Modern Christian formulations of this tension include supersessionism, covenant theology, new covenant theology, dispensationalism, and dual-covenant theology. Ĭhristianity has long asserted a close relationship between the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, although there have sometimes been movements like Marcionism (viewed as heretical by the early church) that have struggled with it. Alister McGrath points out that while the term emphasizes that it is largely written in Hebrew and "is sacred to the Hebrew people", it "fails to do justice to the way in which Christianity sees an essential continuity between the Old and New Testaments", arguing that there is "no generally accepted alternative to the traditional term 'Old Testament'." However, he accepts that there is no reason why non-Christians should feel obliged to refer to these books as the Old Testament, "apart from custom of use". Hebrew Bible Old Testament" without prescribing the use of either.
The Society of Biblical Literature's Handbook of Style, which is the standard for major academic journals like the Harvard Theological Review and conservative Protestant journals like the Bibliotheca Sacra and the Westminster Theological Journal, suggests that authors "be aware of the connotations of alternative expressions such as . Many biblical studies scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible (or Hebrew Scriptures) as a substitute for less-neutral terms with Jewish or Christian connotations (e.g. See also: Biblia Hebraica (disambiguation) and Development of the Christian Biblical canon However, such an Urtext has never been found, and which of the three commonly known versions (Septuagint, Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch) is closest to the Urtext is debated. These differences have given rise to the theory that yet another text, an Urtext of the Hebrew Bible, once existed and is the source of the versions extant today. These sources may be older than the Masoretic Text in some cases and often differ from it. These include the Septuagint, the Syriac language Peshitta translation, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls collection and quotations from rabbinic manuscripts. In addition to the Masoretic Text, modern scholars seeking to understand the history of the Hebrew Bible use a range of sources.
Catholic Bibles, Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bibles and Ethiopian Orthodox Bibles contain additional materials, derived from the Septuagint (texts translated into Koine Greek) and other sources. The contents of the Hebrew Bible are similar to those of the Protestant Christian Old Testament, in which the material is divided into 39 books and arranged in a different order. The authoritative form of the Hebrew Bible for Rabbinic Judaism is the Masoretic Text (7th to 10th century CE), which consists of 24 books, divided into pesuqim (verses). These texts are almost exclusively in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra, and the verse Jeremiah 10:11). The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh ( / t ɑː ˈ n ɑː x/ Hebrew: תַּנַ״ךְ, pronounced or ), also known in Hebrew as Mikra ( / m iː ˈ k r ɑː/ Hebrew: מקרא), is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, including the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim.