I've had many years of involvement with /r/AcademicBiblical and /r/AskBibleScholars (I am the founder of the latter). A few of us endeavored to create a YouTube channel for public education purposes. It turned out to be more difficult than we expected. Therefore we shuttered the project. Below is the second draft of the script that would have become our first video.

There can be quite the confusion when people learn that the regular Bible they know is considered a different religious text from the Hebrew Bible. But rather than generate more controversy than the Bible as a whole has in history, it is only right to seek to understand what the less-understood Hebrew Bible is all about and what it means to its particular audience, the Jewish religion.

The Hebrew Bible doesn’t just present as a primary documentation of historical events and context for understanding the New Testament the way the Christian Bible does. In this video, we will delve into what the Hebrew Bible is primarily about and give you a beginner's understanding of its role in Judaism and Christianity.

The Hebrew Bible consists of various books written by different authors. The writing of the books spanned long periods and were composed in many different places by people with varied backgrounds, occupations, and interests. But a major challenge facing anyone who wants to understand these profound works is that they are written in Hebrew. Many people with little experience with the language used to find this barrier an almost impossible one. Fortunately, plenty of resources can help you break through the problem of language barrier so that you can continue exploring this rich collection of religious literature in the future. The first step on your journey begins here:

To fully appreciate the process through which the Hebrew Bible came into being, we must first become familiar with the culture and background of the scribes who produced it. The scribes who created the Bible were professional writers associated with the Jerusalem Temple. They were considered the elites of their time.

The Israelites' culture was primarily oral. The capacity to write down a name or read a letter was widespread, but this does not imply that Israel was a literary community. Like most cultures in ancient times, stories of the origin of legends of ancestors and heroes, dos and don'ts, professional skills, and wisdom were almost always passed down orally.

The Hebrew Bible is a library of twenty-four books divided into three sections: The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, sometimes abbreviated as Tanakh.

There is general agreement among scholars that "Torah" is the proper name for the first section of the Hebrew Bible. However, many people also refer to this Hebrew Bible collection as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses. This is because the Five Books traditionally attributed to Moses are the first portion of the Hebrew Bible. It consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Jewish people believe that much of the information found in the Torah is God's very words. Scholars believe the Torah was written down around the 10th century BCE, about 3,000 years ago.

The Torah describes Israel's prehistory, from creation to Moses' death, before entry into the promised land. Genesis, "the Beginning," also known in Hebrew as Bereshit, is the opening book of the Tanakh. Genesis 1 to 11 covers primeval history, from creation through the deluge and the Tower of Babel. Whereas Genesis 12 to 50 tells the patriarchal account of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's sons. The story of Joseph, found in Genesis 37 to 50, is a discrete block of material in the Hebrew Bible. It is a transitional story that describes how Israel came to be in Egypt and sets the stage for the exodus. Exodus 1 to 18 narrates the story of the Israelites' deliverance from Egypt. Then Exodus 19 to 40 and Leviticus present the revelation at Mount Sinai. The wilderness journey is described in Numbers. Finally, Deuteronomy, is Moses' final discourse with a new generation of Israelites and his call to obedience and serving God. In this season in the lives of the Israelites, Moses gives them various instructions to sustain their relationship with God in the new territory they are about to enter, teaching us that with every new blessing comes a set of instructions for sustaining them; much like a manufacturer’s manual helps us maintain the integrity of the accompanying product. One of the instructions Moses gave the Israelites was with regard to their relationship to men who posed as oracles of God; the prophets.

The Prophets is a section of the Hebrew Bible that is not part of the Torah. Some scholars debate whether the first three books of the Prophets are actually prophetic books that are distinct from other books in the Hebrew Bible or if they are actually part of the Torah. The Prophets have two major divisions: the Former Prophets and the Latter Prophets.

The Former Prophets are divided into four books: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. However, remember that 1 and 2 Samuel and Kings each count as one book. Furthermore, the books of the Latter Prophets were Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets: Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Haggai, Zechariah, the last being Malachi. The Twelve Minor Prophets were traditionally considered as one book.

The Writings or the Nevi'im, the objective is to record the history of the Israelites and their acts within God's covenant connection. The books are extremely diverse and cover many events and topics. The story of Job, for instance, is about a righteous man who God severely tests. One of the primary lessons of Job’s story is that suffering is not necessarily the result of sin but rather a willful test from God to increase our faith and prepare us for a new set of blessings. This section also comprises the Psalms, a collection of writings praising God. The Writings are divided into eleven books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah as one book, and Chronicles.

The Septuagint, the Masoretic Text, and the Targums are the three major versions of the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretic writings are based on ancient Jewish manuscripts from the 10th and 11th centuries CE. The Masoretic text is the most extensively used in today's Jewish world. The Septuagint, which was significantly more popular in the ancient Greek-speaking world, is a translation of the Tanakh into Greek commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Ptolemy II was the King of Egypt in the first half of the third century BCE. Finally, the targums are paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible that spread following the Babylonian exile, resulting in many Jews who did not know Hebrew.

It now appears that the entire Hebrew Bible gained its current form during the Second Temple period. The books of Joshua through Kings, which comprise the Former Prophets in the Tanakh, are known in contemporary academia as "the Deuteronomistic History." These volumes were modified in light of the book of Deuteronomy, no earlier than the sixth century BCE, despite the events they record reportedly stretching from around 1200 BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem. The first great prophets, Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah, lived in the ninth century. The book of Isaiah, on the other hand, contains not just oracles from the original prophet but also much material that was undoubtedly penned after the Babylonian exile.

The Hebrew Bible can be read in several different ways, but most people read it in the form of chapters and verses. This is helpful when looking up specific terms or concepts in the Bible. But reading it from chapter to chapter is not the same as reading it chronologically or in the order in which the events occurred or were written.

It may appear more straightforward to pick and choose well-known stories or easy-to-understand passages to read while studying the Bible, but taking the time to work through the Bible in the order in which the events actually occurred is both wise and helpful because it establishes the connections between the stories. Understanding a story or a particular idea in the Bible is helpful, but understanding how all the stories fit together and what they mean could help understanding Christianity.

One mistake most people make is approaching the Bible as a scientific book instead of a faith book. To the Jew, the Hebrew Bible is a story of God and man; his revealed works of creation, provision, judgment, deliverance, covenant, and promises. Moreover, the Hebrew Bible looks at what happens to people in light of God's nature, which is righteous, faithful, merciful, and loving.

On the contrary, humankind's key themes are rebellion, perversion, and estrangement; humankind's redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation are all portrayed as gracious acts of God. So, the Hebrew Bible is an excellent introduction to Judaism and, by extension, Christianity.

Sources

John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (2014)

Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible - Volume 1 - The Five Books of Moses (2019)

Karel Van Der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (2007)

Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible (2011)

Michael D. Coogan, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (2018)