| | | The collection of sacred texts accumulated during the development of the Jewish culture and religion. Sometimes called the "Old Testament" by Christians, the term Hebrew Scriptures (or Hebrew Testament) is less offensive to the Jewish community. -- Tom Stambaugh
We did this in Jewish Bible a while back. But thanks for emphasizing the sensitivity for today's Jews Tom. Such synonyms are of course fine. -- rd
The original Hebrew scriptures were divided into three sections:
- Torah - the five "books of Moses", from Genesis to Deuteronomy, that start our English Old Testament today
- Prophets - most of what are called today the historical books, from Joshua to 2Kings, followed by the big three prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekial, followed by twelve books of minor prophets, including the post-exilic prophets like the fairly apocalyptic Zechariah
- Writings - quite a mixed bag, in today's terms. Psalms, Proverbs, Job and the other books not called "historical" today, plus some that are, like 1Chronicles (& 2), Ruth, Esther, and Nehemiah, plus that very important (for Jesus and his contemporaries) mixture of history, prophecy and apocalyptic called the book of Daniel
So they didn't call any of the books historical. That may be because the History Of History hadn't been written yet.
Reports of other inspired books are of course apocryphal.
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