 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ketuvim" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Books of theKetuvim |
|---|
| Three poetic books |
| FiveMegillot(Scrolls) |
| Other books |
| Hebrew Bible |
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tanakh(Judaism) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old Testament(Christianity) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bible portal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TheKetuvim (/kətuːˈviːm,kəˈtuːvɪm/;[1]Biblical Hebrew:כְּתוּבִים,romanized: Kǝṯuḇim,lit. 'Writings')[2] is the third and final section of theHebrew Bible, after theTorah ("instruction") and theNevi'im "Prophets". In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually titled "Writings" or "Hagiographa".[3]
In the Ketuvim, 1–2Chronicles form one book as doEzra andNehemiah which form a single unit entitledEzra–Nehemiah.[4] (In citations by chapter and verse, however, the Hebrew equivalents of "Nehemiah", "I Chronicles" and "II Chronicles" are used, as thesystem of chapter division was imported from Christian usage.) Collectively, eleven books are included in the Ketuvim.
InMasoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions),Psalms,Proverbs andJob are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing the parallelstichs in the verses, which are a function of theirpoetry. Collectively, these three books are known asSifrei Emet (Biblical Hebrew:סִפְרֵי אֶמֶת,romanized: sip̄rē ʾemeṯ,lit. 'documents of truth' – an acronym of the titles of the three books in Hebrew,איוב,משלי,תהלים yieldsאמ״תemet, "truth").
These three books are also the only ones in theHebrew Bible with a special system ofcantillation that is designed to emphasize parallel stichs within verses. However, the beginning and end of the book of Job are in the normal prose system.
The five relatively short books ofSong of Songs,Book of Ruth, theBook of Lamentations,Ecclesiastes andBook of Esther are collectively known as theFive Megillot (Hamesh Megillot/ Five Scrolls). These are the latest books collected and designated as "authoritative" in the Jewish canon.[5] 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 onPassover.
The remaining books in the Ketuvim are theBook of Daniel,Ezra–Nehemiah and theBooks of Chronicles. These books share a number of distinguishing characteristics:[citation needed]
| Part ofa series on the |
| Bible |
|---|
 |
Outline of Bible-related topics Bible portal |
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 ofSifrei Emet andHamesh Megillot.
TheSifrei Emet:
The FiveMegillot
Other books
The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in the Ketuvim. TheBabylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles.[6]
In TiberianMasoretic codices, including theAleppo Codex and theLeningrad Codex, 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.[6]
The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted asBiblical canon. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed: some scholars argue that it was fixed by theHasmonean dynasty,[7] while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later.[8]
While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as early as the 5th century BCE and theFormer andLatter Prophets were canonized by the 2nd century BCE,Michael Coogan says that the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the 2nd centuryCE.[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.[9]Jacob Neusner argues that the notion of a biblical canon was not prominent in 2nd-centuryRabbinic Judaism or even later.[8]
Against Apion, the writing ofJosephus 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";[10] Michael Barber, however, avers that Josephus' canon is "not identical to that of the modern Hebrew Bible".[11] For a long time, following this date, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) was often under scrutiny.[12]
In the 20th century, many scholars seemed to believe that the limits of the Ketuvim as canonized scripture were determined by theCouncil of Jamnia (c. 90 CE). But the theory of the Council of Jamnia is largely discredited today.[13][14][15][16]
There is no formal system of synagogal reading of Ketuvim equivalent to theTorah portion andhaftarah. It is thought that there was once a cycle for reading the Psalms, parallel to thetriennial cycle 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 inItaly. 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 followingPesach, and Job on theNinth 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 onSukkot. There are traces of an early custom of reading ahaftarah from Ketuvim onShabbat afternoons, but this does not survive in any community. SomeReform communities that operate a triennial cycle choosehaftarot on Shabbat morning from Ketuvim as well as Neviim.
In some Near and Middle Eastern Jewish traditions, the whole of Ketuvim (as well as the rest of the Tanakh and theMishnah) 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.
Medieval sources speak of threecantillation melodies, for Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim respectively. Today the position is more complicated. Oriental Sephardic communities preservecantillation 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 orSpanish and Portuguese traditions. However, theAshkenazicyeshiva known asAderet 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.
Westerntargumim exist onSifrei Emet, on theFive 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 toTargum Onkelos on the Torah andTargum Jonathan onNevi'im. In fact, the BabylonianTalmud explicitly notes the lack of a Targum to Ketuvim, explaining thatJonathan 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.
| History | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Population |
| ||
| Languages (Diasporic) |
| ||
| Philosophy | |||
| Branches | |||
| Literature | |||
| Culture | |||
| Studies |
| ||
Italics indicateextinct languages | |||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
