The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to books of the Bible, originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and of uncontroversial canonicity. The term closely corresponds to contents of the Jewish Tanakh and the Protestant Old Testament, but doesn't include the deuterocanonical portions of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Christian Old Testament. The term doesn't imply naming, numbering or ordering of books.
Usage
Hebrew Bible is a term that refers to the common portions of the Jewish canon and the Christian canons. In its Latin form, Biblia Hebraica, it traditionally serves as a title for printed editions of the masoretic text.
Many scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible when discussing these books in academic writing, as a neutral substitute to terms with religious connotations. The Society of Biblical Literature's Handbook of Style, which is the standard for major academic journals like Harvard Theological Review and conservative Protestant journals like Bibliotheca Sacra and Westminster Theological Journal, suggests that authors "be aware of the connotations of alternative expressions such as ... Hebrew Bible [and] Old Testament" without prescribing the use of either.
Additional difficulties include:
In terms of theology, Christianity has struggled with the relationship between "old" and "new" testaments from its very beginnings.
In the case of Tanakh and Old Testament, these are confessional terms in the sense that a writer may be using them as more than an objective reference to a set of books. In ecumenical and international theological journals, writers often wish to present arguments that depend on premises independent of traditional conclusions, or that challenge them. Writers will sometimes use non-confessional terms so their particular arguments can be evaluated, without reference to whatever confessional positions they may or may not hold.
Meaning of old in Old Testament
Another important issue relevant to use of Hebrew Bible rather than Old Testament is the documented misunderstanding of the sense of old in Old Testament. In Christianity old in Old Testament essentially refers to time. In French it's, in Latin Vetus Testamentum (like Vetus LatinaOld Latin), in Greek hē palaia diathēkē (Ἡ Παλαιὰ Διαθήκη, palaios gives several English prefixes like palaeography). There is additional, confessional implication, but the semantics of this is non-trivial, related to the meaning of Testament rather than the meaning of Old.
Christian commentary on the New Testament understanding of the relationship between the Testaments became controversial in the 2nd century. Consensus was eventually achieved, well before the Catholic-Orthodox division, so all major divisions of Christianity have inherited that consensus.
The controversy arose when Marcion and his followers held the Hebrew scriptures to be superseded. So strong were Marcion's views that even New Testament books that quoted the Old were excluded from his canon. He wasn't entirely consistent in applying this rule, because nearly every book of the New Testament makes such quotations. Along with Gnosticism, this view has the dubious distinction of being one of the first to be classed as heretical by the early Christian "peer review" process. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Marcion "rejected the writings of the Old Testament" and claims that the Marcionites "were perhaps the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known."
Both Gnosticism (with its additional pseudepigraphal gospels) and Marcion (with his limited canon) stimulated early Christian efforts to find consensus regarding a canon of scripture. Ultimately consensus excluded Gnostic books and included the Hebrew scriptures (most often the Greek Septuagint translation of them), but remained elusive regarding some New Testament books, see also Antilegomena. The continued use of the Hebrew scriptures as scripture was a deliberate and significant decision. It was a decision that meant they were accepted as authoritative on matters of doctrine and normative for matters of everyday life.
The word testament is a traditional English translation of the Hebrew word berit (covenant, contract or deal). The Jewish Encyclopedia notes several covenants between God and man in the Tanakh, including: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Aaron and David. It also discusses Jeremiah's prophecy of a "new covenant" (berit hadash in Hebrew, Jeremiah 31:31) and comments, "Christianity . . . interpreted the words of the prophet in such a way as to indicate a new religious dispensation in place of the law of Moses (Hebrews 8:8-13)."
Christians of all traditions could be cited that would acknowledge the understanding the Jewish Encyclopedia expresses in this article. However, just as the Jewish Encyclopedia acknowledges a series of covenants, that are nonetheless in some sense united, so in fact does ecumenical Christianity. The term dispensation is common in English language Christian theology in addressing the complicated issues Christians have found in understanding the relationships between the covenants in the Hebrew scriptures, and between those covenants and what the New Testament (often associated with the New Covenant) says about its own relationship to prior covenants (see Dispensationalism).
In covenant theology (a theological framework distinctive of, but not exclusive to, the Reformed churches), the scriptures are interpreted as teaching that God's original purpose was to create for himself one covenant people, which was to be found in the people of Israel in the years before the Messiah, and later expanded to universal salvation through the Messiah. Under this interpretation, old in Old Testament refers to the age before expansion of the covenant through the Messiah.
The New Testament documents themselves present Jesus and his followers as being opposed for preaching this message of gentile (non-Jewish) inclusion. Essentially, the New Testament appropriates the Jewish tradition, such as B'nei Noah, to the benefit of Christians. This is a serious matter for believers in both faiths, and a matter that scholars of those faiths often wish to leave out of contention when co-operating on projects of common interest, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is another reason non-confessional terms like Hebrew Bible suit themselves to academic, and other, discourse.
Usage
Using the term Hebrew Bible, then, is an attempt to provide specificity with respect to contents, while avoiding allusion to any particular interpretative tradition or theological school of thought.
On the one hand, the term isn't much used among adherents of either Judaism or Christianity. On the other hand, it's widely used in academic writing and interfaith discussion. In short, the term 'Hebrew Bible' is mostly to be found employed in relatively neutral contexts that are meant to include dialogue amongst all religious traditions, but not widely found in the inner discourse of the religions which use its text.
Specific canons
Because "Hebrew Bible" refers to the common portions of the Jewish and Christian biblical canons, it doesn't encompass the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, which were preserved in the GreekSeptuagint (LXX), and are part of the Old Testament in the canons of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches . Thus the term "Hebrew Bible" corresponds most fully to the Old Testament in use by Protestant denominations (adhering to Jerome's Hebraica veritas doctrine), and less fully to canons that are based closely on the Septuagint (adhering to Augustine's 393 Synod of Hippo and 397-419 Councils of Carthage).
Because the term implies a favoritism towards the Masoretic text, however, critics of the Masoretic text also tend to avoid using this term. The Orthodox Church specifically endorses the Septuagint (Greek) text of the Old Testament, not only because they believe it to be more complete, but also because it's most likely the text used by the earliest Christians, appears to be the most widely quoted text in the New Testament, and in many places is more christological than the Masoretic text.
Usage of the term in contexts that refer to the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, or that refer to the Septuagint text or translations based primarily on the Septuagint text, is thus inaccurate.
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