The Jewish Bible, also referred to as the TaNaKh (which Christians call the Old Testament), is the most sacred collection of books of the Jewish people. While the original text was written primarily in Hebrew (it contains some passages in Aramaic), it has been translated into almost every language in the world. The capital letters in the name TaNaKh denotes the initials for the three sections of the Bible: Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim. In total, the Bible contains 25 books.

The first section, the Torah, is made up five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Torah begins with an account of the creation of the universe and ends with the death of Moses. Most importantly, the Torah contains the Law of Moses (Torat Mosheh) which is a collection of social and religious laws which were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Neviim is subdivided into two parts. The first part includes the following books: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. These books provide an historical account of the Jewish people stretching from the time they entered Canaan until the destruction of the first Commonwealth by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The second part is made up of the following books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 12 minor Prophets. These books contain the words of the Hebrew prophets.

The final section, Ketuvim, is made up of the following books: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. These books are essentially a collection of poetry, historical narratives, and wisdom literature.

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