Bible

The Bible (sometimes The Book,Good Book, Word of God, or Scripture), from Greek (τα) βιβλια, (ta) biblia, "(the) books", plural of βιβλιον, biblion, "book", originally a diminutive of βιβλος, biblos, which in turn is derived from βυβλος—byblos, meaning "papyrus", from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos which exported this writing material), is the classical name for the Hebrew Bible of Judaism or the combination of the Old Testament and New Testament of Christianity ("The Bible" therefore actually refers to at least two different Bibles). It is thus applied to sacred scriptures. Many Christian English speakers refer to the Christian Bible as "the good book". For many people, their Bible is the revealed word of God or an authoritative record of the relationship between God, the world, and humankind.

The Hebrew Bible

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

Related Topics:
Tanakh - Hebrew - Torah - Nevi'im - Ketuvim

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Torah

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

Related Topics:
Torah - Moses - Chumash - Pentateuch

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The five books are:

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• 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.

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• The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide an account 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"). 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 tells 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.

The Torah contains the 613 commandments mitzvot of God, revealed during the passage from slavery in the land of Egypt to freedom in the land of Canaan, that provide the basis for Jewish law Halakha.

Related Topics:
Mitzvot - Halakha

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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.

Related Topics:
Genesis - Sabbath - Sukkot

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The Two Torahs

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.

Related Topics:
Sadducees - Pharisees - Talmud

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The Four Sources

Most Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews, as well as many liberal Christian scholars, now accept the Documentary hypothesis which posits that the Written Torah has its origins in earlier sources labeled J, E, D, and P. These in turn may go back to oral traditions and/or drew on (and sometimes parodied) earlier ancient Near Eastern mythology. The documentary hypothesis posits that these four distinct traditions (or sources) are evident in the Torah. 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. Jewish scholars who accept the documentary hypothesis differ as to whether these sources were or were not divinely inspired, and differ over the nature and extent of their obligation to the 613 commandments and 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.

Related Topics:
Conservative - Reform - Reconstructionist Jews - Documentary hypothesis - Ancient Near Eastern - Ezra

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The documentary hypothesis has not been without its critics. For example, evangelical Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen, and Gleason Archer, have sharply criticized and rejected the documentary hypothesis using various lines of argumentation, as has the critical scholar R. N. Whybray.http://www.equip.org/free/DW035.htmhttp://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/moses.htmlhttp://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/apologetics/AP0404W3.htmhttp://answering-islam.org.uk/Campbell/s3c1.html

Related Topics:
Egyptologist - Kenneth Kitchen - Gleason Archer

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Nevi'im

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 Kingdom of Judea by the Babylonians, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Book of Jonah is read on Yom Kippor. Portions of other prophetic books are read on the Sabbath (Shabbat).

Related Topics:
Book of Jonah - Yom Kippor

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

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The eight books are:

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• I. Joshua or Yehoshua
• II. Judges or Shoftim
• III. Samuel or Shmu'el (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 (often divided into two books)
• V. Isaiah or Yeshayahu
• VI. Jeremiah or Yirmiyahu
• VII. Ezekiel or Yehezq'el
• VIII. Trei Asar (The Twelve Minor Prophets) תרי עשר
• 1. Hosea or Hoshea
• 2. Joel or Yo'el
• 3. Amos
• 4. Obadiah or Ovadyah
• 5. Jonah or Yonah
• 6. Micah or Mikhah
• 7. Nahum or Nachum
• 8. Habakkuk or Habaquq
• 9. Zephaniah or Tsefania
• 10. Haggai or Haggai
• 11. Zechariah Zekharia
• 12. Malachi or Malakhi

Ketuvim

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 on a non-Jew (unless Ruth, a Moabite, is taken to be the primary character of the Book of Ruth). 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, up to the Persian decree allowing Jews to return to Judea to rebuild the Temple.

Related Topics:
Ketuvim - Psalms - King David - King Solomon - Song of Songs - Proverbs - Ecclesiastes - Jeremiah - Lamentations - Book of Job - Book of Ruth - Passover - Shavuot - Ninth of Av - Sukkot - Book of Esther - Purim

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Ketuvim contains eleven books:

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• 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
• 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
• XI. Divrei ha-Yamim (Chronicles, often divided into two books) דברי הימים

Translations and Editions

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

Related Topics:
Biblical Hebrew - Daniel - Ezra - Aramaic

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Some time in the 3rd century BCE, 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).

Related Topics:
3rd century BCE - Koine Greek - Septuagint - Jew - Christian - Masoretic Text

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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.

Related Topics:
800s - 1400s - Masoretes - Vowel - Niqqud - Consonant - Samaritan Pentateuch - Dead Sea scrolls

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Versions of the Septuagint contain several passages and whole books additional to 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.

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

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See below for a partial list of contemporary English translations.

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