Shalom! I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsberg of the Ezra-Habonim, Niles Township Jewish Congregation of Skokie, Illinois. This is a brief video explaining the essence of the Hebrew bible the Tanakh. The first thing to know is that, it is not equivalent to the Old Testament. The Christians call the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament because they believe there is a New Testament. Now, many of the books are the same, in fact all of the books are the same but they just jiggle the order.
In the Old Testament they do no have the division as the Jewish people have. And, they placed the Prophet Malachi at the end because Malachi ends his prophecy by saying that Elijah the Prophet will come and announce the great and awesome day of the Lord. Which of course, for Christians they uses a great way into the New Testament because they believe the Hebrew Bible, which they call the Old Testament is a prediction and prelude to the coming of their Messiah.
But for Jews, the Hebrew Bible stands alone. There is no second bible or third bible. We do not believe God made a mistake. We simply believe that the Hebrew Bible reflects the great wisdom that God has, and the rest is for us to elaborate on and or other text, and to explain and figure out what God intended.
The Hebrew Bible is called by Jewish, the Tanakh, that is an acronym of three letters, each one of which begins, one of the three sections of the Hebrew Bible. The βtaβ stands for Torah, the first five books, which are in English Genesis, Exodus, Numbers with.
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