Editing Old Testament (section)

==Formation==
{{Main|Biblical canon}}
{{See also|Development of the Hebrew Bible canon|Development of the Old Testament canon|Septuagint|Books of the Vulgate}}
[[File:Texts of the OT.svg|thumb|upright=2.05|The interrelationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, according to the ''[[Encyclopaedia Biblica]]'' (1903). Some manuscripts are identified by their [[Scribal abbreviation|siglum]]. LXX here denotes the original Septuagint.]]

The process by which scriptures became canons and Bibles was a long one, and its complexities account for the many different Old Testaments which exist today. Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible and [[Second Temple Judaism]] at the [[University of Edinburgh]], identifies the Old Testament as "a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing."<ref name="Lim 2005 41"/> He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by [[God in Judaism|God]] and passed to mankind. By about the 5th century BC, Jews saw the five books of the [[Torah]] (the Old Testament Pentateuch) as having authoritative status; by the 2nd century BC, the Prophets had a similar status, although without quite the same level of respect as the Torah; beyond that, the Jewish scriptures were fluid, with different groups seeing authority in different books.{{Sfn | Brettler | 2005 | p = 274}}

===Greek===
{{see also|Septuagint}}
Hebrew texts began to be translated into Greek in [[Alexandria]] in about 280 BC and continued until about 130 BC.{{Sfn | Gentry | 2008 | p = 302}} These early Greek translations {{ndash}} supposedly commissioned by [[Ptolemy II Philadelphus]] {{ndash}} were called the {{langnf|la|[[Septuagint]]|Seventy|links=no}} from the supposed number of translators involved (hence its abbreviation "[[LXX]]"). This Septuagint remains the basis of the Old Testament in the [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Eastern Orthodox Church]].{{Sfn | Würthwein | 1995}}

It varies in many places from the Masoretic Text and includes numerous books no longer considered canonical in some traditions: [[1 Esdras]], [[Book of Judith|Judith]], [[Book of Tobit|Tobit]], the books of [[Books of the Maccabees|Maccabees]], the [[Book of Wisdom]], [[Sirach]], and [[Book of Baruch|Baruch]].{{Sfn | Jones | 2000 | p = 216}} Early modern [[biblical criticism]] typically explained these variations as intentional or ignorant corruptions by the Alexandrian scholars, but most recent scholarship holds it is simply based on early source texts differing from those later used by the [[Masoretes]] in their work.

The Septuagint was originally used by [[Hellenization|Hellenized]] Jews whose knowledge of [[Koine Greek|Greek]] was better than Hebrew. However, the texts came to be used predominantly by gentile converts to Christianity and by the early Church as its scripture, Greek being the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of the early Church. The three most acclaimed early interpreters were [[Aquila of Sinope]], [[Symmachus the Ebionite]], and [[Theodotion]]; in his [[Hexapla]], [[Origen]] placed his edition of the Hebrew text beside [[Secunda (Hexapla)|its transcription in Greek letters]] and four parallel translations: Aquila's, Symmachus's, the Septuagint's, and Theodotion's. The so-called "fifth" and "sixth editions" were two other Greek translations supposedly miraculously discovered by students outside the towns of [[Jericho]] and [[Nicopolis]]: these were added to Origen's Octapla.<ref>Cave, William. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=-L5UAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA406 A complete history of the lives, acts, and martyrdoms of the holy apostles, and the two evangelists, St. Mark and Luke]'', Vol. II. Wiatt (Philadelphia), 1810. Retrieved 2013-02-06.</ref>

In 331, [[Constantine the Great and Christianity|Constantine I]] commissioned [[Eusebius]] to deliver [[Fifty Bibles of Constantine|fifty Bibles]] for the [[Church of Constantinople]]. [[Athanasius]]<ref>''Apol. Const. 4''</ref> recorded [[Early centers of Christianity#Alexandria|Alexandrian]] scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for [[Constans]]. Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists and that [[Codex Vaticanus]] and [[Codex Sinaiticus]] are examples of these Bibles. Together with the [[Peshitta]] and [[Codex Alexandrinus]], these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles.<ref>'' The Canon Debate'', pp. 414–15, for the entire paragraph</ref> There is no evidence among the [[First Council of Nicaea#Promulgation of canon law|canons of the First Council of Nicaea]] of any determination on the canon. However, [[Jerome]] (347–420), in his ''Prologue to Judith'', claims that the [[Book of Judith]] was "found by the [[First Nicene Council|Nicene Council]] to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures".<ref>{{CathEncy|wstitle=Book of Judith}} Canonicity: "..." the Synod of Nicaea is said to have accounted it as Sacred Scripture" (Praef. in Lib.). No such declaration indeed is to be found in the Canons of Nicaea, and it is uncertain whether St. Jerome is referring to the use made of the book in the discussions of the council, or whether he was misled by some spurious canons attributed to that council".</ref>

===Latin===
{{see also|Deuterocanonical books|Vulgate}}
In [[Western Christianity]] or Christianity in the [[Western Roman Empire|Western half of the Roman Empire]], Latin had displaced Greek as the common language of the early Christians, and in 382 AD [[Pope Damasus I]] commissioned [[Jerome]], the leading scholar of the day, to produce an updated Latin Bible to replace the [[Vetus Latina]], which was a Latin translation of the Septuagint. Jerome's work, called the [[Vulgate]], was a direct translation from Hebrew, since he argued for the superiority of [[Development of the Hebrew Bible canon|the Hebrew texts]] in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds.<ref>Rebenich, S., ''Jerome'' (Routledge, 2013), p. 58. {{ISBN|9781134638444}}</ref> His Vulgate Old Testament became the standard Bible used in the Western Church, specifically as the [[Sixto-Clementine Vulgate]], while the [[Eastern Christianity|Churches in the East]] continued, and continue, to use the Septuagint.{{Sfn | Würthwein | 1995 | pp = 91–99}}

Jerome, however, in the [[Vulgate#Prologues|Vulgate's prologues]], describes some portions of books in the Septuagint not found in the Hebrew Bible as being non-[[biblical canon|canonical]] (he called them ''[[biblical apocrypha|apocrypha]]'');<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bible/prologi.shtml|title=The Bible|website=www.thelatinlibrary.com}}</ref> for [[Book of Baruch|Baruch]], he mentions by name in his ''Prologue to Jeremiah'' and notes that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon".<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=233 |title=Jerome's Prologue to Jeremiah |author=Kevin P. Edgecomb |access-date=2015-11-30 |archive-date=2013-12-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231002043/http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=233 }}</ref> The [[Synod of Hippo]] (in 393), followed by the [[Council of Carthage (397)]] and the [[Council of Carthage (419)]], may be the first council that explicitly accepted the first canon which includes the books that did not appear in the [[Hebrew Bible]];<ref>McDonald & Sanders, editors of ''The Canon Debate'', 2002, chapter 5: ''The Septuagint: The Bible of Hellenistic Judaism'' by Albert C. Sundberg Jr., page 72, Appendix D-2, note 19.</ref> the councils were under significant influence of [[Augustine of Hippo]], who regarded the canon as already closed.<ref>Everett Ferguson, "Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon", in ''The Canon Debate''. eds. L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (Hendrickson, 2002) p. 320; F. F. Bruce, ''The Canon of Scripture'' (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 230; cf. Augustine, ''De Civitate Dei'' 22.8</ref>

===Protestant canon===
In the 16th century, the Protestant reformers sided with Jerome; yet although most Protestant Bibles now have only those books that appear in the Hebrew Bible, the order is that of the Greek Bible.{{Sfn | Barton | 1997 | pp = 80–81}}

Rome then officially adopted a canon, the [[Canon of Trent]], which is seen as following Augustine's Carthaginian Councils<ref>{{citation |chapter-url=http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch09.htm |title=History of the Christian Church |chapter=Chapter IX. Theological Controversies, and Development of the Ecumenical Orthodoxy |author=Philip Schaff |publisher=CCEL|author-link=Philip Schaff }}</ref> or the [[Council of Rome]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Lindberg |title=A Brief History of Christianity |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |year=2006 |page=15}}</ref><ref>{{citation |title=The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church |edition=2nd |editor=F.L. Cross, E.A. Livingstone |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1983 |page=232}}</ref> and includes most, but not all, of the Septuagint ([[3 Ezra]] and 3 and 4 Maccabees are excluded);{{Sfn | Soggin | 1987 | p = 19}} the [[Anglican]]s after the [[English Civil War]] adopted a compromise position, restoring the [[39 Articles]] and keeping the extra books that were excluded by the [[Westminster Confession of Faith]], both for private study and for [[Christian liturgy#Anglican Communion|reading in churches]] but not for establishing any doctrine, while Lutherans kept them for private study, gathered in an appendix as [[biblical apocrypha]].{{Sfn | Barton | 1997 | pp = 80–81}}

===Other versions===
While the Hebrew, Greek and Latin versions of the Hebrew Bible are the best known Old Testaments, there were others. At much the same time as the Septuagint was being produced, translations were being made into Aramaic, the language of Jews living in Palestine and the Near East and likely the [[language of Jesus]]: these are called the Aramaic [[Targum]]s, from a word meaning "translation", and were used to help Jewish congregations understand their scriptures.{{Sfn | Würthwein | 1995 | pp = 79–90, 100–4}}

For Aramaic Christians, there was a [[Syriac language|Syriac]] translation of the Hebrew Bible called the [[Peshitta]], as well as versions in [[Coptic language|Coptic]] (the everyday language of Egypt in the first Christian centuries, descended from [[Ancient Egyptian language|ancient Egyptian]]), [[Geʽez|Ethiopic]] (for use in the [[Ethiopian church]], one of the oldest Christian churches), [[Armenian language|Armenian]] (Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as its official religion), and [[Arabic]].{{Sfn | Würthwein | 1995 | pp = 79–90, 100–4}}