Development of the Hebrew Bible canon in the context of "Second Temple Judaism"

Jerusalem during the Second Temple period describes the history of the city during the existence there of the Second Temple, from the return to Zion under Cyrus the Great (c. 538 BCE) to the siege and destruction of the city by Titus during the First Jewish–Roman War in 70 CE. During this period, which saw the region and city change hands several times, Jerusalem was the center of religious life for all Jews; even those who lived in the diaspora prayed towards Jerusalem on a daily basis and went there on pilgrimage during three annual religious festivals. Under Hasmonean and Herodian rule, Jerusalem served as a royal capital and the seat of all major national institutions. In Jerusalem, the Pharisees of Second Temple Judaism developed into the Tannaim and Judaism's post-Exilic religious identity as it continues today, and the Hebrew Bible was perhaps canonized, although exactly when this occurred remains disputed. It was also in Jerusalem during the later stages of this period that Christianity was born.

The 600 years of the Second Temple period can be divided into several periods, each with its own distinct political and social characteristics. The physical development of the city was greatly affected by the changing characteristics of each era, while at the same time influencing these periods themselves. The city's population was characterized by social stratification, both economic and religious, which grew more pronounced over the years. There existed in the city, for example, a clear distinction between a rich and cosmopolitan elite and the wider population wishing less influence in the nation's ways from the outside world. Social strata also encompassed different religious outlooks, each with its different emphasis: some reliant on the Temple priests, while the majority were led by traditional non-priestly families, emphasizing the world of Torah study and the development of law over the formal hierarchy established in the Temple.

The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (US: /tɑːˈnɑːx/, UK: /tæˈnæx/ or /təˈnæx/; Hebrew: תַּנַ״ךְ, romanized: tanaḵ; תָּנָ״ךְ, tānāḵ; or תְּנַ״ךְ, tənaḵ), also known in Hebrew as Miqra (/miːˈkrɑː/; מִקְרָא, miqrāʾ), is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, comprising the Torah (the five Books of Moses), the Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets), and the Ketuvim ('Writings', eleven books). Different branches of Judaism and Samaritanism have maintained different versions of the canon, including the 3rd-century BCE Septuagint text used in Second Temple Judaism, the Syriac Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and most recently the 10th-century medieval Masoretic Text compiled by the Masoretes, currently used in Rabbinic Judaism. The terms "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew Canon" are frequently confused with the Masoretic Text; however, the Masoretic Text is a medieval version and one of several texts considered authoritative by different types of Judaism throughout history. The current edition of the Masoretic Text is mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra, and the verse Jeremiah 10:11).

The modern form of the Hebrew Bible that is authoritative in Rabbinic Judaism is the Masoretic Text (7th to 10th centuries CE), which consists of 24 books, divided into chapters and pesuqim (verses). The Hebrew Bible developed during the Second Temple Period, as the Jews decided which religious texts were of divine origin; the Masoretic Text, compiled by the Jewish scribes and scholars of the Early Middle Ages, comprises the 24 Hebrew and Aramaic books that they considered authoritative. The Hellenized Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called "the Septuagint", that included books later identified as the Apocrypha, while the Samaritans produced their own edition of the Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch. Both of these ancient editions of the Hebrew Bible differ significantly from the medieval Masoretic Text.

The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; Hebrew: נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, romanized: Nussāḥ ham-Māsorā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the masora. Referring to the Masoretic Text, masora specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era (CE). The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, dates to 1009 CE and is recognized as the most complete source of biblical books in the Ben Asher tradition. It has served as the base text for critical editions such as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Adi.

The differences attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures already existed by the end of the Second Temple period. Which is closest to a theoretical Urtext is disputed, as is whether such a singular text ever existed. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century BCE, contain versions of the text which have some differences with today's Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint (a compilation of Koine Greek translations made in the third and second centuries BCE) and the Peshitta (a Syriac translation made in the second century CE) occasionally present notable differences from the Masoretic Text, as does the Samaritan Pentateuch, the text of the Torah preserved by the Samaritans in Samaritan Hebrew. Fragments of an ancient 2nd–3rd-century manuscript of the Book of Leviticus found near an ancient synagogue's Torah ark in Ein Gedi have identical wording to the Masoretic Text.

A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestant Christians. Typically translated into a vernacular language, such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament (according to the Hebrew Bible canon, known especially to non-Protestant Christians as the protocanonical books) and 27 books of the New Testament, for a total of 66 books. Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha (though these are not considered canonical) bringing the total to 80 books. This is in contrast with the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which includes seven deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament. The division between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books is not accepted by all Protestants who simply view books as being canonical or not and therefore classify books found in the Deuterocanon, along with other books, as part of the Apocrypha. Sometimes the term "Protestant Bible" is simply used as a shorthand for a bible which contains only the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.

It was in Luther's Bible of 1534 that the Apocrypha was first published as a separate intertestamental section. Early modern English Bibles also generally contained an Apocrypha section but in the years following the first publication of the King James Bible in 1611, printed English Bibles increasingly omitted the Apocrypha. However, Lutheran and Anglican churches have still included the Apocrypha in their lectionaries, holding them to be useful for devotional use.

The Book of Sirach (/ˈsaɪræk/), also known as The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, The Wisdom of Jesus son of Eleazar, or Ecclesiasticus (/ɪˌkliːziˈæstɪkəs/), is a Jewish literary work originally written in Biblical Hebrew. The longest extant wisdom book from antiquity, it consists of ethical teachings, written by Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira (Ben Sira), a Hellenistic Jewish scribe of the Second Temple period.

The text was written sometime between 196 and 175 BCE, and Ben Sira's grandson translated the text into Koine Greek and added a prologue sometime around 117 BCE. The prologue is generally considered to be the earliest witness to a tripartite canon of the books of the Hebrew Bible. The fact that the text and its prologue can be so precisely dated has profound implications for the development of the Hebrew Bible canon.