Ancient Christian Witness

J.N.D. Kelly states on page 53, in the book Early christian Doctrines:


Quote:
"It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the twenty-two, or twenty-four, books of the Hebrew Bible of Palestinian Judaism. (These conventional totals were arrived at by reckoning 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings as two books, the twelve minor prophets as one book, Ezra-Nehemiah and 1-2 Chronicles as one book each, and, in the case of the former, by attaching Ruth and Lamentations to Judges and Jeremiah respectively.) It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha, or deutero-canonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was not the original Hebrew version, but the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. Began at Alexandria about the middle of the third century B.C., this became the Bible of the Greek-speaking Jews of the Dispersion, and most of the Scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew........." [1]



[1] page 53 from the book "Early Christian Doctrines" (Revised Edition) by J.N.D. Kelly, published by HaperSanFrancisco 1978