The Tenach / The Bible

What is “The Tenach”?

The Tenach is The Jewish Bible. The word Tenach is an anacronym based on three Hebrew words. Torah, (The 5 books of Moses) Nevi’im, (The Prophets) Ketuvim, (TNK or Tenach as pronounced in Hebrew.) The Torah is believed to have been given by God through the prophet Moses at Mount Sinai and at the Tabernacle. And, all the teachings were written down by Moses ,which resulted in the written Torah that we have today. The Torah is the first five books; Genesis, Exodus Leviticus Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These are known as the Five books of Moses.

The Nevi’im are the prophets. This series is divided into two groups. The First Prophets, and the Latter Prophets. The First Prophets are Joshua Judges, Samuel, And Kings. The Latter Prophets include Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets.

The last section is called Ketuvim the Writings. These include the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ruth and Esther, Lamentations, Song of songs, Daniel. Ezra ,Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

The Tenach is divided into weekly readings called the Parasha Ha Shavua, the reading of the week.

These are read by Jews all over the world on the same week of each year, no matter where you live. Each portion has a name and date assigned to it. In this way boys and girls all over the world can have a Torah portion that is assigned to them for their Bar/Bat mitzvah which agrees with their birthday!

There are other books that are used by observant Jewish people, The Mishna and the Talmud are todays most recognized literary works.

The Septuagint

The Septuagint is quite possibly the most important translation of the Bible. It is the oldest translation of the OT into another language. It was considered by Philo and Josephus to be on an equal footing with the Hebrew Bible. It was preferred to the Hebrew by the Early Christian Church. And it sheds much-needed light on the development of the New Testament.

Still, many Christians today have little to no knowledge of it.

The New Testament

The New Testament contains 27 different books written by nine different authors. Every author of the New Testament was Jewish except for Luke. Three of the writers: Matthew, Peter, and John were among the 12 disciples who walked with Christ during his earthly ministry. Jesus promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would bring all things to remembrance of what Jesus said and did.

It was written over an 80 year period of time during the first century. It wasn’t until 367 AD that it became the official New Testament of the Catholic Church.

The Bible wasn’t written in English until just around 1567.

Before that it was in Greek then Latin. very few people could read the WORD.

Imagine! Only the Greeks and those who could read Latin most likely Church leadership could read “The Bible” ! It has only been available to us in English for 454 years.