Talk:Hebrew Bible (term): Difference between revisions

New Testament

Are there any more books in Hebrew Bible or Jewish canon " after Christ ", i.e. written at approximately the same time ( or about those years ) as the New Testament ? Or any other hebrew canonical books about these times ? Istorrikas — Preceding unsigned comment added by Istorrikas (talk • contribs) 12:45, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Not in the Hebrew Bible, the last book of which is Malachi (also the last book in the Protestant cannon). There is the Talmud, but I'm not clear on its dates of authorship and it is NOT is in the Hebrew Bible although it is highly valued by Jews. --Grammarbishop8 (talk) 20:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Maccabees is from a time less than 200 years before Christ, about 160 BC. The Song of Solomon is pretty late, tho not that late. A few others too. But basically no.PiCo (talk) 08:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Not a recommendation but a question...

I'm somewhat confused, I've only just began Judaic studies having just purchased a Jewish Study Bible; why is there a separate page for Jewish Bible and Tanakh if they are the same? Or are they and I'm the one incorrect?--^D Namtar 00:58, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

It would be good to

It would be good to have somewhere with a detailed comparison because I am very confused. --Inayity (talk) 11:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Very confusing articles

What is Hebrew Bible and what is Tanakh? Tanakh says it is Hebrew Bible and Hebrew Bible says it is Tanakh. I think that should be clearly stated.

I think all of these things should be simplified, the definitions. - Tanakh - Hebrew Bible - Torah 67.190.164.74 (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Dates of oldest parts?

This article, without citation, suggests the earlier parts were written at the end of the 2nd Millenium BCE. This does not agree with most modern scholarly opinions or the information on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible One would hope that such an early date would come with a citation. I thought this needed to be brought to light, but will leave the change to a more experienced editor. Lucretius6 (talk)Lucretius6 —Preceding undated comment added 21:41, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Upon another look, the citation of the following paragraph applies, although one citation for two paragraphs is unclear. The text is taken more or less word for word from the PBS site--close enough for plagiarism to apply in an academic context, but, again, I will leave this to wiki experts to decide how to proceed. Lucretius6 (talk)Lucretius6 —Preceding undated comment added 21:48, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Tanakh

These articles aren't about different subjects, but about the same subject from Christian ("Hebrew Bible") and Jewish ("Tanakh") perspectives. One article should suffice. Ibadibam (talk) 22:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I strongly disagree, though I thank you for bring this up. Instead, I present a...

Counter-proposal to merge with Old Testament

If anything is to be done, the articles Hebrew Bible and Old Testament should be merged so that there's just one article on the Christian version of and perspective on those parts of the Christian Bible that correspond with the Tanakh.

(It had been slightly bothering me for a while that Hebrew Bible and Old Testament were not one article, but until your proposal I couldn't get this idea to the front of my head.) Thanks! --Geekdiva (talk) 20:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Hebrew Bible should definitely not be merged with Old Testament, as the latter (the name at least) must be conceded to be from a Christian perspective, whereas the notion of a Hebrew Bible cannot be. If anything, the latter is meant to distinguish the originally-Hebrew and -Aramaic books found in Tanakh (or the "Old Testament", as recognized by most Protestants, at least -- same basic set of books, textual variations notwithstanding...) from what Christians call the "New Testament" portion of their Bible, and most importantly, represents a scholarly attempt to approach these books free from the bias of any particular religion(s). Many modern academic or so-called "secular" scholars who write about the Hebrew Bible under that rubric are not Christians -- a good many are in fact Jewish -- and many would take exception to the assertion that they are writing about a Christian version or from a Christian perspective.

Where distinctive religious views exist as to the particular canon, authoritative texts, history, significance, etc. of the books held by various groups to constitute what each of them sees as the "Jewish Scriptures" or "Old Testament", an article or article section on just those distinctive views would in my opinion be justified. Anything more than that strikes me as segregation-according-to-religion for its own sake, and does not belong on Wikipedia.--IfYouDoIfYouDon't (talk) 00:58, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Might it help if we try to imagine describing the differences in these terms to, say, a ten year old child? For instance to the child of a Rabbi and the child of a Christian minister? We would include just enough to show the different nuances and would avoid anything unnecessary. Might it be something like the following?

• There are three different ways of describing this almost-the-same collection of books:
  • Jewish people call this collection of sacred books 'Tanakh'. It is their Bible.
  • Christians in worship call this collection the 'Old Testament' to distinguish it from their other collection, the 'New Testament'. These two collections together form their Bible.
  • The term 'Hebrew Bible' is used by (who) to describe (what).

How (remembering that this is for a ten year old child) do we fill in the (who) and the (what)? (Reformulating that last point is permitted, but we must keep it clear, simple and brief.) Feline Hymnic (talk) 10:46, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Merge Feline Hymnic has it spot on. At least 90% of people in the English-speaking world would be wondering how the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible relates to the Old Testament, which is the standard term used not just by Christians but in the culture. Indeed, non-religious people are going to be the most confused; devout Christians can guess that "Hebrew Bible" means "Old Testament". It's as with Burma and Myanmar; maybe some people prefer Myanmar, but Burma is the English word that country, and it would be silly to have two articles, with either not mentioning the other name in the first paragraph. What's needed is just a section explaining the three terms, as well as Veterum Testamentum, and whatever Moslems call the book etc. Erasmuse (talk) 14:03, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

• Merge The Hebrew Bible and Tanakh should be fixed one way or another, because the absurdity of the description of these two articles. I think there are a lot of redundancy happening in all these Tanakh, Hebrew Bible, Oral Torah, Talmud, Torah. Tanakh says it is Hebrew Bible and Hebrew Bible says it is Tanakh. I think there are fundamental simplicity lacking in these articles. I think they should be merged, condensed, duplicated ideas and meanings should be removed. I'm not really understanding anything by reading any of these two articles. 67.190.167.127 (talk) 21:31, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

- Merge- I am no expert But I will admit I was very confused, and still am. I came here originally to figure it all out.--Inayity (talk) 22:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• No merge -- This article is clearly about the term HB and not about the actual set of book themselves, and it makes a good point: both "Old Testament" and "Tanakh" are terms that describe the collection from within a particular religious perspective, while "Hebrew Bible" is meant to be a neutral term. The structure of the article is pretty clear that it's not about the books themselves, but about the terminology. If anything, the lede could be written to clarify that the article is about terminology instead of about textual content. Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:44, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• Merge The term "Hebrew Bible" is patronising and slightly racist. If we described the Koran as the "Arab Bible" bad things would happen. It's the Tanakh. Live with it. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 00:31, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Umm, Hebrew refers to the language of the texts, since the Hebrew Bible does not include the Greek Jewish writings. So the analogy would be "the Arabic Bible". Just wanted to make sure it was clear that racism isn't really an issue here. Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:40, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Umm2 The issue is in thoughtlessly using a Greek word, appropriated to describe a Christian collection of writings, to describe Hebrew texts. The "Hebrew" bit isn't a problem, I simply think we should use a more neutral term to describe the corpus. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 13:42, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

• merge - (merge Tanakh and OT here! not in any other direction) In the scholarly world, the field of study of all the literature (as well as history, archeology of ancient Israel and other topics) is called "Hebrew Bible" which i understand evolved as a way to a) avoid any religion's name for the field and b) avoid limiting the field to any particular canon. It's an entirely appropriate title for an encyclopedia article. "Tanakh" is a particular canon of books for Judaism, just as the Roman Catholic "Old Testament" is, and just as the mainline protestant "Old Testament" is. The Hebrew Bible article should be the main article, and Tanakh and OT should focus on those canons in particular. If there is not enough left in Tanakh and OT (which would surprise me) then they should just be dealt with in a section in the HB article on specific canons. I can totally see how the overlapping crept in. Pull them all together (Possibly merge Torah into Tanakh), and sort them all out, is probably the best way to do it, so that the suite of articles hangs together and is edited on a meta-level. Talmud is entirely separate topic and shouldn't even be brought up here. Jytdog (talk) 01:32, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• no merge - This article is about the term itself and about a certain perspective on the field as a whole. It is unfortunate that because of overlapping ideas within a popular topic, it is hard for people to keep the article focused over time as it should be. That is a weakness of the Wikipedia system for topics like this. But nevertheless, it is abundantly clear there is more than enough for separate articles on the canon histories of both Old Testament and Tanakh, and certainly enough for one tight article here about the special way that Hebrew Bible has captured their intersection in the past (Latin Biblia Hebraica, Protestantism) and continues to capture their intersection today (in modern scholarship). Dovi (talk) 18:59, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Offensive term? I point out the "Hebrew University Bible Project". TomS TDotO (talk) 18:18, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

• Merge 2 not all 3 articles Definitely merge the titled "Hebrew Bible" into the "Tanakh" because Tanakh is it's appropriate name. However, don't merge either with the "Old Testament" for the reasons given above and especially because most of the differing interpretations will fit better within one rather than the other perspective. Then "Hebrew Bible" searches etc. should go to the "Tanakh" article. It seems that some text should be moved from the then deleted "Hebrew Bible" title into the "Old Testament" article 67.167.10.252 (talk) 20:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• No merge The Old Testament is the Hebrew Bible from a Christian perspective. The Tanakh is the Hebrew Bible from a Jewish perspective. The article about the Hebrew Bible is about the usage of the term in interfaith discussions. All three articles have their own purposes on Wikipedia, and all three should be retained. However, if there is going to be a merge, I would merge Hebrew Bible and Tanakh, but NEVER merge the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible with the Old Testament as that is blatant ignorance of the Jewish take on the Tanakh and violates Wikipedia's policy on having a neutral point of view. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 17:16, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• No merge. The current setup with the three articles is a good one - one on the Jewish canon, one on the Christian canon, and one neutral, overview type article focusing on terminology. The arguments presented for the merge are all rather weak, and some downright POVish. StAnselm (talk) 04:15, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• No Merge and agree with @StAnselm:; @PointsofNoReturn:; @Dovi:; @Aristophanes68: -- all in agreement that if it ain't broke, don't fix it since this arrangement has been in place for a very long time on WP. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 19:54, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• No merge per PointsofNoReturn. This proposal shows an utter lack of understanding of the Hebrew Bible, which was in fact written in Hebrew, not English. The Christian Old Testament, in contrast, was a Greek/Latin translation of the Hebrew which was then translated into English and other languages. There are significant differences in translation between the two versions, reflecting the Christian attempt to undermine the Jews' status as the "chosen people" and make themselves the new chosen of God (thus, "Old" and "New" Testament). Yoninah (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• Do not merge Merging the articles Old Testament and Tanakh is inappropriate, as they refer to two different sets of books. Whilst it is true that the Old Testament is based on the Tanakh, most versions of the Old Testament include books not in the Tanakh. Moreover, the Old Testament usually refers to the Latin or Greek translations, which are not word-for-word equivalents to the Tanakh (which lead to rather different interpretations of Isaiah 7:14, for example). As for merging Hebrew Bible with Tanakh, there may be more of a reason for that, other than Tanakh is rather long already, and Hebrew Bible may well have been spun off as a daughter article. Perhaps a little better connection between the two and a small subsection in Tanakh regarding how modern scholars refer to it pointing to the daughter article Hebrew Bible makes the most sense. -- Avi (talk) 21:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
• Do not merge There's an establish standard term for the Bible that is used by the Jewish religion--the term Jewish Bible is a compromise with Christian views, and may be appropriate in some contexts--such as the context being used in our article , of how it was used by the Christians. Old Testament, on the other hand, is purely and entirely a Christian concept, that is not merely non-Jewish but actively and directly and intentionally hostile to the basic concepts of the Jewish religion. It can only be used for the OT as part of the Christian Bible. DGG ( talk ) 03:12, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
• No Merge and agree with @StAnselm:; @PointsofNoReturn:; @Dovi:; @Aristophanes68: --Yoavd (talk) 07:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: Do Not Merge Articles should be kept separate, as they clearly deal with different concepts. In agreement with statements by users: PointsofNoReturn, Avraham, DGG, etc.

Whar about the Masoretic Text?

The Masoretic Text is a fourth article to consider in the mix. TomS TDotO (talk) 10:45, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Do you think there is significant overlap? I'm not sure. I think not, and it's large enough that summary style would have demanded a spin-off anyway, I believe. -- Avi (talk) 14:52, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Your comments above drawing distinctions between the Hebrew and the Greek, etc., reminded me of the Masoretic Text vs. other traditions. Today's vernacular versions no longer are beholden to the Septuagint (or Vulgate) (although, I may be mistaken, that Greek Christians are faithful to the Septuagint, and some Western Christians include the mostly Greek-based Apocrypha, and Syrian Christians remain faithful to the Peshitta) but they do take account of texts other than the Masoretic. Anyway, that's what made me think of the Masoretic. And there it is, a Wikipedia article on the Masoretic Text. And then there is Miqra', which seems to be a synonym for Tanakh, but it, at least, does not have its own article - am I right? After posting the above, the thought occurred to me that it would be appropriate to have something available in Wikipedia which spells out the differences or similarities of these now 5 different expressions. I don't have a good solution and the only one that I can think of is some boilerplate, perhaps a template, which could be included in all 4 current articles. Something saying "There are four different aspects to the same work which are covered in Wikipedia. Tanakh, or Miqra', is the important holy text of Judaism. The Masoretic Text is the textual tradition behind the Tanakh and the most important Hebrew and Aramaic text. The Hebrew Bible is the mostly scholarly reconstruction based on the various textual traditions including ancient versions. The Old Testament is the related holy book of Christians." (I know that I have infelicities there, but i'm just making this up on the fly; keeping in mind that it is likely going to be forgotten). BTW, it seems to be that it is unrealistic to have a merger of articles at this late stage (if it had been better to do that at the start - if). TomS TDotO (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2014 (UTC)