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“TANAKH is an acronym. It’s what the Jewish Publication Society calls its translation of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. TANAKH stands for the three parts of the Hebrew Bible as laid out in the contents of Jewish scriptures. The ‘T’ stands for Torah and comprises the first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. They are in the same order as in Christian Bibles. The ‘N’ stands for Nevi’im. This means ‘prophets’ and refers not only to Jeremiah and Isaiah but also to the ‘historical books’, as the Christian Bible calls them. These are Joshua, Judges, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings. The last letter, ‘K’, stands for Ketuvim, meaning ‘writings’. These are the remaining books in the English Old Testament. That’s the basic Jewish structure of the canon – those three parts. The table of contents is different but the actual books are the same.” Read more...
Timothy Beal, Theologians & Historians of Religion
