אמת

Good Luck!

Of course, as Michal answered, 'truth' is 'emeth'.

As far as the 'biblical' concept is concerned, that's a point at history of ideas, culture and civilization, and you may be well advised to look, as a first step, for Internet ressources (in the like of Jewish and Christian biblical exegesis).

There may be academic monographies as well ("The Concept Of Truth In Leviticus", "In Later Sacerdotal Judaism", and so on), you should be able to pick up on the Web elements of a bibliography on the subject.

Good luck (be-hatzlacha), J.M.

It is derived from the root ' - m - n, from which we also get the word "amen".

(Emet was formed by adding a final -t, which "swallowed" up the -n, as it were.)

The root means "was true, faithful", and so it covers the semantic range of "true, faithful, sure, enduring, trust(-ing), trustworthy," etc.

So "amen" means "a true thing, truth", "emun" means "faithful, true, sincere", "omen" means "faith" or "truly", "omenah" (II Kings 18:16) means a "beam", as in something you can trust not to fall on your head! "Emunah" means "faithfulness, truth". "Amanah" = covenant, contract.