What is Old Testament?

The Old Testament is the first part of the Bible, which is made up of a series of books or segments . Although the Old Testament denomination is accepted for the first part of all Christian Bibles, they differ in the number of books and content: the Catholic Bible has 46 books, the Protestant 39, and the books of the Orthodox Bible are 51.

This first part represents all the books of the Bible before the birth of Jesus , that is, before the beginning of the New Testament . Thus, it gathers stories about the lives of the patriarchs and prophets , as well as the creation of the world, the history, traditions and beliefs of the Jewish people before Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament was written between 1400 and 430 BC. C. , mainly in Hebrew, although some small parts were written in Aramaic and some books of wisdom in Greek.

In addition, it has multiple literary genres, including stories; norms, precepts and laws; prophecies, with visions and oracles, and proverbs or sentences. It also contains some lyrical or poetic texts.

Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, where the beginning of all creation is narrated.

Structure of the Old Testament

The Old Testament consists of the following structure:

1. Pentateuch:narrates the creation of the world and the origin of faith. His books, the first 5 of the Bible, are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
2. Historical books: theytell the history of the Jewish people from the death of Moses to the rebellion of the Maccabees against the Hellenes. There are 16 books, from 6 to 21.
3. Wisdom or sapientialbooks : poetic and wisdom books that narrate issues of education in faith and relationships with God. There are 7 books, from 22 to 28.
4. Propheticbooks : books in which the arrival of the Messiah is prophesied. The books of the prophets are divided, according to the length of the texts, into:
   1. Major Prophets, 6 books, from 29 to 34.
   2. Minor Prophets, 12 books, 35-46.

Old Testament books

Without counting the apocryphal books, which are disputed according to Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant canons, the 46 books that make up the Old Testament  are the following: