Tanakh

(also spelt Tanach) is an acronym for the three parts of the Hebrew_Bible, based upon the initial Hebrew letters of each part:
  • Torah ("The Law"; also: ''Teaching'' or ''Instruction'')
  • Nevi'im ("The Prophets")
  • Ketuvim ("The Writings" or "Hagiographa")

    Terminology

    The threefold division of the Hebrew_Bible reflected in the acronym Tanakh is well attested to in documents from the Second_Temple period and in Rabbinic_literature. During that period, however, the acronym Tanakh was not used; rather, the proper term was ''Mikra'' ("Reading", also spelt ''Miqra''). The term ''Mikra'' continues to be used to this day alongside Tanakh to refer to the Hebrew scriptures. (In modern spoken Hebrew, ''Mikra'' has a more formal flavor than Tanakh.) Because the books included in the Tanakh were largely written in Hebrew, it may also be called the Hebrew_Bible. (Parts of Daniel and Ezra are in Aramaic, but even these are written in the same Hebrew script.)

    The Canon

    According to the Jewish tradition, the Tanakh consists of twenty-four books (enumerated below). The Torah has five books, Nevi'im ("The Prophets") contains eight books, and Ketuvim ("The Writings") has eleven. These twenty-four books are the same books found in the Protestant Old_Testament, but the order of the books is different. The enumeration differs as well: Christians count these books as thirty-nine, not twenty-four. This is because Jews often count as a single book what Chrisians count as several. As such, one may draw a technical distinction between the Jewish Tanakh and the similar, but non-identical, corpus which Christians call the Old_Testament. Thus, some scholars prefer ''Hebrew_Bible'' as a term that covers the commonality of Tanakh and the Old Testament while avoiding sectarian bias. The Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments contain six books not included in the Tanakh; see apocrypha and deuterocanonical_books.

    Sections of the Tanakh

    Tanakh is divided into three sections: The Torah (Hebrew for "Teaching"), Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings, also hagiographa). The Hebrew text originally consisted only of consonants, together with some inconsistently applied letters used as vowels (''matres lectionis''). During the early middle ages, the and cantillation signs. The latter indicate syntax, stress (accentuation), and the melody for reading. The books of the Torah have generally-used names which are based on the first prominent word in each book. The English names are not translations of the Hebrew; they are based on the Greek names created for the Septuagint which in turn were based on Rabbinic names describing the thematic content of each of the Books. (It should be noted that the terms ''Torah'', ''Chumash'', ''Pentateuch'' and "five books of Moses" refer to the same works.) The Torah (also called the Pentateuch, meaning five books) consists of: :1. Genesis (בראשית) :2. Exodus (שמות) :3. Leviticus (ויקרא) :4. Numbers(במדבר) :5. Deuteronomy (דברים) The books of Nevi'im (The Prophets) are: : 6. Joshua(יהושע) : 7. Judges(שופטים) : 8. Books_of_Samuel (שמואל) :: I Samuel I :: II Samuel II :9. Books_of_Kings (מלכים) :: I Kings :: II Kings :10. Isaiah (ישעיה) :11. Jeremiah :12. Ezekiel :13. The Minor Prophets :: Book_of_Hosea (הושע) :: Book_of_Joel :: Book_of_Amos :: Book_of_Obadiah :: Book_of_Jonah :: Book_of_Micah :: Book_of_Nahum :: Book_of_Habakkuk :: Book_of_Zephaniah :: Book_of_Haggai :: Book_of_Zechariah :: Book_of_Malachi The Ketuvim (The Writings) are: :14. Psalms :15. Proverbs :16. Book_of_Job :17. Song_of_Songs :18. Ruth :19. Lamentations :20. Ecclesiastes :21. Book_of_Esther :22. Daniel :23. Ezra-Nehemiah ::Ezra ::Nehemiah :24. Books_of_Chronicles :: 1 Chronicles :: 2 Chronicles
  • In Christian Bibles, Daniel sometimes includes extra material that is not accepted as canonical by Judaism (the material is part of the Apocrypha, so also not accepted by most Protestants).
  • The breaking of Samuel (''Shmuel''), Kings (''Melachim''), and Chronicles (''Divrei hayamim'') into two parts is strictly an artifact of the printers who first issued the books. They were simply too big to be issued as single volumes. It is clear that the Torah was transmitted side by side with some sort of oral tradition. Many terms and definitions used in the written law are totally undefined within the Torah itself; the reader is assumed to be familiar with the context and details. Many fundamental concepts such as shekhita (slaughtering of animals in a kosher fashion), divorce and the rights of the firstborn are all assumed as common knowledge by text, and are not elaborated on. There are a multitude of similar cases throughout the Torah where it is assumed that the reader is familiar with the details - from an unwritten (oral) tradition. According to classical Judaism, many of the details of this oral tradition were accurately transmitted, and eventually recorded in a collection of rabbinic works collectively known as "the oral law". These works include the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the two Talmuds (Babylonian and Jerusalem), and the early Midrash compilations.

    External links: Jewish Tanakh

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