Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a work of genius, a history of a people, an amalgam of legend and law, full of prophecy and poetry, attributed to a god. An ancient anthology, there is no consensus about when the component books were written, who were the authors, where they were composed, how the works came to be published as a canon, and what the books mean. Indeed, its contested meanings say volumes about why the Hebrew Bible has unparalleled significance. The Hebrew Bible has inspired glorious reviews, endless exegesis, polyglot translations, legal analysis, knock-offs, fan fiction, martyrdom and war. As scripture, the Hebrew Bible is the sine qua non of Judaism and sacred to Christians and Moslems. As literature, it is a runaway bestseller upon which dozens of movies and countless art works are based. As a subject of scholarship, the Hebrew Bible plays a dominant historical role in the fields of ancient history, grammar and linguistics, hermeneutics, historical-critical research, law, literary theory, religion and theology.

So contested is the Hebrew Bible, there is disagreement about the exact text and ordering of the books of the Bible. Notably, the Hebrew Bible canon in Judaism differs from Samaritan text and from the Christian versions of the Old Testament. (The Old Testament supplements the Hebrew Bible with apocryphal and deuteronomical books.) All canons begin with the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses, known in Hebrew as the Torah. Prophetic books include three sizable works, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In addition, the Hebrew Bible contains the Writings (Nevi’im or Hagiography), encompassing historical books, psalms, proverbs, the satire of Esther, the eroticism of the Song of Solomon, and the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and Job.

Plot and Content Summary

In the beginning, the first book, Genesis, tells the stories of the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the tribulations of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), and Joseph, the protagonist of chapters 37-50. God, the creator of the world, makes covenants with humankind after the flood and the with the patriarchs. Genesis also contains genealogies, accounts of incest and war, the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah, and a few snippets of Biblical poetry. Genesis articulates almost no Biblical law, though the story of Jacob’s wrestling explicitly provides the etiology of one.

Moses is the hero of the next four volumes, which tell how God liberated the Hebrews from slavery under Pharoah in Egypt. According to the Bible, the Hebrews grew into a nation of more than 600,000 adult males, descended from Jacob qua Israel, and divided into 12 tribes names after Jacob’s sons. The people of Israel miraculously cross the sea into the wilderness, and receive the revealed Decalogue (Ten Commandments) on Mount Sinai, and wander through various trials and battles in the wilderness. Biblical laws interrupt the narrative in Exodus and comprise most of Leviticus and Numbers. In Deuteronomy, Moses preaches to the people of Israel, writes down the Torah onto a scroll, offers a retrospective account of the prior three books, and concludes with his poetry, prophecy and death.

In the remaining books of the Hebrew Bible, the people of Israel conquer Canaan (Joshua), follow a series of local leaders (Judges, Samuel), unify under kings Saul and David, and build the First Temple for wise King Solomon in Jerusalem. In a turn to the tragic, the people split into two kingdoms. Assyria conquers the northern kingdom of Israel and exiles its Ten Tribes, who are lost in both the Biblical and historical sense. The southern kingdom is Judea, which is why the people become identified as Jews (e.g., Esther). Around the year 570 B.C.E., Judea is conquered and exiled into Babylonia. A few generations later, under Persian rule, the exiles return and build a Second Temple (Ezra, Nehemiah).

The Making of the Books and the Canon

Historical-critical theory of the Bible.

Authors of the Bible. See main article.

Canonization and translation.

The Hebrew Bible in Publishing

The Bible as Religious Scripture

Religious, quasi-religious and related books

Jewish Exegesis

Christian Exegesis and Biblical Theology

Islamic Reception

The Bible and New Religious Movements (NRMs)

The Bible as Law

From Biblical into Karaite and Rabbinic law

The Legal Legacy in Western Law

The Artistry of the Bible

The Bible as and in Literature Art and film Cultural impact

The Bible and the Rise of Modern Scholarship