The Torah: Judaic Tradition

The Hebrew bible is divided into three parts. The three parts are the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Torah holds the five books of Moses. The Torah is known to be the direct word of God; whereas, the Prophets were men that spoke in their own voices directed by God. The Writings were explanation of other sacred texts(Mendes-Flohr 432). In the article “Judaism” it declares Judaism has different cycles of holy days, one in the spring and another in the new year. In the spring, Passover occurs. Passover celebrates the Exodus, or when the children of Israel achieved freedom from the slavery in Egypt. The other cycle begins with Rosh Hashanah, the new year. Rosh Hashanah commences a ten day period where

The Old Testament is the largest part of the bible nestled behind the leather binding in the front of the book. Unlike most books, told from one-person or even two this is comprised of multiple, some stories even having two different versions in another point of view; over time it has become a large collection of ancient texts written and re-written by different authors and editors over the many years. The stories show the ancient Israelites, they show the laws, and rituals, which make up their religion and the small embers, which will one day, turn to a flame that is Christianity. The Jewish people view these stories as collected in what they call the Torah, is the collection for what makes up their history and the promise that God gave to them, as well as their laws and what they worship today. For the Christians the Old Testament is still seen as sacred, but most place a stronger importance to the New Testament.

The word Torah means instruction and offers a way of life for those following the faith. Torah, the first five books of the Jewish bible, consists of the foundational narrative of the Jews and represents the word of God handed down to Moses at Mount Sinai. In this logic, the Torah is perceived to be directly written by God and Moses being the messenger as a way.

Before I read this chapter I had absolutely no idea that the Jewish religion had their own bible. The main differences that I came across after reading and doing research are the number of books, the arrangement of the books, the primary language that the Bibles are read or studied in, the content of the two Bibles, and the importance that is given to the oral and the written traditions in making of the two holy books. The word ‘Bible’ comes from the Greek word ‘biblia’ which means ‘books’ and both religions call their religious scripture ‘Bible’ (Frigge 1). Judaism dates back to the 2nd century BCE and the Jewish Bible is called Tanakh. It consists of 24 books which are in Hebrew and Armanic (Hayes 3). It is divided into three parts, the

Reading from the Torah, or the Pentateuch is referred to as the reading of the first five books of the bible or the five books

     By the late Middle Ages, there was a distinction between what is known as Written Torah, the Tanakh, and Oral Torah. Oral Torah consists of commentaries and instructions

God’s will was put into writing by Moses during the forty-year period in which the Jews wandered in the desert. Non-traditional Jews see the Torah as inspired writing of great men and prophets that was written as an attempt to speak and understand God. The Torah is celebrated during a celebration called the Torah Reading. During some worships sessions, part of the Torah is read aloud in the synagogue.

Torah technically refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. These five books are called Chumash and are divided into 54 portions called a parashah. At least one portion is read in the synagogues each week. The readings give to each member of the synagogue the basis for their life practices of the week.

The Torah of Moses, are the first five books, which were an attribution to Moses, but most materials were borrowed from Eastern cultures. In general, it is a teaching of Israel religion. They provide a background on justifying Hebrew traditions and territorial claims. It is also considered the one of the oldest and the most important part of the

The Bible is known as ‘authoritative written source’ (Bowley, 1999) and is a library of 66 books and is made of two parts: Old Testament (39 books) and New Testament (27 books). The Bible was only officially put together around the third century. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic while the New Testament was written in Greek. During the Reformation, scholars wanted to allow everyone to read the Bible in their own languages (Beck et al, 2000). Now, the Bible is written in over 1600 languages. However, Jewish people only read the Torah in Hebrew. The Old Testament is similar to the Torah where the books are exactly the same.

The custom of Judaism grounded in the religious, moral and the social law as they enunciated in the Torah that was the first book in the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish consecrated content incorporates the Bible that they call Tanakh; an acronym for the Torah, composing and prophet, the Talmud and the Midrash. The last is a consideration of rabbinic, lawful and story elucidation of Torah. There are four developments in the Judaism religion; they incorporate customary, moderate, change and Reconstructionist. The four branches ranges from the customary too liberal to religious dynamic in their application

In most of this chapter, the author gives us an extensive overview of the Hebrew bible. We learn that the Hebrew Bible is divided into three sections: Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim. Torah is the most sacred one since it contains stories of creation and others about Hebrew ancestors. Nevi’im focuses on the stories of different prophets during the Israelite Kingdom. Ketuvim contains short stories and reflections about life.

The Hebrew Bible was fundamentally a code of law. The Torah focused on the proper ways the Hebrews should live. The Torah, or Jewish Written Law, consists of the five books of the Hebrew Bible. The Torah contained 613 laws. The negative commandments number 365, which coincides with the number of days in the solar year, and the positive commandments number 248, a number ascribed to the number of bones and main organs in the human body. It was believed that the Torah was given to Moses, a prophet, during the departure from Egypt from God.

“By the time of the Babylonian Talmud, rabbinic sages had come to believe that the Torah revealed to Moses had two forms, the written Torah and an oral Torah transmitted by the Sages” (Efron et al. pg. 144). The oral Torah consists of orally transmitted teachings of the elders themselves. The oral Torah includes; legal debates, rulings, biblical interpretations, wise sayings of the sort collected in Pirkei Avot and stories of the rabbis’ own exploits. The written Torah on the other hand consists of the five books of Moses God gave to the Jews at Mt. Sinai. However, the rabbis’ felt that the oral Torah was necessary, because from their perspective, the written Torah was insufficient by itself the rabbis’ recognized that the written Torah contained too many gaps and interpretive difficulties to stand on its own without

The Pentateuch is a collection of books, written by Moses, which consist of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books form the basis for the Jewish and Christian Bible, as the first five books for both of these bibles are the same (The Pentateuch). The Tanakh is an acronym, where the “t”, “n”, and “k” stand for sections of the Written Torah; the “t” stands for Torah, meaning “the law”, the “n” for Nevi’im, meaning “the prophets”, and the “k” for Kethuvim, meaning “the writings” (Torah). The Old Testament is the beginning of the Christian Bible, which is based on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).