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The Ketuvim (; hbo, , Modern: ''Kəṯūvīm'', Tiberian: ''Kăṯūḇīm'' "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh ( Hebrew Bible), after Torah (instruction) and Nevi'im (prophets). In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually titled "Writings" or "Hagiographa". In the Ketuvim, I and II Chronicles form one book, along with Ezra and Nehemiah which form a single unit entitled " Ezra–Nehemiah". (In citations by chapter and verse numbers, however, the Hebrew equivalents of "Nehemiah", "I Chronicles" and "II Chronicles" are used, as the system of chapter division was imported from Christian usage.) Collectively, eleven books are included in the Ketuvim.


Groups of books


''Sifrei Emet''

In
Masoretic The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...
manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and
Job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...
are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stichs in the verses, which are a function of their poetry. Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet ( hbo, סִפְרֵי אֶמֶת ''sip̄rēi ʾemeṯ'' "documents of truth" - an acronym of the titles of the three books in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields ''Emet'', which is also the Hebrew for " truth"). These three books are also the only ones in the Hebrew Bible with a special system of cantillation notes that are designed to emphasize parallel stichs within verses. However, the beginning and end of the book of Job are in the normal prose system.


Five Megillot

The five relatively short books of Song of Songs,
Book of Ruth The Book of Ruth ( he, מגילת רות, ''Megilath Ruth'', "the Scroll of Ruth", one of the Five Megillot) is included in the third division, or the Writings (Ketuvim), of the Hebrew Bible. In most Christian canons it is treated as one of the ...
, the Book of Lamentations,
Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly use ...
and
Book of Esther The Book of Esther ( he, מְגִלַּת אֶסְתֵּר, Megillat Esther), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Judaism, Jewish ''Tanak ...
are collectively known as the Five Megillot (''Hamesh Megillot''/ Five Scrolls). These are the latest books collected and designated as "authoritative" in the Jewish canon. These scrolls are traditionally read over the course of the year in many Jewish communities. The list below presents them in the order they are read in the synagogue on holidays, beginning with the Song of Songs on Passover.


Other books

The remaining books in the Ketuvim are the Book of Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah and the Books of Chronicles. These books share a number of distinguishing characteristics: * The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them. * Daniel and Ezra are the only books in the Hebrew Bible with significant portions in Biblical Aramaic. * These two also describe relatively late events (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion).


Order of the books

The following list presents the books of the Ketuvim in the order they appear in most printed editions. It also divides them into three subgroups based on the distinctiveness of ''Sifrei Emet'' and ''Hamesh Megillot''. The ''Sifrei Emet'': * ''Tehillim'' ( Psalms) תְהִלִּים * ''Mishlei'' (
Book of Proverbs The Book of Proverbs ( he, מִשְלֵי, , "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different ...
) מִשְלֵי * ''Iyyôbh'' (
Book of Job The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...
) אִיּוֹב The Five ''Megillot'' * ''Shīr Hashīrīm'' ( Song of Songs) שִׁיר הַשִׁירִים ( Passover) * ''Rūth'' (
Book of Ruth The Book of Ruth ( he, מגילת רות, ''Megilath Ruth'', "the Scroll of Ruth", one of the Five Megillot) is included in the third division, or the Writings (Ketuvim), of the Hebrew Bible. In most Christian canons it is treated as one of the ...
) רוּת (
Feast of Weeks A banquet (; ) is a formal large meal where a number of people consume food together. Banquets are traditionally held to enhance the prestige of a host, or reinforce social bonds among joint contributors. Modern examples of these purposes i ...
) * ''Eikhah'' ( Lamentations) איכה ( Ninth of Av or the Day of Atonement) lso called ''Kinnot'' in Hebrew* ''Qōheleth'' (
Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly use ...
) קהלת ( Feast of Tabernacles) * ''Estēr'' (
Book of Esther The Book of Esther ( he, מְגִלַּת אֶסְתֵּר, Megillat Esther), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Judaism, Jewish ''Tanak ...
) אֶסְתֵר ( Feast of Lots) Other books * ''Dānî’ēl'' ( Book of Daniel) דָּנִיֵּאל * ''‘Ezrā'' ( Book of Ezra
Book of Nehemiah The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible, largely takes the form of a first-person memoir concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, and the dedic ...
) עזרא * ''Divrei ha-Yamim'' ( Chronicles) דברי הימים The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in the Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud ( Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles. In Tiberian
Masoretic The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...
codices, including the
Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex ( he, כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא, romanized: , lit. 'Crown of Aleppo') is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the ...
and the
Leningrad Codex The Leningrad Codex ( la, Codex Leningradensis [Leningrad Book]; he, כתב יד לנינגרד) is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colopho ...
, and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, and Ezra.


Canonization

The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as Biblical canon. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed: some scholars argue that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty,Philip R. Davies in ''The Canon Debate'', page 50: "With many other scholars, I conclude that the fixing of a canonical list was almost certainly the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty." while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later. While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as early as the 5th century BCE and the
Former A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature. A former may become an integral part of the ...
and Latter Prophets were canonized by the 2nd century BCE, Michael Coogan says that the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the 2nd century CE. Coogan, Michael. ''A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context''. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 5 According to T. Henshaw, as early as 132 BCE some references suggesting that the Ketuvim was starting to take shape, though it lacked a formal title. Jacob Neusner argues that the notion of a biblical canon was not prominent in 2nd-century Rabbinic Judaism or even later.McDonald & Sanders, ''The Canon Debate'', 2002, page 5, cited are Neusner's ''Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine'', pages 128–145, and ''Midrash in Context: Exegesis in Formative Judaism'', pages 1–22. '' Against Apion'', the writing of Josephus in 95 CE, treated the text of the Hebrew Bible as a closed canon to which "no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable"; Michael Barber, however, avers that Josephus' canon is "not identical to that of the modern Hebrew Bible". For a long time, following this date, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) was often under scrutiny. In the 20th century, many scholars seemed to believe that the limits of the Ketuvim as canonized scripture were determined by the Council of Jamnia ( 90 CE). But the theory of the Council of Jamnia is largely discredited today.McDonald & Sanders, editors, ''The Canon Debate'', 2002, chapter 9: "Jamnia Revisited" by Jack P. Lewis.


Liturgical use

There is no formal system of synagogal reading of Ketuvim equivalent to the
Torah portion It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion to be read during Jewish prayer services on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. The full name, ''Parashat HaShavua'' ( he, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ), is po ...
and '' haftarah''. It is thought that there was once a cycle for reading the Psalms, parallel to the
triennial cycle The Triennial cycle of Torah reading may refer to either * The historical practice in ancient Israel by which the entire Torah was read in serial fashion over a three-year period, or * The practice adopted by many Reform, Conservative, Reconstruct ...
for Torah reading, as the number of psalms (150) is similar to the number of Torah portions in that cycle, and remnants of this tradition exist in Italy. All Jewish liturgies contain copious extracts from the Psalms, but these are normally sung to a regular recitative or rhythmic tune rather than read or chanted. Some communities also have a custom of reading Proverbs in the weeks following Pesach, and Job on the Ninth of Ab. The five megillot are read on the festivals, as mentioned above, though Sephardim have no custom of public reading of Song of Songs on Passover or Ecclesiastes on
Sukkot or ("Booths, Tabernacles") , observedby = Jews, Samaritans, a few Protestant denominations, Messianic Jews, Semitic Neopagans , type = Jewish, Samaritan , begins = 15th day of Tishrei , ends = 21st day of Tishre ...
. There are traces of an early custom of reading a ''haftarah'' from Ketuvim on
Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...
afternoons, but this does not survive in any community. Some Reform communities that operate a triennial cycle choose ''haftarot'' on Shabbat morning from Ketuvim as well as Neviim.


Extraliturgical public reading

In some Near and Middle Eastern Jewish traditions, the whole of Ketuvim (as well as the rest of the Tanakh and the Mishnah) is read each year on a weekly rota, usually on Shabbat afternoons. These reading sessions are not considered to be synagogue services, and often took place in the synagogue courtyard.


Cantillation

Medieval sources speak of three cantillation melodies, for Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim respectively. Today the position is more complicated. Oriental Sephardic communities preserve cantillation systems for the three poetic books, namely Psalms, Proverbs and the main part of Job (usually a different melody for each of the three books). No such systems exist in the Ashkenazi or
Spanish and Portuguese Portuguese and Spanish, although closely related Romance languages, differ in many aspects of their phonology, grammar and lexicon. Both belong to a subset of the Romance languages known as West Iberian languages, West Iberian Romance, which als ...
traditions. However, the Ashkenazic yeshiva known as Aderet Eliyahu, in the Old City of Jerusalem, uses an adaptation of the Syrian cantillation-melody for these books, and this is becoming more popular among other Ashkenazim as well. In all communities there are special cantillation melodies for Lamentations and Esther, and in some communities for the Song of Songs. Otherwise, the melody for the book of Ruth is considered the "default" melody for books of the Ketuvim not otherwise provided for. The "prose" passages at the beginning and end of the book of Job, as read on Tisha B'Av, may be read either to the tune of Ruth or to one resembling that for the Song of Songs.


Targum to Ketuvim

Western
targumim A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
exist on ''Sifrei Emet'', on the Five Megillot and on Chronicles, i.e. on all the books of Ketuvim besides Daniel and Ezra (which contain large portions in Aramaic anyway). There are several complementary targumim to Esther. There is, however, no "official" eastern (Babylonian) targum to Ketuvim, equivalent to Targum Onkelos on the Torah and Targum Jonathan on Nevi'im. In fact, the Babylonian Talmud explicitly notes the lack of a Targum to Ketuvim, explaining that Jonathan ben Uzziel was divinely prevented from completing his translation of the Bible. A more prosaic explanation may consist in the lack of regular formal readings of Ketuvim in the synagogue (except the five Megillot), making it unnecessary to have an official system for line-by-line translation.


See also

*
Books of the Bible A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning "rule" or "measuring stick". The use o ...


References


External links


David Betesh and the Sephardic Pizmonim Project
(Syrian melodies).
Tehillim ''(Psalms)'' on CD-Rom
(Syrian tradition, Rabbi Shimon Alouf).
Leining Master
Ashkenazi melodies for the five megillot.

melodies for Megillat Ester in various traditional styles. {{Authority control 1st-millennium BC books Hebrew Bible words and phrases Hebrew words and phrases in Jewish law Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible Sifrei Kodesh