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Apologies if this has already been addressed. > It is my understanding that the Hebrew Bible and > what we call the Old > Testament are not one and the same. The Hebrew Bible > excludes books that > were preserved in Greek but not in Hebrew. This is true, to a point. I would change the word "preserved" to describe the LXX however to "included", preserved suggests to me that the Hebrew Bible purposely excluded some texts, a typical Christian charge from Justin Martyr onwards. Anyway, the scoop is, the Hebrew Bible consists of the 66 books that make up the Christian Protestant Old Testament, but arranged much differently. Genesis through Kings is basically the same, but Ruth in the early period was often combined with Judges, as Lamentations is with Jeremiah. The twelve "minor" prophets are also one book (probably because they all fit on a single scroll in the ancient world) and are known as the Twelve (an otherwise unexplored use of the number as it pertains to the apostles). The Hebrew bible is split into 3 sections: The Torah, Genesis-Deuteronomy, The Prophets, Joshua-Kings, and Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 12. and The Writings which is everything else: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Esther, etc. The LXX, or Septuagint, seems early on (or at least by the Christian era) to have included the seven books which make up the "Apocrypha"-Sirach, Tobit, Judith, Maccabbees, etc. But the Hebrew Bible never did, and the lack of Maccabbees in spite of Hanukah, has been read as some that the canon was closed by the time of the Maccabbean revolt. Ok, end of lesson, apologies for repetition. > > > > > If I remember correctly, the first "complete" > bible was put together in the > > > 7th or 8th century in northern England. Still, > through most of the Middle > > > Ages, a complete set of scriptures was a > rarity. The first complete Vulgate which we have, yes, was penned at Jarrow. A complete set? Or a pandect? That is, monasteries certainly had the whole Bible to hand, but probably in multiple manuscripts--the Gospels forming one book, for example. > > What about Jewish Bibles (the OT)? When Augustine > refers to "the books of the > > Jews," I get a sense that he has a discrete set of > books in mind. By the time we get to Augustine, the Hebrew Bible would have been available as would have the major targumim (Aramaic translations of the Hebrew read alongside the Hebrew in synagogue), the various Greek versions, the Mishnah, and by his time the Palestinian Talmud would have been either being put together or perhaps disseminated. Further, there would have sermons, stories, rabbinic material, and so on available. What is the context of the Augustine reference? Larry Swain __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%