The Tanakh—Hebrew Bible—Old Testament

Introduction to the Torah

Scholars refer to what Jews call the Torah—the collection of five books at the beginning of the Bible including Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—as the Pentateuch. The term Pentateuch is a word derived from the Greek term pentateuchos, meaning "five scrolls" or "five vessels." Traditional Jews call the printed form of these five books the Chumash, a word derived from the Hebrew word for the number five. In popular parlance this collection is often called the Five Books of Moses. This latter designation likely arose both because Moses features prominently in these books and due to the traditional, long-standing belief that Moses authored them. Although other parts of the Hebrew Bible are considered to be divinely inspired, the Torah is often understood to be the most important section of the Jewish Bible or Old Testament, something of a "canon within the canon," that is, the most sacred subsection of the Hebrew Bible.

We should be clear that there is no title on this collection of books that names them "The Torah." The Hebrew word torah can sustain a range of meanings including: teaching, instruction, law, procedure, principle, and so on. It can even be used to describe a specific ritual procedure (as in Leviticus 6:2, 7, 18). The notion that the word torah might refer to this collection of five books likely arises from certain verses in Deuteronomy. Over time, various references in Deuteronomy to a Torah scroll, though initially referring to part or all of Deuteronomy, eventually came to be understood as references to the full text of Genesis through Deuteronomy.

As mentioned above, within modern Jewish culture, the word Torah is used to refer not only to the scroll containing the first five books of the Bible; but also to any and all aspects of Jewish wisdom, lore, or law produced at any time from the Bible until today. This can be grasped more clearly in imagining that you overhear the following conversation among two Jews, perhaps on a flight returning from Israel: "How long were you in Israel? What were you doing there?" "I was in Israel for six months studying Torah." What the person who replied likely means is not that they were literally studying material in the first five books of the Jewish Bible but that they were studying Jewish religious texts more generally, such as the Talmud.

In the Christian tradition, the Torah is often called "The Law," and sometimes this is contrasted with "The Gospel." The Christian tendency to think of law and gospel as opposing terms arose largely during the Reformation in Europe, when the Reformers argued that salvation was obtained not through practicing good deeds or doing good works (that is, obeying the law) but rather was received freely through grace. Many would suggest that this dichotomy is not reflective of the New Testament itself, a collection that needs to be read carefully in light of the debates Paul and others were having regarding Jewish-Gentile relations. Frequently in the New Testament the Torah is simply called "Moses" or the "Book of Moses"; and interestingly, when questioned, Jesus places high value on this collection, at times indicating that obeying its teachings will result in eternal life (see Matthew 19:16-19; Mark 10:17-19; Luke 10:25-28).

There is no question that the Torah has been deeply influential in Western civilization, and two of the world's major religions—Judaism and Christianity—consider the Torah to be sacred and to contain enduring truths about the creation of the world, the texture and meaning of human existence, and the nature and character of God. The story of the Torah covers some 2,700 years beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the death of Moses, with the Israelites poised to enter the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership. While there is much that unifies the material in these books, the Torah contains a host of different kinds of material including mythic stories, genealogies, travel itineraries, census lists, many distinct types of narratives, poetic texts including prayers and prophecies to blessings and taunts, and legal texts dealing with criminal, civil, ritual, and ethical matters. With this in mind, we now turn to examine the content of the Torah in more depth.

Genesis

Introduction and Overview

The name Genesis, meaning "beginnings," is derived from the Greek Septuagint's title for the book. In Jewish tradition, the book of Genesis is called Bereshit, a title derived from the first word of the book in Hebrew, which means "in the beginning" or "when it began." Both titles are especially apt for the first few chapters, but they also apply to the entire book. Not only is the creation of the world and humankind contained in these pages, but so too are the people of Israel brought into existence.

Scholars usually divide the book into two major sections, Genesis 1–11, called the Primeval History, perhaps better termed the Primeval Story, and Genesis 12–50, called the Patriarchal Narratives or Ancestral Narratives. The Primeval Story begins with the creation of the world and highlights God's formation—and thus ownership—of the earth and humankind. This story and those that follow contain a number of "what went wrong?" moments, events in the early history of the world that not only show an apparent downward spiral in human action but also a progressive change in God's dealings with humanity. Genesis 1–11 is rather more universal in scope, in the sense that it concerns all humanity and not only a specific...