Old Testament Essays (New Series) is the academic journal of the Old Testament Society of South Africa since 1987. The journal is currently published in print (ISSN 1010-9919) and electronically online (ISSN 2312-3621). It appears three times a year.  

History

Its precursors were individual proceedings of OTSSA publications of meetings between 1959-1986, and Old Testament Essays, the journal which was published by the Department of Old Testament at Unisa from 1983-1987. Copies of the individual proceedings of the OTSSA and the precursor Old Testament Essays can be downloaded for free at the Sabinet African Journal Archive. Copies of Old Testament Essays New Series are similarly available for downloading at the African Journal Archive, up to 2001 and at Sabinet African Electronic Publications from 2002 to current volumes.

Open Access

Since 2014 OTE is part of the SciELO SA platform. The latter is an open-access platform which entails according to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities the following:

1. Open access contributions must satisfy two conditions: The author(s) and right holder(s) of such contributions grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship (community standards, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now), as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in an appropriate standard electronic format is deposited (and thus published) in at least one online repository using suitable technical standards (such as the Open Archive definitions) that are supported and maintained by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.

Operations

Currently, the journal operates with a local editorial team and an international advisory editorial board. As an academic journal, it disseminates the results of theological research, especially with regards to the Old Testament. Its wide scope includes the research of national and international scholars with regards to all aspects of the Old Testament as well as the various disciplines which may contribute to relevant studies in the field.