New Testament - Etymology

Etymology

The term "new testament" or "new covenant" (Hebrew בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה bərîṯ ḥăḏāšâ) first occurs in Jeremiah 31:31 (Greek Septuagint καινὴ διαθήκη kainḕ diathḗkē, cited in Hebrews 8:8). The same Greek phrase is found elsewhere in the New Testament (Luke 22:20, 1 Corinthians 11:25, 2 Corinthians 3:6, Hebrews 8:8, and Hebrews 9:15; cf. 2 Cor 3:14). In early Bible translations into Latin the phrase was rendered foedus, "federation", in Jeremiah 31:31 and testamentum in Hebrews 8:8 and other instances, from which comes English "new testament." Modern English, like Latin, distinguishes testament and covenant as alternative translations, and consequently the treatment of the term διαθήκη diathḗkē varies in English translations of the Bible. John Wycliffe's 1395 version is a translation of the Latin Vulgate and so follows different terms in Jeremiah and Hebrews:

Jeremiah 31:31 Lo! days shall come, saith the Lord, and I shall strike a new covenant (from Latin foedus) with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

Hebrews 8:8 For he reproving him saith, Lo! days come, saith the Lord and ye shall make perfect a new testament (from Latin testamentum) on the house of Israel, and on the house of Judah.

Use of the term New Testament to describe a collection of first and second-century Christian Greek scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian (in Against Praxeas 15). In Against Marcion book 3 (written in the early 3rd century, c. AD 208), chapter 14, he writes of

the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel

And in book 4, chapter 6, he writes that

it is certain that the whole aim at which he 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, as belonging to this rival god, and as alien from the law and the prophets.

By the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a Christian author of the 3rd and 4th century who wrote in Latin, in his early-4th-century Divine Institutes, book 4, chapter 20, wrote:

But all scripture is divided into two Testaments. That which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the 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." ... 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.