The Old Testament

Rob James

June 3, 2026

The Jewish holy scriptures consist of the Torah (the five books (Gk Pentateuch, pronounced “tuke”) of Moses), the Nevi’im or Prophets, both major and minor, and the Kethuvim or other writings; the acronym is the Tanak. Besides the opening legends, they purport to describe events beginning about 1300 bce, when the Hebrews emerged as a separate political body in what is called Canaan. Scholars date some oral tradition to 1800 bce and some written form to 1000 to 750. The earliest documents come from the period after 587 bce, when the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem had been razed and the Israelites were in their Babylonian exile. 100 bce-100 ce Dead Sea scrolls, otherwise earliest fragment is Masoretic Text of 1000 ce.

Seventy Hellenized Jewish scholars produced the Septuagint (LXX). Early Christian Church developed the Old Testament from the Hebrew written Bible, including several additional books. The Protestants went back to the LXX versions and rejected apocryphal books; at Counter-Reformation Council of Trent, Catholic Church retained most of apocrypha. In addition to the Hebrew Bible, rabbinical Jews also recognize the oral Torah, the Mishnah and the Talmud, and certain other authorities of halaka (guidance) and haggada (exemplary stories).

J (using YHWH) dates from 900 bce.  E (using ELOHIM), is Elohim, D is Deuteronomy and P is Priestly (written after 586 bce).

TORAH. 

Prehistory (Genesis 1-11, 600 bce): Myths of creation (earlier (2) spontaneous explanation of suffering, with Hebrew etymologies; later (1) ordered, named, responsive to Babylonian myth). Cain/Abel famer/herdsman story, Noah’s Ark story (see Gilgamesh) and Tower of Babel story. Tension between ordered harmony and dangerous alienation of man from God. “Gods” take human wives; progeny are the nephilim? God limits men to 120 years of age.

Patriarchs (Genesis 12-50, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy): Abraham (Abram of Ur in Mesopotamia to Canaan, promised land, nation, blessing; ELOHIM an impersonal tribal God; Isaac; Jacob/Israel angel-wrestler and Esau; Joseph and brothers; Moses frees from Egyptian slavery, covenant at Sinai, death at Jordan, Deut farewell speech; YAHWEH God is the God of all, but Israelites are his chosen people.

Laws and Priestly Code (Leviticus) for rest of Torah.

NEVI’IM.

Joshua conquers Canaan with (or through) 12 tribes. Judges suggests slower integration, perhaps not all 12 tribes were original. Ten tribes of Israel in north, Judah (and Benjamin) in south. Joshua succeeded by many charismatic leaders (“judges”) culminating in Samuel. First king was Saul, then David; David’s home city of Bethlehem in Israel, established twin kingdoms and made the central city of Jerusalem his capital (hence “city of David”). Harpist, arms bearer, killer of Goliath (1 Sam v 2 Sam!), mercenary of Philistines, seducer/adulterer of Bathsheba, murderer of Uriah, sorrowful father of Absalom.

Then Solomon, who took on trappings of oriental monarch (First Temple, yes, but also temples for gods of his wives), built First Temple. On death son of Solomon Rehoboam took Israel (capital Samaria); his other son Jeroboam given Judah (capital Jerusalem) but was overthrown; hence in 922 Divided Kingdom. Sargon II of Assyria takes Israel 722. Assyria itself falls to Babylonia 612. Babylonia invades Judah, starts to exile Israelites, and besieges Jerusalem, finally takes Jerusalem and destroys First Temple 587. Babylonian Captivity (though some Israelites disperse to Egypt and to Greek world).  Cyrus the Great of Persia conquers Babylon, Judith ends captivity 539, Israelites return to Israel, Judah and Jerusalem as a Persian dependency. Second Temple 520. Old Testament historical references end around 400 bce.

Alexander the Great conquers Persia 323. At his death Israel and Judah pass to Ptolemies and Egypt until about 200, when the Seleucids take it.  Greek language and influences; LXX assembled.  Maccabees rebel, cleanse Temple, control passes to Hasmoneans 140. Rome conquers Hasmoneans and others 63. Install Herod the Great 40-4 bce; renovation of Second Temple but pagan influences. Herod Agrippa. Herod Antipas as Tetrarch of northern region of Galilee and eastern region of Petras; Philip a Tetrarch further east; Procuratorship of Palestine of Pontius Pilate.

Second Temple destroyed 70 ce. Zealots rebel, opposed by Romans, driven to Masada and mass suicide 73-74 ce; Messianic Simon Bar Cochba rises and put down 135.  Jerusalem now pagan.

KETUVIM.

Zion is a hillcrest in Jerusalem, so Zion is a metaphor for a Jewish Jerusalem.

JOB Most inscrutable work in all of world literature. Job is well endowed—possessions, family, long healthy life—and God-fearing. “The Adversary” in God’s court (seems like Hermes to Zeus on Olympus) says “sure, Job is God-fearing, he has it all. If he didn’t, he’d curse you.” God lets the Adversary strip Job of his possessions short of personal injury, but Job bears the loss of his possessions and family. So God lets the Adversary strike him with boils, pains short of death. Job curses day he was born, other mild epithets.

His “friends” Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar make three speeches each, suspecting that Job must have done something wicked to deserve the fate.  Nine times Job denies it. A poem meditating on God’s unfathomable wisdom, not found in deepest mines.  Not from depths but from fearing the Lord. Late textual addition of a young Elihu who tells Job that his suffering is a divine gift.

Finally God enters the picture and is he pissed. “Who do you think you are? Were you with me when I created the universe?” Job can only remain silent, then say only that he repents in dust and ashes. But God is also mad at the three friends. But Job in his misery intercedes for the friends, and that apparently tempers God’s temper. Job is restored and blessed, including 7 new sons and 3 new gifted daughters.

ISAIAH

1-39, First Isaiah of Jerusalem, adviser to four Judah kings who rules 783-687 bce, while Israel is conquered and Judah harried by Assyrians, risk of invasion; 40-55 Second Isaiah of Babylon, before Persian conquest, maybe 540 bce, monotheism and universalism; 56-66 Third Isaiah of Post-Exilic Jerusalem. Beat swords into plowshares, etc. Grapes of wrath. Let vineyard be trampled underfoot. Through bushes and briars. “A leader will come out of the House of David”; “a young woman (Gk Parthenos, virgin) will bear a child Immanuel”.

40 Second Isaiah, after the “penalty” has been paid, maybe 540 bce.  The valley shall be brought up, the mountain shall be laid low.  A drop in a bucket.  Cyrus the Great is praised, must be on cusp of ouster of Babylonians.  No rest for the wicked. Like sheep to the slaughter.

Ezekiel Visionary, sees throne-chariot with four creatures. “dem dry bones” of Israel can become living flesh again. Final battle against all of Israel’s persecutors epitomized by “Gog.”

Daniel Book has some very old elements, perhaps 1300 bce for king and righteous man passages. 2-7 are in Aramaic, the language used in Babylon. King’s dream of head of gold, breast of silver, belly of bronze, iron leg, and feet of mixed iron and clay—a succession of human kingdoms—followed by uprising of a great mountain filling the earth, God’s kingdom.

N’s son Belshazzar is a wastrel and idolater. Disembodied fingers produce “writing on the wall” mene mene tekel u-pharsin (“number number weight di-visions”)—which Daniel interprets as “your days have been numbered, ending your kingdom; you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; and your kingdom shall be divided between the Medes and the Persians”). Sure enough, Belshazzar is deposed and dies and Darius of Persia succeeds him.

Daniel’s own dream of lion with eagle wings becoming a man; a bear with three ribs in his mouth; leopard with four wings and four heads; and a ten-horned beast, then one little horn with eyes and mouth replaces three horns. Then an Ancient One in Years with hair like wool is enthroned.  The fourth beast is killed but the other three remain for a while. A man approaches the Ancient in Years.  Alexander?  Or the Messiah?

Micah Out of David’s birthplace Bethlehem of Ephrathah (1 Sam 17:12), will come a governor with deep roots, a shepherd.

Zechariah “Daughter of Zion, Jerusalem, your king is coming to you.  His victory gained, humble and mounted on an ass, on a foal, the young of a she-ass.  He will banish war, speak peacefully, rule from sea to sea.” Matthew 21:4-5.

APOCRYPHA   (Deutero-Canon) From Gk “hidden,” either because too good (hence secret) or not good enough. Not in the Hebrew Bible, but in the LXX. By 1520, they are gathered separately from the Old Testament. Susanna bathing while the two elders look on; Daniel catches them in their lie through separate interrogation and forcing factual disputes. Many paintings, Wallace Stevens’s “Peter Quince at the Clavier”).

DEAD SEA SCROLLS Scrolls found at fourteen caves near Qumran, just northwest of the Dead Sea, 1946-56 ce. Written anywhere from 400 bce to 300 ce. Maintained by a sect known as the Covenanters--NOT necessarily Essenes or Gnostics. They include snips of the Tanak, the Pseudepigrapha Apocrypha, their own commentaries, greatest hit verses, and community rules. War Scrolls feature a battle between the forces of light and darkness—kind of Manichean or Zoroastrian! Temple Scroll was treated as a “sixth” Pentateuch book!  Cave I fragments were published immediately, but Cave IV fragments were withheld for years by scholars.

JUDAISM IN THE FIRST CENTURY CE

Jews in Palestine and in synagogues followed a rabbinical Judaism and relied on Hebrew Bible and Talmud.  Jews in the wider diaspora relied on the LXX and Hellenized culture.  Josephus was a Hellenized commentator working for the Emperors Vespasian and Titus.  He identified four “philosophies”—what we might anachronistically call “denominations”: 

PHARISEES    laity, middle-class, based on scholars like the scribe Ezra.  They employed free interpretation, believed in both the oral Torah as well as the written Tanak, and drew authority from leading scholars.  Villages and the diaspora could do some things that the written Torah reserved for priests at the altar.  Relaxed enforcement, could “bump into fence” without getting in trouble.  Two schools, the Shammaite strict constructionists and the Hillel or liberal wing.  After 70 ce, rabbinic Judaism follows—that’s all Judaism today except for a few Samaritans.  Also Kabbalism starts here.

SADDUCEES     Priestly, aristocratic, based on high priest.  Conservative.  Temple power base. Romans placed the Sadducee High Priest at the head of the “ecumenical” Sanhedrin (notable Jewish leaders advising the procurator).  Name comes from Zadok, the high priest of David and Solomon.

ESSENES     a sect properly called, in the Dead Seas wilderness.  Hellenistic in outlook.

ZEALOTS      Pharisaic, but in armed active revolt against Rome.  These are the Jews that Romans would tend to crucify.

SAMARITANS       localized in city of Samaria.  Only used Pentateuch, not Nevin or Keturim or Talmud.  No wonder other Jews would avoid them.

COVENANTERS       radical priests (“sons of Zadok”) hierarchical community, broke from Sadducees.

In addition, there were less observant Jews, probably a majority of the total population.  The “people of the land” were ritually contaminated—working for Rome, prostitutes, unclean.  Pro-Pharisees, but Pharisees had contempt for them!

Hellenized Jews using LXX.  Didn’t survive as a movement or “philosophy”—passed into Christianity, pagan religions, or rabbinic Judaism.  Philo of Alexandria, Josephus himself, the author of Luke-Acts (which quote LXX while Matthew quotes Hebrew).

And then there were the Nazarenes, the followers of Jesus Christ.  Called themselves the Way.  In Antioch, they were called Christians.  The name stuck.  Josephus describes in Antiquities 18 ch. 3 sec 3 (“Testimonian Flavian”).  Years later, Tacitus in his Annals regarding Nero blaming the fire of Rome on the Christians (15:44).

Rabbinic literature written down about 200 ce.  Halaka rules and Haggadah lore.  Talmud consists of Misnah, the written and oral Torah, the halaka and the Gemara.  Babylon version and Galileean version by 500 ce, forming different schools today.

Tanak, Talmud and halakic Midrash are authoritative for traditional Jews.

Note that Hillelian Pharaisism is liberal.  A fight between Hillelian and Shammaite would be a fierce family fight.  Jesus is much like a Hillelian rabbi in most respects, but going much further.  All the same, when Jesus left Samaria and went to Judea, and was confronted on a Pharisee-Saducee issue like divorce, Jesus came down on the side of the Shammaite Pharisee position! Mark 10:1, Mt 19:1.  That view also provided security for the woman in each case.

Matthew tends to emphasize the contrast with the strict positions.  

Modern readers have the most trouble with the miraculous.  Healings, resuscitations, exorcisms, violations of the laws of physics. “If not persuaded by the Torah and the prophets, then you are not likely to be persuaded by the dead coming to life” (Luke 16:19-31).

Blasphemy would not have been enough to merit Roman crucifixion.  Sadduccean-dominated Sanhedrin didn’t want his extreme version of Hillelism Pharisaism.  Romand cared about messianism and zealotry, not blasphemy.   Was Galilee a Zealot hotbed?  If so, any messianism from that neighboring province might have influenced Pilate toward strict penalties.  Jesus himself preached obedience to Rome.