I recently was a guest on a podcast (knownthepodcast.com) hosted by three women from our church (one is my daughter-in-law). They asked me to talk about the importance for believers to study the Old Testament. It took no arm-twisting to do so, since it is one of my favorite themes to share with believers. Why am I so eager to share on this topic? There are several reasons, but the primary one is that the Old Testament serves as the foundation for everything taught in the New. One way I ‘ve heard it explained is by the saying “the New Testament is the Old Testament concealed, and the Old Testament is the New Testament revealed” This is a common way to express the relationship between the two parts of the Christian Bible.

Over the years, people have commented on how easy it is for me to understand the Old Testament since I’m Jewish. But I did not grow up in a religious home and knew little of the Scriptures. They are quite shocked when I tell them that nothing they have heard me teach from the Scriptures did I know previous to coming to faith in Jesus. Simply put, I had to become a Christian to understand what it meant to be a Jew.

In this blog and others which follow, I will not refer to the first part of the Bible as the Old Testament but Scripture. The Hebrew term for it is Tanakh and it is the Jewish way of describing the Jewish Bible. When you refer to the first part of the Bible to a Jew as the Old Testament, you are inferring that there is a New Testament which Jews don’t believe in (except Messianic Jews).

“The Jewish Bible the Tanakh, and the Christian Old Testament contain the same books but are arranged differently. The Tanakh is divided into three parts: the Torah (Law), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). The Christian Old Testament generally follows a Law, Historical, Wisdom, and Prophets structure. While the books are largely the same, their order reflects different theological and historical interpretations” (Google AI).

“Tanakh is a word combining the first letter from the names of each of the three main divisions. Each of the three main groupings of texts is further subdivided. The Torah contains narratives combined with rules and instructions in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.” The Neviim is the division of the Prophets, starting with the book of Joshua. In the Christian Old Testament, there are four divisions (Torah, Historical, Prophetical, Poetical). But as we have seen, the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) has a threefold division (Law, Prophets, Writings).

The division of the Prophets begins with Joshua followed by Judges, Samuel, and Kings. You’ll notice that there are no books such as First and Second Samuel or First and Second Kings. That’s because all the content that’s in First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings are in the books of Samuel and Kings. Why are the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings in the division of the Prophets? Well, as previously stated, there is no historical division in the Tanakh. But what determines where a book is placed is who wrote it, rather than its content.

The later Prophets contain the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Then there is one scroll containing the twelve Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).

The Ketuvim, also known as the Writings, is the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). It includes books like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Five Megillot (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther), Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and 1-2 Chronicles. These books cover a range of genres, including poetry, wisdom literature, history, and apocalyptic literature.

Jesus recognized the threefold division of the Tanakh in the Upper Room after his resurrection. (Luke 24:44). He told his disciples how each division of the Tanakh spoke of Him. So the Messiah Jesus Himself is the key to understanding the Tanakh.