sanctity and authority as the Jewish scriptures. The Old Testament consists of the canon of scriptures current among the Jews of Palestine in our Lord’s time and received on that account in its entirety by the Christian Church. The Christian Bible has two great divisions, familiarly known as the Old and New Testaments. In the New Testament we find the Jewish sacred books described as “the scriptures” ( Matt.
The Bible is the work of many prophets and inspired writers acting under the influence of the same Holy Spirit but at the same time it came into being “in many parts and in many modes” by a gradual growth extending over many centuries, and we can see in the books themselves evidence of the varied conditions of time and place and thought under which they were composed. The word itself is of Greek origin, being derived from ta biblia, “the books.” In course of time biblia, a neuter plural, was regarded as a feminine singular, and in that way “the books” came to be spoken of as “the book.” By the word Bible therefore we must understand not a single book but a divine library. By the Bible we mean the collection of writings that contain the records of divine revelation.
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