What is the name of the Hebrew holy book?

When you ask
about the Hebrew holy book, I assume that you are asking about the scriptures that are held by
Jews to be sacred.  If that is the case, different people use different names for this
scripture.  Non-Jews often refer to the Jewish holy book as the Old Testament.  The scriptures
are also sometimes called the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, or the Written Torah.  However, the most
proper name for these scriptures is the Tanakh.

While many Americans use the
term Old Testament, Jews do not use the term because they do not recognize the Christian New
Testament as part of scripture.  Since there is no new testament in their minds, there is no
reason to call their scripture the Old Testament.  Many people also use the term Torah to
refer to Jewish scripture.  However, that term most properly refers only to the first five books
of the Old Testament, also called the Pentateuch.  The proper term for the Jewish scripture as a
whole is Tanakh.  This term is an acronym for the three sections of the scripture.  The first is
the Torah, or law.  The second is Neviim or the prophets.  Finally, there is the Kethuvim, or
the writings.  The beginnings of these three words are made into the acronym Tanakh.  This is
the term that should be used to refer to the holy book of the Jews.