Torah

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Hebrew Torah. For Samaritanism, see Samaritan
Pentateuch. For other uses, see Torah (disambiguation).
"Pentateuch" redirects here. For other uses, see Pentateuch (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Tanakh.

An opened Torah scroll (Book of Genesis part).

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The Torah (/ˈtɔːrə, ˈtoʊrə/; Biblical Hebrew: ‫ ּתֹוָר ה‬Tōrā, "Instruction", "Teaching" or
"Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the
books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.[1] The Torah is
known as the Pentateuch (/ˈpɛntətjuːk/) or the Five Books of Moses by Christians.
It is also known as the Written Torah (‫ּתֹוָר ה ֶׁש ִּבְכָת ב‬, Tōrā šebbīḵṯāv)
in Rabbinical Jewish tradition. If meant for liturgic purposes, it takes the form of a
Torah scroll (Hebrew: ‫ ספר תורה‬Sefer Torah). If in bound book form, it is
called Chumash, and is usually printed with the rabbinic commentaries (perushim).
In rabbinic literature, the word Torah denotes both the five books (‫" תורה שבכתב‬Torah
that is written") and the Oral Torah (‫תורה שבעל פה‬, "Torah that is spoken"). It has also
been used, however, to designate the entire Hebrew Bible. The Oral Torah consists
of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been
handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in
the Talmud and Midrash.[2] Rabbinic tradition's understanding is that all of the
teachings found in the Torah (both written and oral) were given by their God through
the prophet Moses, some at Mount Sinai and others at the Tabernacle, and all the
teachings were written down by Moses, which resulted in the Torah that exists today.
According to the Midrash, the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world,
and was used as the blueprint for Creation.[3] Though hotly debated, the general trend
in biblical scholarship is to recognize the final form of the Torah as a literary and
ideological unity, based on earlier sources, largely complete by the Persian period,[4][5]
[6]
with possibly some later additions during the Hellenistic period.[7][8]
Traditionally, the words of the Torah are written on a scroll by a scribe (sofer) in
Hebrew. A Torah portion is read every Monday morning and Thursday morning at a
shul (synagogue) but only if there are ten males above the age of thirteen. Reading
the Torah publicly is one of the bases of Jewish communal life. The Torah is also
considered a sacred book outside Judaism; in Samaritanism, the Samaritan
Pentateuch is a text of the Torah written in the Samaritan script and used as sacred
scripture by the Samaritans; the Torah is also common among all the different
versions of the Christian Old Testament; in Islam, the Tawrat (Arabic: ‫ )توراة‬is the
Arabic name for the Torah within its context as an Islamic holy book believed
by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst
the Children of Israel.[9]
Meaning and names[edit]
The word "Torah" in Hebrew is derived from the root ‫ירה‬, which in
the hif'il conjugation means 'to guide' or 'to teach'.[10] The meaning of the word is
therefore "teaching", "doctrine", or "instruction"; the commonly accepted "law" gives
a wrong impression.[11] The Alexandrian Jews who translated the Septuagint used the
Greek word nomos, meaning norm, standard, doctrine, and later "law". Greek and
Latin Bibles then began the custom of calling the Pentateuch (five books of Moses)
The Law. Other translational contexts in the English language
include custom, theory, guidance,[2] or system.[12]
The term "Torah" is used in the general sense to include both Rabbinic Judaism's
written and oral law, serving to encompass the entire spectrum of authoritative
Jewish religious teachings throughout history, including the Oral Torah which
comprises the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash and more. The inaccurate
rendering of "Torah" as "Law"[13] may be an obstacle to understanding the ideal that is
summed up in the term talmud torah (‫תלמוד תורה‬, "study of Torah").[2] The term
"Torah" is also used to designate the entire Hebrew Bible.[14]
The earliest name for the first part of the Bible seems to have been "The Torah of
Moses". This title, however, is found neither in the Torah itself, nor in the works of
the pre-Exilic literary prophets. It appears in Joshua[15] and Kings,[16] but it cannot be
said to refer there to the entire corpus (according to academic Bible criticism). In
contrast, there is every likelihood that its use in the post-Exilic works[17] was intended
to be comprehensive. Other early titles were "The Book of Moses"[18] and "The Book
of the Torah",[19] which seems to be a contraction of a fuller name, "The Book of the
Torah of God".[20][21]
Alternative names[edit]
Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the
'Pentateuch' (/ˈpɛn.təˌtjuːk/, PEN-tə-tewk; Greek: πεντάτευχος, pentáteukhos, 'five
scrolls'), a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria.[22]
The "Tawrat" (also Tawrah or Taurat; Arabic: ‫ )توراة‬is the Arabic name for the Torah,
which Muslims believe is an Islamic holy book given by their God to the prophets and
messengers amongst the Children of Israel.[9]
Contents[edit]

Reading pointers, or yad, to ensure more

ordinal reading of the Torah.
The Torah starts with God creating the world, then describes the beginnings of
the people of Israel, their descent into Egypt, and the giving of the Torah at Mount
Sinai. It ends with the death of Moses, just before the people of Israel cross to
the promised land of Canaan. Interspersed in the narrative are the specific teachings
(religious obligations and civil laws) given explicitly (i.e. Ten Commandments) or
implicitly embedded in the narrative (as in Exodus 12 and 13 laws of the celebration
of Passover).
In Hebrew, the five books of the Torah are identified by the incipits in each book;
[23]
and the common English names for the books are derived from
the Greek Septuagint[citation needed] and reflect the essential theme of each book:

 Bəreshit (‫ְּבֵר אִׁש ית‬, literally "In the beginning")—Genesis,

from Γένεσις (Génesis, "Creation")
 Shəmot (‫ְׁש מֹות‬, literally "Names")—Exodus, from Ἔξοδος (Éxodos, "Exit")
 Vayikra (‫ַוִּיְק ָר א‬, literally "And He called")—Leviticus,
from Λευιτικόν (Leuitikón, "Relating to the Levites")
 Bəmidbar (‫ְּבִמ ְד ַּבר‬, literally "In the desert [of]")—Numbers,
from Ἀριθμοί (Arithmoí, "Numbers")
  Dəvarim (‫ְּד ָבִר ים‬, literally "Things" or "Words")—Deuteronomy,
from Δευτερονόμιον (Deuteronómion, "Second-Law")
Genesis[edit]
Main article: Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Torah.[24] It is divisible into two parts,
the Primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the Ancestral history (chapters 12–50).
[25]
The primeval history sets out the author's (or authors') concepts of the nature of
the deity and of humankind's relationship with its maker: God creates a world which
is good and fit for mankind, but when man corrupts it with sin God decides to destroy
his creation, using the flood, saving only the righteous Noah and his immediate
family to reestablish the relationship between man and God.[26] The Ancestral history
(chapters 12–50) tells of the prehistory of Israel, God's chosen people.[27] At God's
command Noah's descendant Abraham journeys from his home into the God-given
land of Canaan, where he dwells as a sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his
grandson Jacob. Jacob's name is changed to Israel, and through the agency of his
son Joseph, the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their
households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel
in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated
by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all mankind
(the covenant with Noah) to a special relationship with one people alone (Abraham
and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob).[28]
Exodus[edit]
Main article: Book of Exodus
The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Torah, immediately following Genesis.
The book tells how the ancient Israelites leave slavery in Egypt through the strength
of Yahweh, the God who has chosen Israel as his people. Yahweh inflicts horrific
harm on their captors via the legendary Plagues of Egypt. With the
prophet Moses as their leader, they journey through the wilderness to Mount Sinai,
where Yahweh promises them the land of Canaan (the "Promised Land") in return
for their faithfulness. Israel enters into a covenant with Yahweh who gives them their
laws and instructions to build the Tabernacle, the means by which he will come
from heaven and dwell with them and lead them in a holy war to possess the land,
and then give them peace.
Traditionally ascribed to Moses himself, modern scholarship sees the book as
initially a product of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), from earlier written and
oral traditions, with final revisions in the Persian post-exilic period (5th century BCE).
[29][30]
Carol Meyers, in her commentary on Exodus suggests that it is arguably the
most important book in the Bible, as it presents the defining features of Israel's
identity: memories of a past marked by hardship and escape, a binding covenant
with God, who chooses Israel, and the establishment of the life of the community and
the guidelines for sustaining it.[31]
Leviticus[edit]
Main article: Book of Leviticus
The Book of Leviticus begins with instructions to the Israelites on how to use
the Tabernacle, which they had just built (Leviticus 1–10). This is followed by rules
of clean and unclean (Leviticus 11–15), which includes the laws of slaughter and
animals permissible to eat (see also: Kashrut), the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16),
and various moral and ritual laws sometimes called the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–
26). Leviticus 26 provides a detailed list of rewards for following God's
commandments and a detailed list of punishments for not following them. Leviticus
17 establishes sacrifices at the Tabernacle as an everlasting ordinance, but this
ordinance is altered in later books with the Temple being the only place in which
sacrifices are allowed.[citation needed]
Numbers[edit]

An opened Torah scroll (Book of Numbers part),

and a reading pointer (yad).
Main article: Book of Numbers
The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Torah.[32] The book has a long and
complex history, but its final form is probably due to a Priestly redaction (i.e., editing)
of a Yahwistic source made some time in the early Persian period (5th century BCE).
[5]
The name of the book comes from the two censuses taken of the Israelites.
Numbers begins at Mount Sinai, where the Israelites have received their laws and
covenant from God and God has taken up residence among them in the sanctuary.
[33]
The task before them is to take possession of the Promised Land. The people are
counted and preparations are made for resuming their march. The Israelites begin
the journey, but they "murmur" at the hardships along the way, and about the
authority of Moses and Aaron. For these acts, God destroys approximately 15,000 of
them through various means. They arrive at the borders of Canaan and send spies
into the land. Upon hearing the spies' fearful report concerning the conditions in
Canaan, the Israelites refuse to take possession of it. God condemns them to death
in the wilderness until a new generation can grow up and carry out the task. The
book ends with the new generation of Israelites in the "plains of Moab" ready for the
crossing of the Jordan River.[34]
Numbers is the culmination of the story of Israel's exodus from oppression in
Egypt and their journey to take possession of the land God promised their fathers.
As such it draws to a conclusion the themes introduced in Genesis and played out in
Exodus and Leviticus: God has promised the Israelites that they shall become a
great (i.e. numerous) nation, that they will have a special relationship with Yahweh
their god, and that they shall take possession of the land of Canaan. Numbers also
demonstrates the importance of holiness, faithfulness and trust: despite God's
presence and his priests, Israel lacks faith and the possession of the land is left to a
new generation.[5]
Deuteronomy[edit]
Main article: Book of Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah. Chapters 1–30 of the book
consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on
the plains of Moab, shortly before they enter the Promised Land. The first sermon
recounts the forty years of wilderness wanderings which had led to that moment, and
ends with an exhortation to observe the law (or teachings), later referred to as
the Law of Moses; the second reminds the Israelites of the need to follow Yahweh
and the laws (or teachings) he has given them, on which their possession of the land
depends; and the third offers the comfort that even should Israel prove unfaithful and
so lose the land, with repentance all can be restored.[35] The final four chapters (31–
34) contain the Song of Moses, the Blessing of Moses, and narratives recounting the
passing of the mantle of leadership from Moses to Joshua and, finally, the death of
Moses on Mount Nebo.
Presented as the words of Moses delivered before the conquest of Canaan, a broad
consensus of modern scholars see its origin in traditions from Israel (the northern
kingdom) brought south to the Kingdom of Judah in the wake of the Assyrian
conquest of Aram (8th century BCE) and then adapted to a program of nationalist
reform in the time of Josiah (late 7th century BCE), with the final form of the modern
book emerging in the milieu of the return from the Babylonian captivity during the late
6th century BCE.[36] Many scholars see the book as reflecting the economic needs
and social status of the Levite caste, who are believed to have provided its authors;
[37]
those likely authors are collectively referred to as the Deuteronomist.
One of its most significant verses is Deuteronomy 6:4,[38] the Shema Yisrael, which
has become the definitive statement of Jewish identity: "Hear, O Israel:
the LORD our God, the LORD is one." Verses 6:4–5 were also quoted by Jesus in
Mark 12:28–34[39] as part of the Great Commandment.
Composition[edit]
Main articles: Composition of the Torah and Mosaic authorship
The Talmud states that the Torah was written by Moses, with the exception of the
last eight verses of Deuteronomy, describing his death and burial, being written
by Joshua.[40] According to the Mishnah one of the essential tenets of Judaism is that
God transmitted the text of the Torah to Moses[41] over the span of the 40 years the
Israelites were in the desert[42] and Moses was like a scribe who was dictated to and
wrote down all of the events, the stories and the commandments.[43]
According to Jewish tradition, the Torah was recompiled by Ezra during Second
Temple period.[44][45] The Talmud says that Ezra changed the script used to write the
Torah from the older Hebrew script to Assyrian script, so called according to the
Talmud, because they brought it with them from Assyria.[46] Maharsha says that Ezra
made no changes to the actual text of the Torah based on the Torah's prohibition of
making any additions or deletions to the Torah in Deuteronomy 12:32. [47]

One common formulation of the documentary hypothesis.

By contrast, the modern scholarly consensus rejects Mosaic authorship, and affirms
that the Torah has multiple authors and that its composition took place over
centuries.[5] The precise process by which the Torah was composed, the number of
authors involved, and the date of each author are hotly contested. Throughout most
of the 20th century, there was a scholarly consensus surrounding the documentary
hypothesis, which posits four independent sources, which were later compiled
together by a redactor: J, the Jahwist source, E, the Elohist source, P, the Priestly
source, and D, the Deuteronomist source. The earliest of these sources, J, would
have been composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BCE, with the latest source,
P, being composed around the 5th century BCE.

The supplementary hypothesis, one potential successor to

the documentary hypothesis.
The consensus around the documentary hypothesis collapsed in the last decades of
the 20th century.[48] The groundwork was laid with the investigation of the origins of
the written sources in oral compositions, implying that the creators of J and E were
collectors and editors and not authors and historians.[49] Rolf Rendtorff, building on
this insight, argued that the basis of the Pentateuch lay in short, independent
narratives, gradually formed into larger units and brought together in two editorial
phases, the first Deuteronomic, the second Priestly.[50] By contrast, John Van
Seters advocates a supplementary hypothesis, which posits that the Torah was
derived from a series of direct additions to an existing corpus of work.[51] A "neo-
documentarian" hypothesis, which responds to the criticism of the original hypothesis
and updates the methodology used to determine which text comes from which
sources, has been advocated by biblical historian Joel S. Baden, among others.[52]
[53]
Such a hypothesis continues to have adherents in Israel and North America.[53]
The majority of scholars today continue to recognize Deuteronomy as a source, with
its origin in the law-code produced at the court of Josiah as described by De Wette,
subsequently given a frame during the exile (the speeches and descriptions at the
front and back of the code) to identify it as the words of Moses.[54] However, since the
1990s, the biblical description of Josiah's reforms (including his court's production of
a law-code) have become heavily debated among academics.[55][56][57] Most scholars
also agree that some form of Priestly source existed, although its extent, especially
its end-point, is uncertain.[58] The remainder is called collectively non-Priestly, a
grouping which includes both pre-Priestly and post-Priestly material.[59]
Date of compilation[edit]
The final Torah is widely seen as a product of the Persian period (539–332 BCE,
probably 450–350 BCE).[60] This consensus echoes a traditional Jewish view which
gives Ezra, the leader of the Jewish community on its return from Babylon, a pivotal
role in its promulgation.[61] Many theories have been advanced to explain the
composition of the Torah, but two have been especially influential.[62] The first of
these, Persian Imperial authorisation, advanced by Peter Frei in 1985, holds that the
Persian authorities required the Jews of Jerusalem to present a single body of law as
the price of local autonomy.[63] Frei's theory was, according to Eskenazi,
"systematically dismantled" at an interdisciplinary symposium held in 2000, but the
relationship between the Persian authorities and Jerusalem remains a crucial
question.[64] The second theory, associated with Joel P. Weinberg and called the
"Citizen-Temple Community", proposes that the Exodus story was composed to
serve the needs of a post-exilic Jewish community organised around the Temple,
which acted in effect as a bank for those who belonged to it.[65]
A minority of scholars would place the final formation of the Pentateuch somewhat
later, in the Hellenistic (332–164 BCE) or even Hasmonean (140–37 BCE) periods.
[66]
Russell Gmirkin, for instance, argues for a Hellenistic dating on the basis that
the Elephantine papyri, the records of a Jewish colony in Egypt dating from the last
quarter of the 5th century BCE, make no reference to a written Torah, the Exodus, or
to any other biblical event, though it does mention the festival of Passover.[67]
Adoption of Torah law[edit]

Josiah hearing the reading of Book of

Deuteronomy (illustration by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld).
Further information: Origins of Judaism
In his seminal Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, Julius Wellhausen argued that
Judaism as a religion based on widespread observance of the Torah and its
laws first emerged in 444 BCE when, according to the biblical account provided in
the Book of Nehemiah (chapter 8), a priestly scribe named Ezra read a copy of the
Mosaic Torah before the populace of Judea assembled in a central Jerusalem
square.[68] Wellhausen believed that this narrative should be accepted as historical
because it sounds plausible, noting: "The credibility of the narrative appears on the
face of it."[69] Following Wellhausen, most scholars throughout the 20th and early 21st
centuries[like whom?] have accepted that widespread Torah observance began sometime
around the middle of the 5th century BCE. [clarify][citation needed]
More recently, Yonatan Adler has argued that in fact there is no surviving evidence
to support the notion that the Torah was widely known, regarded as authoritative,
and put into practice prior to the middle of the 2nd century BCE.[70] Adler explored the
likelihhood that Judaism, as the widespread practice of Torah law by Jewish society
at large, first emerged in Judea during the reign of the Hasmonean dynasty,
centuries after the putative time of Ezra.[71] By contrast, John J. Collins has argued
that the observance of the Torah started in Persian Yehud when the Judeans who
returned from exile understood its normativity as the observance of selected,
ancestral laws of high symbolic value, while during the Maccabean revolt Jews
started a much more detailed observance of its precepts.[72]
Significance in Judaism[edit]

Torahs in Ashkenazi Synagogue (Istanbul, Turkey).

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