Rabbinic Judaism, today’s familiar form of Jewish faith, recognizes 24 scriptural books — the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible — as authoritative. Western Christianity has inherited this same scriptural canon.
Judaism is a classic “religion of the book.” But it wasn’t always so. Neither Moses nor the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had a Bible. It didn’t exist. Their religion rested, rather, on intimate contact with God, living revelation. Indeed, no Old Testament existed during the Old Testament period. Inspired writings arose gradually, circulated separately and (without printing, paper and widespread literacy) probably had few readers.
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