Question: What were the writers of the Old and New Testaments called?
The apostle Peter penned by inspiration respecting those whose writings comprised the Old Testament, “knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21). Here, the apostle described them as “holy men,” and what they spoke and what they wrote were prophecies, making them prophets of God. Often, prophets who did not write their prophecies are distinguished from those prophets whose prophecies were written down, and which prophecies or teachings appear in the Old Testament, by referring to the latter as the “writing prophets” (Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary. CD-ROM. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986; International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. CD-ROM. Seattle: Biblesoft, 1996).
Materially, there is no difference between Old Testament and New Testament writers, only the time period and content of their messages differ. Most of the New Testament was written by the inspired pen of the apostle Paul. The apostles Peter and John plus two of our Lord’s half brothers and other inspired writers penned New Testament books, too.
“According to the uniform teaching of the Bible the prophet is a speaker of or for God” (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia). The chief duty of the prophet was to transmit or forth tell the will of God to fellow mortals. Sometimes, though, the prophet’s divinely inspired message included foretelling the future, such as in Old Testament prophecies about the establishment of the spiritual kingdom and the coming of the Messiah. Therefore, New Unger’s Bible Dictionary says of the prophet: “One who is divinely inspired to communicate God’s will to His people and to disclose the future to them” (CD-ROM. Chicago: Moody P., 1988).
We can discern from such observations above some designations for those approximately 40 divinely inspired persons whose writings make up the Old and New testaments. However, it is more important to handle aright the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15) and obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:8).
