The Pentateuch: Initial Five Books Of The Old Testament

How the Old Testament is known today, it was composed of works from the first-century B.C.E. However, on the other hand the books themselves date back to later dates close to the eleventh centuries or even maybe earlier. [Source]

The Tanakh is the collection of the scriptures of Judaism. It is commonly referred to as the Jewish Old Testament or the Jewish Bible, however these names are not the ones used by the Jewish people. Their Scripture that is comparable to that of the Christian Bible is the Tanakh. The name is made from an acronym of the Hebrew names of the three components of Jewish

Jesus: My peoples book is known as the Torah. The Torah is comprised of the first 5 books of what Christians call the Old Testament.

Joseph Blenkinsopp is the most contemporary scholar to date, that debates the highly contested issue of the Documentary Hypothesis. This theory relates to the origins of the Torah, also known as the Pentateuch, meaning ‘instruction’, and is part of the Hebrew Bible, including the following five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Documentary Hypothesis questions the authority of the author and source of the Torah. The Documentary Hypothesis is also known as the Julius Wellhausen proposition. This theory essentially proposes the notion that the Torah was actually derived from at least four independent, original narratives that, when combined, make up this one codex. Thus refuting the original and

The Torah, the Tanak, the Hebrew Bible, and the Pentateuch. No matter how you say it they all mean the same thing. The Torah is the foundation of Judaism: the most sacred documents. The word Torah can mean numerous things. It often simply refers to the T in Tanak. It is most commonly translated to mean “ the law”. There are five books that make up the Torah. These books are referred to as the Five Books of Moses: Exodus, Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The books of the Torah tell the Israelites a story. A story that begins where we begin, and ends before the introduction of the Savoir. It is often questioned, who the author(s) of the Torah is (are). For this question there are generally two main hypotheses: Mosaic Authorship and the Documentary Hypothesis.

For Judaism, Torah- originally, the written record of the revelations as given to Moses on Mount Sinai. For Christianity, Bible -the holy book that combines the Old Testament (or the Hebrew Bible) with the history and teachings of Jesus as recorded by his disciples in the 27 books of the New Testament, including the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For Islam, Qur'an -the sacred text of Islam that is considered to be the literal word of God, or Allah, as revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.

The Bible is divided into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. This paper mainly focuses on the Old Testament. The Old Testament has 39 books in total which is also subdivided into four categories namely; Pentateuch books (5 books), the historical books (12 books), the poetic books (5 books) and the prophetic books (17 books). The Old Testament books were written back in 1400 B.C. The Pentateuch books were written by Moses during his time in Canaan, while the other 34 books were also written by different authors at different stated time. The aim of this paper is therefore, to analyze the authorship, dating, content, outline, themes, and unique features of one book of the Old Testament, and the book chosen is the book of Leviticus.

Although it is argued that rabbis began work on compiling the oral histories prior to the fall of the Second Temple, there was a definite resurgence in documentation of the important history and moral laws of Judaism after the fall. The most important of these written documents in the Jewish faith is the Hebrew Bible. This bible is comprised of the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim, these three components combine to make up the Tanakh. The Torah is the core of the Hebrew Bible and contains the story of creation, as well as directions on daily conduct and religious rituals. The Nevi’im contains the stories of prophets. The prophets were people that spoke on behalf of God to the Jewish people. Lastly, the Ketuvim is comprised of mostly imaginative literature such as psalms, proverbs and poetry (Molloy, 294). Shifting the focus from priests and temple to a written work that is accessible to all regardless of location was the main adaptation of Judaism and certainly saved the faith. Although the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible is debatable, as some stories may have morphed from their origination to when they were assembled in writing, the bible still remains at the core of Judaism today.

The book of Amos is the earliest preserved example of classic prophetic writings. It consists of nine chapters, but Amos did not write the entirety of them. “A majority of scholars think that not all of the material in Amos goes back to the prophet himself but was added later by ancient editors of the book.” The anthology contains a variation of materials: prophecies, visions and addresses from Amos to the people of Israel. Two major themes of the book are the social injustice in Israel, and the impending doom in Israel’s future.

     The Jewish Bible or Tanakh, is the sacred book that interprets history as the Jews have experienced it. Although it is proper to think of the Bible as a single book of scriptures, it is more accurate to describe it as a library of books assembled under three major headings. The most important is the Torah, which means “devine instruction and guidance.” Torah is also known as the Five Books of Moses; the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The second portion is the Nevi’im meaning writings of the Prophets. The third section of Tanakh is referred to as Kethuvim or “the Writings.”

The most important of these written documents is the Hebrew Bible. This bible is composed of the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim, and these three components combine to make up the Tanakh (Simmons, 83). The Torah is the core of the Hebrew Bible and contains the story of creation, as well as directions on daily conduct and religious rituals. The Nevi’im contains the stories of prophets. The prophets were people who spoke on behalf of God to the Jewish people. Lastly, the Ketuvim is composed of mostly imaginative literature such as psalms, proverbs and poetry (Molloy, 294). Shifting the focal point from

Moreover, each of these covenants has “it’s own character and scope; and each prepares for and provides the found for, the next”. Alexander and Baker hold fast in agreement and proceed to say, “ Yet the faith and varied responses of the ancestors and Israelites are best grasped in relation to covenant making, covenant breaking and renewals of covenant”. The narrative of the Pentateuch has a progressive nature, as do the covenants made between people and God.

The Old Testament consisted of a set of documentations of religious scriptures, which were written by different people at various times for a different audience. Most of the Old Testament contains short stories of traditional stories and those stories of distinguished ways God established mankind. These stories are often told to the people in narrative form, which are guidelines often referred to as laws, songs, genealogies, and a list from these authors that composed the Old Testaments. The pressing of set documentation is essential because it is the framework for the lives of God 's followers. The term “Old Testament” originated as a means to express spoken traditions and God 's creation of that particular era. It is an method of philosophical investigation was designed to answer the why questions within these spiritual text documentations. These religious documentations consisted of four parts. These four sections retrieved from the Old Testaments are the laws, history, wisdom and prophecy. The laws are a rule of behavior enforced within the community. The rules are sometimes called “Torah.” When analyzing this Torah, these rules viewed within the first five spiritual books of the Bible. For example, in the first Torah in Genesis, it explains the creation, Noah’s Flood, Abraham and Isaac, and Joseph’s coats of many colors. However, the laws in Exodus were in regards to the going out. The going out took about 40 plus years, until the people led to

It is believed that the Pentateuch was compiled in the 5BCE from different sources. Coogan(2008:12) describes that Jewish tradition believed God revealed the Torah to Moses the author. Coogan(2008:20) challenges this perception by reporting that it was common place for authors of that area and culture to attribute their words to revered persons: Moses after all was the main character of the last four books. In the 17th century, the beginning of modern philosophy, men such as Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes and Richard Simon called for freedom from presumptions with consideration needed to explain style and inconsistencies such as different names used for God (Coogan 2008: 13.) Scientific challenges including Evolutionary biology and geology also appeared in 17th Century, again threatening the traditional perception associated with the authority of the Bible (Coogan 2008:15.) It is now believed that a number of authors wrote the Pentateuch. To help explain this, theories such as the Documentary Hypothesis have been considered. Coogan (2008:18) describes this as the editing of four different ‘sources’ into blocks or interwoven together to form the

Throughout the decades the traditional belief of the author of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible is believed to be Moses. The Pentateuch is the first division of the Hebrew Bible which consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Contrary to traditional belief, it is thought that the Pentateuch is a conglomeration of early written documents. The Documentary Hypothesis explains the issues of how and why the Pentateuch was written. The Documentary Hypothesis presents four source documents the Yahwist document, the Elohist document, the Deuteronomist document, and the Priestly document as the basis of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible that would later form the Pentateuch as the world knows it today.