Biblical Aramaic in the context of "Hebrew Bible"

Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture and religion. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria (modern-day Turkey), the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa, both founded in the end of the 4th century BCE in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Judaism also existed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period, where there was a conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists.

The major literary product of the contact between Second Temple Judaism and Hellenistic culture is the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible from Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic to Koine Greek, specifically, Jewish Koine Greek. Mentionable are also the philosophic and ethical treatises of Philo and the historiographical works of the other Hellenistic Jewish authors.

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.

The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th-century BC setting. It is ostensibly a narrative detailing the experiences and prophetic visions of Daniel, a Jewish exile in Babylon. The text features prophecy rooted in Jewish history as well as a portrayal of the end times that is cosmic in scope and political in its focus. The message of the text intended for the original audience was that just as the God of Israel saves Daniel from his enemies, so too he would save the Israelites in their present oppression.

The Hebrew Bible includes Daniel as one of the Ketuvim ("Writings"), while Christian biblical canons group the work with the major prophets. It divides into two parts: a set of six court tales in chapters 1–6, written mostly in Biblical Aramaic, and four apocalyptic visions in chapters 7–12, written mainly in Late Biblical Hebrew; the Septuagint contains three additional sections in Koine Greek: the Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon.

The Christian Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

According to a major Bible translation organization, as of August 2025 the full Protestant Bible has been translated into 776 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,798 languages, and smaller portions have been translated into 1,433 other languages. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 4,007 languages, out of a total of 7,396 known languages (including sign languages).