The Hebrew Bible Page


Texts of the Hebrew Bible in Translation
See The Soncino Books of the Bible. Fourteen Volumes. With introductions and commentary. Edited by Rev Dr Cohen. Soncino Press, 1983. This edition of the Hebrew Bible contains extensive commentary from traditional Jewish scholars and sources. The arrangement of books is traditionally as follows:
The Torah or Law . The Pentateuch
In the Beginning, or Genesis
These are the Names, or Exodus,
And He Called, or Leviticus,
In the Wilderness, or Numbers,
These are the Words, or Deuteronomy.
The Prophets . Joshua, Judges, I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
The Twelve prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. ( Note that Daniel is not included among the prophets. )
The Writings . Psalms, Proverbs, Job,
The Five Megilloth, consisting of: Song of Songs, Ruth, How ! ( Lamentations ), Ecclesiastes, Esther,
Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Words of the Days I & II ( I & II Chronicles ).

A Note on the Apocrypha
The books known as the Apocrypha were, because of the high esteem which they enjoyed, included as part of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which was completed during the middle of the 3rd century B. C. in Alexandria, in Egypt. This translation is known as the Septuagint ( abbreviated LXX ) because it was made by a group of seventy translators, who, as the story goes, made seventy identical but independent translations of the Hebrew Bible. At any rate, the Apocrypha may be defined as the books contained in the Septuagint which were and are not to be found in the Hebrew Bible. These books were also held in high esteem by several of the Church Fathers although St Jerome, who translated the scriptures into Latin in the early 5th century, was unwilling to accord them the same status as that enjoyed by the canonical books. In general, they are accepted as canonical by the Roman Catholic Church and treated by most of the English-speaking world with neglect if not contempt. Such neglect is unfortunate because the Apocrypha help to bridge the gap between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament Scriptures, forming, as they do, an important part of the literature of that 400-year period.
The Apocryphal books are as follows: Esdras, Tobit, Judith, The Rest of Esther, The Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, The Epistle of Jeremiah, Additions to Daniel ( including Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon ), Maccabees I-IV, and The Prayer of Manasseh.
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