Part I: Written and Oral Torah; Mishna and Talmud
Torah means "instruction/teaching/revelation" and there is both a Written Torah and an Oral Torah.
The Oral Torah refers to instruction given verbally by Moses and others. The memorized Oral Torah is the source of the Mishna (or Mishnah, AD 200), a written form of the Oral Torah. There are also two Talmud, which are authoritative commentaries on the Mishna, the Jerusalem Talmud (AD 400) and the Babylonian Talmud (AD 600).
Note that the Oral Torah was not yet codified into the Mishna during the time of Christ, but the verbal traditional instructions were taught with the same authority as the Written Torah.
For a Gentile believer, suffice it to say that I found great difficulty and no real benefit from my study of Rabinnic literature. Indeed, I had been warned off by one of my professors, Dr. Arnold Fructenbaum, a Jewish believer specializing in Hebrew and Old Testament, but I had to do my own dilligence...
The Written Torah
The word Torah can refer to the whole Hebrew Bible, but specifically refers to the Pentateuch. A better term for the whole Hebrew canon is the "Tanakh."
"Tanakh" is an acronym for the three sections of the Hebrew Bible.
TaNaKh = Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim.
Part II: The Hebrew Canon
The Hebrew Canon is identical in content to the Protestant canon of the Old Testament. There are differences in arrangement and some books are combined together. The Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are each comprised of both volumes and Ezra is comprised of both Ezra and Nehemiah.
- Torah (Law): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy
- Nevi'im (Prophets):
- The Former Prophets - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings
- The Latter Prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel
- The Twelve - Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
- Ketuvim (Writings):
- Sifrei Emet (Poetic Books) - Psalms, Proverbs, and Job
- Five Megillot (Five Scrolls) - Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther
- Daniel
- Ezra (includeds Nehemiah)
- Chronicles
As far as Canon establishment goes, the Law was always considered closed-canon, the Prophets seem to have been established by Ezra as part of the restoration of Israel from Bablylon, but by all accounts is considered closed by no later than 200 BC.
The Writings do not seem to have been held to be closed canon, but as an open canon, or separate category. As Ezra was establishing (or restablishing) the canon of the Prophets, he himself was writing Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Chronicles, all of which are part of the Writings. Daniel, Esther, and some of the Psalms were still recent additions generally contemporary to Ezra. Other Writings including Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Song of Songs were all poetic Books, and Ruth and Esther have romantic natures. None of the Writings except Daniel have the format of "thus saith the Lord to the prophet," which is the common format for the majority of the Pentateuch and all of the Prophets. Closed canon for the Writings was established no later than AD 200.
The Close of the full Rabbinic canon is defined to AD 600 with the publication of the Babylonian Talmud. Note that Gentile believers have never held either the Mishna or Talmud to be Scripture or authoritative to non-Jews.
Part III: Introduction to The Apocrypha
The Catholics and Eastern Orhtodox add what we call the apocrapha and they call the deuterocanonical books (and chapters) - all of which are Old Testament, none of which are Masoretic, but some of which appear in the Septuagint. It is worth noting these two denominational canons differ from one another.
Coverdale was the first to distinctly separate the Apocrypha in the English Bible, but the books have a long history of rejection as the authoritative Word of God. They were rejected from the Hebrew canon as formed around A.D. 100, and most of the early church fathers concurred. The Syrian version omits them, Jerome refused them a place in the Vulgate, and Luther separated them out, giving them the title of "Apocrypha", meaning "secret" or "hidden." The Catholic Church did not accept them as authoritative until 1546 at the Council of Trent.
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