What is the “Old Testament”?
There’s been a little discussion going on about what nomenclature to give what is commonly referred to as the “Old Testament”. Claude Mariottini started the conversation with an article, and like the author of that article, decides on Old Testament as best, partly for theological reasons. Richie at Ecclesiastical Mutt responded with the general advice of keeping things “PC”. Chris Heard responded advocating “Tanakh”. He especially notes (in the comments) that it’s only to be used when specifically referring to the Tanakh.
The question is not an easy one, nor is it, as Richie maintains, a matter of political correctness.
The problem we run into is that while there is some overlap for the scriptures used by Jews and Christians, there is no perfect match. Not only that, but we’re essentially talking about different things and trying to give it the same name.
And what to do with things such as the “Septuagint”, which is either early Greek translations of the Catholic/Greek Orthodox canon, or the Alexandrian text type of those translations? Problems are abound.
What about the more general term - Jewish scriptures? Unlike Tanakh, it can mean more if you include Jews of all eras, and unlike Old Testament, it is not a Christian-centered term, but Jewish inclusive. It makes sense, too. Dr. Mariottini like Old Testament for theological reasons - did the Christians not also adopt the Jewish scriptures as well? Theologically, there’s nothing that Jewish scriptures cannot do that Old Testament can, except offend.
Other suggestions are names like “Hebrew scripture”, which is not entirely accurate. The Jewish scriptures are not all Hebrew, nor were they really from the “Hebrews”. Nor does it even encompass the Septuagint (and other early Greek translations), nor Vulgate properly.
Overall, I think Jewish scriptures fits it best.
[…] the ball rolling and Richie (at a blog called “Ecclesiastical Mutt”), Chris Heard, and Chris Weimer have all […]
May 30th, 2007 at 11:07 pmHey Chris,
In the comments of that post I have clarified a bit of what I was trying to say. I will try to do the same here. I would not advocating taking an approach that started from political correctness. Instead I would say that the context of the discussion should determine what term to use. If the term can be justified, then if it offends someone, that is no longer the burden of the writer.
As far as the PC aspect of it all, the original article of McNulty was from a journalistic standpoint. So when I spoke of being sensitive to the audience, the broad audience of a newspaper was more in my mind than those who might be reading a paper in a journal or a dissertation. I would still stand by a plea to be sensitive to the audience in this case, while still holding to the topic of the article as the main guideline.
That said, thanks for sharing your thoughts on ‘Jewish Scriptures.’ I have not heard that one offered up before, so I don’t know how I feel about it yet. The only thing that popped up at first was that in the New Testament, we have such a varied use of the term ‘Jews’ that it could carry some unintended negative connotations if people were to ascribe the Gospel of John’s harsh references to the Jews to the ‘Jewish Scriptures’ This could be a very minor point however.
Thanks again,
Richie
May 31st, 2007 at 1:49 amDoes anyone remember being asked by any politician to vote for political correctness? I don’t.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:40 am[…] and has a great cartoon to boot! He notes that he uses the awkward Old Testament / Hebrew Bible. Chris Weimer goes for Jewish Scriptures, and now Claude Mariottini has returned to the fray with a stronger […]
May 31st, 2007 at 5:16 am[…] Old Testament/Hebrew Bible/Tanakh/Jewish Scriptures/Etc. Jump to Comments Several folks in the biblioblogosphere (that is, the world of biblical studies blogs for those uninitiated) have been discussing the perennial question of what to call those Scriptures that Jews use, but Christians also use with a different label. The first post that I read regarding the issue was from Tyler Williams, who gives reprints a helpful mini-history and explanation for the various major terms used. I highly recommend his post. Others weighing in are: Claude Mariottini (who got the ball rolling in reaction to something in the Chicago Tribune), Richie Heimbrock (a fellow Fullerite), Chris Heard, and Chris Weimer. […]
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:51 pm