Contents of the Old Testament

The first 39 books in the Bible are called the "Old Testament", and the following 27 books are called the "New Testament''. The Old Testament writes about the time before Jesus, called BC (before Christ), and the New testament writes about the coming of Jesus in the 1st century AD.1

The Old Testament explains how God formed a relationship with the Jewish2 people, starting with their original ancestor, a man named Abraham, in the year 2000 BC. God promised to Abraham: "I will be your God, and the God of your descendants". This promise is called a "covenant," or "testament."

During these years before Jesus came to earth, God gave the Jews many promises, and also gave them detailed instructions about the religious rituals to use to indicate that they believed in God and accepted these promises. One of these rituals was killing an animal. God wanted to teach his people that "sin" is so terrible that it must be punished by death, but that since God loved people, it was possible for something to substitute for a man, that is, to die in his place. This system of animal sacrifice, which continued for about 1400 years, formed the world view of the Jews so that later they would be able to understand the significance of the death of Jesus. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, the one who took our place so we would not be punished for our sin.

All these promises to the Jews, and all the rituals which God commanded them to do, taken together are called the "Old Covenant", and are described in the Bible's "Old Testament". They describe the "old" way for God to relate to his people. After Jesus arrived, God added more promises, made it clear 'that the promises were for all people, not only for Jews, and set forth a new, more simple, way for people to relate to him. This way also depended on a sacrifice, but not a sacrifice of animals. Rather, it depended on the death of Jesus, which was a sacrifice so valuable that it has taken care of all sins of all people, and will never have to be repeated.

Jesus then rose from the dead to prove that He really was God, that His words were true, that his death really did successfully accomplish the substitution for our sins, and that he is able to make us rise from death as well. The. way of relationship to God based on trust in Jesus is God's new "covenant" with  the human race,, and is described in the Bible's "New Testament".

A distinguishing feature of the religion revealed in the Bible is that our relationship to God depends on the reliability of God's promises; it does not depend on our reliability. Therefore we can be sure about receiving these promises, since God is more reliable than we are. The Bible itself sums up this concept in the following sentence: "For this reason it (that is, the promise) is received by faith (that is, not by deserving but by simple trust), according to grace (that is, based on God's love for ‑us), in order that the promise may be CERTAIN.3

 

Footnotes:

I  AD stands for the Latin words Anno Domini, which means "year of our Lord," indicating the years starting with the appearance on earth of Jesus Christ and up to the present.) Around the world, then, years are measured as whether they are before or after the coming of Christ. Scholars today who want to avoid reference to Christ write the words BC as BCE, which means "before common era," instead of BC, and write CE, "common era," instead of AD, but the time of Jesus still remains the basis for our numbering of years. The idea of dating events from the time of Christ was begun by a scholar in the 6th century (his name was Dionysius Exiguus). Because he made a mistake in his calculations, the actual birth of Jesus turns out to be 6 or 7 years BC.

2 Jewish people is one of the names for the people who are the subject of the Old Testament, but was not the earliest name.  All the names below refer to this same group of people:

     • People of Israel, or “sons of Israel” or “Israelites.”  The people named themselves after one of their ancestors, a man named Israel
              (his other name was Jacob), who was a grandson of Abraham. 

     • Chosen People, because God chose them to belong to Him and to pass his promises on to the rest of the world.

     • Hebrews.  In the second book of the Bible, Exodus chapter 1, you can see that the same people are called “sons of Israel”
             (verse 13) and also “Hebrews” (verse 15). 

     • Jews.  This word means “people from Judah.”  (Judah was one province of the land of Israel.)  The name “Jew” was more commonly used starting during the last 500 years before Christ.  In the book of Nehemiah you can see the name “Jew” used at chapter 1 verse 2, and the same people referred to as “sons of Israel” in chapter 2 verse 10.  By the time of the New Testament, the term “Jew” was most commonly used, but the term “people of Israel” and “Hebrew” are also found.  Examples: “Jew” and “Hebrew” are used together in Acts 6:1, and “sons of Israel” in Acts 7:37.  It is correct to say that Jesus is a “Jew.”

3 Romans 4:16

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