A follow up from yesterday's class:
This morning, it struck me that the Torah, in a written book format, is called a Chumash. The scroll is a Sefer Torah. Yet, the Tanakh acronym includes "Torah." So, since the Tanakh is not a scroll, I'm curious as to why it's Tanakh, instead of something like "Chnakh" ( or whatever the proper grammatical convention would dictate).
Any insight would be appreciated!
Ok. That makes sense.
Thank you!
Well, the Torah is a scroll because that was the original format. I always thought of a Chumash as, yes, a book, but more of containing the English translation and commentary. I don't know how the early Tanakhim were written, as various scrolls or what. Consider the Dead Sea scrolls where they found various parts of the Tanakh as scrolls. These days, if course, book format is easier.