The Ketuvim (; hbo, , Modern: ''Kəṯūvīm'', Tiberian: ''Kăṯūḇīm'' "writings") is the third and final section of the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

(instruction) and

Nevi'im Nevi'im (; he, נְבִיאִים ''Nəvīʾīm'', Tiberian: ''Năḇīʾīm,'' "Prophets", literally "spokespersons") is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the '' Tanakh''), lying between the Torah (instruction) and Ketuvim ...

(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 Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest ('' kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρ ...

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''

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 The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stichs in the verses, which are a function of their

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

. 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 Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belief ...

"). These three books are also the only ones in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' 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 Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Book of Esther 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 Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...

Other books

The remaining books in the Ketuvim are the

Book of Daniel The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology (a ...

, Ezra–Nehemiah and the Books of Chronicles. These books share a number of distinguishing characteristics: * The

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

ic 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'' (

) תְהִלִּים * ''Mishlei'' ( Book of Proverbs) מִשְלֵי * ''Iyyôbh'' ( Book of Job) אִיּוֹב The Five ''Megillot'' * ''Shīr Hashīrīm'' ( Song of Songs) שִׁיר הַשִׁירִים (

) * ''Rūth'' ( Book of Ruth) 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) קהלת ( Feast of Tabernacles) * ''Estēr'' ( Book of Esther) אֶסְתֵר ( Feast of Lots) Other books * ''Dānî’ēl'' (

) דָּנִיֵּאל * ''‘Ezrā'' (

Book of Ezra The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible; which formerly included the Book of Nehemiah in a single book, commonly distinguished in scholarship as Ezra–Nehemiah. The two became separated with the first printed rabbinic bibles of the e ...

– Book of Nehemiah) עזרא * ''Divrei ha-Yamim'' ( Chronicles) דברי הימים The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in the Ketuvim. The

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cent ...

(

Bava Batra Bava Batra (also Baba Batra; Talmudic Aramaic: בָּבָא בַּתְרָא "The Last Gate") is the third of the three Talmudic tractates in the Talmud in the order Nezikin; it deals with a person's responsibilities and rights as the owner of p ...

14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles. In Tiberian

codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad 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.

Canonization

The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as

Biblical canon 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 ...

. 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 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 Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonia ...

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 ''Against Apion'' ( el, Φλαΐου Ἰωσήπου περὶ ἀρχαιότητος Ἰουδαίων λόγος α and ; Latin ''Contra Apionem'' or ''In Apionem'') is a polemical work written by Flavius Josephus as a defense of Judaism as ...

'', 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 The Council of Jamnia (presumably Yavneh in the Holy Land) was a council purportedly held late in the 1st century CE to finalize the canon of the Hebrew Bible. It has also been hypothesized to be the occasion when the Jewish authorities decide ...

( 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 Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. 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 Tis ...

. There are traces of an early custom of reading a ''haftarah'' from Ketuvim on Shabbat 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 The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Tor ...

) 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 traditions. However, the Ashkenazic

yeshiva A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy a ...

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 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

. In fact, the Babylonian

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.

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