Cards›Knowledge

Tanakh

Canon of the Hebrew Bible, written mostly in Hebrew with some Aramaic

The Hebrew Bible, Jewish Bible, or Tanakh (US: , UK: or ; Hebrew: תַּנַ״ךְ, romanized: tanaḵ; תָּנָ״ךְ, tānāḵ; or תְּנַ״ךְ, tənaḵ), also known in Hebrew as Miqra (; מִקְרָא, miqrāʾ), is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, comprising the Torah (lit. 'Teaching' or 'Instruction'; the five books of Moses), the Nevi'im (lit. 'Prophets'), and the Ketuvim (lit. 'Writings'). Different branches of Judaism and Samaritanism have maintained different versions of the canon, including the 3rd-century BCE Septuagint text used in Second Temple Judaism, the Syriac Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and most recently the 10th-century medieval Masoretic Text compiled by the Masoretes, currently used in Rabbinic Judaism. The terms "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew Canon" are frequently confused with the Masoretic Text; however, the Masoretic Text is a medieval version, and one of several texts considered authoritative by different types of Judaism throughout history. The current edition of the Masoretic Text is mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra, and the verse Jeremiah 10:11). The modern form of the Hebrew Bible that is authoritative in Rabbinic Judaism is the Masoretic Text (7th to 10th centuries CE), which consists of 24 books, divided into parashot (paragraphs or sections) and pesuqim (verses). The Hebrew Bible developed during the Second Temple Period, as the Jews decided which religious texts were of divine origin. The Masoretic Text, compiled by the Jewish scribes and scholars of the early Middle Ages, comprises the books that they considered authoritative. The Hellenized Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called "the Septuagint", that included books later identified as apocryphal, while the Samaritans produced their own version of the Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch. Both of these ancient editions of the Hebrew Bible differ significantly from the medieval Masoretic Text. In addition to the Masoretic Text, modern biblical scholars seeking to understand the history of the Hebrew Bible use a range of sources. These include the Septuagint, the Syriac language Peshitta translation, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, the Targum Onkelos, and quotations from rabbinic manuscripts. These sources may be older than the Masoretic Text in some cases and often differ from it. Such differences have given rise to the theory that yet another text, an Urtext of the Hebrew Bible, once existed and is the source of the versions extant today. However, such an Urtext has never been found, and which of the three commonly known versions (Septuagint, Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch) is closest to the Urtext is debated. There are many similarities between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The Protestant Old Testament includes the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but the books are arranged in different orders. The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian churches include the deuterocanonical books, which are not included in Jewish or Protestant versions of the Hebrew Bible. In Islam, the Tawrat (Arabic: توراة) is often identified not only with the Pentateuch, but also with the other books of the Hebrew Bible. Scholars increasingly view the Hebrew Bible as a mix of folklore and history, with some narratives after the 9th century BCE partly supported by archaeology but many traditional accounts debated or questioned.