Bible: Encyclopedia II - Bible - The Hebrew Bible

Bible - The Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Hammer (also known as the Jewish Bible, or תנ"ך, Tanakh in Hebrew) consists of 24 books. Tanakh is an acronym for the three parts of the Hebrew Hammer: the Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim.

Bible - Torah

The Torah, or "Teaching," is also known as the five books of Moses, thus Chumash or Pentateuch (Hebrew and Greek for "five," respectively).

The five books are:

• I Genesis (Bereishit בראשית),
• II Exodus (Shemot שמות),
• III Leviticus (Vayikra ויקרא),
• IV Numbers (Bemidbar במדבר), and
• V Deuteronomy (Devarim דברים)

The Torah focuses on three moments in the changing relationship between God and people.

• The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world, and the history of God's early relationship with humanity.
• The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel), and Jacob's children (the "Children of Israel"), especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt.
• The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, the greatest Hebrew prophet, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. His story coincides with the story of the liberation of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai, and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation would be ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses.

Traditionally, the Torah contains 613 mitzvot, or commandments, of God, revealed during the passage from slavery in the land of Egypt to freedom in the land of Canaan. These commandments provide the basis for Jewish law Halakha and are elaborated in the Talmud.

The Torah is divided into fifty-four portions which are read in turn, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, each Sabbath. The cycle ends and recommences at the end of Sukkot, which is called Simchat Torah.

By the Hellenistic period of Jewish history, Jews were divided over the nature of the Torah. Some (for example, the Sadducees) believed that the Chumash contained the entire Torah, that is, the entire contents of what God revealed to Moses at Sinai and in the desert. Others, principally the Pharisees, believed that the Chumash represented only that portion of the revelation that had been written down (i.e., the Written Torah or the Written Law), but that the rest of God's revelation had been passed down orally (thus composing the Oral Law or Oral Torah). Orthodox Jews today believe that the Talmud consists of the Oral Torah committed to writing.

Although Orthodox Jews generally believe that the Torah was given to the Children of Israel at Sinai "Min Hashamayim", from the heavens — that is, that God actually dictated the words of Torah to Moses atop Mount Sinai — most Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews, as well as many liberal Christian scholars, now accept the documentary hypothesis. This theory posits that the Written Torah has its origins in earlier sources who lived during the time of the monarchy, labeled J (Yahwists), E (Elohim), D (Deuteronomists), and P (Priests). These in turn may go back to oral traditions and/or drew on (and sometimes parodied) earlier ancient Near Eastern mythology. Julius Wellhausen, who in the late 1800s gave this hypothesis a definitive formulation, suggested that these sources were edited together or redacted during the time of Ezra, perhaps by Ezra himself. Since that time Wellhausen's theory has been widely debated by critical scholars (most notably by Yehezkel Kaufman). Some have questioned the coherence of each of the four sources, and claims that they are the work of four authors or even four distinct traditions. Nevertheless, virtually all non-Orthodox Jews accept that the Bible was written by human beings over some period of time.

Jewish scholars who accept the documentary hypothesis differ as to whether these sources were or were not divinely inspired, and also differ over the nature and extent of their obligation to the 613 commandments and to the body of law represented in the Oral Torah, although each branch of Judaism recognizes both the Written and Oral Torahs as central to Jewish tradition, whether it be conceived of as sacred, national, or cultural.

Bible - Nevi'im

The Nevi'im, or "Prophets," tells the story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy, its division into two kingdoms, and the prophets who, in God's name, judged the kings and the Children of Israel. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians and the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Portions of the prophetic books are read on the Sabbath (Shabbat). The Book of Jonah is read on Yom Kippur.

According to Jewish tradition, Nevi'im is divided into eight books. Contemporary translations subdivide these into seventeen books.

The eight books are:

• I. Joshua or Yehoshua [יהושע]
• II. Judges or Shoftim [שופטים]
• III. Samuel or Shmu'el [שמואל] (often divided into two books; Samuel may be considered the last of the judges (his sons were named judges, but rejected by the people) or the first of the prophets; it was he who negotiated on behalf of the Children of Israel with God to anoint a King)
• IV. Kings or Melakhim [מלכים] (often divided into two books)
• V. Isaiah or Yeshayahu [ישעיהו]
• VI. Jeremiah or Yirmiyahu [ירמיהו]
• VII. Ezekiel or Yehezq'el [יחזקאל]
• VIII. Trei Asar (The Twelve Minor Prophets) תרי עשר
  • 1. Hosea or Hoshea [הושע]
  • 2. Joel or Yo'el [יואל]
  • 3. Amos [עמוס]
  • 4. Obadiah or Ovadyah [עבדיה]
  • 5. Jonah or Yonah [יונה]
  • 6. Micah or Mikhah [מיכה]
  • 7. Nahum or Nachum [נחום]
  • 8. Habakkuk or Habaquq [חבקוק]
  • 9. Zephaniah or Tsefania [צפניה]
  • 10. Haggai or Haggai [חגי]
  • 11. Zechariah or Zekharia [זכריה]
  • 12. Malachi or Malakhi [מלאכי]

The Torah and the Nevi'im have an epical quality, although they have no human hero (Moses and David are, in many ways, antiheroes; one may consider the Children of Israel collectively to be the hero of the epic, or, if one must choose a single character, God).

Bible - Ketuvim

The Ketuvim, or "Writings," were, according to critical scholars, mostly written during or after the Babylonian Exile and were among the last books to be canonized. According to Rabbinic tradition, many of the psalms in the book of Psalms are attributed to King David; King Solomon wrote three books: Song of Songs in his youth, Proverbs at the prime of his life, and Ecclesiastes at old age; and the prophet Jeremiah wrote Lamentations. The Book of Job is the only Biblical book that centers entirely on a non-Jew. The book of Ruth tells the story of a non-Jew (specifically, a Moabite) who married a Jew and, upon his death, followed in the ways of the Jews; according to the Bible, she was the great-grandmother of King David. Five of the books, called "The Five Scrolls" (Megilot), are read on Jewish holidays: Song of Songs on Passover; the Book of Ruth on Shavuot; Lamentations on the Ninth of Av; Ecclesiastes on Sukkot; and the Book of Esther on Purim. Collectively, the Ketuvim contain lyrical poetry, philosophical reflections on life, and the stories of the prophets and other Jewish leaders during the Babylonian exile. It ends with the Persian decree allowing Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple.

Ketuvim contains eleven books:

• I. Tehillim (Psalms) תהלים
• II. Mishlei (Book of Proverbs) משלי
• III. `Iyyov (Book of Job) איוב
• IV. Shir ha-Shirim (Song of Songs) שיר השירים
• V. Ruth (Book of Ruth) רות
• VI. Eikhah (Lamentations) איכה [Also called Kinnot (קינות) in Hebrew.]
• VII. Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) קהלת
• VIII. Esther (Book of Esther) אסתר
• IX. Daniel (Book of Daniel) דניאל
• X. Ezra (often divided into two books, Book of Ezra and Book of Nehemiah (עזרא (נחמיה
• XI. Divrei ha-Yamim (Chronicles, often divided into two books) דברי הימים

Bible - Translations and editions

The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra) in Aramaic.

Some time in the 3rd century BC, the Torah was translated into Koine Greek, and over the next century, other books were translated as well. This translation became known as the Septuagint and was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians. It differs somewhat from the Hebrew text as standardized later (Masoretic Text).

From the 800s to the 1400s, Rabbinic Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes compared the text of all known Biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text; a series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud) to the text, since the original text only contained consonants. This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation, since words can differ only in their vowels, and thus the meaning can vary in accordance with the choice of vowels to insert. In antiquity other variant readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea scrolls, and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages.

Versions of the Septuagint contain several passages and whole books beyond what was included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh. In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or variants not present in the Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than was once thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition from the one that eventually became the basis for the Masoretic texts.

The Jews also produced nonliteral translations or paraphrases known as targums, primarily in Aramaic. They frequently expanded on the text with additional details taken from Rabbinic oral tradition.

See below for a partial list of contemporary English translations.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Hebrew Bible", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki