Tanakh Formation

The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, is the complete Jewish biblical canon made of the Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim. Its books were written, edited, preserved, and collected over many centuries, with the Torah and Prophets becoming authoritative earlier, and the Writings being finalized later. Britannica notes that the threefold structure of Law, Prophets, and Writings is already reflected in Second Temple period literature.

A good timeline placement is around −400 to 100 for the recognized Jewish canon, because by the late Second Temple and early rabbinic period the collection was close to its final form, though some books of the Writings, like Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, were still discussed by the rabbis. There is no single scholarly consensus for the exact moment the canon was fixed; some scholars place it earlier in the Hasmonean period, while others place it in the 1st–2nd century.