How did the old testament develop?

Answer 1

The Old Testament was actually compiled after the New Testament, as a Jewish response to the Christian New Testament. Many books, and portions of books, were cut from the Jewish scriptures, some after hundreds of years in use, in an attempt to "purify" the scriptures from perceived corruption and watering-down of the original messages.

During the Reformation, Protestants similarly purged their Old Testament books of the later additions. Catholic Bibles retain some of the books (called the Apocrypha), but cut out others; Orthodox Bibles retain even more.

Another answer

Jewish tradition states (Talmud, Bava Batra 14b-15a) that each prophet wrote the book that bears his name. The Tanakh (Jewish Bible) was sealed by the Sanhedrin (council of sages) called The Men of the Great Assembly, whose members included the last of the prophets. This was around 2350 years ago.

Answer 2

The Old Testament came together in a very important way. The old Testament was a collection of shared stories about God.

Answer:

Jewish tradition states that from the time of the First Destruction, God's presence was no longer felt as clearly as before (see Deuteronomy 31:17-18). In addition, exile is not conducive to prophecy (Mechilta, parshat Bo). At that time, the last of the prophets realized that prophecy would soon cease; and that the dispersal of the Jewish people, plus the almost continuous tribulations from the First Destruction onwards, made it imperative to seal the canon of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The Sages of the time, including the last living prophets, convened a special synod for a couple of decades, which was called the Men of the Great Assembly (Mishna, Avot ch.1). This group, who functioned some 2360 years ago, composed the blessings and the basic prayers of the siddur (prayerbook) and the early portions of the Passover Haggadah, made many of the Rabbinical decrees, and (most importantly) sealed the canon of the Tanakh. It was they, for example, who set the twelve Minor Prophets as (halakhically) a single book, and who set the books of the Tanakh in their traditional order (see Talmud, Bava Batra 14b). It was the Men of the Great Assembly whom Esther had to approach when she felt that the Divinely inspired Scroll of Esther should be included in the canon (see Talmud, Megilla 7a).

Since the sealing of the Tanakh, no Jewish sage has ever claimed prophecy.

Answer 3

The Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament by Christians, is an anthology consisting of a number of different books. The Torah, that is, the 5 books of Moses, is the oldest of these, although some scholars think that Deuteronomy was a separate composition and also think that Genesis through Numbers were assembled from earlier fragments. Be that as it may, it is clear that several other books are themselves collections. Most of the psalms, for example, are ascribed to David, but some of them are ascribed to earlier authors by their headings. Many of the books quote earlier books, so we know that the authors of these books were familiar with the older books when they wrote their contributions. These different books were not seen as "The Bible" until around 2000 years ago. The Talmud (in tractate Megillah, if I recall correctly) records significant debates about whether certain books were sacred, suggesting that the final decisions to include books like Song of Songs and Esther were made as late as the dawn of the Christian era. It may well be that first and second century debates between Christians and Jews were what forced the final decisions about what books were in and what books were out.