What is the Tanakh? Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim explained

Tanakh is the Jewish name for the Hebrew Bible. The word is an acronym for its three parts: Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim. Everything in it was written in Hebrew, with a few passages of Aramaic in Daniel and Ezra, and the text used today is the Masoretic text fixed by scribes in the early Middle Ages.

The three parts

Counts are from the Tanach with Nikkud edition (tanach.us) used in Torah Feed. Book count is the 39-book division; see below for why it is also 24.

Torah

The five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, or Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra, Bamidbar and Devarim by their Hebrew names, each named for a word in its first verse. The Torah runs from creation to the death of Moses on the edge of the promised land, and holds the 613 commandments. It is the part read in synagogue every Shabbat in a yearly cycle of 54 portions. A printed Torah in book form is called a Chumash, from the Hebrew for five.

Nevi’im

The Prophets, in two groups. The Former Prophets are the histories: Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, which take the story from the entry into the land to the destruction of the First Temple. The Latter Prophets are the books of prophecy: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve short books from Hosea to Malachi that the tradition counts as one, Trei Asar, “the Twelve.” A passage from the Prophets, the haftarah, is read after the Torah portion each Shabbat.

Ketuvim

The Writings: poetry, wisdom and the later histories. Psalms, Proverbs and Job; the five scrolls read on festivals, which are Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther; then Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles. The Tanakh ends with Chronicles and the decree of Cyrus permitting the return to Jerusalem.

24 books or 39?

Both numbers are right. The traditional Jewish count is 24, because Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah are each one book, and the twelve minor prophets are counted together as one. Printed editions, Christian Bibles and most apps split those into separate books, which gives 39. Torah Feed uses the 39-book layout because it makes the reading list easier to navigate, and shows each book’s Hebrew name on its cover.

Torah, Tanakh, Talmud, Old Testament

Torah most precisely means the five books of Moses. In everyday use it also means Jewish learning in general, so “learning Torah” can include the Talmud and later works. Tanakh is the whole Hebrew Bible, all three parts. Talmud is not part of the Tanakh at all; it is the record of rabbinic discussion compiled centuries later, built around the Mishnah, and Jewish tradition treats it as the Oral Law that accompanies the Written Law of the Torah. Old Testament is the Christian name for the same books as the Tanakh, arranged in a different order and, in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, with additional books. The name implies a New Testament, which is why Jewish readers say Tanakh or Hebrew Bible instead.

Chapters, verses, and pesukim

The verse divisions are ancient: the Masoretic text marks the end of every pasuk (verse) with a sof pasuk, the two-dot sign that looks like a colon. Chapter numbers are not. They were introduced by Christian scholars in the thirteenth century and adopted into Hebrew Bibles for ease of reference, which is why the traditional Torah divisions, the parashot and the smaller paragraphs called parashiyot, do not line up with chapter breaks. When Torah Feed shows “Genesis 1:1” it means chapter 1, pasuk 1, in the numbering that every printed Tanakh shares.

The books in order

Common questions