Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible, also called the Tanakh, is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures. An old rabbinic work, the Midrash Koheleth, offers a warning about it. Whoever brings together in his house more than twenty four books brings confusion. That line points to a collection with a firm shelf and a surprisingly unsettled history. The same scriptures have gone by different names, circulated in competing versions, and been counted in more than one way. Who decided which writings were of divine origin? Why do Jews, Samaritans, and several Christian churches hold slightly different Bibles? And how much of its story do historians and archaeologists accept today? These questions run through everything that follows.
The name Tanakh is an acronym built from the first Hebrew letter of Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim, the three traditional divisions of the Masoretic Text. Rabbinic writing from the Masoretic period already shows that three-part pattern, yet the word Tanakh itself was not used then. The proper title was Mikra, also spelled Miqra, meaning 'reading' or 'that which is read', because the texts were read publicly. Tanakh first appears in later Masoretic texts and commentary. Mikra never disappeared, and in modern spoken Hebrew the two names are interchangeable.
The Society of Biblical Literature's Handbook of Style asks writers to be aware of the connotations of terms such as Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, without prescribing either. That handbook is the standard for journals as different as the Harvard Theological Review, the Bibliotheca Sacra, and the Westminster Theological Journal. Many biblical studies scholars still favor Hebrew Bible, or Hebrew Scriptures, because Tanakh and Old Testament carry Jewish or Christian associations. The word Hebrew points first to the original language. It can also point to the Jews of the Second Temple era and their descendants, who passed the Masoretic Text down to the present.
Small portions of the text are in Aramaic, mostly in the books of Daniel and Ezra, plus the single verse Jeremiah 10:11. That Aramaic is written in the square script, which became the Hebrew alphabet after the Babylonian exile.
The rabbinic tally of books appears in the Talmud and in many midrash works, yet it is somewhat arbitrary. It counts the twelve Minor Prophets as a single book. It also counts 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles as one book each, and it treats Ezra-Nehemiah as one. Several early nonrabbinic sources give 22 books, matching the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Athanasius of Alexandria reported 27, matching the alphabet when its final letter forms are included.
The Iliad and the Odyssey were each divided into 24 books, matching the letters of the Greek alphabet, and one modern source links that habit to the Bible. Both Homer and the Bible were foundational literature, studied by children and treated as distillations of their society's values. On this theory, a division into 22 may convert the Greek system to the Hebrew alphabet. A division into 24 may instead adopt a number seen as perfect, fitting the Bible's stature in Jewish eyes. A separate tradition said the count matched the number of priestly divisions. Whichever number is used, the books fall into three divisions, and the last of them has never had a fixed order.
The Torah, literally 'Instruction' or 'Law', is also known as the Pentateuch and as the Five Books of Moses. Each book is named in Hebrew by its opening words. Bereshit means 'In the beginning' and is Genesis, and Shemot, 'The names of', is Exodus. Vayyikra, 'And He called', is Leviticus. Bemidbar, 'In the desert of', is Numbers, and Devarim, 'Things' or 'Words', is Deuteronomy. Printed editions, as opposed to scrolls, are often called Chamisha Chumshei Torah, 'Five fifth-sections of the Torah', or informally Chumash.
Nevi'im, meaning 'Prophets', is the middle division, and it runs from the Israelites' entrance into the Land of Israel to the Babylonian captivity of Judah. Its books are grouped by substance, not by date. The Former Prophets are Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The Latter Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, known in Hebrew as Trei Asar and counted as one book. The Twelve are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Ketuvim, meaning 'Writings', holds eleven books, and three of them form a lyrical group called Sifrei Emet. The name is an acronym of Iyov, Mishlei, and Tehillim, the Hebrew titles of Job, Proverbs, and Psalms. Those letters spell emet, the Hebrew word for 'truth'. In Masoretic manuscripts, and in some printed editions, the three appear in two columns that highlight the parallel halves of each verse. They are also the only books with a special system of cantillation notes built for that parallelism. The opening and ending of Job, however, use the ordinary prose system.
Five short books, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, are known together as the Hamesh Megillot, or Five Megillot. In many Jewish communities each is read aloud in the synagogue on a set occasion. Song of Songs, also called Song of Solomon, is read on Passover, and Ruth on Shavuot. Lamentations belongs to Tisha B'Av, Ecclesiastes to Sukkot, and Esther to Purim.
Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles remain once the lyrical books and the scrolls are set aside. Jewish tradition has no formal grouping for them, but they share traits. Their narratives openly describe relatively late events, namely the Babylonian captivity and the restoration of Zion. Talmudic tradition also assigns all three a late authorship.
The Talmud lists the Ketuvim as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles. That order is roughly chronological if traditional authorship is assumed. Tiberian Masoretic codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, choose differently, and so do often old Spanish manuscripts. They begin with Chronicles, then Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, and Ezra. That arrangement is more thematic, since it keeps the megillot together.
Nach is the term for Nevi'im and Ketuvim taken together, and it is often treated as a subject separate from Torah. In Orthodox high schools for girls, and the seminaries that follow them, it is a major subject, often taught by different teachers than Chumash. Orthodox high schools for boys cover only some portions, such as Joshua, Judges, and the Five Megillot.
Exodus 15, 1 Samuel 2, and Jonah 2 all contain songs, even though the Book of Psalms is the formal collection of hymns. The Hebrew Bible mixes genres freely. The Torah carries legal material beside its narratives of the past. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are wisdom literature. In the prophetic books, a prophet denounces evil, predicts what God will do, or describes and interprets visions.
The Book of Daniel is the only book usually described as apocalyptic literature. Isaiah 24-27, Joel, and Zechariah 9-14 are called proto-apocalyptic. Ezekiel has been given that label too, though the label was controversial.
Biblical scholar Christine Hayes calls the Hebrew Bible "the record of the Israelites' religious and cultural revolution". The Israelites lived within the ancient Near East, whose religions were polytheistic, and they chose monotheism instead.
John Barton writes that "YHWH is consistently presented throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as the God who created the world, and as the only God with whom Israel is to be concerned". The bond between God and Israel is described as a covenant. Under it, God gives the people the Promised Land as an eternal possession. God is also a God of redemption, who frees the people from Egypt and repeatedly rescues them from their enemies.
Widows and orphans receive explicit protection among the ethical requirements of the Tanakh. The text forbids exploiting them and other vulnerable groups. It also condemns murder, theft, bribery, corruption, deceitful trading, adultery, and incest. Social justice and ritual purity both appear as obligations. Theodicy is a further theme, the effort to show that God is just even though evil and suffering exist.
Genesis opens with a creation narrative, and chapters 12-50 trace Israelite origins to the patriarchs Abraham, his son Isaac, and grandson Jacob. God promises Abraham and his descendants blessing and land, and the covenant is marked by male circumcision. The children of Jacob become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob's son Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers but rises to power in Egypt. A famine then leads Jacob and his family to settle there.
Jacob's descendants live in Egypt for 430 years. After the Exodus, the Israelites wander in the wilderness for 40 years, and God gives them the Law of Moses. The law covers ritual and ethics alike, and it demands justice and care for the poor, widows, and orphans. The story affirms God's unconditional love for his people, yet God still punishes them when they fail to keep the covenant.
The conquest of the Promised Land of Canaan takes five years. Judges then lead Israel for the next 470 years. The Philistines emerge as a new enemy and trouble Israel while the prophet Samuel is judge. When Samuel grows old, the people ask him to choose a king, since his sons are corrupt and they want to resemble other nations. The text presents this as a rejection of God's kingship, yet God permits it, and Saul of the tribe of Benjamin is anointed. That begins the united monarchy of the Kingdom of Israel.
David, an officer in Saul's army, wins great military success, and a jealous Saul tries to kill him. After Saul dies fighting the Philistines, the kingdom divides between Saul's son Eshbaal and David, who rules his own tribe of Judah. Eshbaal is assassinated, and David is anointed king over all Israel. David then captures the Jebusite city of Jerusalem and makes it his capital. Its position between the southern hills of Judah and the northern tribes suits a ruler of all of them. He raises its importance by bringing the Ark of the Covenant there from Shiloh.
Solomon, David's son, builds the First Temple in Jerusalem. After his death, the kingdom splits into the northern Kingdom of Israel, also called the Kingdom of Samaria, with its capital at Samaria, and the southern Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem. Samaria survives for 200 years until the Assyrians conquer it in 722 BCE. Judah lasts longer, until the Babylonians conquer it in 586 BCE, destroy the Temple, and exile many Judeans to Babylon. In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great of Persia conquers Babylon and allows the exiles to return to Judah. Between 520 and 515 BCE, the Temple is rebuilt.
Daniel 9:11 and Ezra 3:2 both refer to the "Torah (Law) of Moses", and religious tradition ascribes the Torah to Moses. The Torah itself, however, credits Moses with writing only some specific sections. Moses would have lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, before Hebrew writing developed. The Torah is dated to the 1st millennium BCE, after Israel and Judah were already states. One assessment holds that "it is highly likely that extensive oral transmission of proverbs, stories, and songs took place during this period". Parts of Genesis 12-50 and the Book of Exodus may reflect such oral traditions. In those stories, ancestors such as Jacob and Moses survive and thrive through trickery and deception.
King David, around 1000 BCE, is credited with at least 73 of the Psalms. His son Solomon is named as the author of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. The text describes their reigns as a golden age when Israel flourished culturally and militarily. No archaeological evidence supports that picture. It is most likely a "retrospective extrapolation" of conditions under King Jeroboam II, who reigned in 781-742 BCE.
Israel Finkelstein is among the modern scholars who believe the ancient Israelites mostly originated within Canaan. Their material culture closely resembled that of their Canaanite neighbors, and Hebrew was a Canaanite dialect. Archaeology indicates that Israel began around 1250 BCE as loosely organized tribal villages in the hill country of modern Israel. During crises, those tribes formed temporary alliances. The Book of Judges, written around 600 BCE, about 500 years after the events it describes, portrays such a decentralized grouping. The Song of Deborah in Judges 5 may reflect older oral tradition. It contains archaic Hebrew and a tribal list that identifies Israel only with the northern tribes.
By the 9th or 8th centuries BCE, the scribal culture of Samaria and Judah was developed enough to produce biblical texts. Samaria was the more powerful and culturally advanced kingdom, with multiple cultic sites, including the sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan. Scholars estimate that the Jacob tradition of Genesis 25-35 was first written down in the 8th century BCE. Because the stories take place in the north, it probably originated there. The prominence of the sanctuary at Bethel in Genesis 28 suggests the stories were preserved and recorded at that center. That places the Jacob cycle before King Josiah of Judah, who reigned in 640-609 BCE and pushed to centralize worship at Jerusalem.
The story of Moses and the Exodus also appears to come from the north. In its oral and earliest written forms it stood alone, and it was joined to the patriarchal stories during the exile or afterward. Exodus 2 tells of Moses's birth in a way that resembles the birth of Sargon of Akkad, which suggests Neo-Assyrian influence after 722 BCE. Though set in Egypt, the story carries an anti-Assyrian and anti-imperial message while borrowing Assyrian story patterns. David M. Carr allows that "there may have been a 'Moses group,' themselves of Canaanite extraction, who experienced slavery and liberation from Egypt". He adds that most scholars see such a group as a small minority whose story was later claimed by all of early Israel.
Psalm 45 may have northern origins, since it describes a king marrying a foreign princess, a policy of the Omrides. Some psalms may come from the shrine in the northern city of Dan. These are the Sons of Korah psalms, Psalm 29, and Psalm 68. Dan probably became an Israelite city under Jeroboam II, and before then it belonged to Aram. Psalm 20 is nearly identical to an Aramaic psalm found in Papyrus Amherst 63, which dates to the 4th century BCE.
The author of the Books of Kings likely lived in Jerusalem. The text plainly favors Judah, where worship was centralized. It portrays the Kingdom of Samaria as a godless breakaway region whose rulers refuse to worship at Jerusalem. These northern and southern strands still had to be gathered into one collection, and scholars say that took several hundred years.
John J. Collins writes: "It now seems clear that all the Hebrew Bible received its final shape in the postexilic, or Second Temple, period." The Torah reached authoritative status first. Ezra 7:6 describes Ezra as "a scribe skilled in the law (torah) of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given". That verse suggests canonical standing for the Torah possibly as early as the 5th century BCE.
By the 2nd century BCE, the Nevi'im had gained canonical status. The Book of Sirach, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the New Testament all refer to "the Law and the Prophets". The Book of Daniel, written around 164 BCE, was not grouped with the Prophets, presumably because that collection was already fixed.
The Ketuvim came last. The prologue to the Book of Sirach mentions "other writings" beside the Law and Prophets without saying which. The Gospel of Luke, at Luke 24:44, speaks of "the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms". References like these suggest the contents of the Ketuvim stayed fluid until the process was completed in the 2nd century CE.
Scholars have no consensus on when the canon was fixed. Some argue the Hasmonean dynasty did it, while others place it in the second century CE or even later. A supposed late-1st-century Council of Jamnia was once credited with the decision, but modern scholars believe no authoritative council of rabbis ever met. Between 70 and 100 CE, rabbis did debate whether certain books "make the hands unclean", meaning the books were holy and should count as scripture. References to fixed numbers of canonical books appear in this period.
Several criteria governed inclusion. A book had to be older than the 4th century BCE, or attributed to an author who lived before then. Its original language had to be Hebrew, and it had to be widely used. Many books that certain Jewish communities regarded as scripture were excluded during this time.
The Talmud tells the story differently. It says much of the Tanakh was compiled by the men of the Great Assembly, called Anshei K'nesset HaGedolah in Hebrew. According to that account, the task was completed in 450 BCE, and the canon has remained unchanged ever since.
Thousands of minor changes entered the Hebrew Bible through centuries of hand-copying. Some were accidents. Others were deliberate, as scribes added clarifications or theological material.
The Masoretic Text, dated to the 7th to 10th centuries CE, is the modern form authoritative in Rabbinic Judaism. Jewish scribes and scholars of the Early Middle Ages compiled it. Its current edition is mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few Aramaic passages. The terms Hebrew Bible and Hebrew Canon are frequently confused with it. Yet the Masoretic Text is a medieval version, and only one of several texts that different kinds of Judaism have treated as authoritative.
Ancient Hebrew was written as an abjad, with consonants and a few vowel letters called matres lectionis. To ensure accuracy, the Masoretes created a single formalized system of vowel marks. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher did most of this work in the Tiberias school, drawing on the oral tradition for reading the text, which is why it is called Tiberian vocalization. It also took in some innovations of Ben Naphtali and the Babylonian exiles. Some traditional sources and some Orthodox Jews hold that the pronunciation and cantillation derive from the revelation at Sinai, since the original text cannot be read without them. Text (mikra), pronunciation (niqqud), and cantillation (te'amim) together convey both the simple meaning and the nuances of sentence flow.
The vocabulary has been counted at 8,679 distinct words, of which 1,480 are hapax legomena, words or expressions that occur only once. Those words rest on roughly 2000 distinct Semitic roots.
The Hellenized, Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria produced the Septuagint, a Greek translation dated to the 3rd century BCE and used in Second Temple Judaism. It included books later identified as the Apocrypha. The Samaritans produced their own edition of the Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch. Both of these ancient editions differ significantly from the Masoretic Text.
Modern scholars studying the history of the text draw on more witnesses. These include the Syriac Peshitta, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Targum Onkelos, and quotations in rabbinic manuscripts. Some of these sources may be older than the Masoretic Text, and they often differ from it.
Such differences have led to a theory that an Urtext of the Hebrew Bible once existed and fathered every version known today. No Urtext has ever been found. Scholars debate whether the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text, or the Samaritan Pentateuch comes closest to it.
The Protestant Old Testament includes the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but arranges them in a different order. The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian churches include the Deuterocanonical books, which certain versions of the Hebrew Bible lack. The Septuagint was the Greek text used chiefly by 1st-century Christian authors, and early Christians treated it as authoritative. The ancient translations used by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches rest on it. Protestant English Bibles originally carried the Deuterocanonical books too. They disappeared when a slimmed-down King James Version was mass-produced by free Bible societies out of cost considerations.
In Islam, the Tawrat is often identified with the Pentateuch, and also with the other books of the Hebrew Bible.
Julius Wellhausen, who lived from 1844 to 1918, belongs to a line of scholars whom Lester L. Grabbe described in 2007 as maximalist. They accepted the biblical text unless it was disproven. In that tradition, the substantial historicity of the patriarchs and a unified conquest of the land were widely accepted in the United States until about the 1970s. Grabbe says his field now leans minimalist on the patriarchal period and the settlement, and very few scholars still work as maximalists.
In 2022, archaeologist Avraham Faust summarized recent scholarship on the same question. Early histories of Israel leaned heavily on biblical accounts, and their reliability has been increasingly questioned. Key debates center on the Patriarchs, the Exodus, the Israelite conquest, and the United Monarchy, with archaeology often challenging the narratives. Faust concludes that the minimalist school of the 1990s dismissed the Bible's historical value, while mainstream scholarship now balances skepticism with evidence. Some biblical traditions align with archaeological findings, particularly from the 9th century BCE onward.
Andrew R. George points to the similarity between the Genesis flood narrative and the Gilgamesh flood myth. Psychoanalyst Otto Rank noted the Moses birth parallel in 1909, and 20th-century writers such as H. G. Wells and Joseph Campbell popularized it. Jacob Bronowski wrote that "the Bible is... part folklore and part record." Scholars today increasingly view it as a mix of folklore and history.
The Rashi commentary is the major commentary for the Chumash. Rashi and Metzudot together are the major commentaries for the Nach. Jewish study of the Tanakh follows two broad approaches. The classical approach is religious study that assumes the Bible is divinely inspired. The other studies the Bible as a human creation, as a sub-field of religious studies. Orthodox Judaism considers that second approach, applied to the Torah, heresy, so many rabbis in Orthodox yeshivas treat non-Orthodox commentary as forbidden. Yet Abraham ibn Ezra, Gersonides, and Maimonides used history, science, and philology, and that was acceptable because they believed God revealed the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Modern Orthodox community permits wider criticism for books outside the Torah, and the Da'at Miqra series uses academic techniques. Conservative and Reform Jews accept both traditional and secular approaches.
Fergus Millar wrote that the Bible, as both a national history and a source of law, helped build a sense of national identity among ancient Jews. David Goodblatt argued it was a foundation for Jewish nationalism in the Second Temple period. Its national history traced descent through the patriarchs and tribal genealogies. Laws such as male circumcision, Shabbat observance, and dietary prohibitions became cultural markers that set Jewish communities apart. The Bible also helped Hebrew survive, unlike Phoenician and Edomite, even as Aramaic replaced other regional languages. Translations into Greek and Aramaic let Jewish culture cross linguistic boundaries.
E. Theodore Mullen argued that the Deuteronomistic History, meaning Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, was composed during the Babylonian captivity to reinforce a threatened Judean identity. He also argued that Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were compiled in the Persian era to forge a unified ethnic identity. Combined with Deuteronomy, that material formed the Pentateuch. David Noel Freedman called the larger work the primary history. Adrian Hastings described the Jews as the true proto-nation and credited their study of sacred texts with preserving identity for two millennia after the loss of their political entity in the first century CE. He saw that connection paving the way for Zionism and the State of Israel. He also contended that ancient Israel's model of nationhood shaped the nation-states of the Christian world.
Modern English translations carry the work forward. The Jewish Publication Society published The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text in 1917 and replaced it with its Tanakh in 1985. The Koren Jerusalem Bible, a Hebrew and English Tanakh, was the first Bible published in modern Israel, in 1962. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan produced The Living Torah in 1981, and The Stone Edition appeared in 1996, named after benefactor Irving I. Stone. Tanakh Ram, an ongoing translation into Modern Hebrew by Avraham Ahuvya, began in 2010.
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Common questions
What is the Hebrew Bible?
The Hebrew Bible, also called the Tanakh, is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures. It consists of the Torah, the Nevi'im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings), which holds eleven books.
How many books are in the Hebrew Bible?
The traditional rabbinic count, found in the Talmud and many midrash works, is 24 books. That number is somewhat arbitrary, since it counts the twelve Minor Prophets as one book, and several early nonrabbinic sources give 22.
What is the difference between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament?
The Protestant Old Testament includes the same books as the Hebrew Bible but arranges them in a different order. The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian churches also include the Deuterocanonical books, which certain versions of the Hebrew Bible lack.
When was the Hebrew Bible canon fixed?
Scholars have no consensus on a date. The Torah may have been canonical by the 5th century BCE and the Nevi'im by the 2nd century BCE, while the Ketuvim stayed fluid until the 2nd century CE. A supposed Council of Jamnia is no longer believed to have fixed the canon.
What is the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible?
The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Hebrew Bible, dated to the 7th to 10th centuries CE, that is authoritative in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretes added vowel markings to it, chiefly through the Tiberian system of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher.
Who wrote the Hebrew Bible?
Religious tradition ascribes the Torah to Moses, the Psalms largely to King David, and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon to Solomon. Scholars hold that the books were composed and edited in stages over several hundred years, receiving final shape in the Second Temple period.
All sources
72 references cited across the entry
- 2BookThe Text of the Hebrew Bible: From the Rabbis to the MasoretesVandenhoeck & Ruprecht — 2014
- 5Isaac Leo Seeligmann, Robert Hanhart, Hermann Spieckermann: The Septuagint Version of Isaiah and Cognate Studies, Tübingen 2004, pp. 33–34.
- 6BookUnderstanding the Dead Sea ScrollsHerschel Shanks — Random House — 1992
- 7JournalReconsidering the Roman Catholic ApocryphaAlex Andersen — Southeastern University — Spring 2019
- 8Isabel Lang Intertextualität als hermeneutischer Zugang zur Auslegung des Korans: Eine Betrachtung am Beispiel der Verwendung von Israiliyyat in der Rezeption der Davidserzählung in Sure 38: 21-25 Log
- 11JournalThe Canonization Process of the Masoretic TextSeppo Sipilä — 2016
- 13JournalBook Review: Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by Martin Jan Mulder and Harry SyslingGerard J. Norton — 2007
- 14NewsThe New Old TestamentWilliam Safire — 1997-05-25
- 16BookThe SBL Handbook of StyleHendrickson — 1999
- 17NewsScanning an Ancient Biblical Text That Humans Fear to OpenJanuary 5, 2018
- 18BookThe Oxford Bible CommentaryJohn Barton — Oxford University Press — 2001
- 19BookIntroduction to the BibleChristine Hayes — Yale University Press — 2012
- 20BookIntroduction to the Hebrew BibleJohn J. Collins — Fortress Press — 2018
- 21BookThe Hebrew Bible: A Contemporary Introduction to the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish TanakhDavid M. Carr — Wiley Blackwell — 2021
- 22BookA History of JudaismMartin Goodman — Penguin Books — 2017
- 23BookThe Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred ScriptureKonrad Schmid et al. — Harvard University Press — 2021
- 26JEDP Source TheoryHenry E. Neufeld
- 27The Books of Kings and Chronicles: Their Value and Limitations for the Study of Ancient Israelite HistoryS. Michael Gadd — June 2008
- 28BookThe Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew ScripturesMichael D. Coogan et al. — Oxford University Press — 2018
- 29BookThe Canon DebatePhilip R. Davies — Baker Academic — 2001
- 30McDonald & Sanders, The Canon Debate, 2002, p. 5, cited are Neusner's Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine, pp. 128–145, and Midrash in Context: Exegesis in Formative Judaism, pp. 1–22.
- 31(Bava Batra 14b–15a, Rashi to Megillah 3a, 14a)
- 32Midrash Qoheleth 12:12
- 33BookThe Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and Annotated GlossaryPage H. Kelley et al. — Wm. B. Eerdmans — 1998
- 34BookA Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language: Letters, Vowel-points, and AccentsJohn Gill — G. Keith — 1767
- 35BookRevivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and BeyondZuckermann, Ghil'ad — Oxford University Press — 2020
- 37BookAn Introduction to the Old Testament in GreekHenry Barclay Swete — Macmillan and Co. — 1902
- 39Exodus Rabbah 41:5; Numbers Rabbah 13:15, 14:4, 14:18, 15:22, 18:21; Song of Songs Rabbah 4:11; Ecclesiastes Rabbah 12:11, 12:12; Tanhuma Ki Tisa 16:2, Korach 12:1, Vayelech 1:1; Pesikta Rabbati 3:1;
- 40Josephus, Against Apion, 1:8; also 2 Esdras 12:45, Origen
- 44BookThe Living NachRabbi Aryeh Kaplan — Moznaim Publishing Corporation — 1995
- 46BookThe Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform TextsA. R. George — Oxford University Press — 2003
- 47BookFrom Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the BibleEric H. Cline — National Geographic — 2007
- 48BookThe Evolution of the Gilgamesh EpicJeffrey H. Tigay — Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers — 2002
- 49BookThe Epic of GilgameshPenguin Books — 2003
- 50BookThe myth of the birth of the hero: a psychological interpretation of mythologyOtto Rank — The Journal of nervous and mental disease publishing company — 1914
- 51BookThe Outline of History: Volume 1H. G. Wells — Doubleday — 1961
- 52BookThe Masks of God, Vol. 3: Occidental MythologyJoseph Campbell — 1964
- 53BookThe Ascent of ManJacob Bronowski — BBC Books — 1990
- 54BookUnderstanding the History of Ancient IsraelLester L. Grabbe — British Academy — 2007-10-25
- 55BookThe Ancient Israelite WorldAvraham Faust — Taylor & Francis — 2022
- 56BookMishleiShai LaMora "Eshkol"
- 58NewsIrreconcilable Differences in Bible's InterpretationsPeter Steinfels — September 15, 2007
- 59NewsNew Torah For Modern MindsMichael Massing — March 9, 2002
- 60NewsReading Is Believing, or NotDavid Plotz — September 16, 2007
- 61NewsAmerican Jews Rediscover OrthodoxyNatalie Gittelson — September 30, 1984
- 62NewsThe Bible's Inspired ArtChaim Potok — October 3, 1982
- 63NewsRabbi Hayyim Angel's 13th Book Is Compilation of Tanach-Related TopicsMitchell First — January 11, 2018
- 64JournalEmpire, Community and Culture in the Roman near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews and ArabsFergus Millar — 1987
- 65Elements of Ancient Jewish NationalismCambridge University Press — 2006
- 66BookThe Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and NationalismAdrian Hastings — Cambridge University Press — 1997
- 67McGrath, Alister, Christian Theology, Oxford: Blackwell, 2011, pp. 120, 123. .
- 68BookThe Bible in English: its history and influenceDavid Daniell — Yale university press — 2003
- 69BookHebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and QuranMohr Siebeck — 2008
- 70BookChristianity: The First Three Thousand YearsPenguin Books — 2010
- 71BookA History of the JewsPaul Johnson — Weidenfeld and Nicolson — 1987
- 72Searching for the Better TextHarvey Minkoff