Book of Genesis Book of Exodus Book of Leviticus Book of Numbers Book of Deuteronomy

Book of GenesisThe Book of Genesis (from Ancient Greek (gnesis), meaning "birth, origin"; from Hebrew ( B'reishit) (Biblical: B'reshiyth), meaning "In the beginning"[1]) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The narrative of the book traces the origin of God's chosen people, Israel and his descendants, from the Creation to their descent into Egypt; the succeeding books of the Torah follow their subsequent liberation from Egypt through the power of God. Structurally, it consists of the "primeval history" (chapters 111) and cycles of Patriarchal stories (chapters 1250)Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (renamed, Israel), and concluding with Joseph. While some traditions contained in it are as old as the monarchy, with some poetry that may be earlier, its final shape and message come only from the Exilic and Persian periods (6th and 5th centuries BCE).[2] For Jews and Christians alike, the theological importance of Genesis centers on the Covenants linking the Lord (God) to his Chosen People and the people to the Promised Land. Christianity has interpreted Genesis as the prefiguration of certain cardinal Christian beliefs, primarily the need for salvation (the hope of all Christians) and the redemptive act of Christ on the Cross as the fulfillment of covenant promises as the Son of God.

Contents

1 Synopsis 2 Content o 2.1 Primeval history o 2.2 Patriarchal history 2.2.1 Abraham and Isaac 2.2.2 Jacob 2.2.3 Joseph 3 Text and composition o 3.1 Text o 3.2 Composition 4 Themes

4.1 Religion of the Patriarchs 4.1.1 Alt's "Religion of the Patriarchs" 4.1.2 Conservative views o 4.2 Covenants 4.2.1 Covenant with Noah 4.2.2 Patriarchal covenants 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 References 8 External linkso

SynopsisGod calls the world into being through his divine word and appoints man as his regent; but, man proves corrupt and God destroys his world through the Flood. The new world after the Flood is equally corrupt; but, God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At God's command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God. Abraham dwells in the land as a sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel. Jacob and his twelve sons descend into Egypt, 70 persons in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness.

ContentPrimeval historySee also: Genesis creation narrative, on Genesis 1-2 Bereishit, on Genesis 1-6: Creation, Eden, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Lamech, wickedness Noach, on Genesis 6-11: Noahs Ark, the Flood, Noahs drunkenness, the Tower of Babel

God ("Elohim") creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh. The world God creates is good, but it becomes corrupted by the sin of man and God sends a deluge (a great flood) to destroy it, saving only a man who is righteous (Noah), his wife, his sons and his daughters in law, from whose seed the world is repopulated ("be fruitful and multiply").[Gen 8:17] Mankind falls back into rebelliousness, but God has promised that he will not destroy it a second time, and selects Abraham to be the seed of his chosen people, Israel.

Patriarchal history

Abraham and IsaacSee also: Lech-Lecha, on Genesis 12-17: Abraham, Sarah, Lot, covenant, Hagar and Ishmael, circumcision

Vayeira, on Genesis 18-22: Abraham's visitors, Sodomites, Lots visitors and flight, Hagar expelled, binding of Isaac Chayei Sarah, on Genesis 23-25: Sarah buried, Rebekah for Isaac

God reveals himself to Abram, tenth in descent from Noah and twentieth from Adam, and instructs him to travel to the land which Canaan's descendants had settled. "Lift up your eyes, and look ... for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants for ever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you."[Gen 13] God makes a covenant with Abram,[3] promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, but that they shall suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they shall inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates."[Gen 15] [4] Abram's name is changed to "Abraham" and that of his wife Sarai to "Sarah," and circumcision of all males is instituted as an external sign of the covenant. Sarah is barren, and tells Abram to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a concubine. Through Hagar, Abraham becomes the father of Ishmael,[5] Abraham asks God that Ishmael "might live in Thy sight," (that is, be favoured), but God replies that Sarah will bear a son, who will be named Isaac,[6] through whom the covenant will be established.[Gen 17] At Sarah's insistence Ishmael and his mother Hagar are driven out into the wilderness, but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael also a great nation. God resolves to destroy the city of Sodom for the sins of its people. Abraham protests that it is not just "to slay the righteous with the wicked," and asks if the whole city can be spared if even ten righteous men are found there. God replies: "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."[Gen 18] [7] Abraham's nephew Lot is saved from the destruction of Sodom, and through incest with his daughters becomes the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites.[Gen 19] God tests Abraham by commanding that he sacrifice Isaac. Abraham obeys; but, as he is about to lay the knife upon his son, God restrains him, promising him numberless descendants.[Gen 22] On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah for a family tomb[Gen 2] and sends his servant to Mesopotamia, Nahor's home, to find among his relations a wife for Isaac; and Rebekah, Nahor's granddaughter, is chosen.[Gen 24] Other children are born to Abraham by another wife, Keturah, among whose descendants are the Midianites; and he dies in a prosperous old age and is buried in his tomb at Hebron.[Gen 25]

[edit] Jacob

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel by Alexander Louis Leloir. See also:

Toledot, on Genesis 25-28: Esau and Jacob, Esau's birthright, Isaacs blessing Vayetze, on Genesis 28-32: Jacob flees, Rachel, Leah, Laban, Jacobs children and departure Vayishlach, on Genesis 32-36: Jacobs reunion with Esau, the rape of Dinah

Isaac's wife Rebekah is barren, but Isaac prays to God, and she gives birth to the twins Esau, father of the Edomites,[8] and Jacob.[9] Jacob's name is changed to Israel, and by his wives Rachel and Leah and their handmaidens he has twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel.

[edit] JosephSee also: Vayeshev, on Genesis 37-40: Joseph's dreams, coat, and slavery, Judah with Tamar, Joseph and Potiphar Miketz, on Genesis 41-44: Pharaohs dream, Joseph's in government, Josephs brothers visit Egypt Vayigash, on Genesis 44-47: Joseph reveals himself, Jacob moves to Egypt Vayechi, on Genesis 47-50: Jacobs blessings, death of Jacob and of Joseph

Jacob's son Judah takes a Canaanite wife. They have three sons. The oldest, Er marries an Israelite woman named Tamar. Er dies and Judah gives Tamar to his second son. He dies also leaving Tamar childless. Tamar tricks Judah into fathering twin sons, the oldest Pharez is an ancestor of the future royal house of David. Jacob's favourite son, Joseph, is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, who resent the favouritism shown him. But Joseph prospers, and when famine comes he brings his father and his brothers and their households, seventy persons in all, to Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them the land of Goshen.[Gen 46-47] Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future to them[Gen 49] before he dies and is interred in the family tomb at Machpelah (Hebron). Joseph lives to see his great-grandchildren, and on his death-bed he exhorts his brethren, if God should remember them and lead them out of the country, to take his bones with them. The book ends with Joseph's remains being "put in a coffin in Egypt."[Gen 50]

[edit] Text and composition

Bereshit aleph, or the first chapter of Genesis, written on an egg, which is kept in the Israel Museum.

[edit] TextThe oldest extant manuscripts of Genesis are the twenty-four fragments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating from between 150 BC and AD 70. The next oldest are the Greek Septuagint manuscripts of the Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, produced by the early Christian church in the 4th century. The oldest manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, which forms the basis of Jewish worship and many Western Christian bibles, date from around AD 1000. Also worthy of note are the Samaritan and Syriac translations. Modern scholarly translations rely on all these manuscripts, attempting to find the best possible version through critical examination of the texts.

[edit] CompositionThere is currently no consensus on the process by which Genesis came to be written. The documentary hypothesis (which sees Genesis the product of the editorial weaving of a number of originally independent and complete accounts of the same material), which did enjoy the status of a consensus among many Western scholars for most of the 20th century, no longer enjoys the support it once did, and rival theories have been advanced using fragmentary models (composition by an author from various "fragments") or supplementary models (an original text later expanded and edited), or combinations of these.[10] The many anachronisms in the text point to a date in the 1st millennium BC, and current proposals place it in the 5th century when the post-Exilic Jewish community was trying to adapt itself to life under the Persian empire.[11]

[edit] Themes[edit] Religion of the Patriarchs

[edit] Alt's "Religion of the Patriarchs"In 1929 Albrecht Alt proposed that the Hebrews arrived in Canaan at different times and as different groups, each with its nameless "gods of the fathers." In time these gods were assimilated with the Canaanite El, and names such as "El, God of Israel" emerged. The "God of Abraham" then became identified with the "God of Isaac" and so on. Finally the name of God reconstructed by Western scholars as "Yahweh" was introduced in the Mosaic period. The authors of Genesis, living in a later period when this God had become the only God, partly obscured and partly preserved this history in their attempt to demonstrate that the patriarchs shared their own monotheistic worship of Yahweh. According to Alt, the theology of the earliest period and of later fully developed monotheistic Judaism were nevertheless identical: both "Yahweh" and the tribal gods revealed himself/themselves to the patriarchs, promised them descendants, and protected them in their wanderings; they in turn enjoyed a special relationship with their god, worshiped him, and established holy places in his honor. This flatly contradicts the commandment reported as given to Moses in Exodus 20:3 and the extremely numerous mentions of the subject throughout the Bible.[12] In 1934 Julius Lewy, drawing on the recently discovered Ugarit texts, opined that the "God of Abraham" was not anonymous, but was probably El Shaddai, "El of the Mountain" (El being identified with a mythical holy mountain). Lewy asserts that the name Shaddai, however, remains mysterious, and has also been identified with both a specific city and with a Hebrew root meaning "breast".[13] In 1962 Frank Moore Cross concluded that the name Yahweh developed as one of the many epithets of El: "El the creator, he who causes to be." For Cross the continuity between El and Yahweh explained how the other El-names could continue to be used in Genesis, and why Baal (in Canaanite mythology a rival to El) was regarded with such hostility.[14] More recently, Mark S. Smith has returned to the Ugarit texts in an attempt to show how polytheism "was a feature of Israelite religion down through the end of the Iron Age and how monotheism emerged in the seventh and sixth centuries."[15]

[edit] Conservative viewsIn contrast to this picture of a Canaanite background to Genesis, Lloyd R. Bailey (1968) and E.L. Abel (1973) have suggested that Abraham worshipped Sin the Amorite moon-god of Harran. To support their theory, Bailey and Abel point (1) to Abraham's association with Harran and Ur, both centers of the cult of Sin, (2) to the epithet "Father of the gods" applied to Sin (comparable to Abram's name, "Exalted Father") and, (3) to the close similarity between names associated with Abraham and with Sin: Sarah/Sarratu (Sin's wife); Milcah/Malkatu (Sin's daughter); and Terah/Ter (a name of Sin).[16] M. Haran has also distinguished between Canaanite and Patriarchal religion, pointing out that the Patriarchs never worship at existing shrines but rather build their own shrines, something which is asserted to befit a seminomadic lifestyle. He also points to the invocation of Shaddai by Baalam and the identification of the Patriarchal God with the "sons of Eber" in Genesis 10:21 as evidence that their god was not originally Canaanite. Gordon Wenham has pointed out that El (or "Il") is a well-known member of the third-millennium Mesopotamian pantheon, adding: "Whether El was ever identified with the moon god is uncertain. To judge from the names of Abraham's relations and the cult of his home town, his ancestors at least were moon-god worshippers. Whether he continued to honour this gods [sic] identifying him with El, or converted to El, is unclear."[17]

[edit] Covenants

See also: Covenant (biblical) The covenants are integral to the understanding not only of Genesis but also of the entire Bible.[18] Otto Eissfeldt, an early scholar of the Ugarit texts, recognised that in Ugarit the promise of a son was given to kings together with promises of blessing and numerous descendants, which the author asserts is a clear parallel to the pattern of Genesis. Claus Westermann (1964 and 1976), analysing the Genesis covenants in the light of Ugarit and Icelandic sagas, came to the conclusion that the Patriarchal stories were usually lacking any promises in their original form. Westermann saw the promise of a son in Genesis 16:11 and 18:1-15 as genuine, as well as the promise of land behind 15:7-21 and 28:13-15; the rest he saw as representing later editors.[19] Rolf Rendtorff accepts Westermann's thesis that the Patriarchal stories were originally independent, and suggests that the promises were added to link the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob into cycles which grew through a process of gradual accretion into the final book. John Van Seters speculates that Genesis is a late and unified composition, from which it is impossible to excise the Covenants without doing damage to the overall narrative.[20]

[edit] Covenant with NoahIn Genesis 9:8-17, God makes a covenant with Noah, Noah's future descendants, and every living creature. God promises to never again destroy the earth by flood. The sign of this covenant is the rainbow. As, so to speak, the divine warrior, God is hanging God's bow in the sky. When God sees the bow, God will remember the covenant between God and all living creatures.[21]

[edit] Patriarchal covenantsScholars assert that this is transmitted to us in three traditions, Genesis 12, Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. The Lord has contracted this covenant with Abraham with strong emphasis on the promise (especially in Gen. 17). Two promises were made, viz. the multiplication of Abrahams offspring and the inheritance of the Promised Land. The sign of this covenant is circumcision, as seen in Genesis 17:9-14. It is obvious, e.g. from the book of Exodus, that the promise of a large offspring is regarded as fulfilled (cf. Exodus 1:7-22). The description of the conquering of the Promised Land in Joshua points to the fulfillment of the promise of inheritance. The patriarchal covenant is thus mainly promissory. This covenant is seen as significant throughout the entire Old Testament.[22]

[edit] See alsoBooks of the Torah 1. 2. 3. 4. Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers

5. Deuteronomy Wikisource has original text related to this article: Genesis

Allegorical interpretations of Genesis Bible and history Biblical Patriarchs Dating the Bible The Genesis Code Genesis Rabba Interpretations of Genesis Kabbalah Paradise Lost Tanakh Timeline of the Bible Weekly Torah portion Wife-sister narratives in Genesis

[edit] Further reading

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis. New York: Doubleday, 1995. (A scholarly Jewish commentary employing traditional sources.) Bruce Vawter, On Genesis: A New Reading. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1977. (An introduction to Genesis by a fine Catholic scholar. Genesis was Vawter's hobby.) Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), In the Beginning. Edinburgh, 1995. (A Catholic understanding of the story of Creation and Fall.) E. A. Speiser, Genesis, The Anchor Bible. Volume 1. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1964. (A translation with scholarly commentary and philological notes by a noted Semitic scholar. The series is written for laypeople and specialists alike.) Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. Baker Books, 1981. ISBN (A creationist Christian commentary.) Jean-Marc Rouvire, Brves mditations sur la cration du monde. L'Harmattan Paris, 2006. Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. (A mainstream Jewish commentary.) Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis. New York: Schocken Press, 1966. (A scholarly Jewish treatment, strong on historical perspective.) Nehama Leibowitz, New Studies in Bereshit, Genesis. Jerusalem: Hemed Press, 1995. (A scholarly Jewish commentary employing traditional sources.) Umberto Cassuto, From Noah to Abraham. Eisenbrauns, 1984. ISBN (A scholarly Jewish commentary.)

[edit] References1. ^ Hebrew word #7225 in Strong's 2. ^ John McDermott, "Historical Issues in the Pentateuch", Bible and Interpretation 3. ^ See Fire pot#Early Jewish Symbol of God

4. ^ The "river of Egypt", traditionally identified not with the Nile but with Wadi el Arish in the Sinai, and the Euphrates, represent the supposed bounds of Israel at its height under Solomon. 5. ^ Hebrew Yishmael, "God will hear". 6. ^ Hebrew Yitzhak, "he laughed," sometimes rendered as "he rejoiced" - three explanations of the name are given, the first in this chapter where Abraham laughs when told that Sarah will bear a son 7. ^ Abraham's intercession on behalf of the people of Sodom is the foundation of the important Jewish tradition of righteousness. 8. ^ Hebrew Esau, "made" or "completed". Genesis 36. 9. ^ Hebrew Yaakov, from a root meaning "crooked, bent", usually interpreted as meaning "heel" - according to the narrative he was born second, holding Esau's heel. 10. ^ Oxford Bible Commentary (ed. John Barton, John Muddiman, Oxford University Press, 2001) p.39 11. ^ Ska, Jean-Louis, "Introduction to reading the Pentateuch" (Eisenbrauns, 2006) pp.217 ff. 12. ^ Cruden, Alexander, A Complete Concordance to the old and New Testament, very numerous editions (especially under "God" and "gods") 13. ^ See Biblical Studies Org. and David Biale, "The God With Breasts: El Shaddai in the Bible, 1982. 14. ^ Frank Moore Cross, "Yahweh and the God of the Patriarchs", 1962 and 1973. 15. ^ Mark S. Smith, "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts", 2002. "Origins of Biblical Monotheism", Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Vol.). 16. ^ Lloyd Bailey, "Israelite El Sadday and Amorite Bel Sade" and E.L. Abel, "The Nature of the Patriarchal God El Sadday". 17. ^ Gordon J. Wenham, "The Religion of the Patriarchs" (accessed April 7, 2010) 18. ^ Robertson, O. Palmer, The Christ of the Covenants" 19. ^ Westermann distinguished four types of promise: a son; descendents; blessing; land. He regarded promises as early if they were not combined and if they were intrinsic to the narrative. 20. ^ Summarised from "The Patriarchs: History and Religion". 21. ^ Coogan, Michael. A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 55 22. ^ D. R. W. Wood and I. Howard Marshall, New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 235236.

[edit] External links

Book of Genesis illustrated Genesis Reading Room (Tyndale Seminary): online commentaries and monographs on Genesis. Bereshit with commentary in Hebrew Bereishit - Genesis (Hebrew - English at Mechon-Mamre.org) Genesis at Mechon-Mamre (Jewish Publication Society translation) Hebrew Audiobook of Genesis from Librivox Genesis (The Living Torah) Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's translation and commentary at Ort.org

Genesis (Judaica Press) at Chabad.org Young's Literal Translation (YLT) New International Version (NIV) New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Westminster-Leningrad codex Aleppo CodexBook of Genesis Pentateuch Hebrew Bible

Preceded by None

Christian Old Testament

Succeeded by Exodus

Hebrew BibleFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article or section appears to contradict itself about the subject definition. Please see its talk page for more information. (April 2011) This article is about collected Hebrew and Aramaic texts. For the Jewish canon, see Tanakh. For the various Christian canons, see Old Testament.

11th century manuscript of the Hebrew Bible with Aramaic TargumPart of a series on

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The Hebrew Bible (also Hebrew Scriptures, Latin Biblia Hebraica) is a term used by biblical scholars to refer to the Jewish Bible (Hebrew: "Tanakh). It takes its name from the fact that the Jewish Bible is composed mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (about half of the Book of Daniel, some parts of the Book of Ezra and a few other passages). The content, which closely corresponds to the Protestant Old Testament, does not include the deuterocanonical portions of the Roman Catholic or the Anagignoskomena portions of the Eastern Orthodox Old Testaments. The term does not imply naming, numbering or ordering of books, which varies with Biblical canon. The term is an attempt to provide specificity with respect to contents, while avoiding allusion to any particular interpretative tradition or theological school of thought. It is widely used in academic writing and interfaith discussion in relatively neutral contexts meant to include dialogue among all religious traditions, but not widely in the inner discourse of the religions which use its text.

Contents[hide]

1 Usage 2 Biblia Hebraica 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading

[edit] Usage[hide]Books of the Hebrew Bible for Jewish Bible see Tanakh English Names

Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Ruth 1 Samuel

2 Samuel 1 Kings 2 Kings 1 Chronicles 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Esther Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi vde

Hebrew Bible is a term that refers to the common/shared portions of the Tanakh (Jewish canon) and the Christian biblical canons. In its Latin form, Biblia Hebraica, it traditionally serves as a title for printed editions of the Masoretic Text. Many scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible when discussing these books in academic writing, as a neutral substitute to terms with religious connotations (e.g., the nonneutral term "old testament").[1] The Society of Biblical Literature's Handbook of Style, which is the standard for major academic journals like Harvard Theological Review and conservative Protestant journals like Bibliotheca Sacra and Westminster Theological Journal, suggests that authors "be aware of the connotations of alternative expressions such as ... Hebrew Bible [and] Old Testament" without prescribing the use of either.[2] Additional difficulties include:

In terms of theology, Christianity has struggled with the relationship between "old" and "new" testaments from its very beginnings.[3][4] Modern Christian formulations of this tension, sometimes building upon ancient and medieval ideas, include

supersessionism, covenant theology, dispensationalism, and dual covenant theology. However, all of these formulations, except some forms of dual-covenant theology, are objectionable to mainstream Judaism and to many Jewish scholars and writers, for whom there is one eternal covenant between God and Israel, and who therefore reject the very term "Old Testament." In terms of canon, Christian usage of "Old Testament" does not refer to a universally agreed upon set of books, but rather varies depending on denomination. The term Old Testament is a Christian term used to identify the Hebrew Bible as a portion of the Christian scriptures and so can sometimes imply an unintended Christian frame of reference for it.[citation needed]

Coin from Bar-Kokhba Revolt demonstrating Paleo-Hebrew Hebrew in the term Hebrew Bible refers to the original language of the books, but it may also be taken as referring to the Jews of the Second Temple era and the Diaspora, and their descendants, who preserved the transmission of the Masoretic Text up to the present day. The Hebrew Bible includes some small portions in Aramaic (mostly in the books of Daniel and Ezra), which are nonetheless written and printed in the Hebrew alphabet and script, which is the same as Aramaic square-script.[citation needed] Some Qumran Hebrew biblical manuscripts are written using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet of the classical era of Solomon's Temple.[5] The famous examples of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet are the Siloam inscription (8th century BCE), the Lachish ostraca (6th century BCE), and the Bar Kokhba coin shown above (circa 132 CE).

[edit] Biblia HebraicaThe Biblia Hebraica is edited by various German publishers.

Between 1906 and 1955 Rudolf Kittel published 9 editions of it. 1966, the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft published the renamed Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia in six editions until 1997. Since 2004 the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft publishes the Biblia Hebraica Quinta including all variants of the Qumran manuscripts as well as the Masorah Magna.

[edit] See also

Biblical canon Books of the Bible Christianity and Judaism Development of the Jewish Bible canon Judeo-Christian Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible

Torah List of major biblical figures

[edit] References1. ^ For a prominent discussion of the term's usage and the motivations for it, see "The New Old Testament" by William Safire, New York Times, 1997-25-5. Also see: Mark Hamilton. "From Hebrew Bible to Christian Bible: Jews, Christians and the Word of God". Retrieved 2007-11-19. "Modern scholars often use the term 'Hebrew Bible' to avoid the confessional terms Old Testament and Tanakh." 2. ^ Patrick H. Alexander et al., Eds. (1999). The SBL Handbook of Style. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers. pp. 17 (section 4.3). ISBN 1-56563-487-X. 3. ^ 'Marcion', in Encyclopdia Britannica, 1911. 4. ^ For the modern debate, see Biblical law in Christianity 5. ^ DOCTRINE OF THE BIBLE

[edit] Further reading

Johnson, Paul (1987). A History of the Jews (First, hardback ed.). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-79091-9. Kuntz, John Kenneth. The People of Ancient Israel: an introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought, Harper and Row, 1974. ISBN 0-06-043822-3 Searching for the Better Text: How errors crept into the Bible and what can be done to correct them Biblical Archaeology Review

[show]v d eTimeline of the Ancient Near

EastCategories: Bible | Hebrew Bible

Old TestamentFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Note: Judaism uses the term Tanakh to refer to its canon of the Masoretic Text. In academic circles, the more neutral term, Hebrew Bible, is commonly used to refer to these common Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity.[show] Part of a series on

Christianity

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Johannine works Petrine epistles Translations and manuscripts Samaritan Torah Dead Sea scrolls Masoretic text Targums Peshitta Septuagint Vulgate Gothic Bible Vetus Latina Luther Bible English Bibles Biblical studies Dating the Bible Biblical criticism Higher criticism Textual criticism Canonical criticism Novum Testamentum Graece Documentary hypothesis Synoptic problem NT textual categories Historicity People Places Names Internal consistency Archeology Artifacts Science and the Bible Interpretation Hermeneutics Pesher Midrash Pardes Allegorical interpretation Literalism Prophecy

Perspectives Gnostic Islamic Qur'anic Christianity and Judaism Inerrancy Infallibility Criticism of the Bible

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The Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures are the collection of books that forms the first of two parts of the Christian Biblical canon. The contents of the Old Testament canon vary from church to church, with the Orthodox communion having 51 books: the shared books are those of the shortest canon, that of the major Protestant communions, with 39 books. Christians hold different views of the Old Testament or Old Covenant in contrast to the New Covenant. All Old Testament canons are related to the Jewish Bible Canon (Tanakh), but with variations. The most important of these variations is a change to the order of the books: the Hebrew Bible ends with the Book of Chronicles, which describes Israel restored to the Promised Land and the Temple restored in Jerusalem; in the Hebrew Bible God's purpose is thus fulfilled and the divine history is at an end, according to Dispensationalism and Supersessionism (see Jewish Eschatology for Jewish beliefs on the subject). In the Christian Old Testament the Book of Malachi is placed last, so that a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah leads into the birth of the Christ in the Gospel of Matthew. The Tanakh is written in Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, and is therefore also known as the Hebrew Bible (the text of the Jewish Bible is called the Masoretic, after the medieval Jewish rabbis who compiled it). The Masoretic Text (i.e. the Hebrew text revered by medieval and modern Jews) is only one of several versions of the original scriptures of ancient Judaism, and no manuscripts of that hypothetical original text exist. In the last few centuries before Christ, Hellenistic-Jewish scholars produced a translation of their scriptures in Greek, the common language of the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire since the conquests of Alexander the Great. This translation, known as the Septuagint, forms the basis of the Orthodox and some other Eastern Old Testaments. The Old Testaments of the Western branches of Christianity were originally based on a Latin translation of the Septuagint known as the Vetus Latina, this was replaced by Jerome's Vulgate, which continues to be highly respected in the Catholic Church, but Protestant churches generally follow translations of a scholarly reference known as the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the Divino Afflante Spiritu which allows Catholic translations from texts other than the Vulgate, notably in English the New American Bible.

The Hebrew Bible divides its books into three categories, the Torah ("Instructions"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets") (according to some Christians, essentially historical, despite the title), and the Ketuvim ("Writings)," which according to some Christians might better be described as "wisdom" books (the Song of Songs, Lamentations, Proverbs, etc.). The Christian Old Testament ignore this division and instead emphasise the historical and prophetic nature of the canonthus the Book of Ruth and the Book of Job, part of the Writings in the Hebrew Bible, are reclassified in the Christian canon as history books, and the overall division into Instructions, Prophets and Writings is lost. The reason for this is the over-arching Messianic intention of Christianity - the Old Testament is seen as preparation for the New Testament, and not as a revelation complete in its own right, see Supersessionism for details. Although it is not a history book in the modern sense, the Old Testament is the primary source for the History of ancient Israel and Judah. The Bible historians presented a picture of ancient Israel based on information that they viewed as historically true. Of particular interest in this regard are the books of Joshua through Second Chronicles.[1][2] The oldest material in the Hebrew Bible and therefore in the Christian Old Testament may date from the 13th century BCE.[3] This material is found embedded within the books of the current Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, which reached their current form at various points between the 5th century BCE (the first five books, the Torah) and the 2nd century BCE,[4] see Development of the Jewish Bible canon for details.

Contents[hide]

1 History 2 Books of the Old Testament o 2.1 The Septuagint o 2.2 Latin translations o 2.3 Other traditions o 2.4 Literary and philosophical reception 3 Christian views of the Old Covenant 4 Historicity of the Old Testament narratives 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] HistoryThe early Christian Church primarily used the Septuagint, often referred to as the LXX, the oldest Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, as its religious text until at least the mid-4th century (Targums were used by Aramaic speakers). Until that time Greek was a major language of the Roman Empire and a major language of the Church (exceptions include Syrian Orthodoxy and the Church of the East which used the Syriac Peshitta and Ethiopian Orthodoxy which used the Geez, and others, see Early centers of Christianity). In the late 1st century, Rabbinic Judaism (see Council of Jamnia) began expressing a strong distrust of the

accuracy of the Septuagint and eventually rejected it. Talmudic tradition considers the LXX to be both divinely inspired and full of errors.[5] Early church teachers and writers reacted with even stronger devotion, citing the Septuagint's antiquity and its use by the Evangelists and Apostles. Being the Old Testament quoted by the Gospels and the Greek Church Fathers, the LXX had an essentially official status in the early Christian world.[5] Following in the steps of Philo and Hellenistic Judaism, they claimed its inspiration was not inferior to that of the original. They argued that divergences of the Septuagint from the current Hebrew text were due to accidents of transmission, or that they were not actual errors, but Divine adaptations of the original for the sake of the future Church.[6]

When Jerome undertook the revision of the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint in about 400 AD, he checked the Septuagint against the Hebrew text that was then available. He came to believe that the Hebrew text better testified to Christ than the Septuagint.[citation needed] He broke with church tradition and translated most of the Old Testament of his Vulgate from Hebrew rather than Greek. His choice was severely criticized by Augustine, his contemporary, and others who regarded Jerome as a forger. But with the passage of time, acceptance of Jerome's version gradually increased in the West until it displaced the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint.[7] The Hebrew text differs from the Septuagint in some passages that Christians hold to prophesy Christ, and the Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers the Septuagint text as the basis for translating the Old Testament into other languages. The Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the Church of Greece and the Cypriot Orthodox Church continue to use it in their liturgy today, untranslated. Many modern critical translations of the Old Testament, while using the Hebrew text as their basis, consult the Septuagint as well as other versions in an attempt to reconstruct the meaning of the Hebrew text whenever the latter is unclear, undeniably corrupt, or ambiguous.[7] Many of the oldest Biblical verses among the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly those in Aramaic, correspond more closely with the Septuagint than with the Hebrew text (although the majority of these variations are extremely minor, e.g., grammatical changes, spelling differences or missing words, and do not affect the meaning of sentences and paragraphs).[8][9][10] This confirms the scholarly consensus that the Septuagint represents a separate Hebrew text tradition from that which was later standardized as the Hebrew text (called the Masoretic Text).[8] Of the fuller quotations in the New Testament of the Old, nearly one hundred agree with the modern form of the Septuagint and six agree with the Hebrew text.[citation needed] The principal differences concern presumed Biblical prophecies relating to Christ.[citation needed]

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Main articles: Books of the Bible and Biblical canon See also: Septuagint#Table of books

The interrelationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, according to the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1903) Some manuscripts are identified by their siglum. LXX here denotes the original Septuagint.

[edit] The Septuagint

In early Christianity the Septuagint was universally used among Greek speakers, while Aramaic Targums were used in the Syriac Church. To this day the Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint, in an untranslated form. Some scriptures of ancient origin are found in the Septuagint but are not in the Hebrew. These include Additions to Daniel and Esther. For more information regarding these books, see the articles Biblical apocrypha, Biblical canon, Books of the Bible, and Deuterocanonical books. Some books that are set apart in the Hebrew text are grouped together. For example the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the Septuagint one book in four parts called "Of Reigns" (). Scholars believe that this is the original arrangement before the book was divided for readability. In the Septuagint, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and are called Paraleipomnon (things left out). The Septuagint organizes the Minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve.[11] All the books of western canons of the Old Testament are found in the Septuagint, although the order does not always coincide with the modern ordering of the books. The Septuagint order for the Old Testament is evident in the earliest Christian Bibles (5th century),[11] namely the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Peshitta. The New Testament makes a number of allusions to and may quote the additional books (as Orthodox Christians aver). The books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus Seirach, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremy (sometimes considered part of Baruch), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Sosanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasses, and Psalm 151. In most ancient copies of the Bible which contain the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the Book of Daniel is not the original Septuagint version, but instead is a copy of Theodotion's translation from the Hebrew.[12] The Septuagint version of the Book of Daniel was discarded, in favour of Theodotion's version, in the second to 3rd centuries; in Greekspeaking areas, this happened near the end of the 2nd century, and in Latin-speaking areas (at least in North Africa), it occurred in the middle of the 3rd century.[12] History does not record the reason for this, and Jerome basically reports, in the preface to the Vulgate version of Daniel, this thing 'just' happened.[12] The canonical Ezra-Nehemiah is known in the Septuagint as "Esdras B", and 1 Esdras is "Esdras A". 1 Esdras is a very similar text to the books of Ezra-Nehemiah, and the two are widely thought by scholars to be derived from the same original text. It is highly likely that "Esdras B"the canonical Ezra-Nehemiahis Theodotion's version of this material, and "Esdras A" is the version which was previously in the Septuagint on its own.[12]

[edit] Latin translationsSee also: Books of the Latin Vulgate Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between 382 and 420 CE. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Origen's Hexapla placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament, including the 2nd century Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite.

Canonical Christian Bibles were formally established by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 and confirmed by the Council of Laodicea in 363, and later established by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367. The Council of Laodicea restricted readings in church to only the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The books listed were the 22 books of the Hebrew Bible plus the Book of Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy, together with the New Testament containing 26 books, omitting the Book of Revelation, see Development of the Old Testament canon for details. The Council of Carthage, called the third by Denzinger,[13] on 28 August 397 issued a canon of the Bible restricted to: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kingdoms, 2 books of Paralipomenon, Job, Psalter of David, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prophets, Isaias, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Esdras, 2 books of Machabees, and in the New Testament: 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 of him to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Judas, and the Apocalypse of John.

[edit] Other traditionsMain article: Development of the Old Testament canon The canonical acceptance of these books varies among different Christian traditions, and there are canonical books not derived from the Septuagint. For a discussion see the article on Biblical apocrypha. The exact canon of the Old Testament differs among the various branches of Christianity. All include the books of the Hebrew Bible, while most traditions also recognise several Deuterocanonical books. The Protestant Old Testament is, for the most part, identical with the Hebrew Bible; the differences are minor, dealing only with the arrangement and number of the books. For example, while the Hebrew Bible considers Kings to be a unified text, and Ezra and Nehemiah as a single book, the Protestant Old Testament divides each of these into two books. Translations of the Old Testament were discouraged in medieval Christendom. An exception was the translation of the Pentateuch ordered by Alfred the Great around 900, and Wyclif's Bible of 1383. Numerous vernacular translations appeared with the Protestant Reformation. The differences between the Hebrew Bible and other versions of the Old Testament such as the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac, Greek, Latin and other canons, are greater. Many of these canons include whole books and additional sections of books that the others do not. The translations of various words from the original Hebrew may also give rise to significant differences of interpretation.

[edit] Literary and philosophical receptionThe Old Testament, and its position in world literature, has engendered a large amount of critical discussion, beginning primarily in the 19th century. In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche famously wrote: "In the Jewish Old Testament, the book of divine justice, there are men, things and speeches of so grand a style that Greek and Indian literature have nothing to set beside it. One stands in

reverence and trembling before these remnants of what man once was and has sorrowful thoughts about old Asia and its little jutting-out promontory Europe, which would like to signify as against Asia the 'progress of man'. To be sure: he who is only a measly tame domestic animal and knows only the needs of a domestic animal (like our cultured people of today, the Christians of 'cultured' Christianity included) has no reason to wonder, let alone to sorrow, among these ruins - the taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone in regard to 'great' and 'small'." Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil[14]

[edit] Christian views of the Old CovenantMain article: Christian views on the old covenant There are differences of opinion among Christian denominations as to what and how Biblical law (generally understood as the "first five books" of the Old Testament or the Old Covenant) applies today. Most conclude that only parts are applicable, such as the Ten Commandments, some conclude that all are set aside by the New Covenant, while others conclude that all are still applicable to believers in Jesus and the New Covenant.

[edit] Historicity of the Old Testament narrativesSee also: Biblical archaeology and The Bible and history Current debate concerning the historicity of the various Old Testament narratives can be divided into several camps:

One group has been labeled "biblical minimalists" by its critics. Minimalists (e.g., Philip Davies, Thomas L. Thompson, John Van Seters) see very little reliable history in any of the Old Testament. Conservative Old Testament scholars generally accept the historicity of most Old Testament narratives with some reservations, and some Egyptologists (e.g., Kenneth Kitchen) argue that such a belief is warranted by the external evidence. Other scholars (e.g., William Dever) are somewhere in between. They see clear signs of evidence for the monarchy and much of Israel's later history, though they doubt the Exodus and conquest of Canaan.

[edit] See also

Abrogation of Old Covenant laws Covenant (biblical) Expounding of the Law Law and Gospel List of ancient legal codes Lost books of the Old Testament Old Testament: Timeline Quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts Table of books of Judeo-Christian Scripture

Book of Job in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts

[edit] References1. ^ Like modern historians, biblical writers sometimes provided "historical" explanations or background information of the events they describe (e.g., 1 Sam. 28:3, 1 Kings 18:3b, 2 Kings 9:14b-15a, 13:5-6, 15:12, 17:7-23). 2. ^ Halpern, B. the First Historians: The Hebrew Bible. Harper & Row, 1988, quoted in Smith, Mark S.The early history of God: Yahweh and the other deities in ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; 2nd ed., 2002. ISBN 9780802839725, p.14 3. ^ "Bible: Growth of Literature." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online . Retrieved March 5, 2010. 4. ^ Encyclopdia Britannica: "Written almost entirely in the Hebrew language between 1200 and 100 BCE"; Columbia Encyclopedia: "In the 10th century BCE the first of a series of editors collected materials from earlier traditional folkloric and historical records (i.e., both oral and written sources) to compose a narrative of the history of the Israelites who now found themselves united under David and Solomon." 5. ^ a b "The Septuagint" The Ecole Glossary. 27 December 2009 6. ^ H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, revised by R.R. Ottley, 1914; retrieved 27 December 2009. Reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1989. 7. ^ a b Ernst Wrthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, trans. Errol F. Rhodes, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1995. 8. ^ a b Karen Jobes and Moises Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint. Paternoster Press, 2001. ISBN 1-84227-061-3. (The current standard for Introductory works on the Septuagint. 9. ^ Timothy McLay, The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research. ISBN 0-8028-6091-5. The current standard introduction on the NT & Septuagint. 10. ^ V.S. Herrell, The History of the Bible, "Qumran: Dead Sea Scrolls." 11. ^ a b Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint, Michael A. Knibb, Ed., London: T&T Clark, 2004 12. ^ a b c d This article incorporates text from the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica article "TEXT AND VERSIONS", a publication now in the public domain. 13. ^ "Denzinger 186". Catho.org. Retrieved 2010-11-19. 14. ^ Beyond Good and Evil, Trans. Hollingdale, Penguin Classics (2003), page 79-80

[edit] Further reading

Anderson, Bernhard. Understanding the Old Testament. (ISBN 0-13-948399-3 ) Bahnsen, Greg, et al., Five Views on Law and Gospel. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993). Berkowitz, Ariel and D'vorah. Torah Rediscovered. 4th ed. Shoreshim Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-9752914-0-8 Dever, William G. Who Were the Early Israelites? William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003. ISBN 0-8028-0975-8 Gerhard von Rad: Theologie des Alten Testaments. Band 12, Mnchen, 8. Auflage 1982/1984, ISBN

Hill, Andrew and John Walton. A Survey of the Old Testament. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. ISBN 0-310-22903-0 . Kuntz, John Kenneth. The People of Ancient Israel: an introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought, Harper and Row, 1974. ISBN 0-06-043822-3 Lancaster, D. Thomas. Restoration: Returning the Torah of God to the Disciples of Jesus. Littleton: First Fruits of Zion, 2005. Rouvire, Jean-Marc. Brves mditations sur la Cration du monde Ed. L'Harmattan, Paris, 2006 Salibi, Kamal. The Bible Came from Arabia, London, Jonathan Cape, 1985 ISBN 0224-02830-8 Silberman, Neil A., et al. The Bible Unearthed. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2003. ISBN 0-684-86913-6 (paperback) and ISBN 0-684-86912-8 (hardback) Sprinkle, Joe M. Biblical Law and Its Relevance: A Christian Understanding and Ethical Application for Today of the Mosaic Regulations. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006. ISBN 0-7618-3371-4 (clothbound) and ISBN 0-7618-3372-2 (paperback) Papadaki-Oekland, Stella. Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job. ISBN 2503532322 & ISBN 9782503532325

[edit] External links

Church Fathers on the Old Testament Canon Full text of the Old (and New) Testaments in 42 different languages. Full Text of the OT Full Text of the OT in a single file (Authorized King James Version, Oxford Standard Text, 1769) Old Testament Reading Room Extensive online OT resources (incl. commentaries), Tyndale Seminary Old Testament Video Lectures from Yale University Scholarly articles on the Old Testament from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library Barry L. Bandstra, "Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible" Old Testament stories and commentary. John J. Parsons, "Are Christians restored to the Sinai Covenant?" Old Testament Timeline Old Testament revised (from Jewish archeolgists Finkelstein / Silberman: some is right, some is a fake, and a lot is missing) [show]v d ePart of a series on

Christianity [show]v d eBooks of the Bible [show]v d eTimeline of the Ancient Near EastCategories: Bible | Christian law | Christian terms | Hebrew Bible | Hebrew Bible topics | Judeo-Christian topics | Old Testament | Rastafarian texts

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TorahFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sefer Torah at old Glockengasse Synagogue (reconstruction), Cologne The name Torah (Hebrew: " ,Instruction"; English pronunciation: /tr/), also known as the Pentateuch (Greek: from - penta- [five] and teuchos [tool, vessel, book]),[1] refers to the Five Books of Moses[2] the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts.[3][4] A "Sefer Torah" (" , book of Torah") or Torah scroll is a copy of the Torah written on parchment in a formal, traditional manner by a specially trained scribe under strict requirements. The Torah (Hebrew Bible) is the first of three parts of the Tanakh, the founding religious document of Judaism,[5] is divided into five books whose names in reference to their themes in Hebrew are, Bereshit, ( Ancient Greek Genesis), Shmot ( Koine Greek Exodus), Vayikra ( Greek Leviticus), Bamidbar ( English Numbers),[6] and Dvarim (Latin Deuteronomy), are derived from the wording of their initial verses. The Torah contains a variety of literary genres, including allegory, historical narrative, poetry, genealogy, and the exposition of various types of law. According to rabbinic tradition, the Torah contains the 613 mitzvot (" ,commandments"), which are divided into 365 restrictions and 248 positive commands.[7] In rabbinic literature, the word "Torah" denotes both the written text, "Torah Shebichtav" (" , Torah that is written"), as well as an oral tradition, "Torah Shebe'al Peh" (" , Torah that is oral"). The oral portion consists of the "traditional interpretations and amplifications handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation," now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash.[8] Outside of scholarly circles lay Jews colloquially refer to any Jewish religious text as Torah and the original Mosaic text as The 'Sefer Torah' or 'The Torah' usually refers to the whole 'Old Testament' in informal speech as apposed to the oral Torah or 'Torah SheBa'alPeh'. A person will say 'let us learn Torah' referring to the whole Old Testament though not technically correct to scholars. Maimonodes named one of his books Mishnah Torah showing a real life example that the Torah is used to refer to an authoritative text in common speech,

though technically it only refers to the sacred Five Books Of Moses in formal speech and writing. A person may say 'I am writing the torah of Sociology', to just mean I am obsessed with Sociology and authoritative. According to Jewish tradition the Torah was revealed to Moses, in 1312 BCE at Mount Sinai; [9] (another date given for this event is 1233 BCE).[10] The Zohar, the most significant text in Jewish mysticism, states that the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world, and that it was used as the blueprint for Creation.[11] Modern biblical scholars believe its books were completed centuries later in the Persian period: According to Notre Dame Professor Blenkinsopp, "Here and there in the Pentateuch Moses is said to have written certain things ... but nowhere is it affirmed that the Pentateuch was authored by Moses ... One would therefore think that what calls for an explanation is not why most people stopped believing in the dogma of Mosaic authorship, but rather why anyone believed it in the first place."[12] Outside of its central significance in Judaism, the Torah is accepted by Christianity as part of the Bible, comprising the first five books of the Old Testament.[13] The various denominations of Judaism and Christianity hold a diverse spectrum of views regarding the exactitude of scripture. The Torah has also been accepted to varying degrees by the Samaritans, an ethnoreligious group of the Levant, and others as the authentic revealed message of YHWH to the early Israelites and as factual history, in both cases as conveyed by Moses. It is also accepted in the religion of Islam as a Holy Book, although it is believed by Muslims to have been modified or corrupted after the death of Moses. Muslims often place the bulk of this claimed corruption of the original text at or during the reconstruction of the Tanakh performed by Ezra the Priest and Scribe circa 400 BC, as the Tanakh itself claims that it had been lost to the Jews, and its law was not followed for many generations (cf. I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, Book of Ezekiel, etc.).

Contents[hide]

1 Meaning and names 2 Composition 3 Structure o 3.1 Contents 4 Torah and Judaism o 4.1 Ritual use o 4.2 Biblical law 5 The Torah and Judaism's oral law 6 Divine significance of letters, Jewish mysticism 7 Production and use of a Torah scroll 8 Torah in other religions 9 See also 10 References 11 Additional Sources 12 External links

[edit] Meaning and names

Reading of the Torah The word "Torah" in Hebrew "is derived from the root which in the hifil conjugation means "to teach" (cf. Lev. 10:11). The meaning of the word is therefore "teaching," "doctrine," or "instruction"; the commonly accepted "law" gives a wrong impression."[14] Other translational contexts in the English language include custom, theory, guidance,[15] or system.[16] The term "Torah" is therefore also used in the general sense to include both Judaism's written law and oral law, serving to encompass the entire spectrum of authoritative Jewish religious teachings throughout history, including the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash and more, and the inaccurate rendering of "Torah" as "Law"[17] may be an obstacle to "understanding the ideal that is summed up in the term talmud torah (" , study of Torah,"), characterized in Jewish tradition as excelling all things."[8] The Torah is not the only book in its class, however. Tanakh is, in Hebrew, an abbreviation alluding to its three parts; the Torah, Nevi'im ("Prophets," a narrative of what happened after the Torah which picks up exactly where it left off as well as the writings viewed as prophetically inspired by Israelite prophets after Moses), and Ketuvim (the "Writings"). Together, these books comprise the Hebrew Bible, known in Christendom as "The Old Testament", the first part of the Christian Bible. Within the Hebrew Bible, 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 (8:3132; 23:6) and Kings (I Kings 2:3; II Kings 14:6; 23:25), but it cannot be said to refer there to the entire corpus. In contrast, there is every likelihood that its use in the post-Exilic works (Mal. 3:22; Dan. 9:11, 13; Ezra 3:2; 7:6; Neh. 8:1; II Chron. 23:18; 30:16) was intended to be comprehensive. Other early titles were "The Book of Moses" (Ezra 6:18; Neh. 13:1; II Chron. 35:12; 25:4; cf. II Kings 14:6) and "The Book of the Torah" (Neh. 8:3) which seems to be a contraction of a fuller name, "The Book of the Torah of God" (Neh. 8:8, 18; 10:2930; cf. 9:3).[18] Christians often refer to the Torah as the Pentateuch, meaning five books, or as the Law, or Law of Moses. Muslims refers to the Torah as "Tawrat" (" ,Law"), an Arabic word for the revelations given to the Islamic prophet "Musa" ( ,Moses in Arabic).

[edit] CompositionMain articles: Mosaic authorship and Documentary hypothesis

A Sefer Torah opened for liturgical use in a synagogue service The first division of the Hebrew bible is the Torah ("instruction" or "law"), frequently called the Pentateuch ("five scrolls"), its Greek name, by modern scholars. It is the group of five books made up of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy and stands first in all versions of the Christian Old Testament. According to Jewish tradition the Torah was dictated to Moses by God, with the exception of the last eight verses of Deuteronomy which describe his death.[19] Today, the majority of scholars agree that the Pentateuch does not have a single author, and that its composition took place over centuries.[20] From the late 19th century there was a general consensus around the documentary hypothesis, which suggests that the five books were created c.450 BCE by combining four originally independent sources, known as the Jahwist, or J (about 900 BCE), the Elohist, or E (about 800 BCE), the Deuteronomist, or D, (about 600 BCE), and the Priestly source, or P (about 500 BC).[21] This general agreement began to break down in the late 1970s, and today there are many theories but no consensus, or even majority viewpoint.[22] Variations of the documentary hypothesis remain popular especially in America and Israel, and the identification of distinctive Deuteronomistic and Priestly theologies and vocabularies remains widespread, but they are used to form new approaches suggesting that the books were combined gradually over time by the slow accumulation of "fragments" of text, or that a basic text was "supplemented" by later authors/editors.[23] At the same time there has been a tendency to bring the origins of the Pentateuch further forward in time, and the most recent proposals place it in 5th century Judah under the Persian empire.[24][25] Deuteronomy is often treated separately from Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus. The process of its formation probably took several hundred years, from the 8th century to the 6th, [26] and its authors have been variously identified as prophetic circles (because the concerns of Deuteronomy mirror those of the prophets, especially Hosea), Levitical priestly circles (because it stresses the role of the Levites), and wisdom and scribal circles (because it esteems wisdom, and because the treaty-form in which it is written would be best known to scribes).[27] According to the theory of the Deuteronomistic history proposed by Martin Noth and widely accepted, Deuteronomy was a product of the court of Josiah (late 7th century) before being used as the introduction to a comprehensive history of Israel written in the early part of the 6th century; later still it was detached from the history and used to round off the Pentateuch.[28]

[edit] StructureBooks of the Torah 1. Genesis

2. Exodus 3. Leviticus 4. Numbers 5. Deuteronomy The Hebrew names of the five books of the Torah are known by their incipit, taken from initial words of the first verse of each book. For example, the Hebrew name of the first book, Bereshit, is the first word of Genesis 1:1: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Bereshit ( ,literally "In the beginning") Shemot ( ,literally "Names") Vayikra ( ,literally "He called") Bamidbar ( ,literally "In the desert") Devarim ( ,literally "Things" or "Words")

The Anglicized names are derived from the Greek and reflect the essential theme of each book: 1. Genesis: "creation" 2. Exodus: "departure" 3. Leviticus: refers to the Levites and the regulations that apply to their presence and service in the Temple, which form the bulk of the third book. 4. Numbers (Arithmoi): contains a record of the numbering of the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai and later on the plain of Moab. 5. Deuteronomy: "second law," refers to the fifth book's recapitulation of the commandments reviewed by Moses before his death. According to the Oral tradition, the prose in the Torah is not always in chronological order. Sometimes it is ordered by concept according to the rule: "There is not 'earlier' and 'later' in the Torah" ( , Ein mukdam u'meuchar baTorah).[29] This position is accepted by Orthodox Judaism. Non-Orthodox Jews generally understand the same texts as signs that the current text of the Torah was redacted from earlier sources (see documentary hypothesis.) Scribal requirement has a section of parshah Behaalotecha in Bamidbar written with 85 letters which are demarkated from the text which precedes and follows it by inverted letters Nun which, due to halakhic requirements explained in Masekhet Shabbat 115b-116a of the Babylonian Talmud, creates a separate book in itself, thereby dividing the Torah into seven, and not five books as was, and is known in the use of the Christian translations.[30]

[edit] ContentsBereshit (Genesis) begins with the so-called "primeval history" (Genesis 111), the story of the world's beginnings and the descent of Abraham. This is followed by the story of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph (Genesis 1250). God gives to the Patriarchs a promise of the land of Canaan, but at the end of Genesis the sons of Jacob end up leaving Canaan for Egypt. Shemot (Exodus) begins the story of God's revelation to his people Israel through Moses, who leads them out of Egypt (Exodus 118) to Mount Sinai. There the people accept a covenant with God, agreeing to be his people in return for agreeing to abide by his Law.

Moses receives the Torah from God, and mediates His laws and Covenant (Exodus 1924) to the people of Israel. Exodus also deals with the first violation of the covenant when Aaron took part in the construction of the Golden Calf (Exodus 3234). Exodus concludes with the instructions on building the Tabernacle (Exodus 2531; 3540). Vayikra (Leviticus) begins with instructions to the Israelites on how to use the Tabernacle, which they had just built (Leviticus 110). This is followed by rules of clean and unclean (Leviticus 1115), 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 1726). Bamidbar (Numbers) tells how Israel consolidated itself as a community at Sinai (Numbers 19), set out from Sinai to move towards Canaan and spied out the land (Numbers 1013). Because of unbelief at various points, but especially at Kadesh Barnea (Numbers 14), the Israelites were condemned to wander for forty years in the desert in the vicinity of Kadesh instead of immediately entering the land of promise. Even Moses sins and is told he would not live to enter the land (Numbers 20). At the end of Numbers (Numbers 2635) Israel moves from Kadesh to the plains of Moab opposite Jericho, ready to enter the Promised Land. Devarim (Deuteronomy) is a series of speeches by Moses on the plains of Moab opposite Jericho. Moses's proclaims the Law (Deuteronomy 12-26), gives instruction concerning covenant renewal at Shechem (Deuteronomy 27-28) and gives Israel new laws (the "Deuteronomic Code)".[31] At the end of the book (Deuteronomy 34) Moses is allowed to see the promised land from a mountain, but it is not known what happened to Moses on the mountain. He was never seen again. Knowing that he is nearing the end of his life, Moses appoints Joshua his successor, bequeathing to him the mantle of leadership. Soon afterwards Israel begins the conquest of Canaan.

[edit] Torah and JudaismPart of a series on

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The Torah is the primary holy scripture of Judaism. Rabbinic writings offer various ideas on when the Torah was composed. The revelation to Moses at Mount Sinai is considered by most to be the revelatory event. According to dating of the text by Orthodox rabbis, this occurred in 1312 BCE;[9] another date given for this event is 1280 BCE.[10] Some rabbinic sources state that the entire Torah was given all at once at this event. In the maximalist belief, this dictation included not only the quotations that appear in the text, but every word of the text itself, including phrases such as "And God spoke to Moses...", and included God telling Moses about Moses' own death and subsequent events. Other classical rabbinic sources[which?] hold that the Torah was revealed to Moses over many years, and finished only at his death. Another rabbinic school of thought holds that although Moses wrote the vast majority of the Torah, the last four verses of the Torah must have been written after his death by Joshua. Abraham ibn Ezra and Joseph Bonfils observed[citation needed] that some phrases in the Torah present information that people should only have known after the time of Moses. Ibn Ezra hinted, and Bonfils explicitly stated, that Joshua (or perhaps some later prophet) wrote these sections of the Torah. Other rabbis would not accept this belief.

The Talmud (tractate Sabb. 115b) states that a peculiar section in the Book of Numbers (10:35 36, surrounded by inverted Hebrew letter nuns) in fact forms a separate book. On this verse a midrash on the book of Mishle (English Proverbs) states that "These two verses stem from an independent book which existed, but was suppressed!" Another (possibly earlier) midrash, Ta'ame Haserot Viyterot, states that this section actually comes from the book of prophecy of Eldad and Medad. The Talmud says that God dictated four books of the Torah, but that Moses wrote Deuteronomy in his own words (Talmud Bavli, Meg. 31b). All classical rabbinic views hold that the Torah was entirely or almost entirely Mosaic and of divine origin.[32]

[edit] Ritual use

Torahs in Ashkenazi Synagogue (Istanbul, Turkey) Main article: Torah reading Torah reading (Hebrew: , K'riat HaTorah ; "Reading [of] the Torah") is a Jewish religious ritual that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the Torah scroll (or scrolls) from the ark, chanting the appropriate excerpt with special cantillation, and returning the scroll(s) to the ark. It is distinct from academic Torah study. Regular public reading of the Torah was introduced by Ezra the Scribe after the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian captivity (c. 537 BCE), as described in the Book of Nehemiah.[33] In the modern era, adherents of Orthodox Judaism practice Torah reading according to a set procedure they believe has remained unchanged in the two thousand years since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (70 CE). In the 19th and 20th centuries CE, new movements such as Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism have made adaptations to the practice of Torah reading, but the basic pattern of Torah reading has usually remained the same: As a part of the morning or afternoon prayer services on certain days of the week or holidays, a section of the Pentateuch is read from a Torah scroll. On Shabbat (Saturday) mornings, a weekly section ("parasha") is read, selected so that the entire Pentateuch is read consecutively each year.[34][35] On Saturday afternoons, Mondays, and Thursdays, the beginning of the following Saturday's portion is read. On Jewish holidays and fast days, special sections connected to the day are read.

Jews observe an annual holiday, Simchat Torah, to celebrate the completion of the year's cycle of readings. Torah scrolls are often dressed with a sash, various ornaments and a Keter (crown), although such customs vary among synagogues. Congregants traditionally stand when the Torah is brought out of the ark to be read (although they sit during the reading itself.)

[edit] Biblical lawSee also: Biblical law The Torah contains narratives, statements of law, and statements of ethics. Collectively these laws, usually called biblical law or commandments, are sometimes referred to as the Law of Moses (Torat Moshe ,)or Mosaic Law. Moses received the laws of God on Mount Sinai. These laws were the first part of the Torah.

[edit] The Torah and Judaism's oral lawSee also: Oral Torah Rabbinic tradition holds that the written Torah was transmitted in parallel with the oral tradition. Where the Torah leaves words and concepts undefined, and mentions procedures without explanation or instructions, the reader is required to seek out the missing details from supplemental sources known as the oral law or oral Torah.[36] Some of the Torah's most prominent commandments needing further explanation are:

Tefillin: As indicated in Deuteronomy 6:8 among other places, tefillin are to be placed on the arm and on the head between the eyes. However, there are no details provided regarding what tefillin are or how they are to be constructed. Kosher laws: As indicated in Exodus 23:19 among other places, a kid may not be boiled in its mother's milk. [A kid being a young goat.] In addition to numerous other problems with understanding the ambiguous nature of this law, there are no vowelization characters in the Torah; they are provided by the oral tradition. This is particularly relevant to this law, as the Hebrew word for milk ( )is identical to the word for animal fat when vowels are absent. Without the oral tradition, it is not known whether the violation is in mixing meat with milk or with fat. Shabbat laws: With the severity of Sabbath violation, namely the death penalty, one would assume that direction would be provided as to how exactly such a serious and core commandment should be upheld. However, there is little to no information as to what can and cannot be performed on the Sabbath. Without the oral tradition, keeping this law would be impossible.

According to classical rabbinic texts this parallel set of material was originally transmitted to Moses at Sinai, and then from Moses to Israel. At that time it was forbidden to write and publish the oral law, as any writing would be incomplete and subject to misinterpretation and abuse. However, after exile, dispersion and persecution, this tradition was lifted when it became apparent that in writing was the only way to ensure that the Oral Law could be preserved.

After many years of effort by a great number of tannaim, the oral tradition was written down around 200 CE by Rabbi Judah haNasi who took up the compilation of a nominally written version of the Oral Law, the Mishnah. Other oral traditions from the same time period not entered into the Mishnah were recorded as "Baraitot" (external teaching), and the Tosefta. Other traditions were written down as Midrashim. After continued persecution more of the oral law was committed to writing. A great many more lessons, lectures and traditions only alluded to in the few hundred pages of Mishnah, became the thousands of pages now called the Gemara. Gemara is Aramaic, having been compiled in Babylon. The Mishnah and Gemara together are called the Talmud. The Rabbis in Israel also collected their traditions and compiled them into the Jerusalem Talmud. Since the greater number of Rabbis lived in Babylon, the Babylonian Talmud has precedence should the two be in conflict. Orthodox Jews and Conservative Jews accept these texts as the basis for all subsequent halakha and codes of Jewish law, which are held to be normative. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews deny that these texts may be used for determining normative law (laws accepted as binding) but accept them as the authentic and only Jewish version for understanding the Torah and its development throughout history.

[edit] Divine significance of letters, Jewish mysticismFurther information: Kabbalah Kabbalists hold that not only are the words giving a Divine message, but indicate a far greater message that extends beyond them. Thus they hold that even as small a mark as a kotzo shel yod ( ,) the serif of the Hebrew letter yod ( ,)the smallest letter, or decorative markings, or repeated words, were put there by God to teach scores of lessons. This is regardless of whether that yod appears in the phrase "I am the Lord thy God" (, Exodus 20:2) or whether it appears in "And God spoke unto Moses saying" (- , .; , Exodus 6:2). In a similar vein, Rabbi Akiva (ca.50ca.135CE), is said to have learned a new law from every et ( )in the Torah (Talmud, tractate Pesachim 22b); the word et is meaningless by itself, and serves only to mark the direct object. In other words, the Orthodox belief is that even apparently contextual text "And God spoke unto Moses saying..." is no less important than the actual statement. One kabbalistic interpretation is that the Torah constitutes one long name of God, and that it was broken up into words so that human minds can understand it. While this is effective since it accords with our human reason, it is not the only way that the text can be broken up.

[edit] Production and use of a Torah scroll

Page pointers for reading of the Torah Main article: Sefer Torah Manuscript Torah scrolls are still used, and still scribed, for ritual purposes (i.e., religious services); this is called a Sefer Torah ("Book [of] Torah"). They are written using a painstakingly careful methodology by highly qualified scribes. This has resulted in modern copies of the text that are unchanged from millennia-old copies. It is believed that every word, or marking, has divine meaning, and that not one part may be inadvertently changed lest it lead to error. The fidelity of the Hebrew text of the Tanakh, and the Torah in particular, is considered paramount, down to the last letter: translations or transcriptions are frowned upon for formal service use, and transcribing is done with painstaking care. An error of a single letter, ornamentation, or symbol of the 304,805 stylized letters which make up the Hebrew Torah text renders a Torah scroll unfit for use, hence a special skill is required and a scroll takes considerable time to write and check. According to Jewish law, a sefer Torah (plural: Sifrei Torah) is a copy of the formal Hebrew text of hand-written on gevil or qlaf (forms of parchment) by using a quill (or other permitted writing utensil) dipped in ink. Written entirely in Hebrew, a sefer Torah contains 304,805 letters, all of which must be duplicated precisely by a trained sofer (scribe), an effort which may take as long as approximately one and a half years. Most modern Sifrei Torah are written with forty-two lines of text per column (Yemenite Jews use fifty), and very strict rules about the position and appearance of the Hebrew letters are observed. See for example the Mishna Berura on the subject.[37] Any of several Hebrew scripts may be used, most of which are fairly ornate and exacting. The completion of the sefer Torah is a cause for great celebration, and it is a Mitzvah for every Jew to either write or have written for him a Sefer Torah. Torah scrolls are stored in the holiest part of the synagogue in the Ark known as the "Holy Ark" ( aron hakodesh in Hebrew.) Aron in Hebrew means "cupboard" or "closet", and kodesh is derived from "kadosh", or "holy".

[edit] Torah in other religionsSee also: Biblical law in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and Tawrat While Christianity includes the five books of Moses among their sacred texts, Islam only believes that the original Torah was sent by the One true God. In both religions they lack the religious legal significance that they have in Orthodox Judaism.

In early Christianity a Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible was used. Its name in Latin is the Septuagint: L. septem meaning seven, plus -gint meaning "times ten". It was named Septuagint from the traditional number of its translators. Being the Pentateuch, it forms the beginning of the Old Testament that incorporate the Torah into the Catholic and Christian Orthodox Biblical canon that also includes some books not found in the Tanakh. This Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures dates from the 3rd century B.C. It contains both a translation of the Hebrew and additional and variant material. It was regarded as the standard form of the Old Testament in the early Christian Church and is still considered canonical in the Eastern Orthodox Church.[38] [39] Though different Christian denominations have slightly different versions of the Old Testament in their Bibles, the Torah as the "Five Books of Moses" (or "the Law") is common among them all. The Quran refers heavily to Moses to outline the truth of his existence and the religious guidelines that God (Most Exalted) had revealed to the Children of Israel. God (Most Exalted) says in the Qur'an, "It is He Who has sent down the Book (the Qur'an) to you with truth, confirming what came before it. And He sent down the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)." [3:1] Muslims call the Torah the Tawrat and consider it the word of God given to Moses. However, Muslims also believe that this original revelation was corrupted (tahrif) over time by Jewish scribes[40] and hence do not revere the present Jewish version Torah as much. 7:144144 The Torah in the Qur'an is always mentioned with respect in Islam. The Muslims' belief in the Torah, as well as the prophethood of Moses, is one of the fundamental tenets of Islam.

[edit] See also

Ten Commandments Christianity and Judaism Forbidden relationships in Judaism Heptateuch Hexapla Islamic view of Moses Jewish Publication Society (JPS) Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses

JPS Tanakh Judeo-Christian tradition List of burial places of biblical figures Moses in rabbinic literature Samaritan Pentateuch Tawrat Torah reading Torah study

[edit] References1. ^ "The ancient Greek translation of the Tanak translated the word Torah as name, or law," Wylen, Stephen M. Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism. Paulist Press, 2001. p. 16 [1], however, the degree to which this is accurate or potentially misleading is a matter of debate. See Torah#Meaning and names and see also Philip Birnbaum, Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1964, page 630, and Coggins, R. J. Introducing the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pg 3. 2. ^ Israel Drazin, Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text, Gefen Publishing House Ltd, 2009, p.92 [2]; Scribal requirement has a section of parshah Behaalotecha written with 85 letters which are demarkated from the text which precedes and follows it by inverted letters Nun (letter) which, due to

halakhic requirements explained in Masekhet Shabbat 115b-116a of the Baylonian Talmud, creates a separate book, thereby dividing the Torah into seven and not five books as was, and is known in the use of the Christian translations. 3. ^ Torah at the Jewish Virtual Library 4. ^ Philip Birnbaum, Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1964, page 630. 5. ^ Philip Birnbaum, Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1964, page 648 6. ^ From Grek arithmoi. 7. ^ Eisenberg, Ronald L. The JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004), pg 515. 8. ^ a b Philip Birnbaum, Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1964, page 630 9. ^ a b History Crash Course #36: Timeline: From Abraham to Destruction of the Temple, by Rabbi Ken Spiro, Aish.com. Retrieved 2010-08-19. 10. ^ a b Kurzweil, Arthur (2008). The Torah For Dummies. For Dummies. p. 11. ISBN 9780470283066. Retrieved 2010-08-19. 11. ^ Vol. 11 Trumah Section 61 12. ^ page 1, Blenkinsopp, Joseph (1992). The Pentateuch: An introduction to the first five books of the Bible. Anchor Bible Reference Library. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 038541207X. 13. ^ Coggins, R. J. Introducing the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pg 1. 14. ^ Rabinowitz, Louis Isaac and Harvey, Warren. "Torah." Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Vol. 20. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. p39-46. 15. ^ Philip Birnbaum, Encyclopedia of Jewish Conceptes, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1964, page 630 16. ^ p.2767, Alcalay 17. ^ pp.164165, Scherman, Exodus 12:49 18. ^ Sarna, Nahum M. et al. "Bible." Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Vol. 3. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. pp 576-577. 19. ^ Jacobs, Louis, "The Jewish religion: a companion" (Oxford University Press, 1995) p.375 20. ^ McDermott, John J., "Reading the Pentateuch: a historical introduction" (Pauline Press, 2002)p.21. Books.google.com.au. 2002-10. ISBN 9780809140824. Retrieved 2010-10-03. 21. ^ Gordon Wenham, Pentateuchal Studies Today, in Themelios 22.1 (October 1996): 3-13. 22. ^ Van Seters, John, "The Pentateuch: a social-science commentary" T&T Clark, 2004) p.74. Books.google.com.au. 2004-08-23. ISBN 9780567080882. Retrieved 2010-10-03. 23. ^ Van Seters, John, "The Pentateuch: a social-science commentary" T&T Clark, 2004) pp.74-79. Books.google.com.au. 2004-08-23. ISBN 9780567080882. Retrieved 2010-10-03. 24. ^ Ska, Jean-Louis, "Introduction to reading the Pentateuch" (Eisenbrauns, 2006) pp.217 ff. 25. ^ For more information on the current debates surrounding the promulgation of the Pentateuch see The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its

Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. Gary Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson; Winona Lake: Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2007) ISBN 978-1-57506-140-5. 26. ^ Miller, Patrick D., "Deuteronomy" (John Knox Press, 1990) pp.2-3 27. ^ Miller, Patrick D., "Deuteronomy" (John Knox Press, 1990) pp.5-8 28. ^ Van Seters, John, "The Pentateuch: a social-science commentary" T&T Clark, 2004) p.93. Books.google.com.au. 2004-08-23. ISBN 9780567080882. Retrieved 2010-10-03. 29. ^ Talmud Pesachim 7a 30. ^ Israel Drazin, Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text, Gefen Publishing House Ltd, 2009, p.92 [3] 31. ^ Coogan, Michael D. A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context. Oxford University Press, 2009. page 148- 149 32. ^ For more information on these issues from an Orthodox Jewish perspective, see Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations, Ed. Shalom Carmy, and Handbook of Jewish Thought, Volume I, by Aryeh Kaplan. 33. ^ Book of Nehemia, Chapter 8 34. ^ The division of parashot found in the modern-day Torah scrolls of all Jewish communities (Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Yemenite) is based upon the systematic list provided by Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Laws of Tefillin, Mezuzah and Torah Scrolls, chapter 8. Maimonides based his division of the parashot for the Torah on the Aleppo Codex. Though