the differences between the books of the Tanakh and the OT?

Question

in particular the differences between the The Jewish Tanakh and Christian Old Testament

I understand the logic of both the Tanakh being grouped by Torah/Prophets/Writeings and the Christian by Torah/Historical books/ Wisdom books/ and Minor Prophets

My question is why the big differences between the two

to see what I am talking about check this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_bible#The_Tanakh_and_the_Christian_Old_Testaments

thanks Daniel for your info on the differences with the catholic bible

what I wanted to know in particular was why is the non Catholic virsion is grouped differently then the Jewish Tanakh

why did they break from the order is was put in long before Jesus?

Answer 1

From what I can see, the Tanakh and the Protestant canon of the "OT" are the same, and I think the Protestants translate them primarily from the Hebrew. As you noted, they put them in a slightly different order.

The big differences come when dealing with the non-Protestant Christian canons. From what I understand the differences come about because of the Septuagint (LXX). Ptolomy wanted a translation of the books of the Jews to be translated into Greek. There is a letter by Aristeas that indicates that 6 rabbis from each of the 12 tribes (72 total) who were fluent in both Hebrew and Greek went down to perform the translation. That sounds a little strange to me since I thought that the northern Kingdom of Israel was dispersed by Assyria by that point so only the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi survived in the southern kingdom.

Anyway, they translated Torah into Greek. That day, the rabbis say was like the day the golden calf was made. The differences came about because they wanted to keep their collection of Jewish literature current, so other works were translated and added to the LXX translation. (Even though they were not translated by the 72 rabbis). So the stories of the Maccabees are included in the LXX as history. Even though we celebrate the Maccabean revolt each year at Chanukka, I don't think I have ever run across a Jewish publishing house that has the books of Maccabees available for sale. (Is there even a traditional Hebrew text base available for them?) Other such works that are added would include Tobit, Judith and Baruch.

Tanakh wasn't codified until the Council of Yavneh several centuries after all of these translation occured. (The Council was about 90 CE I think.) So they possibly had quite good motives in placing some of these works in the LXX collection. But, there are some huge differences between the Hebrew of Tanakh and the Greek LXX for these works. To me it looks like translators incorporated some Midrashim and Targumim sources into their translation. The Greek Megillah of Esther for example includes prayer and many other details that the Hebrew doesn't include. The Psalms in many cases double the size of each verse. (The numbering and order of the Psalms is different as well, starting at Psalm 10.) The book of Daniel has extra chapters. Again I can only speculate as to where the translators got the additional material which they included in their Greek translation, but it isn't directly from the Hebrew Tanakh.

The Catholics then translated the LXX into Latin which became their defacto standard for centuries. The Greek Orthodox worked from slightly different manuscripts, but generally follow the LXX rather than the Latin Vulgate. The Protestants never accepted the Latin text base, and didn't really believe the LXX text base either. So the Protestants do their translations from the Hebrew and beyond their translational bias I think the only real difference there is that they number chapters and verses differently in some cases than what we have in Tanakh. The 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation reads almost exactly like the King James. Though personally I prefer the Artscroll translation (not to mention their commentaries.)

If you can narrow down your question to a specific difference I'll see if I can come up with a reference for you.

We have a common order between the Tanakh and the Protestant Bibles from Genesis through Judges. I'm not convinced that the current order of Tanakh was established prior to the Council of Yavneh. While much of the Ketuvim was understood to be part of Scripture in practice (although of the Megillot, the book of Esther was questioned due to the lack of reference to HaShem) the order certainly did not predate that time. In fact it has been suggested that our current book order of Tanakh dates only as far back as medieval Ashkenaz manuscripts.

My proof of the current book order not being over 2000 years old as you suggested is found in several sources. First, let me refer you to Tractate Baba Batra 14B towards the end of the page, where it is written (this is the Soncino English translation): "The order of the Hagiographa is Ruth, the Book of Psalms, Job, Prophets, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel and the Scroll of Esther, Ezra and Chronicles." However, in context it could be argued that they are not discussing the order in which they were found in early editions of Tanakh, but rather the order in which they were believed to have been written. So, while interesting, I won't rest my case on this.

My next proof is the Aleppo Codex, which is perhaps the oldest known example of the Mosoretic text, dating to the time of Shlomo ben Buya'a. The Aleppo Codex was known to have been used by the Rambam when he wrote his Hilkhot Sefer Torah. Unfortunately the 1947 riots in Aleppo damaged large portions of this manuscript. But we do know the order in which it was laid out. After the Torah the order is:
Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs.

My next evidence is the Leningrad Codex. It isn't as old, dating only to 1008 CE. It was copied in Cairo from manuscripts by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher. The order here is again the same as the Aleppo Codex.

I have also read that some other early manuscripts place Chronicles first rather than last. So there do seem to be a number of different sequences that were in use in earlier times. There is a difference in the way various religious groups order their canons of Scripture, but it would appear that the book sequence was not put into place until after the religions had already been diverged for several centuries.

Answer 2

there are a range of alterations. Hebrew is a wealthy language and lends its self to distinct opportunities at the same time as being translated. further to that difficulty is the cultural enormous difference between Judaism and Christianity and also you're optimistic to have any verbal replace on the challenge get emotional very immediately. in the Latin translation efforts were made to apply as most of the Aramaic Targum translation as obtainable. Jesus spoke Aramaic and it become maximum instantly ahead language in the Israel on the instantaneous. provided that Jesus’ references to the Jewish scriptures were frequently from the Targum translation it made sense to apply them as a reference in translating from the Septuagint (Greek). the first translations were made using the Targums the Septuagint and the unique Hebrew. The Targum translation is the position I understand the more youthful women persons/virgin interpretation got here from. All Jewish translations come quickly from the Hebrew textual content. the priority of the version between Christian and Jewish variations isn't as a lot of an difficulty with Christians provided that we've such assorted translations of the OT obtainable. Varity is the norm for us, it isn't an same for Jews. the alterations interior of Christian translations are not any more advantageous that the alterations between any of the them and the Tanakh. because of this your perfect source on the alterations will be Jewish resources. the priority is that Jewish resources are not any more fascinated in why there are alterations or how they got here about. All efforts are directed in route of proving that Christianity is a faux faith.

Answer 3

The name is different! And it mean that the TANAKH dosen't give all the word.

Answer 4

dont c the difference, c similaraties