Scripture in the Early Church

The Scriptures of the first Christians were the Jewish sacred writings: the Old Testament. Jesus refers to the “Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44), although the more common division was into two sections, “the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:40; Acts 13:15). One Dead Sea Scroll text divides the OT into “the Book of Moses and the words of the prophets and David.” 

Second Temple Jews understood their scriptures in different ways. The Samaritans rejected all books except the Torah, the first five books of the OT. In the fourth century, Eusebius recorded that the Sadducees held the same position, but Josephus in the first century indicated that the Sadducees rejected merely the oral traditions of the Pharisees (implying the Sadducees likely accepted the whole OT). For his part, Josephus clearly lists a closed OT canon. The first-century-AD book known as 4 Ezra also recognizes a common Jewish OT canon but also mentions further books for “the wise,” which were likely sectarian documents (4 Ezra 14:45–47). The Dead Sea Scrolls include nearly every book from the OT (except Esther), along with many sectarian documents. Although early Judaism counted the OT books differently (e.g., referring to the 12 Minor Prophets as a single book, “the Twelve”), it certainly appears that Jesus’ Scripture consisted of the same 39 books included in the OT today. 

It is important to recognize that NT writers generally do not quote directly from the Hebrew OT; instead, they use the Septuagint (Greek) version of the OT. Paul was a native Greek speaker and would have been very much at home in the Septuagint. His audience of Diaspora Jews and Gentile converts would have almost exclusively used the Greek text.

Adapted from the ESV Archaeology Study Bible