What Is the Hebrew Bible?

What kind of literature is the Hebrew Bible?

The writings that now form the Hebrew Bible are Israel’s greatest and most distinctive cultural achievement. They constitute the bulk of what has survived of ancient Israel’s written culture. Although many literary genres in the Bible are paralleled in other ancient Near Eastern cultures, others are, so far as we know, innovative, particularly the long prose narratives and the classical prophetic writings, which form a substantial part of what became the Bible. The literary power of the biblical writings helped to perpetuate the religious ideas for which Israel is best known.

The Bible is not a single book but an anthology of books that developed over a long period of time. Each book has a long and complex history of composition and revision. According to a widely held scholarly view, the Torah was formed primarily by the interweaving of four originally separate, overlapping, and somewhat inconsistent sources, each of which recounted Israel’s early history and laws. Books such as Judges and Kings are based on stories and records about warriors and kings, arranged within editorial frameworks influenced by the book of Deuteronomy that explicate the religious lessons to be learned from the events. Other books, such as Psalms and Proverbs, are anthological collections of once-independent units. Still others, like the book of Jeremiah, consist of an original composition that was revised and supplemented over the course of its transmission.

When were the books of the Bible written?

We cannot know for sure when the individual biblical books were composed. On the basis of their contents and particularly the linguistic dating of their Hebrew, it seems that the books that recount the preexilic period were written, at least in their earliest form, prior to the Babylonian exile, or were based on preexilic sources that were given their present form later. Others, such as the book of Ezekiel and the second part of the book of Isaiah, are from the exilic (Babylonian) period, while still others such as Esther, Daniel 1–6, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, and some psalms were written during the postexilic (Persian) period. Indeed, the postexilic period was a time of intense literary activity, when new books were written and old ones were revised. The exile and the return to Judah, major events in the national memory, provided an impetus to preserve the national traditions even as they were being revised and supplemented by new works that reflected new situations and changing worldviews.

How did the Bible become the Bible?

At some point, these books, beginning with the Torah and later the other books, came to be regarded as divinely inspired and authoritative. Ultimately, they became a canon, a fixed set of books recognized by the community as sacred scripture. The process of canonization is only partly visible to us, and it was not completed until after the end of the biblical period. Even at the time of their canonization, the wording of these books was not completely stabilized. Medieval Hebrew scribes known as Masoretes strove to stabilize the text, but minor differences remain in different editions of the Hebrew text even today.

In the Jewish tradition, the Bible is arranged in three sections, the Torah (Torah), the Prophets (Nevi’im), and the Writings (Ketuvim). Tanakh, a Hebrew name for the Bible, is an acronym for these three sections. The order of the sections corresponds to the order in which they were completed and closed to further additions. The first section to gain canonical status was the Torah. Its role in the activities of Ezra (Nehemiah 8) implies that it was already considered sacred and binding by his time. By the end of the Persian period, the Prophets were also considered canonical, and the Prophets section was closed. When the remaining books—those collected in the Writings—were deemed canonical is unknown, but the entire canon of the Hebrew Bible was complete by the second century CE.

The ordering of the books, especially those in the Writings section, varies even within Jewish manuscripts, and there is an even greater difference between Jewish and Christian orderings. The order in Christian Bibles is the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, the Poetical and Wisdom Books, and the Prophetic Books. The Historical Books are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, 1–2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Moreover, Protestant and Catholic Scriptures differ in that the latter include books deemed apocryphal, among them Tobit, Judith, and the two books of Maccabees. In most Jewish editions, the Bible culminates with Cyrus’s proclamation at the end of 2 Chronicles that the Jews may return to the Promised Land, just as Genesis ends with Joseph’s promise that his descendants will return to the land. The Torah as a whole ends with that promise about to be fulfilled.

By the time it became sacred scripture, the Bible was considered a divinely inspired guide for belief, understanding, and conduct, to be read and publicly recited, studied, and interpreted. Within the Bible itself are the beginnings of its interpretation and reinterpretation, which became an important part of later Jewish culture. Some biblical books have allusions to, or interpretations of, passages found in earlier books. According to Nehemiah 8, while Ezra was reading the Torah to the people, the Levites and others explained the text to them, and the people’s leaders then set about studying it and applying it to their lives. The book of Chronicles reflects interpretations that reconcile contradictions between different laws within the Torah; such reconciliation became an important part of rabbinic interpretation. The Bible became the focal point for both worship and study, two important principles in Judaism. Because of their engagement with the Bible, the Jews were later characterized as a “people of the book” (a phrase first found in the Qur’an). By extension, Christianity and Islam became known as “book religions” as well.

The Bible is, on the one hand, familiar to many readers, but, on the other hand, it is an exotic book from long ago and far away. It reaches great artistic, intellectual, and religious heights, but not all of it is easily intelligible. We can relate to the skillfully drawn human characters in its narratives, admire its laws that envision a just society, be chastened by the prophets’ social and religious critiques, feel closer to God when we read psalms, and be instructed by the perceptive observations of its wisdom teachings. Yet not everything in the Bible conforms to our current values and worldview. Women were not equal to men in all things; adultery was punishable by death; slavery was accepted, although slaves had certain rights; and animals were slaughtered as sacrifices to God. Violence and war were sanctioned even though universal peace was a goal; certain nations were to be defeated and, in the case of the Canaanites, exterminated, and other religions were denigrated and destined for oblivion. Some of the prophetic and apocalyptic visions are weird, even psychedelic; miracles and magic are accepted as real; and the rationale for some of the laws escapes us. In other words, there is much in the Bible that we can appreciate and identify with, and there are parts that are strange or disquieting. We should remember that the Bible is the product of its time(s) and place(s). It is not objective; it takes the perspective of a small and vulnerable nation with a distinctive understanding of its place in the world and of its innovative concept of a single, unique, all-powerful God.

The Bible is a religious book. God, worship, and other religious ideas and practices loom large in it, for in ancient times “religion” was not separable from everyday life (the concept of secular would have puzzled ancient Israelites). Yet if modern readers approach it as something too “holy” to read critically and openly, they risk rationalizing its inconsistencies and what are, to modern eyes, its flaws, and missing dimensions not usually considered religious, such as its erotic love poetry, its comic and satiric parts, and the way it at times questions God’s justice or mercy. The Bible embodies much of Israel’s “establishment” thinking, but it is sometimes radical and innovative in the ways it develops that thinking over time. We should not expect it to conform to our notions of what a “religious” book ought to be.