What is the Hebrew Bible, and what exactly is the Torah inside it?

The Hebrew Bible is the collection of scriptures at the heart of Judaism, and the Torah is its first part. "Torah" names the first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The whole collection has three parts: the Torah, the Nevi'im (Prophets) and the Ketuvim (Writings). Take the first Hebrew letter of each and you get the word Tanakh, the Jewish name for the Bible.

The Torah runs from the creation of the world through the beginnings of the people of Israel, their descent into Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. It ends with the death of Moses, just before the people cross into Canaan. The word itself is usually translated "law", but it comes from a root meaning to guide or to teach, so "instruction" is closer.

This is a text meant to be heard, not just read. An older Hebrew name for the scriptures, Miqra, means "that which is read", because the texts were read publicly. A Torah scroll is copied by hand by a scribe, and a section is read aloud each Shabbat, arranged so the whole Torah is read through in a year. When the cycle ends, the holiday of Simchat Torah celebrates finishing it and starting again.

The Tanakh counts twenty-four books, because pairs like 1 and 2 Samuel count as one. Christians arrange much of the same material differently as the Old Testament, and some churches add further books. And "Torah" has a wider sense too: in rabbinic writing it can also mean the Oral Torah, the interpretations handed down alongside the written text.