Mike Parker’s chart of the Old Testament<\/a>, Jews divide the Old Testament into three parts, each part less authoritative than the last, though all three parts are authoritative: the Law (or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Instruction,\u00e2\u20ac? namely the instruction a parent gives to a child), the Prophets, and the Writings. Scriptures such as Acts 28:23 reflect this arrangement. For other scriptures that also reflect it, see Zechariah 7:12; Matthew 5:17, 7:12, and 22:40; Luke 16:16, and 24:44; John 1:45; Acts 13:15 and 24:14; Romans 3:21; 3 Nephi 12:17, 14:12, and 15:10; and D&C 59:22. <\/p>\nThe Law is the first five books, also called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the books of Moses\u00e2\u20ac? (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). The Prophets are Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Twelve Prophets\u00e2\u20ac? (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi). The Writings are Psalms, Proverbs, and Job (the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Greater Writings\u00e2\u20ac?) and Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther (the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Five Scrolls\u00e2\u20ac?), and Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles (historical books which go by a variety of names). <\/p>\n
Why is it called the Old Testament?<\/i><\/p>\n
The New Testament Church sometimes spoke of a new covenant and an old covenant. (See, for example, 2 Corinthians 3:14, where the Greek word for “covenant” is translated “testament,” and Hebrews 8:7). This is a way of distinguishing the covenant between the Church and God before Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming from the covenant between the Church and God after Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming \u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut that distinction isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the same as the distinction between the Old and New Testaments. In the New Testament Church, what we call the Old Testament was simply called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Scriptures\u00e2\u20ac? or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Law and the Prophets.\u00e2\u20ac? They had various books that eventually came to be our New Testament, but not a collection by that name, and not every branch of the early Church had the same books. <\/p>\n
The name “Old Testament” isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t used until the second and third centuries AD, when early Christians were deciding which of books are canonical and which are not. That is when the collection to which we refer as the “New Testament” was put together. The word “testament” is related to the word “testimony.” Thus, the Old Testament is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the older testimony\u00e2\u20ac? of Christ and the New Testament is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the newer testimony.\u00e2\u20ac? This is the same use of the word in the subtitle of the Book of Mormon: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Another Testament of Jesus Christ.\u00e2\u20ac? <\/p>\n
How can the Old Testament help to us today?<\/i><\/p>\n
Here are some question to help you think about that broader question: <\/p>\n
What did the New Testament writers mean by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the old covenant\u00e2\u20ac?? What did they mean by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the new covenant\u00e2\u20ac?? How do those differ? How are they the same? <\/p>\n
On the old covenant, see Exodus 19-24, especially 19:5-6, 23:20-33, and 24:7-8. On the new covenant, see Jeremiah 31:31-34 (Hebrews 8:8-13) and 1 Corinthians 11:24-26 (Luke 22:19-20), 2 Corinthians 3:6, and Hebrews 9:1-15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
How does the Old Testament testify of Christ (cf. Jacob 7:10-11)? Why might someone be unable to see that testimony in the Old Testament? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn","category-lessons-all"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}