Testament is exactly the same as that of the Jews in Palestine was in Christ's time
and is still in all lands.
The Old Testament contains the Divine Revelation which was written down by Prophets and
other Divinely commissioned men before the coming of Christ. In most cases the various
books bear their writers' names, but in some these are known only by tradition. Yet the
fact that our Lord Jesus confirmed these books, as the Qur'an also states,1
justifies us in accepting them on His authority. In ancient times the Old Testament was
divided into twenty-two books,2 corresponding with the number of letters in the
Hebrew alphabet. Having separated the Book of Ruth from Judges and the Lamentations of
Jeremiah from his prophecies, the Jews now often count twenty-four Books. It is more usual
to divide Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, into two books each, and the twelve Minor Prophets
are counted as twelve books, and not as one. Hence we now number thirty-nine books in the
Old Testament instead of twenty-two. Yet this does not imply any addition to the Sacred
Text, as the ignorant might imagine.
The Torah of Moses consists of five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy. These relate the history of the creation of the world and of man, and tell us
how Adam, the Father of Mankind, disobeyed God, and thereby fell into sin and incurred
death, but that the Most Merciful God then promised to send into the world a Saviour born
of the seed of the woman (Gen. iii. 15). When men sank deeper into sin and were guilty of
all kinds of cruelty, God sent the Flood upon the earth to destroy all mankind except Noah
and his family. After the Flood, all the nations which sprang from Noah gradually fell
away from the worship of the True God. But from among all men God selected one, Abraham,
who worshipped the True and Only God. Because of his faith Abraham, the Friend of God,
obtained the promise3 that the
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