Hebrew Bible

The content, which closely corresponds to the Protestant Old Testament, does not include the deuterocanonical portions of the Roman Catholic or the portions of the Eastern Orthodox Old Testaments. The term does not imply naming, numbering or ordering of books, which varies with Biblical canon.

The term is an attempt to provide specificity with respect to contents, while avoiding allusion to any particular interpretative tradition or theological school of thought. It is widely used in academic writing and interfaith discussion in relatively neutral contexts meant to include dialogue among all religious traditions, but not widely in the inner discourse of the religions which use its text.

Usage

Many scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible when discussing these books in academic writing, as a neutral substitute to terms with religious connotations (e.g., the non-neutral term "old testament"). The Society of Biblical Literature's Handbook of Style, which is the standard for major academic journals like Harvard Theological Review and conservative Protestant journals like Bibliotheca Sacra and Westminster Theological Journal, suggests that authors "be aware of the connotations of alternative expressions such as ... Hebrew Bible [and] Old Testament" without prescribing the use of either.

Additional difficulties include: In terms of theology, Christianity has struggled with the relationship between "old" and "new" testaments from its very beginnings. Modern Christian formulations of this tension, sometimes building upon ancient and medieval ideas, include supersessionism, covenant theology, dispensationalism, and dual covenant theology. However, all of these formulations, except some forms of dual-covenant theology, are objectionable to mainstream Judaism and to many Jewish scholars and writers, for whom there is one eternal covenant between God and Israel, and who therefore reject the very term "Old Testament."

Hebrew in the term Hebrew Bible refers to the original language of the books, but it may also be taken as referring to the Jews of the Second Temple era and the Diaspora, and their descendants, who preserved the transmission of the Masoretic Text up to the present day. The Hebrew Bible includes some small portions in Aramaic (mostly in the books of Daniel and Ezra), which are nonetheless written and printed in the Hebrew alphabet and script, which is the same as Aramaic square-script.

Some Qumran Hebrew biblical manuscripts are written using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet of the classical era of Solomon's Temple. The famous examples of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet are the Siloam inscription (8th century BCE), the Lachish ostraca (6th century BCE), and the Bar Kokhba coin shown above (circa 132 CE).

Biblia Hebraica

See also

References

Further reading

Category:Bible