St Timothys Episcopal Church

Adult Forum
Bible Boot Camp
Fall 2013

Terms and Names

Old Testament/Hebrew Bible

B.C.E. and C.E. Before the Common Era, and Common Era.
Biblical scholars have adopted these terms to date events, in
preference to B. C. (Before Christ) and A. D. (Anno Domino) that
have specifically Christian connotations.

Canon The texts and the single version of the texts the Greek
text compiled by an international committee that stands behind
the NRSV chosen by a community to be authoritative for the
community. For example, Jews have chosen as their canon for the
Hebrew Bible to be 24 texts as preserved in a text developed
around the 9th century C.E. by a group of Jewish scholars called
the Masoretes (hence the Masoretic text, or MT).

David Selected by God to be king of Israel, dethroning King

Saul. According to 1 Samuel 17, David, while still a lad, slew
Goliath, the champion warrior of the Philistines, the traditional
enemy of Israel, and was honored by the people. The date of
Davids coronation in Jerusalem is set at 1000 B.C.E.

Dead Sea Scrolls. See Qumran Community.

Diaspora The dispersal of the Israelite nation first by the

Assyrians (722 B.C.E.), then by the Babylonians (587 B.C.E.), and
lastly by the Romans (70 and 135 C.E.). Diaspora Jews maintained
their Jewish identity, observing Sabbath rest, dietary restrictions,
circumcision, and contributing to the maintenance of the temple
in Jerusalem.

Hebrew Bible The selection and order of texts approved by the

rabbis in the 2nd to 3rd centuries C.E. The books number 24:
Torah, 5 books; Prophets 8 books which appear in modern
translations as 23 books; and Writings 11 books. The Christian
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Bible Boot Camp: Terms and Names

Old Testament, used until the Reformation, included more

books, Jewish texts written in Greek, probably by Diaspora Jews.
Martin Luther excluded these texts from his compilation of the
Bible, but some or all are still used by Episcopalian, Roman
Catholic, and Orthodox Christians.

Judges During the period from the entry into the Land under
Joshua, to the coronation of Saul as King, Israel was ruled by
judges, individuals called by God primarily to be military
leaders who would rally the individual tribes to throw off the
oppression of the enemies of Israel.

Law See Torah.

LORD When written in all capital letters (LORD) or using lower

case capital letters (LORD), the English translates the sacred
Tetragrammaton (four letters), ( yod-he-waw-he) revealed
to Moses by God as Gods divine name. See Exodus 3:15. The
Hebrew consonants are not pronounced, so that English
translations generally use the forms of lord shown above. When
not in all capital letters (that is, just lord), the English simply
translates the Hebrew word for lord ( , aleph-dalet-waw-
num). See 2 Kings 4:16, 18.

Old Testament The traditional Christian designation of those

texts used by Christians that were originally produced by Jews.
At its most expansive, it is the Septuagint, a collection of Jewish
writings produced in Greek around 200 B.C.E. by Diaspora Jews.

Prophets (1) Those called by God to proclaim Gods word (for

example, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, John the Baptist). (2) The
collection of books ascribed to certain Hebrew prophets. In the
Hebrew Bible, the Book of the Twelve consists of the prophet
works of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum,
Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. In the
Hebrew Bible, the major prophets are the books of the Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, Kings (1 and2), Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
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Pentateuch See Torah.

Qumram Community An ancient community located near the

Dead Sea in the Judean Desert. The community apparently was
exterminated around the time of the Jewish Revolt (63-72 C.E.).
The community created and preserved many important Biblical
texts (and texts written by and for the community) discovered in
caves near the Dead Sea in 1947, collectively referred to as the
Dead Sea Scrolls.

Septuagint A translation into Greek of the Hebrew Scriptures

undertaken c. 200 B.C.E. (The tradition is that 72 Jewish scholars
met in Alexandria each one producing a complete text and all the
texts were exactly the same.) The Septuagint includes several
texts not included in the Hebrew Bible, most of which were
originally produced in Greek by Jews in the Diaspora. The
Septuagint served as the first Christian Bible, the text that the
New Testament writers quoted, and provided the texts of the Old
Testament for all Christians until the Reformation.

Tetragrammaton See LORD.

Torah: also the Law, the Pentateuch. The first five books of the
Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
The tradition is that Moses wrote these five books (even though
his death is recorded in the fifth, Deuteronomy).

Wisdom The Ancient Near East (Egypt, Israel, Babylonia, Persia,

etc.) generally looked on wisdom as the knowledge of the correct
way to live a life in order, first, to live long and prosper and,
second, to become united with the divine. The Hebrew Bible
records some of this traditional wisdom, particularly in Psalms,
Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Care for the poor and oppressed as a
way to emulate God is a particularly Jewish development. See
Deuteronomy 10:17-20; 14:29; 27:19.

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Bible Boot Camp: Terms and Names

Writings The last texts in the Hebrew Bible (Psalms, Job,

Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations,
Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles). These same
writings are generally called Wisdom books in Christian
literature, and many of the Writings may be so classed. . Note
that Jews consider Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles
as wisdom-type books rather than historical accounts, and Daniel
similarly as wisdom rather than prophetic.

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