Old Testament

Moses smashing the Tables of the Law is a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn

In Christianity, the Old Testament is the name of the first part of the Bible, the one written before Jesus Christ. The Qur'an calls the first five books of the Old Testament the Tawrat.

In Judaism, the collection of inspired books is known as Tanakh; scholars often use the name Hebrew Bible. Both Jews and Christians believe these texts to be holy. According to them, Godinspired men to write the collection.

The collection contains different texts, called "books", about God, and the people of Israel.

It can be divided into several sections: the Torah, the History of Israel, the Prophets and Wisdom books

The first to have used this name (in Latin: vetus testamentum) was probably Tertullian in the 2nd century.

Different religious communities include (or exclude) certain books. The Roman Catholic Church uses the books that were included in Saint Jerome's Latin translation of the Old Testament (his works is called Vulgate). The Eastern Orthodox church uses the ancient Greek translation of Jewish sacred writings called the Septuagint. The Eastern Orthodox list of sacred books has a few more books than the Roman Catholic list. Protestant Bibles stick more closely to the books in the Jewish collection (the Tanakh) but list them in the order found in the Septuagint.