The Book of all Books Dr. Azila (Tzili) Talit Reisenberger Head of Hebrew University of Cape Town

Order of lectures 1.The Canon 2.What’s in the Name 3.The Book as ‘Record/Reflection of life’ 4.History vs. story 5.The Word (Language, bias, code… etc)

The Name of The Book Bible – Bibliotheca (bibliothèque) – library Hebrew Bible (in French? German?) Old Testament (passé?) TaNaK(Torah/ Nevi’im/Ketuvim) The Bible

Size of ‘The TaNaK/Bible’ 304,901 Hebrew words 23,145 verses

Division into books and chapters The ‘Canon’ includes 39 books (orthodox Jews count it as 24, as they count some books together) Some books never made it to the ‘Canon’ (redactor’s choice or Apocrypha) Division into chapters by a monk in the 16 th century.

Time frame From creation of the world? Primordial Or: the Forefathers and Foremothers From about 2000 BCE To about 333 BCE

What is primordial History Genesis chapters 1-11 raison d’être of this section

Time-line Abraham, Isaac, JacobEgyptMoses (Exodus)I 2000 BCE400 Years1500 BCE

Time-line Joshua (Conquest)Judges (Saul)DavidI BCE400 Years1000 BCE

Time-line Solomon (Temple) Split into North and South KingdomI 965 BCE+40 Years928 BCE

Time-line Northern KingdomSouthern Kingdom SamariaJerusalem 10 tribesJudah (+Simon, Levi) Variety of dynastiesHouse of David AssyriaBabylonI 721 BCE586 BCE

Interesting fact: How many Tribes of Israel? Answer: Northern Kingdom; 3 – Judaea But Jacob had 12 sons? For Joseph (1) we have 2 tribes: Ephraim and Menashe Why: idiom “12 Tribes of Israel”? as Simeon was swallowed into Judah

Time-line Fate of the Hebrews Northern Kingdom disappeared (Samaritans?) Judaea was exiled to Babylon; then falls into Persian hands; In 538 BCE Cyrus permits them to return to the Holy Land and build 2 nd Temple.

End of the Bible So, time frame of the biblical history: II_ 2000 BCE333 BCE

Where do we find all this information? T N K T orah N evi’im K etuvim

The Torah is the first section, is the holiest section

Torah Abraham, Isaac, JacobGenesis Slavery in Egyptbeginning of Exodus Moses’ laws and history from Exodus to death5 books of Moses Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy 2000 BCE1500 BCE

Nevi’im (means: Prophets) 2 sections in the ‘Prophets’: 1.First section (Early Prophets) which is history 2.Second section (Later Prophets) which is ‘prophecy’

Early Prophets The History

Into the Holy Land and out to Exile The conquestJoshua The rulersJudges Beginning of Kingship Saul and DavidSamuel 1-2 Solomon and the split of kingdomsKings 1-2 Exiles end of Kings 2

Later Prophets Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel 12 Minor: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi

Ketuvin Wisdom and historiography: Psalms Proverbs Job 5 “megilot” (scrolls): Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther Daniel Ezra and Nehemiah Chronicles 1-2

Why should I bore you with the geography of the Bible? The way to detect if a Bible is “Jewish” or not? In other words: is it – The Bible Or is it – The Old Testament Why should we try to detect? (Bias) The 5 little scrolls: hold the key for quick answers

5 (Megilot) scrolls Song of Songs Ruth Lamentations Ecclesiastes Esther Jewish Order rather than logical order

so now, when we know what is the Bible, In the course we will get “closer”… We start tomorrow with the power of words and names: from names of books, people places… etc

Thank you. I would like to thank Jutta Schoof for editing these notes