Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a collection of texts written by many different authors over the course of several centuries, and as such, it contains a broad variety of genres and perspectives. Interwoven throughout the Torah are genres such as primeval history (or mythology, depending on one’s interpretation), family history, national history, covenants, ceremonial law, and case law. The Nevi’im texts are also characterized by a range of genres and literary styles, with history and prophetic oracles represented throughout. The Ketuvim likewise offers a broad selection of genres, including psalms, proverbs, philosophical reflections, love poetry, national histories, and heroic narratives. As such, the sheer literary value of the texts in the Hebrew Bible, even apart from its religious significance, would rank it among the most valuable selections of literature from anywhere in the ancient world. 

These texts offer a window not only into the literature of ancient Israel but also into the wider culture of the ancient Near East. The writers of the Hebrew Bible existed in a network of complex and literate societies, and much can be gained from reading the Hebrew Bible’s texts alongside parallel works from nearby civilizations. Babylonian literature, for instance, offers parallel stories to the primeval histories of the first few chapters of Genesis, and both sets of texts illustrate the range of ideas that were circulating regarding common stories of creation, floods, and interaction with divine beings. Similarly, collections of Ugaritic (north Canaanite) texts offer parallels to the Hebrew Bible’s use of covenants, oracles, and psalmic poetry. The comparison between the two collections can offer enlightening insights into the shared heritage they represent on the one hand and also the unique features of the Hebrew Bible on the other. In the same way, collections of proverbs from the wisdom literature of Egypt offer intriguing parallels to the biblical book of Proverbs and demonstrate the widespread influence of such literary forms in the ancient Near East. 

In addition to literary genres, the student of the Hebrew Bible should also understand something about the transmission and reception of the text. None of the original manuscripts of the texts survive (which is to be expected due to their antiquity and the region in which they were produced). What exists are several manuscript traditions, in which various versions of the text have been copied and recopied throughout the centuries. These manuscript traditions are generally in harmony with each other, with only minor variations between them. The most significant manuscript tradition for the Hebrew Bible, and the one upon which the modern text is based, is the Masoretic Text. This appellation refers to the ancient Hebrew manuscripts that were preserved and standardized by the Masoretes, a group of Jewish scribes who lived and worked in the Galilee region during the early medieval period. In addition to collecting and preserving the Hebrew texts of the Bible, the Masoretes also introduced a system of vowel pointing to the text since the Hebrew originals were written in a script based solely on consonant clusters (a common feature of many Semitic languages). The oldest complete copy of the Masoretic Text still extant is the Leningrad Codex, an 11th-century CE manuscript.

While the Masoretic Text tradition supplies the standard form of the Hebrew Bible, scholars also consult several other text traditions to study variant meanings and interpretive possibilities. The most important alternate text traditions are those represented by the Samaritan Torah (an alternate rendering of the first five books), the Peshitta (an ancient Syriac translation), the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation), and the Dead Sea Scrolls (which offer an ancient but incomplete version of several biblical books and the discovery of which has largely underscored the reliability of the Masoretic Text). In addition to the various text traditions of the Hebrew Bible, scholars also consult rabbinic quotations of various biblical texts that arise in sources predating the final form of the Masoretic Text. By comparing all these sources, scholars believe they can arrive at a reasonably accurate reconstitution of the original texts.

Christian versions of the Hebrew Bible are usually based on either the Masoretic Text or the Greek Septuagint (Protestant and modern Catholic Bibles use the Masoretic Text, while older Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles use the Septuagint). The Christian Old Testament includes the exact same books as the Hebrew Bible but orders them differently, opting for a genre-dominated system of categories—instead of Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim, the Christian Old Testament breaks the books up into groups of Law, History, Wisdom Literature, Major Prophets, and Minor Prophets. This difference in ordering obscures some of the interwoven nature of the histories and prophecies included in the Nevi’im but serves the Christian interpretation by ending the canon with Malachi’s open-ended yearning for a future restoration at the hands of a Messianic figure.

For the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible’s texts, Judaism offers several resources, some of which are accorded a fervency of study approaching that for the Torah itself. Primary among these is the Talmud, which is the central text of rabbinic Judaism. It is composed of the Mishnah (a compendium of the Oral Torah of the early rabbis) and the Gemara (a commentary on the Mishnah). Two Talmuds exist—the Babylonian Talmud (compiled in the sixth century CE) and the earlier Jerusalem Talmud—but the Babylonian Talmud is the standard reference. Within the corpus of Talmudic literature and its associated writings are forms like the Midrash and the Targums, both literary methods of recording rabbinic commentary and interpretation on the teaching of the Hebrew Bible.