Hebrew Bible , or the Jewish Bible, is a collection of sacred writings of Judaism. Christians call the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament. The Old Testament makes up the first part of the Christian Bible. The individual writings collected in a Bible are called books. Most of the books of the Hebrew Bible were composed in the Hebrew language. Chapters and short passages in several books were written in Aramaic, a language similar to Hebrew.
The Hebrew Bible is also called the Tanak. Tanak. incorporates the first letters of three Hebrew words that represent the three sections of the Hebrew Bible—Torah (Law), Nebi’im (Prophets), and Ketubim (Writings).
Origins.
The ancestors of the Jewish people composed the books of the Hebrew Bible between about 1000 and 165 B.C. Much of the material existed in oral form before it was written down. Some books were rewritten several times by different people who composed new material and added other texts and teachings to the earlier writings.
The Hebrew Bible begins with stories about the creation of the world and God’s promises to Abraham and his wife Sarah, the ancestors of the Jews. It describes how Moses led Abraham and Sarah’s descendants, the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan (later called Palestine). Canaan consisted of an area that extended roughly from east of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Hebrew Bible also tells stories about how the Israelites conquered and settled Canaan. Eventually, King David and his son Solomon established a line of rulers. Some of the earliest stories in the Hebrew Bible may have been written down during the reigns of David and Solomon.
In 922 B.C., the kingdom of the Israelites split into two nations—Israel, in the north, and Judah, in the south. The Jews composed and circulated many teachings now included in the Hebrew Bible in oral and written form during the time of the Divided Monarchies, from 922 to 586 B.C. The Book of Daniel was the last to be fully assembled, by about 165 B.C.
Contents.
The Hebrew Bible has three parts—the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Torah, from the Hebrew word for teaching, consists of the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles—Genesis (called Bereshit in Hebrew), Exodus (Shemot), Leviticus (Vayikra), Numbers (Bamidbar), and Deuteronomy (Devarim). The Torah is also called the Pentateuch, from Greek words meaning five books. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, the word torah was translated as law. People sometimes call the Torah the Books of the Law. According to tradition, Moses wrote the Torah. Consequently, it is also called the Books of Moses. But scholars recognize that various authors and editors wrote the Torah over many centuries.
The Prophets is divided into the Former Prophets and the Latter Prophets. The division is based on the order in which the books are arranged in the Hebrew Bible. By the 100’s B.C., most Jews considered the books of the Prophets to be authoritative.
The Former Prophets consists of four books—Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. These books make up a continuous narrative that scholars call the Deuteronomistic History. As a story, Joshua begins where the Torah ends. It tells about the conquest and settlement of Canaan.
Judges describes the period after settlement when many unrelated tribal chiefs called judges governed the Israelites. Judges were rulers believed to have been chosen individually by God.
The Book of Samuel describes the rise of the Israelite monarchy. Saul was the first king of the Israelites. David succeeded Saul as king.
The Book of Kings begins with the end of David’s reign and the transition of power to his son Solomon. King Solomon was known for his wisdom. After Solomon’s death, the northern part of his kingdom broke away from the southern part. This break resulted in the period of the Divided Monarchies, when one king ruled Israel, in the north, and another king ruled Judah, in the south. The Assyrian Empire conquered the kingdom of Israel in 722 or 721 B.C.
The Book of Kings concludes with the fall of Judah and the capture of its capital, Jerusalem, by the Babylonian Empire in 587 or 586 B.C. The Babylonians sent Judah’s leaders into exile, beginning the Babylonian Exile, also called the Exilic Period. Some of the most important prophets and poets of the Hebrew Bible lived during the exile. The captive Jews in Babylonia collected, expanded, and edited many of the teachings, laws, and historical records in the Hebrew Bible. The Babylonian Exile lasted until 538 B.C.
The Latter Prophets consists of four books. Three of them relate teachings associated with the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The prophets were social critics who confronted issues of their times. The fourth book, called the Book of the Twelve or the Twelve Minor Prophets, actually is made up of 12 separate, shorter books—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These record the story of the prophet Jonah and the teachings of 11 other prophets.
The Writings includes 11 books. The Book of Psalms, which actually consists of at least five ancient books, is a collection of religious songs and poetry. Proverbs, a collection of wise sayings, follows Psalms. Next is the Book of Job, a story about the suffering of a righteous man. It expresses the unknowable nature of God in the face of human suffering.
After Job come several shorter books that together are sometimes called the Five Scrolls—the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. The Song of Songs is also called the Song of Solomon, but Solomon probably did not write it. It is a collection of love poems. Lamentations consists of five poems that mourn the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 or 586 B.C. Ecclesiastes struggles with the fleeting and contradictory nature of human life. It is also known by the Hebrew title Koheleth (also spelled Qohelet), which means teacher. The Books of Ruth, Esther, and Daniel are stories drawn from Jewish history.
Chronicles retells the history of the Israelites. It begins with the story of Adam, who, according to the Bible, was the first human. It closes with the Persian ruler Cyrus capturing Babylon in 539 B.C. Cyrus issued a decree in 538 B.C. allowing the Israelites to return to Judah, thereby ending the Babylonian Exile. Ezra-Nehemiah begins with Cyrus’s decree and ends with Nehemiah’s efforts to reform Jerusalem around 430 B.C. Because the stories in Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah overlap, some scholars argue that these books are part of a larger history, which they call the Chronicler’s Work.
See also Bible and its list of related articles.
