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In time, the early history of the Patriarchs and the story of the Hebrew people under Moses were written of in what we know as the "Five books of Moses" or the Pentateuch of the Bible. This is the content of the Jewish Torah
that contains the 613 commandments that Orthodox Jews down to today continue to use as a foundation for living a life guided and blessed by God. Every synagogue contains at least one Torah, handwritten in Hebrew by scribes on parchment scrolls, and actively used in Sabbath and holy day synagogue liturgy.
Two other parts of the Hebrew Bible consist of the "Books of the Prophets" (Nevi'im) and the "Writings" (Ketuvim) of the ancient sages. Together, Jews refer to this collection of Holy books as TaNaKh - an acronym based on the initial letters of each of the three parts of the Hebrew Bible.
The books of the Tanakh are the same as those familiar to Christians as the "Old Testament". Jews, however, do not refer to their Bible as the "Old Testament" for they do not use the New Testament and thus have no reason to distinguish one part of the Bible from the other. To a Jew, "Bible" simply implies what Christians consider to be the "Old Testament". The "New Testament" is not part of the Hebrew Bible and most Jews have never read this part of the Bible that was added by early Christians (Christians having adopted and appended the Jewish Bible).
Orthodox Jews also abide by the Talmud. Known as "Oral Torah," the Talmud is commentary on Torah composed by the ancient Rabbis between the 2nd - 7th centuries CE. Talmud ultimately took on a written form as a supplement to Torah, expanding on Torah in thoughtful debate. Together with Torah, Talmud assists Orthodox Jews to abide by Torah law in just about every aspect of their day to day living. For example, where Torah tells the Jew to "not boil a kid in its mother's milk," (Ex. 23:19), Talmud goes on to spell out precisely what must be done to assure that one does not break this Law. Thus the origin of all the various dietary laws that direct the separation of meat and dairy products.
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