Religion - the Jewish Bible

1.     Describe the three major sections of the Jewish bible. Include its estimated date of being written

        and what is contained in each section.

The Jewish Bible is divided into three major sections composed of 24 books total known as the Tenakh.  This first section includes the first five books of the Bible:  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  These five books are attributed to Moses as their author so they are known as the Books of Moses or Pentateuch which means “five books”.  This collection of the first five books in the Jewish Bible or Old Testament writings is also called “the Torah” meaning “instruction” or “laws of God”.   It includes a history of the creation of mankind and the world as it is known including the first parents, Adam and Eve, the Fall of mankind into sin against God and the ensuing generations or decendents of Adam and Eve, the history of God’s chosen people known as Israel, or the children of Israel, the special rules given to them by God including the Ten Commandments and many other special rules of conduct and rules of worship and extensive genealogies.  It is estimated that the Torah was written around c1446-1406 BC.

The second section of the Jewish Bible is called the Nevi’im which is known as the prophetic books.   This includes former and latter prophets who are also further identified as minor and major prophets.  The prophetic books also include many stories of God’s people wandering from God’s ways and then being called to return to their God by the teaching of “repentance”, confessing one’s sins, offering sacrifice for their sins and then returning to forsake false gods and follow the ways of their one true God known as Yahweh or Elohim.  It is estimated that the dates for these writings happened as early as c1406BC to as late as c430BC.  

The third section of the Jewish Bible is known as the Ketuvim, or Writings.  This group of books includes such famous books as the Book of Psalms which were verse and liturgies written for Jewish worship and accompanied by music known as a Psalter, Proverbs also known as the wisdom of King Solomon who is the author of this book, Song of Solomon, which is also attributed to King Solomon as the author writing what is considered a romantic love story that is even borderline erotic in nature of a man’s love for his young wife.  In addition this section of writings includes books like Chronicles which do as the title indicates, it chronologically retells important historical figures and peoples of God and their rise and fall.  It also includes books that are used for devotional material like the Psalms already mentioned but also the Book of Job which many have used as encouragement when they are undergoing difficult times, poor health and other human suffering.  As is the case for this section of the Jewish Bible, the Ketuvim does not have one date when it was written but spans many years depending on the authorship and when they lived in history.  For example the book of Job is dated around the late third or early second millennium BC while the Book of Psalms is dated from the Eleventh century to sixth century BC.

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