Development of the Old Testament canon

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The Old Testament is the first section of the two-part Christian biblical canon; the second section is the New Testament. The Old Testament includes the books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or protocanon, and in various Christian denominations also includes deuterocanonical books. Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants use different canons, which differ with respect to the texts that are included in the Old Testament.

Following Jerome's Veritas Hebraica (truth of the Hebrew) principle, the Protestant Old Testament consists of the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but the order and division of the books are different. Protestants number the Old Testament books at 39, while the Hebrew Bible numbers the same books as 24. The Hebrew Bible counts Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles as one book each, the 12 minor prophets are one book, and also Ezra and Nehemiah form a single book.

In the Catholic Church, the books of the Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical books, were previously held to be canonical by the Council of Rome (382 AD),^[1] the Synod of Hippo (in 393),^[2] followed by the Council of Carthage (397), the Council of Carthage (419),^[3] the Council of Florence (1442)^[4] and finally the Council of Trent (1546).

The New Testament quotations are taken from the Septuagint used by the authors of the 27 books of the New Testament.^[5]

The differences between the modern Hebrew Bible and other versions of the Old Testament such as the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac Peshitta, the Latin Vulgate, the Greek Septuagint, the Ethiopian Bible and other canons, are more substantial. Many of these canons include books and sections of books that the others do not. For a more comprehensive discussion of these differences, see Books of the Bible.