Talk:Hebrew Bible

Missing information

Such as the history of the bible itself, its physical history. Where did the scripts come from? What are the oldest surviving pieces of it? etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.51.145 (talk) 17:59, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

The physical history of the bible, if not completely taboo, is always shrouded in mist, because the biblical scholars are believers, and they want to hide the fact that we have no certified "original" version the sacred text. In another wikipedia article you can find the statement that the Leningrad codex, most ancient complete version of the Hebrew text, dates from around 1000 CE, but "was composed" 100 BCE. How do they know? 2A01:E34:EC0C:8370:1418:831F:CF13:A733 (talk) 22:48, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Anyone is welcome to delete my previous comment. It contains a typo ("version OF the previous text"). And it is a general remark, which I indulged in, but cannot be used to improve the article. 2A01:E34:EC0C:8370:1418:831F:CF13:A733 (talk) 22:52, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that notation regarding the nature of the remark. I'll suggest that the folks who study archeological origins of such things might be the best-informed sources on dates and composition speculation, as they'll have already studied comparative literature (such as it is?) of the subject time period. Jetpower (talk) 07:01, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

No dates for the writing of biblical books at all?

Wow. This page needs some serious work. There are plenty of good scholarly works on the Tanakh written by Professors of Biblical studies who date the books they study according to epigraphy. In some cases they can chart the date of texts by analysis of the Hebrew language, which changed over time. There are many reliable and objective ways to date biblical books or at least provide an accurate window for their probably composition. For instance, Victor Hurowits (professor of Bible, archaeology and ancient Near Eastern studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) dated the book of Proverbs to the 7th C. BCE at the latest (he published a two-volume Hebrew commentary on the Book of Proverbs in the Mikra LeYisra’el). Start with Hurowitz, then branch out to other notables for dating.

Ignoring the matter and just concentrating on the matter of fixing the Cannon is misleading to the general public and looks borderline anti-semitic. 72.105.28.178 (talk) 14:44, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Proverbs is a "collection of collections" relating to a pattern of life which lasted for more than a millennium, and impossible to date.

Quoted from Dating the Bible. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:46, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

The authorship and dating of each book is covered at the respective book's article. It's best that the matter isn't covered here because then each book would have to get a whole treatment here because it isn't a simple matter, and that would overwhelm the article unnecessarily. Shaking my head at people who jump to anti-Semitism, or any other bigotry, as the reason for every perceived shortcoming. (And I'm Jewish and I despise anti-Jewish hatred, in case your response to me was going to be an unfounded accusation.) Largoplazo (talk) 16:50, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Hurowitz was a bona fide scholar, but here at Wikipedia we follow due weight of scholarly opinion.

And it's a tad difficult to do epigraphy when all available manuscripts are relatively late (say at least 500 years later than the presumed dating). tgeorgescu (talk) 01:54, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

References

Requested move 13 October 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) — MaterialWorks 18:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

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Hebrew Bible → Tanakh – Placing the central Jewish holy text at a name that is derivative of the Christian holy text is a deeply embedded structural and systemic bias. This is exactly the same as placing the wikipedia page for Koran at the name "Islamic bible." Darker Dreams (talk) 05:23, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Anyone participating in this discussion should be aware:
  • that the applicable guidelines are at WP:COMMONNAME; any disagreement with those guidelines should be raised at Wikipedia talk:Article titles as it cannot be resolved here.
  • that this article was moved here from Tanakh as the result of a Talk:Hebrew Bible/Archive 1#Requested move 27 June 2018, and should be familiar with the arguments given there and the basis given for the outcome so as to avoid unnecesarily rehashing old ground.
  • that the requestor's rationale This is exactly the same as placing the wikipedia page for Koran at the name "Islamic bible" is a false premise. The term "Hebrew Bible" is in common use, with most of the world not even knowing the word "Tanakh", while "Koran" (alternatively, "Qur'an") is the name by which most people know that work, and "Islamic Bible" is virtually nonexistent. So they are not "exactly the same thing" in the context of what common usage is, which, per WP:COMMONNAME, is what's relevant to this discussion. Largoplazo (talk) 10:43, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: "Hebrew Bible" is the neutral, scholarly term (e.g. Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader). The "Christian" name is, of course, "Old Testament". StAnselm (talk) 13:54, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per COMMONNAME and StAnselm. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 13:57, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME per the Google Ngrams. And the nom's assertion that this is "exactly the same as placing the wikipedia page for Koran at the name 'Islamic bible'" is not correct. The text of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible overlap, so the terminology makes sense. Whereas there is no overlap in the text of the Christian Bible and the Koran. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:34, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

The N-grams result is very interesting - the increase over the past forty years is, I think, connected to the publication of The Art of Biblical Narrative in 1981. StAnselm (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

• Mild oppose for reasons given above (although I would accept a rename with consensus). The OP did themselves no favours with the rather fanciful 'exactly the same as placing the wikipedia page for Koran at the name "Islamic bible"' attempted rationale, which isn't comparable and has no bearing on this particular discussion. Feline Hymnic (talk) 15:05, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose for what it's worth, consensus aside, it means 'the books' in Greek, and many Jews in the Mediterranean world spoke Greek at the time the canon of the Hebrew Bible was being finalized. A lot of specific proper names have banal, general etymologies, but it doesn't really seem like the word 'Bible' emerged out of a Christian-specific context. Here's Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, for my own edification (if not exactly a revelation):

τρέψομαι δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν ἀφήγησιν ἤδη τῶν πραγμάτων μνησθεὶς πρότερον ὧν περὶ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου κατασκευῆς εἶπε Μωυσῆς: ταῦτα δ᾽ ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς βίβλοις εὗρον ἀναγεγραμμένα. ἔχει δὲ οὕτως:

"I shall now betake myself to the history before me, after I have first mentioned what Moses says of the creation of the world, which I find described in the sacred books after the manner following.".

A smoking gun!

Remsense聊 02:48, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"(Classical) Jewish Texts" article is needed

Proposed the topic at Talk:Rabbinic literature#"(Classical) Jewish Texts" article is needed, please continue there. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Tanakh vocalization

Hi @Sinclairian responding to your recent edit changing תַּנַ״ךְ to תָּנָ״ךְ. Tagging @Sartma who did the same on Wiktionary. I reverted a similar edit a few months ago so let's discuss.

• Hebrew acronyms are customarily pronounced with "ah" between every letter except when one of the letters can be pronounced as a vowel, in which case it is utilized as such. So tanakh, Rambam, Maharashdam are pronounced ah-ah, Rashi and Maharil reuse the yodh as an "i' sound, etc. Exceptions commonly cited, but which actually conform, are Besht (in which the ayin of "baal" is reused as a Yiddish "eh" vowel) and Yayvetz (which uses the typical ashkenazic diphthong replacement of patah-ayin-patah). Although there are no orthographic rules which strictly apply, because acronyms are not words, Hebrew users generally spell the "ah" with patah because patah is the only vowel which is pronounced as "ah" across all accents. Note that pronunciations like Yayvetz are only possible with assumed patah.
• In medieval Hebrew a word-initial "ah" sound in an acronym was sometimes represented with schwa (then pronounced as a short patah) which editions of classical texts will preserve: דְּצַ"ךְ עֲדַ"שׁ בַּאֲחַ"ב. "Tanakh" is exclusively a modern term, but this is still the approach taken by the Ben-Yehuda Dictionary vol. XVI p. 7825, which has תְּנַ״ךְ.
• The Academy of the Hebrew Language insists here that all modern acronyms be vocalized in imitation of Hebrew nouns with a default of qametz, and patah used only when the following consonant is guttural, needs to be silent, or needs dagesh qal: רָמַטְכָּ"ל, חַבָּ"ד, צַהַ"ל. This indeed leads to תָּנָ"ךְ.
• However, the Academy has not succeeded in propagating this rule and both the Alcalay and Even-Shoshan (=popular default) dictionaries list תַּנַ״ךְ in accordance with the colloquial pattern described above.

I don't know of a general policy on here regulating language academies versus dictionaries versus common use, but תַּנַ״ךְ is the answer for both dictionaries and common use. Note that in Israeli Heberew qametz and patah are not distinguished in pronunciation, so this is a purely theoretical question for the Academy, but on English Wiki תָּנָ״ךְ may lead readers to pronounce the word in a new, unprecedented way. GordonGlottal (talk) 15:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah, damn. Admittedly, I only based the change on the Wiktionary entry. I will not argue that it should remain as kamatz, the uncertainty surrounding "official" transcription is not worth the headache, but I will say that I find the notion that displaying it with the kamatz "may lead readers to pronounce the word in a new, unprecedented way." is worded a bit melodramatically. Kamatz and patach are, as you said, the same vowel value in Modern Hebrew. I imagine anyone who is aware of the pre-Modern vocalizations are learned enough to see Tawnawkh is not the standard pronunciation. Sinclairian (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

They're pronounced the same way in Israeli Hebrew but they are not in Ashkenazi Hebrew, and no traditional Ashkenazi speaker is pronouncing the acronym as "tawnawkh" (or Rambam as "rawmbawm"), etc. The treatment of these acronyms long predates the modern Israeli state and Israeli Hebrew. Patach is correct. Largoplazo (talk) 19:24, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, this is what I meant. Almost always outside of Israel, and within Israel by about half of speakers when using religious dialect, qametz is pronounced "uh" or "oh", not "ah". GordonGlottal (talk) 00:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@Largoplazo, @GordonGlottal: Rambam is spelled רַמְבָּ״ם, so it would never be "rawmbawm" anyway, even when following proper vocalisation rules. Sartma (talk) 23:52, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

As I explained in my original comment, the Akademia vocalizations are post-hoc attempts to phonetically transcribe colloquial pronunciation, with qametz used by default to represent the "ah" vowel and following ordinary orthographic rules. The reason why the Akademia recommends רַמְבָּ״ם is that רָמְבָּ״ם violates those rules. The qametz gadol under the resh forces the schwa under the mem to become voiced, which conflicts with the dagesh qal in the bet. But in the typical acronym it would affect multiple vowels; in Maharashdam it would change 3 (מָהָרַשְדָּ״ם). In any case as you say "proper rules" I'm interested in the normative case—why should we follow the Akademia instead of popular practice and dictionaries? The default use of qametz seems totally arbitrary to me and obviously has not caught on. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:20, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@GordonGlottal: The Even-Shoshan on my mac has תָּנָ״ךְ. I only know Classical Hebrew, nothing really about Neo-Hebrew, and vocalising תַּנַ״ךְ would move the accent to the first syllable (so "tánaḵ"). From a phonological point of view, the only possible vocalisation is תָּנָ״ךְ, so unfortunately I can't agree with your reasoning. Sartma (talk) 23:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I have an older print copy—thanks. When you say Classical you mean Biblical? To mean it reads as "Rabbinic" but of course the phonetic rules of Rabbinic are obscure. Assuming, I don't agree that תַּנַ״ךְ would necessarily have a penultimate stress in Biblical Hebrew. Not all nouns are segolates and some are spelled patah-patah with an ultimate stress. But it is definitely the norm. However, Modern Hebrew does not follow the Tiberian stress system. Words are almost uniformly pronounced with an ultimate stress, and the Akademia system doesn't respond to that concern: Rashi is spelled רָשִׁ"י even though it is pronounced with a penultimate stress even in Modern Hebrew. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:49, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@GordonGlottal: I use the Classical/Neo classification when talking about Hebrew. I consider "Classical" anything before the revival based on Biblical and Post Biblical Hebrew. The phonetic rules of Rabbinic are not at all obscure. There are ambiguous exceptions, but nothing that could justify calling it "obscure". Linear A is obscure, Rabbinic phonetic rules are not. While it's true that there are extremely rare exceptions of nouns vocalised with patha-patha stressed on the last syllable, as you also admitt, accent on the second-to-last is the norm. I would argue that newly made-up words like "Tanakh" would follow the general rule, exceptions being found in actual native Hebrew words (like it's the case for all languages). As for the position of the accent, it's always been phonemic in Hebrew, so there were always words stressed in the penultimate even when they could have been stressed otherwise, like in תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tóhu wɔ-ḇóhu).

I am aware that Neo-Hebrew as a spoken language doesn't follow the Tiberian phonetic system, but it does follow the Tiberian vocalisation rules. Until they'll officially decide to abandon them and develop an equally modern vocalisation system that better reflects the needs of the new language, I don't see why we should make exceptions for individual words on a case-to-case basis. "Tanakh"'s only correct vocalisation is תָּנָ״ךְ, and it couldn't be anything else. Sartma (talk) 08:47, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Note in passing that Taanak is spelled both patah-patah and patah-qametz in the MT, but always with an ultimate stress.

I don't want to get too sidetracked but when I say that the vocalization of Rabbinic is obscure what I mean is that no work attempts to comprehensively explain its divergences from Biblical Hebrew. If you open Parma B or one of the fragments that mark stress in classical Rabbinic Hebrew, you'll notice that they diverge considerably from Biblical stress, and moreover that they come closer when quoting Biblical verses. Beyond stress, open MS Vat. 66, or Kaufmann, or Parma A, or what Olszowy-Schlanger calls "MS A" (not at all endorsing her proposed date, just the fragmentology); there are many other features not explained by the history of Biblical vocalization. This is also true of much later works like Montefiore 134 (which has been lightly studied) that are still early and coherent enough to resist the charge of error. Only recently, any tradition for vocalizing contemporary texts having died centuries past, post-Zoharic ideas of the diacritics' theological importance spreading, were the Masoretic vowels enthroned as standard for all purposes (except Aramaic, for whatever reason all Aramaic is vocalized by Rabbinic rules instead).

The idea that written Hebrew from 800 BCE to 1890 CE is relatively consistent compared to Hebrew from 1890 CE to 2024 CE, such that a bifurcation into "Classical Hebrew" and "Neo-Hebrew" makes sense, is a belief (apologies) necessarily conditioned by gross ignorance. No one who read a representative sample of Hebrew prose from each of those centuries could possibly agree. Reading only books from 800-400 BCE and 2024 CE, you imagine that a sudden transition occurred in 1889. Not true. Pick up a book from 200 CE! You'll be shocked how different from Biblical it is. One from 1750! Startlingly modern. From 1350! It'll be halfway between.

Modern Hebrew does not follow the Tiberian vocalization rules. It does not use dagesh hazaq, it has only one length of qametz and one of hiriq, etc. It follows the result of an evolution from medieval liturgical vowels > early-modern religious printers > Orthodox-Maskilic grammarians > Modern Hebrew. This mostly represents simplification, but it covers a long period of almost universal penultimate stress, followed by a long period of almost universal ultimate stress. Note that pre-Tiberian Biblical Hebrew (like Classical Arabic) was also uniformly penultimately stressed.

I am very confused by the argument you're making. How can it possibly be bad that תַּנַ״ךְ suggests a penultimate stress, when colloquial pronunciation is ultimate stress, but not bad that רַמְבָּ״ם and רָשִׁ"י suggest ultimate stress and are pronounced penultimately? Or: what principle demands that a word like תנ״ך be vocalized so as to specifically suggest ultimate stress, if we are to disregard colloquial pronunciation? GordonGlottal (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

"Hebrew Bible" being WP:COMMONNAME maybe a mirage?

So I'm well aware of the fact that if you search most databases for "Tanakh," not a lot of results come up. Maybe 1-2 million tops. Same for the alternative Romanization, "Tanach." However, I think that actually, the most common name for the Hebrew bible is actually the "Torah." Most people think of the Pentateuch being the entirety of the Hebrew bible, although we know that the Hebrew books of scripture consist of several other things, but this is not commonly known, therefore, when referring to the analogous set of text to Bible or Quran, people usually say "Torah," referring to the Tanakh itself. Therefore, I would submit that we should not use the WP:GOOGLETEST at all to determine what is the most common name. I think a dedicated source survey with this in mind might actually find the most common name for the Hebrew Bible is the "Torah," considerably more so. If you consider "Pentateuch" and other synonymous references such as "5 books of Moses," etc, Christianized naming of "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew canon" are actually rather outdated. Therefore, I submit that the most common name for this article might actually be Torah (Tanakh) or Torah/Tanakh. I recognize this is probably well-trod and would require some RFC to ever change, but I am floating this idea having not actually reviewed whatever prior discussions have concluded on this that caused the article to remain at this name. Andre🚐 23:52, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't find this argument particularly convincing for COMMONNAME unless I see the data, but even so it bears repeating that WP:COMMONNAME is not the only section contained in WP:NC:

• WP:NPOVNAME: Notable circumstances under which Wikipedia often avoids a common name for lacking neutrality include [...] colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious
• Torah/Tanakh would be a very basic violation, as we must decide on a single name we should use to refer to something, instead of committing crimes of diction, style, and semantics by gluing two synonyms together into something no one else uses.

Remsense ‥ 论 00:04, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

So before I do the data part, does the logic work if I can show that "Torah" predominates and generally refers to "Hebrew Bible" and not strictly 5-books? If not, then no point in me exhaustively breaking down probably hundreds of papers. Andre🚐 00:11, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I mentioned WP:NPOVNAME above because I think it applies here, yes. Remsense ‥ 论 00:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

You mentioned it applying to the / construction, but Torah (Tanakh) would be disambiguation. A la, there's already a Torah article, and this is the broad article but redirected. I don't see why that's lacking neutrality, if anything, that would be more neutral. Andre🚐 00:33, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Torah used to refer to the Tanakh would be an unencyclopedic colloquialism. NPOV would behoove us to to name concepts with particular attention to what expert reliable sources have in mind. Remsense ‥ 论 00:39, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Can reliable sourcing be produced supporting the assertion that the topic of this article is frequently referred to as the "Torah"? Because I haven't been exposed to any such sources to date. Newimpartial (talk) 00:43, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

For example, in the Wiley-Blackwell History of Judaism, while it does use "Hebrew Bible" and "Jewish Bible" quite a bit as well, pages like this [1] starting with the paragraph that begins "Schechter," clearly mean Torah to mean both the whole Hebrew Bible canon text as well as Oral Torah, right? Basically the entirety of Jewish teachings, as in Torah study. The Torah had been interpreted and reinterpreted by Jews throughout the ages, and how the Torah was understood was the determining factor in setting communal religious standards. Andre🚐 01:01, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Why do you believe that passage to refer to the entire Tanakh, rather than the Torah?

Also, Torah study does not support your proposed title, either, because it includes Talmud, religious law, and other Rabbinic teachings that are not part of the Tanakh - the scope of Torah study is much wider than the scope of this article. Newimpartial (talk) 01:17, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

From the context, but I get that it's not unequivocal. I'll look for an example that's very clear. For example, this random K-12 Manitoba educational guide (I know, I'll need something more authoritative) explains it fairly well: The term Torah means instruction and can refer to many aspects of Jewish scriptures, practice, and history. Usually, the term Torah refers to the central religious texts of Judaism. ...Sometimes, the term Torah is narrowly used to refer to the first 5 books (Pentateuch) of the 24 books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) or Jewish Written Law. Andre🚐 01:43, 15 September 2024 (UTC)