Openai/694b73a6-8d20-800f-8325-face85a9ec2b

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User: What is the “Orthodox Jewish Bible”?

What is the “Orthodox Jewish Bible”?

Assistant: Short answer: there is no single book officially called the “Orthodox Jewish Bible.”

Short answer: there is no single book officially called the “Orthodox Jewish Bible.” That phrase is usually a Christian or interfaith shorthand for how Orthodox Jews relate to scripture, not a title Jews themselves use.

Here’s the straight, no-nonsense breakdown.

What Orthodox Jews actually use

1. The Tanakh (תנ״ך) — the Bible itself

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The Tanakh is the Jewish Bible, and it is the same for Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews.

It has three parts:

• Torah (Five Books of Moses)
• Nevi’im (Prophets)
• Ketuvim (Writings)

Key points:

• Written only in Hebrew (and some Aramaic)
• No New Testament
• No reordered books
• No added theology

If someone says “Orthodox Jewish Bible,” this is what they mean.

2. Tanakh + classical commentary (especially Rashi)

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In practice, Orthodox Jews almost never study the Tanakh naked, meaning without commentary.

The most common setup:

• Biblical text in the center
• Commentary around it, especially Rashi (11th century)

Important clarification:

• Rashi is NOT part of the Bible
• His commentary is authoritative, not canonical
• He explains language, logic gaps, and traditional interpretations

This is why outsiders sometimes think Orthodox Jews have a different Bible. They don’t — they have a Bible plus an interpretive tradition printed on the same page.

3. Mikraot Gedolot (“Rabbinic Bible”)

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This is probably the closest thing to what people mean by “Orthodox Jewish Bible.”

Mikraot Gedolot includes:

• Full Tanakh text
• Multiple medieval commentaries (Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, etc.)
• Masoretic notes (textual transmission details)

Again:

• Still just the Tanakh
• The commentaries are guidance, not scripture

What it is NOT

❌ Not the Talmud

The Talmud is a massive legal and interpretive work, not a Bible.

• Bible = revelation
• Talmud = law, argument, interpretation

They are related, but not the same category.

❌ Not a special Orthodox-only translation

Orthodox Jews:

• Prefer Hebrew
• Use English only as a study aid
• Don’t have an “Orthodox edition” the way Christians have denominational Bibles

Why the confusion exists

When Christians say “Orthodox Jewish Bible,” they usually mean:

“The Hebrew Bible as understood through traditional rabbinic interpretation, not Christian theology.”

That’s a mouthful, so it gets collapsed into a fake title.

Bottom line

There is no such thing as an ‘Orthodox Jewish Bible.’

What Orthodox Jews use is:

• The Tanakh
• Read in Hebrew
• With authoritative rabbinic commentary, especially Rashi
• Interpreted through the Oral Torah tradition, but not replaced by it

If you saw the phrase used somewhere (article, tweet, video, argument), it’s almost certainly outsider shorthand, not Jewish terminology.

If you want, you can show me the exact context where you saw it and I’ll tell you precisely what they were trying (or failing) to say.

User: None of them include the New Testament, correct?

None of them include the New Testament, correct?

Assistant: Correct.

Correct. None of them include the New Testament. Full stop.

To be absolutely explicit:

• Tanakh → ❌ No New Testament
• Chumash (with or without Rashi) → ❌ No New Testament
• Mikraot Gedolot (“Rabbinic Bible”) → ❌ No New Testament
• Anything used by Orthodox Jews → ❌ No New Testament

The New Testament is not part of Jewish scripture in any form, and never has been — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or otherwise.

From a Jewish perspective:

• The Tanakh is complete.
• The New Testament is a Christian text, written later, in Greek, reflecting theological claims Judaism does not accept (messiah already arrived, divine incarnation, etc.).

So if you ever see:

• “Orthodox Jewish Bible including the New Testament”
• “Jewish New Testament”
• “Hebrew New Testament used by Jews”

…that is either:

• A Christian missionary product, or
• A misunderstanding / mislabeling, or
• Messianic Judaism, which is Christianity with Jewish aesthetics, not Judaism.

There’s no gray area here.

If you want, I can also break down why Jews never canonized a “Part II”, or how early Christianity split textually and theologically from Second Temple Judaism — but the core answer is a clean, unambiguous no.