The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Bible, biblical literature S 51

did not. For both Jews and Christians, it took a number of centuries to agree upon the canon of the Bible. Some see that long process as guided by G OD . The Bible for Jews Jews use a Bible that contains 24 books. Because it is written in Hebrew, it is sometimes known as the Hebrew Bible or Hebrew scriptures ( see S CRIPTURES , H EBREW ). A better name for it may be Tanakh. This word is an acronym made from the first letter of each of the Bible’s three parts: T ORAH (teaching), Nevi’im ( PROPHETS ), and Ketuvim (writings). The formulation of the canon for these three parts took place over a period of more than 500 years, from the end of the Babylonian exile (538 B . C . E .) to a council of rabbis in 90 C . E .

ancient Jews and Christians. The name Bible ulti mately derives from Byblos, a center of the papy rus trade in the ancient world. The writings of the Bible and biblical literature were often preserved on papyrus in ancient times.

CONTENTS OF THE BIBLE AND OTHER BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Both Jews and Christians call their sacred writings the Bible. They differ, however, on what writings make up the Bible. The distinction between the Bible and biblical literature more broadly comes from the formulation of canons, that is, lists of authoritative books. Ancient Jews and Christians produced a wealth of religious literature. Canons allowed them to distinguish between books that they accepted as authoritative and those that they

The Jewish scriptures, consisting of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings