New Testament

==Etymology==
=== The word ''testament'' ===
The word ''[[wikt:testament|testament]]'' in the expression "New Testament" refers to a new [[Covenant (biblical)|covenant]] that Christians believe completes or fulfils the [[Mosaic covenant]] (the old covenant) that [[Yahweh]] (the [[national god]] of Israel) made with the [[Israelites|people of Israel]] on [[Mount Sinai (bible)|Mount Sinai]] through [[Moses]], described in the books of the [[Old Testament]].<ref name=":0">{{cite encyclopedia |title=New Testament |url=https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/new-testament |encyclopedia=Catholic Encyclopedia |via=Catholic.com |access-date=16 February 2021 |date=1912}}</ref> Christians traditionally view this new covenant as being prophesied in the Hebrew Bible's [[Book of Jeremiah]]:<ref>{{bibleverse|Jeremiah|31:30–34|HE|Jeremiah 31–34}}</ref>
{{blockquote|Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah;	not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; forasmuch as they broke My covenant, although I was a lord over them, saith the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the LORD'; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.}}

The word ''covenant'' means 'agreement' (from Latin ''con-venio'' 'to agree' lit. 'to come together'): the use of the word ''testament'', which describes the different idea of written instructions for inheritance after death, to refer to the covenant with Israel in the Old Testament, is foreign to the original Hebrew word ''brit'' (בְּרִית) describing it, which only means 'alliance, covenant, pact' and never 'inheritance instructions after death'.<ref>Definition of ברית in Brown-Driver-Briggs's lexicon: https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1285.htm

Hebrew uses an unrelated word for testament: ''tsavaa'' (צַוָּאָה).</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Inheritance – Holman Bible Dictionary – Bible Dictionary|url=https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/i/inheritance.html|access-date=2020-08-12|website=StudyLight.org|language=en-US}}</ref> This use comes from the transcription of Latin ''testamentum'' 'will (left after death)',<ref>{{Cite web|title=testamentum: Latin Word Study Tool|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=testamentum&la=la|access-date=2020-08-12|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> a literal translation of Greek ''diatheke'' (διαθήκη) 'will (left after death)',<ref>{{Cite web|title=διαθήκη: Greek Word Study Tool|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%B8%CE%B7%CE%BA%CE%B7&la=greek#lexicon|access-date=2020-08-12|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> which is the word used to translate Hebrew ''brit'' in the [[Septuagint]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=G1242 – diathēkē – Strong's Greek Lexicon (KJV)|url=https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/gen/1/1/s_1001|access-date=2020-08-12|website=Blue Letter Bible|language=en}}</ref>

The choice of this word ''diatheke'', by the Jewish translators of the Septuagint in [[Alexandria]] in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE, has been understood in Christian theology to imply a reinterpreted view of the Old Testament covenant with Israel as [[Hebrews 9#The New Covenant (9:15-22)|possessing characteristics]] of a 'will left after death' (the death of [[Jesus]]) and has generated considerable attention from biblical scholars and theologians:<ref name="bible-researcher.com">{{Cite web|title=The meaning of "Covenant" (διαθηκη) in the Bible|url=http://www.bible-researcher.com/covenant.html|access-date=2020-08-12|website=www.bible-researcher.com}}</ref> in contrast to the Jewish usage where ''brit'' was the usual Hebrew word used to refer to pacts, alliances and covenants in general, like a common pact between two individuals,{{Efn|For example, the pact between Jacob with Laban in Genesis ([https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/31-44.htm Genesis 31:44]).}} and to the one between God and Israel in particular,{{Efn|For example, the covenant at Mount Sinai ([https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/19-5.htm Exodus 19:5]) or the "new covenant" verse from Jeremiah 31:31 above ([https://biblehub.com/interlinear/jeremiah/31-31.htm Jeremiah 31:31]).}} in the Greek world ''diatheke'' was virtually never used to refer to an alliance or covenant (one exception is noted in a passage from [[Aristophanes]])<ref name=":0" /> and referred instead to a will left after the death of a person. There is scholarly debate<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jackson |first=Bernard S. |title=Why the Name New Testament? |author-link=Bernard Jackson (professor) |year=2013 |url=http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/784513/23609902/1380577434807/3.pdf?token=8ZveuYFof7uMu8UwoCMRepxQitY%3D |journal=Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=50–100 |doi=10.31826/mjj-2013-090104 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="bible-researcher.com"/> as to the reason why the translators of the Septuagint chose the term ''diatheke'' to translate Hebrew ''brit'', instead of another Greek word generally used to refer to an alliance or covenant.

=== The phrase New Testament as the collection of scriptures ===
The use of the phrase "New Testament" ([[Koine Greek]]: {{lang|grc|Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη}}, {{lang|grc-Latn|Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē}}) to describe a collection of first and second-century Christian Greek scriptures can be traced back to [[Tertullian]] in his work ''Against Praxeas''.<ref name="trobisch-2000">{{cite book|last=Trobisch |first=David |title=The First Edition of the New Testament |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York | pages=43–44 |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-19-511240-5 }}</ref><ref name="trobisch-2012">{{cite encyclopedia|title=The New Testament in Light of Book Publishing in Antiquity |author-last=Trobisch |author-first=David |author-link=David Trobisch |encyclopedia=Editing the Bible: Assessing the Task Past and Present |publisher=Society of Biblical Literature |location=Atlanta, GA |editor1-last=Kloppenberg |editor1-first=John S. |editor2-last=Newman |editor2-first=Judith H. |series=Resources for Biblical Study |volume=69 |pages=161–170 |year=2012 |url=http://trobisch.com/david/wb/media/articles/2012%20NT%20BookPublishing.pdf |isbn=978-1-58983-648-8 }}</ref><ref name="praxeas">"If I fail in resolving this article (of our faith) by passages which may admit of dispute out of the Old Testament, I will take out of the New Testament a confirmation of our view, that you may not straightway attribute to the Father every possible (relation and condition) which I ascribe to the Son." – [[Tertullian]], ''[http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0317.htm Against Praxeas]'' 15</ref> Irenaeus uses the phrase "New Testament" several times, but does not use it in reference to any written text.<ref name="trobisch-2012" /> In ''Against Marcion'', written c.&nbsp;208&nbsp;AD, Tertullian writes of:<ref>Tertullian. "Chapter XIV". [http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian123.html ''Against Marcion, Book III''].</ref>
{{blockquote|1=the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the [[Torah|law]] and the [[gospel]].}}

And Tertullian continues later in the book, writing:<ref>Tertullian. "Chapter VI". [http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian124.html ''Against Marcion, Book IV''].</ref>{{Efn|See also Tertullian, [http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian124.html ''Against Marcion, Book IV''], chapters I, II, XIV. His meaning in chapter XX is less clear, and in chapters IX and XL he uses the term to mean 'new covenant'.}}
{{blockquote|1=it is certain that the whole aim at which he {{bracket|[[Marcion]]}} has strenuously laboured, even in the drawing up of his Antitheses, centres in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own [[Christ]] may be separate from the [[Creator God|Creator]], as belonging to this rival God, and as alien from the law and the [[Neviim|prophets]].}}

By the [[Christianity in the 4th century|4th century]], the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. [[Lactantius]], a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin ''Institutiones Divinae'' (''Divine Institutes''):<ref>Lactantius. "Chapter XX". [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.iv.xx.html "The Divine Institutes, Book IV"].</ref>
{{blockquote|1=But all scripture is divided into two Testaments. That which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the [[Torah|law]] and the [[Neviim|prophets]]—is called the Old; but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The Jews make use of the Old, we of the New: but yet they are not discordant, for the New is the fulfilling of the Old, and in both there is the same testator, even Christ, who, having suffered death for us, made us heirs of His everlasting kingdom, the people of the Jews being deprived and disinherited. As the prophet Jeremiah testifies when he speaks such things: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new testament to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they continued not in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord."<ref>{{Bibleref2|Jer|31:31–32}}</ref>  ... For that which He said above, that He would make a new testament to the house of Judah, shows that the old testament which was given by Moses was not perfect; but that which was to be given by Christ would be complete.}}

[[Eusebius]] describes the collection of Christian writings as "covenanted" (ἐνδιαθήκη) books in ''Hist. Eccl.'' 3.3.1–7; 3.25.3; 5.8.1; 6.25.1.