The
Tanach (or Tanakh) is the
Hebrew term for the
Jewish Bible, which is identical to the
Protestant Canon of the
Christian Old Testament, except that the constituent parts are often printed in a slightly different order.
The Tanach consists of 24 books, while the Christian Old Testament (excluding the deuterocanon/apocrypha) has 39 books; they both contain the same text but divide it into books differently: Jews often count as a single book what Christians count as several.
The Tanach is traditionally broken down into the Torah (The Law), Neviim (The Prophets) and Ketuvim (The Writings). A Haftorah is a selection from the Prophets which has traditionally been associated with a particular passage in the Torah. In the first century A.D., Masoretes? added vowel pointings to the text of the Tanach.
The Books of the Torah (the Law) are named after the first word in each book. The Torah consists of:
- 1 Bereshit - Genesis
- 2 Shemot - Exodus
- 3 Vayikra - Leviticus
- 4 Bamidbar - Numbers
- 5 Devarim - Deuteronomy
The books of Neviim? (The Prophets) are:
- 6 Joshua
- 7 Judges
- 8 I Samuel
- 9 II Samuel
- 10 I Kings
- 11 II Kings
- 12 Isaiah
- 13 Jeremiah
- 14 Ezekiel
- 15 Treisar? - The Minor Prophets
- Book of Hosea
- Book of Joel
- Book of Amos
- Book of Obadiah
- Book of Jonah
- Book of Micah
- Book of Nahum
- Book of Habakkuk
- Book of Zephaniah
- Book of Haggai
- Book of Zechariah
- Book of Malachi
The Ketuvim (The Writings) are:
- 16 Psalms
- 17 Proverbs
- 18 Book of Job
- 19 Megilot?
- Song of Songs
- Ruth
- Lamentations
- Ecclesiastes
- Book of Esther
- 20 Daniel
- 21 Ezra
- 22 Nehemiah
- 23 I Chronicles
- 24 II Chronicles