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The Old Testament or the '''Hebrew Scriptures''' (also called the ''', and in the Prophets , and in the Psalms ... the scriptures". According to historians, the Old Testament was composed between the 5th century BC and the 2nd century BC, though parts of it, suchas the Torah , date back much earlier. Historicity of the Old Testament The historicity of the Old Testament has been a matter of debate, particularly since the 19th century when Julius Wellhausen using . Current debate concerning the historicity of the Old Testament can be divided into several camps. One group has been labeled "biblical minimalists" by its critics. Minimalists (e.g., Philip Davies, Thompson, Seters) see very little reliable history in any of the Old Testament. Conservative Old Testament scholars, "biblical maximalists", generally accept the historicity of most Old Testament narratives (save the accounts in Gen 1–11) on confessional grounds, and Fundamentalist Christian Egyptologists (e.g., Kenneth Kitchen ) argue that such a belief is not incompatible with the external evidence. While other scholars (e.g., William Dever) are somewhere in between: they see clear signs of evidence for the monarchy and much of Israel's later history, though they doubt the Exodus and Conquest. The vast majority of scholars at American universities are somewhere between biblical minimalism and maximalism; there are still many maximalists at conservative/evangelical seminaries, while there are very few biblical minimalists at any American universities. Interestingly, both Kitchen and Finkelstein are probably the only scholars from the maximalist and minimalist camps who are sufficiently trained to address these questions with the necessary sophistication—both are giants in their fields—and both come to different conclusions. Contemporary Israeli archaeologists have now rejected much of the Deuteronomistic history of the Old Testament. Notably, archaeologists Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University and Neal Asher Silberman have written popular books detailing the now widespread consensus that many of the most well known Biblical stories are incompatible with the archaeology of the region. Among the Biblical events now adjudged to be largely, if not completely ahistorical include the patriarchal histories, the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, the Exodus, the sojourn of the Israelites in the Sinai Peninsula, the conquest of Cannan by Joshua and a united kingdom under David and Solomon. The very existence of David and Solomon is a matter of debate but the archaeology of the region shows that Judea, during the alleged time of David and Solomon, was little more than a small local chiefdom in the southern highlands which never controlled the much richer and more populated regions of the north Naming of the Old Testament Tertullian , in the 2nd century, was the first to use the terms ''novum testamentum/new testament'' and ''vetus testamentum/old testament''. For example, in ''Against Marcion '' book 3 {Link without Title} , chapter 14, he wrote:
And in book 4 {Link without Title} , chapter 6, he wrote:
Lactantius , in the 3rd century, in his ''Divine Institutes'', book 4, chapter 20 {Link without Title} , wrote:
The Vulgate translation, in the 5th century, used ''testamentum'' in 2 Corinthians 3 {Link without Title} :
However, the more modern NRSV translates these verses from the Koine Greek as such:
The term "Old Testament" is a translation of the , between the Old and New Testaments. Most Jews accept 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. However, because Judaism does not accept the books of the New Testament as Scripture, they do not label their Bible "the Old Testament". For Jews the books of the Protestant Old Testament are simply "the Bible". Since the books of the Jewish Bible were written primarily in Hebrew (with some Aramaic), the Bible of Judaism is also called "the Hebrew Bible". The term "Hebrew Bible" is a theologically neutral term as compared with "the Old Testament", which is distinctively Christian. Another Jewish term for the Jewish Bible/Old Testament is Tanakh , which is short for ''Torah'', '''''N'''ebi'im'', and '''K'''''etubim'', or Law, Prophets and Writings, the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible. Twenty-first-century Christian Theologian Marva Dawn has advocated calling the Old Testament the ''First Testament'', freeing the writings from any trace of irrelevancy associated with aging in western culture. However, Dawn's label has not yet gained much popularity, although teachers of religious education in the United Kingdom have been advised to avoid using "Old Testament" because of the same reasons {Link without Title} . Christian view of the Law Traditional , Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it; the opposite of Marcion 's version of Luke 23:2 {Link without Title} : "We found this fellow perverting the nation and destroying the law and the prophets". While some Christians from time to time have deduced from statements about the law in the writings of the ( Theonomy ) argued that the civil laws as well as the moral laws should be applied in today's society as part of establishing a modern theocratic state. Others are content to grant that none of the Mosaic laws apply as such and that the penalties attached to the laws were limited to the particular historical and theological setting of the Old Testament, and yet still seek to find moral and religious principles applicable for today in all parts of the law. The topic of Paul and the law is still frequently debated among New Testament scholars, for example, see New Perspective On Paul . In the late 20th century, some Christian groups, primarily those found in or influenced by Messianic Judaism , have asserted that Torah laws should be followed by Christians. Due to a different understanding of Biblical passages such as those referenced above, Dietary Laws , Seventh Day Sabbath , and Biblical Festival Days are observed in some way within such segments of Christianity. As with Orthodox Judaism , capital punishment and sacrifice are not practiced because there are strict Biblical conditions on how these are to be practiced. Christians who attempt to follow Torah law do not do such works in order to achieve salvation, but rather because they believe is it a way of more fully obeying God. See sources below (Lancaster and Berkowitz). See also
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