Talk:Hebrew Bible

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Contents 1 Hebrew Bible vs. Tanakh 2 Need for this article 3 Reasons for proposed merger 3.1 Reasons why not 4 Contexts of usage 5 Neutral term? 6 Hebrew naming conventions 7 informal request for comment 8 Which books 9 Image

[edit] Hebrew Bible vs. Tanakh

I'm sorry that RK and Stephen are bumping heads over this one. It's hard for me to see why the article's explanation of the distinctive use of this term isn't sufficient reason for keeping it separate from, but largely dependent upon Tanakh. I understand RK's good point, that these are the same book; however, they are not precisely synonymous terms. The use of one term does not exhaust what is meant by the other. Can this be discussed before it is blanked again? Mkmcconn 07:38 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

The main point of this article is to clarify the term, its usage and its importance. Therefore I agree that it should mention and be linked to Masoretic text. But I removed the mention of the Tiberian masoretes (Ben Asher Family) because not all "masoretic" text (for the purposes of Hebrew Bible) is Tiberian: Are Hebrew Bibles based on the Babylonian mesorah not masoretic? Is the medieval Ashkenazic rescension (printed many times) not masoretic?

Further, the question of whether the Ben Asher family were Karaites or not is a significant one that a number of scholars have dealt with. There is not a lot of hard evidence either way, but there are some rather inconclusive arguments (which lean towards that they were not Karaites). Be that as it may, the whole issue, if it is to be discussed, should not be here but rather under Masoretic text or under a new article on the Ben Ashers.Zabek 03:23, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Need for this article

Sorry, RK, I strongly disagree. I think it is extremely important to have an article that explains the origin, use, and importance of this term, and that it give some basic information about the meaning of the term.

If there are no objections I will revert back.Dovi 05:07, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

OK, done. Dovi 05:38, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons for proposed merger

So I'm proposing a merger between Hebrew Bible and Tanakh (which has apparently been contemplated before) and also Mikra.

I realize that these are distinct terms which differ in the ordering of the books, neutrality of tone, etc. But because they both refer to the same collection of books, there only needs to be one article explaining more or less everything except about how the two terms are different.

When I'm reading Tanakh, I'm thinking, "should I click on Hebrew Bible"? Isn't it the same thing as what I'm reading now? It's important that I the information explaining the difference between the Tanakh, Hebrew Bible, and Old Testament, no matter which article I'm reading.

Unfortunately, different information is starting to accumulate in the two different articles. For example, Hebrew Bible talks about the recommendation of the Society of Biblical Literature and also some stuff about the original languages of Daniel and Ezra, and some other things I'm not entirely sure are reflected in Tanakh. People looking for information about the Hebrew Bible beyond the terminology issue will definitely have to go see the main article; even then, it's incomplete, because it doesn't mention Mikra.

So I think it's much cleaner, easier to read, and easier to maintain, if the explanation about terminology is all in one place, as a section of the main article. That way, everyone has easy access to all the content directly relevant to the subject at hand, and there aren't two or three article with content that slowly diverges.

[edit] Reasons why not

Because the terminologies "Tanakh", "Hebrew Bible", "Old Testiment" are so deeply sensitive to so many people, and every nuance in the way they are used is taken very seriously (maybe too seriously? :-), it is very important there be a separate article on this. This article is to explain the terminology and why there are those who recommend it; nothing more. The brief remark on Aramaic is simply there to explain why it is nevertheless called Hebrew Bible. It is extremely important, after writing "Tanakh" in an article to be able to include an explanatory parenthecial link to "Hebrew Bible" both to explain what Tanakh is, and also to explain why "Old Testament" is not being used. And yes, there is also something ideological about this: "Hebrew Bible" is an excellent example of a purely NPOV term that should be promoted. "Tanakh" and "Old Testament" should be used in the articles that deal with their own respective religious traditions. But the neutral term should be promoted alongside them. For this reason if no other it deserves its own Wikipedia article. (Plenty of far less relevant things have their own articles too.) Dovi 06:04, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that in the body text, the distinct terms can be treated equally sensitively whether they have one article or two. If the information about how each of the terms is used is so important, why risk people missing it by hiding it in three different places?

The only sensitive question is what the title of the combined article should be. The combined category tree uses "Hebrew Bible/Tenakh". If the merger proceeds, it might be a good idea to use the same title for the category structure and the main article.-- Beland 09:01, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Beland, I changed my mind about this. Here is my current suggestion: this page would be renamed to, for example, Versions of the Hebrew Bible, and the first few lines of it erased. The Tanakh page should be renamed to Hebrew Bible, since there seems to be an agreement that this is the most NPOV title. Tanakh, Tanach and Mikra should direct to Hebrew Bible. The first few lines of the new combined article should explain briefly that there are a few names which are not completely equivalent, and point to "versions..." for a full discussion.

This only leaves out the page Old Testament, merging of which with Hebrew Bible should be considered separately. What do people think about all this? Gadykozma 12:03, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, but accuracy and throughness are important too, and WP espires to include entire topical encyclopedias on smaller topics as well. "Tanakh" alone is a whole field of study that has nothing to do with "Old Testament" - its organization, writing system, history of exegesis, history of printing... the list could go on and on. It cannot possibly be simply combined with Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. We are dealing with a number of distinct religious traditions here, each with its own entire history. These are precisely the reasons why "Hebrew Bible", rather than being subsumed under one or the other, should be left separate as a neutral NPOV term, that can be added parenthetically to explain the correct terms from the various traditions:

E.g. "we find in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)..."

This kind of thing has already been employed usefully in lots of articles.

I have a slight feeling that the people here who are overzealous to combine articles don't fully understand the breadth of the differing fields of study we are talking about it. You might consider raising the issue with the people who work on Tanakh all the time at the talk page of the WikiProject Judaism page. "Old Testament" is also an entire field of study for Christians, in which the idea of "Tanakh" plays a very minor role. You can't just combine things simplistically. Dovi 12:40, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

Please respond also to the suggestion that does not involve the old testament. Gadykozma 19:39, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Since nobody responded in 5 days, I went ahead and did it. In the meantime I discovered some other related pages on Wikipedia so my final actions were not exactly as discribed above, but similar in spirit. Gadykozma 17:40, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry I've been out of it for a while - it is hard to keep on top of everything in a project that evolves and changes so rapidly! In any case, I like your compromise. Good job. Dovi 17:24, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

BTW, Dovi, who are you addressing in the paragraph you added? Wikipedia editors? Still quoting from the manual of style? If you are addressing Wikipedia editors, maybe you want to move this to Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible or something else not for readers Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Make comments invisible? Gadykozma 18:00, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There was no reply so I erased it (erased text follows). Gadykozma 10:46, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Contexts of usage

When the specific context calls for using "Tanakh" or "Old Testament" specifically, "Hebrew Bible" may be added in parentheses (especially to the former Hebrew term, which many readers of English may not know). When the context is broader and does not require the specific use of "Tanakh" or "Old Testament," "Hebrew Bible" may be used as the sole term.

[edit] Neutral term?

While I greatly respect the desire to find a term that is both neutral and acceptable to both Jews and Christians, I have to say that "Hebrew Bible" isn't quite it. As an Orthodox Christian, I have a Bible given to me that is ostensibly comprised of two parts, an Old Testament and a New Testament. I am also told that the Old Testament is essentially identical to the Septuagint, or a native language translation of the Septuagint. While most of its content broadly overlaps the Tanakh, it is not identical to it because it contains additional materials. In addition, a number of verses common to both are translated quite differently in the Septuagint and Masoretic texts, especially those that Christians believe are prophecies of Jesus Christ.

Consequently, it seems important to distinguish between the Christian "Old Testament" and the Jewish Tanakh, rather than pretend that these two are the same. While I don't think it's intended this way, the trend towards saying everywhere looks like a propaganda campaign to dismiss the Septuagint, the Old Testament most widely quoted in the New Testament and most widely used by Christians in the first several centuries. I raise the issue here mainly to make other editors aware that the issue exists. Wesley 05:05, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Hebrew Bible" is pretty much now the standard term used in academic-level, non-sectarian Biblical scholarship (e.g. The SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient, Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies, p.17). Perhaps, the relatively few Eastern Orthodox scholars publishing in Western languages (i.e. English, German, or French) has not made Western scholars fully appreciative of possible anti-Orthodox bias, but as a practical matter, these scholars quote and cite the texts in the ancient languages. If some Hebrew is cited, I fail to see how calling it from the Hebrew Bible is problematic. scc 05:03, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This in academic circles. More theologically oriented or sectarian articles or books tend to go with "Septuagint," "Old Testament," or "Tanakh." To Orthodox Christians, the Old Testament is the Septuagint (LXX) based on its Greek text; Roman Catholics, as far as understand it, accepts all the books of the LXX OT but considers the Hebrew text to be the authoritative translation base; Protestants largely accept both the extent of the books and the Hebrew text of the Tanakh, but not their arrangement. scc 05:03, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, if some Hebrew is cited, then it would be appropriate to call it from the Hebrew Bible. By the same token, if some Greek text is cited, then it should be called the Septuagint, or possibly the Old Testament. This was used in most of Christianity for the first few centuries, until Jerome gave greater weight to the Hebrew when translating the Latin Vulgate. As "Hebrew Bible" corresponds most closely to the extent and text of the Tanakh, it clearly lends greater weight to the textual position taken by Protestants and Jews, and as such is an inherently sectarian term. To pretend otherwise appears to be an attempt to hide this bias. Mind you, I don't disagree with your statement that it is the standard term used in academic level Biblical scholarship. Wesley 05:45, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I see your point. In academic-level Biblical scholarship (which is more philogical than theological), the text is usually cited in the original languages, e.g. Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and the linguistic aspect of their work is the main force behind the designations. If Hebrew or Aramaic is cited, it is from the "Hebrew Bible"; if Greek is quoted, the body of material is called the LXX (if from the Septuagint) or sometimes from the OG (Old Greek), Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, if a non-Septuagintal translation is cited. Because almost all of the Deuterocanon was originally written in Greek,* it is not in the Hebrew Bible, but it is in the LXX. (* IIRC, a Hebrew version of Sirach / Ecclesiasticus was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and there is a tendency to look at the Hebrew Sirach when doing studies of Biblical Hebrew.) I'm not aware of any study of Greek in the OT in Biblical Studies (e.g. lexical or grammatical studies of Greek words and phrases) that explicitly excludes the Deuterocanon from its scope, and the standard reference tools include those books. Nevertheless, I suppose that the attempt at "bias-free" terminology would be different if most of the Deuterocanon was originally written in Hebrew. scc 02:45, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Two points: 1. The article cites the SBL handbook for the proposition that Tanakh is a biased term. A review of the relevant section of the handbook (See http://www.sbl-site.org/Publications/PublishingWithSBL/SBLHS.pdf , page 29 of the pdf file) shows that SBL only condemns "Old Testament" as biased, not Tanakh.

2. If Orthodox Christians consider an inaccurate Greek translation to be more authoritative than the original text from which the translation was taken, can't we all just agree that they are in error?

The issue isn't that simple. The oldest complete Masoretic text we have is from around the 10th century, while the oldest complete Septuagint is from around the 4th. We have no complete "original" text. Yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls corroborate at least certain portions of the Masoretic text we have, but parts of those scrolls also better support the Septuagint. I think it's generally agreed that the Masoretes condensed a number of textual variants to arrive at what they thought was the best one, but the Septuagint is plausibly based on other textual variants that we no longer have. The existence of such variants is also supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls. I'm sure there are counterarguments to this line of thinking and I don't aim to convince everyone, merely to show that there are sound historical and academic reasons to rely on the Septuagint; this isn't a case of blind fundamentalism or something. Wesley 13:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that Jerome was convinced to use the texts the Jews were using at the time. 71.198.169.9 10:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew naming conventions

Urgent: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew) to add your opinions about this important matter. Thank you. IZAK 17:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

narf

[edit] informal request for comment

Would people who regularly follow/contribute to this article please look at Yahwism and the talk page, where I express my concerns? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 19:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which books

Could someone please add to the article exactly which books are included in the Hebrew Bible. I would, but I just don't know. -Reuvenk_{T C E} 21:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

The image at the top of the page, may indeed be from a volume that includes a Targum, but there's no sign of the Targum in the picture, making the caption a little misleading. I'll edit. Dweller 11:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You may not have noticed, but this is the type of medieval manuscript that interpolates the Targum with the Hebrew, verse by verse. It's there, though you won't see it with a casual glance, unless you actually enlarge the picture and read it. Dovi 13:13, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Gosh. How interesting. You're right of course. Thanks Dweller 16:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)