Tanakh: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Tanakh [תנ״ך] (also spelt Tanach) is an acronym for the three parts of the Hebrew Bible, based upon the initial Hebrew letters of each part:

• Torah [תורה] ("The Law"; also: Teaching or Instruction)
• Nevi'im [נביאים] ("The Prophets")
• Ketuvim [כתובים] ("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.)

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 Christians 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.

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 Masoretes codified the oral tradition for reading the Tanakh by adding two special kinds of symbols to the text: niqqud (vowel points) 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" all refer to the same books.)

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

II Samuel

9. Books of Kings (מלכים)

I Kings

II Kings

10. Isaiah (ישעיה)

11. Jeremiah (ירמיה)

12. Ezekiel (יחזקאל)

13. The Twelve Minor Prophets (תרי עשר)

I. Book of Hosea (הושע)

II. Book of Joel (יואל)

III. Book of Amos (עמוס)

IV. Book of Obadiah (עובדיה)

V. Book of Jonah (יונה)

VI. Book of Micah (מיכה)

VII. Book of Nahum (נחום)

VIII. Book of Habakkuk (חבקוק)

IX. Book of Zephaniah (צפניה)

X. Book of Haggai (חגיי)

XI. Book of Zechariah (זכריה)

XII. Book of Malachi (מלאכי)

The Ketuvim (The Writings) are:

14. Psalms (תהילים)

15. Book of Proverbs (משלי)

16. Book of Job (איוב)

17. Song of Songs (שיר השירים)

18. Book of Ruth (רות)

19. Lamentations (איכה)

20. Ecclesiastes (קהלת)

21. Book of Esther (אסתר)

22. Book of Daniel (דניאל)

23. Ezra-Nehemiah (עזרא נחמיה)

Book of Ezra

Book of Nehemiah

24. Books of Chronicles (דברי הימים)

I Chronicles

II Chronicles

• In Christian Bibles, Daniel and the Book of Esther sometimes include 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 has its origins in the Septuagint, but does not exist in the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint divided them, apparently, because of their length, but no such thing occurred in the Jewish tradition. (It should be noted that for Samuel and Kings, the point of division interrupts the narrative at anappropriate places.) Thus in the Jewish tradition, for instance, one may speak of The Book of Samuel, but not The Books of Samuel.

Rabbinical Judaism believes that the Torah was transmitted side by side with some sort of oral tradition. Other groups, such as Karaite Judaism, the ancient Saducees, and Christianity do not accept this claim. Rabbinical Judaism believes that many terms and definitions used in the written law are undefined within the Torah itself; the reader is assumed to be familiar with the context and details. These traditions are 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.