Testament

Testament - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

Occurs twelve times in the New Testament (Heb. 9:15, etc.) as the rendering of the Gr. diatheke, which is twenty times rendered "covenant" in the Authorized Version, and always so in the Revised Version. The Vulgate translates incorrectly by testamentum, whence the names "Old" and "New Testament," by which we now designate the two sections into which the Bible is divided. (See [629]BIBLE.)

Testament - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

TEST'AMENT, n. [L. testamentum, from testor, to make a will.]

1. A solemn authentic instrument in writing, by which a person declares his will as to the disposal of his estate and effects after his death. This is otherwise called a will. A testament,to be valid, must be made when the testator is of sound mind, and it must be subscribed, witnessed and published in such manner as the law prescribes.

A man in certain cases may make a valid will by words only, and such will is called nuncupative.

2. The name of each general division of the canonical books of the sacred Scriptures; as the Old Testament; the New Testament. The name is equivalent to covenant, and in our use of it, we apply it to the books which contain the old and new dispensations; that of Moses, and that of Jesus Christ.

tes'-ta-ment: The word diatheke, almost invariably rendered "covenant," was rendered in the King James Version "testament" in Heb 9:16,17, in the sense of a will to dispose of property after the maker's death. It is not easy to find justification for the retention of this translation in the Revised Version (British and American), "especially in a book which is so impregnated with the language of the Septuagint as the Epistle to the Hebrews" (Hatch).

See COVENANT, IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.