Scripture

THE HEBREW Bible is an anthology of works composed and compiled over the course of roughly a millennium in the Southern Levant and among Judeans in Babylonian exile mostly in a language now called “Biblical Hebrew” (sections of Ezra-Nehemiah and of Daniel are in Aramaic).The early Jewish designations of the Hebrew Bible were kitvei ha-qodesh-(“holy writings”)—a term that points to its perception as a collection (cf. Greek ta biblia, “books,” the source of our English word “Bible”)—and mikra (“reading” || Aramaic kera). Today the term “Tanakh” has become current as an acronym for Torah (“Instruction”), Nevi’im (“Prophets”),