Talk:Torah

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[edit] Definitions

I am looking for an article which concisely explains the similarities and differences between the following terms:

Torah
Talmud
Pentateuch
Bible
Mishnah
Old Testament
New Testament

Something like:

A & B both mean the first 5 books of the Jewish Bible
C & D are the same, except that the "minor prophets" are all in one "book" in C while D gives them each a separate "book".

If someone will give me all the info, I can edit this into an article, or make at a section of Books of the Bible. I'm just not clear on the relations and definitions and I don't want to get sidetracked into comprehensive lists and deep significance. I want to have a handy quick reference. --Ed Poor

The terms Torah, Chumash, Pentateuch and five books of Moses are all absolutely identical. They all mean precisely the same thing. The Mishnah is a commentary on the Hebrew Bible; the two Talmuds are commentaries on the Mishnah. The Old Testament is a name that Christian gave to the Hebrew Bible when they added the New Testament. Chrisitans also accepted a version of the Hebrew Bible that was slightly different from the ones that most Jews ended up using. Therefore some of the material you find in Chrisitan Hebrew Bibles and Jewish Hebrew Bibles is different; most is the same. The New Testament is a set of new Christian writings made many centuries after the books of the Hebrew Bible were written. You can think of it as a sequel. RK

Thanks, RK. You've helped turn a mishmash into a mitzvah :-) --Ed Poor

[edit] Names of books

Let's continue this discussion on the talk page for Names for books of Judeo-Christian scripture, which I just created based largely on RK's info. --Ed Poor 16:26 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

[edit] The Torah

65.83.40.130 18:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC) I did nopt realize the Torah is made up of the first 5 books of the Bible . Matt Mummert

I do not think that it has ever been the accepted Christian view that the Torah was a word-for-word dictation by God to Moses. I have unspecific recollection of a number of fairly early statements which contrast a dictation theory with the Christian view of inspiration, and I can think of a few Christian scriptures that would be hard to reconcile with this view. Is there support for the claim that dictation has been the view of inspiration to which Christians subscribe, now or at some time in the past? About the Jewish view, I'm ignorant, but I'd be surprised if this theory has ever been only one, at any particular time, that was considered orthodox. Is there support? — Mkmcconn

The view that the text of the Torah was verbally dictated by God to Moses has been the predominant one in rabbinic Judaism from the time of the Mishnah (redacted around 200 CE) up until The Enlightenment. Most Orthodox Jews still hold by this understanding today.

Orthodox Rabbi Norman Lamm says that "I believe the Torah is divine revelation in two ways: in that it is God-given and in that it is godly. By God-given, I mean that He willed that man abide by his commandments and that will was communicated in discrete words and letters. Man apprehends in many ways: by intuition, inspiration, experience, deduction and by direct instruction. The divine will, if it is to be made known, is sufficiently important for it to be revealed in as direct, unequivocal, and unambiguous a manner as possible, so that it will be understood by the largest number of the people to whom this will is addressed. Language, though so faulty an instrument, is still the best means of communication to most human beings. Hence, I accept unapologetically the idea of the verbal revelation of the Torah." [ "The Condition of Jewish Belief", Macmillan 1966]

Rabbi David Novak (Union for Traditional Judaism) writes that "not only do people experience a Presence when God makes himself manifest, they also hear the word. The denotion of the word is initially intelligible, and thus the word can become a matter of discourse in the community." [ From "A Response to 'Towards an Aggadic Judaism'" Conservative Judaism Vol.30(1) Fall 1975 pp.58-59]

The great majority of non-Orthodox Jews (Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism and the small Reconstructionist Judaism movement) reject the idea of verbal revelation outright, for both historic and theological reasons. However, this has never been the only official view. Other ways of understanding revelation have always been allowed.

Since the medieval era another way of understanding revelation has also received widespread acceptance; this is the rationalist view made popular by Maimonides. To quote a summary of this view, "Maimonides holds the intellectual preparation of man as a conditio sine qua non for reaching the truth. This highest level of human perfection can only be reached after intensive studying: 'Consequently he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics.' So it depends on man to transform his potential intellectual faculty into real action. Then, and here Maimonides speaks the language of Aristotelian philosophy, the active intellectual faculty of man can reach the lowest level of the mundus intelligibilis, i.e. the 'active intellect'. Through this active intellect, divine emanation will reach man after intensive study of all disciplines and thus man can reach the level of a prophet. As a result he will be able to understand the divine attributes, which are expressed in the mundus sensibilis as the laws of nature, without, and this must be emphasized, knowing something positively about the essence of the Divine. This is because all biblical divine attributes have to be understood in the sense of a negative theology. Moses, as the 'father' of all prophets, is distinguished, in this philosophy, from all other levels of prophecy, in so far as he is a prophet-philosopher sui generis. Maimonides goes on to claim that the people of Israel only heard the 'sound of words' on Sinai (with the exception of the two first commandments about the existence and uniqueness of God). Due to his extraordinary intellectual faculties, Moses functioned as the instructor of the divine commandments." [Quoted from Shear-Yashuv, "Jewish Philosophers on Reason and Revelation"]

However, most Ultra-Orthodox Jews today, due to their view of philosophy as heresy, are totally ignorant of Neo-Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic philosophy; they forbid the study of such subjects. As such, most of them have no idea of what Maimonides was talking about. In their publications they have created a fantastic - and utterly wrong - caricature of Maimonides as an Orthodox Jew who held Orthodox beliefs. They find it impossible and heretical to understand him in any other way. This phenomenon of rewriting the works of past rabbis to make them appear to fir modern-day Ultra-Orthodox beliefs has been discussed by many scholars of Orthodoxy, including Modern Orthodox historians and theologians, such as Menachem Kellner. Thus in their (erroneous) view all the different ways that rabbis in the past understood revelation are really just different ways of teaching the same thing. Modern Orthodox theologians are more forgiving on this topic. RK

In Christianity, verbal inspiration is not the same as dictation theory. Although the Scriptures teach verbal inspiration, they do not teach the idea of mechanical dictation. The mechanical dictation theory of inspiration teaches that God used the writers of Scripture as robots, only writing as God dictates, and their personality was not a factor in the Scripture's composition. The Scripture, however, teaches the Divine-human authorship. Every word divine; and every stroke of the pen human. It is rare to find an essay by a Christian defending "verbal plenary inspiration", which doesn't also emphatically reject "dictation theory". Is this different from the Jewish view? — Mkmcconn

In agreement with SJK, I wish to point out that there is more than one Jewish view. But to keep things short and simple, both in the past and present Jews always held that the Torah was different from the other books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). While most rabbis traditionally held that the Torah itself was a verbal, mechanical dictation, the other books of the Tanakh were not. The traditional Jewish view is that the books of the Prophets were a joing product of God and man; "Every word divine; and every stroke of the pen human", as you say. To a lesser extent the same is true of the Writings (Hagiography) of the Bible and the Mishnah and Talmud. It is the Torah alone that is held as the exception; it is treated as a direct quote from God. RK

As for Jews today, most religious Jews reject the idea that the Torah is one long direct verbal quote from God. Many agree with the writings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. He wrote that "As a report about Revelation, the Bible itself is a midrash. To convey what the prophets experienced, the Bible could either use terms of descriptions or terms of indication. Any description of the act of revelation in empirical categories would have produced a caricature. That is why all the Bible does is to state that revelation happened; How it happened is something they could only convey in words that are evocative and suggestive." ["God in Search of Man", Heschel, p.194]

Heschel also wrote "It was not essential that God's will be transmitted as sound; it was essential that it be made known to us. That sound or sight is to the transcendent event what a metaphor is to an abstract principle. The prophets bear witness to an event. The event is divine, but the formulation is done by the individual prophet. According to this conception, the idea is revealed; the expression is coined by the prophet."

[edit] Jewish beliefs about the Torah

I think that when questioning "Jewish belief" there are two distinct issues: what did ancient Hebrews believe, and what do Jews believe today? However distinct, these two questions are hard to answer separately because Jews today base their views in some way on texts written at least 2500 years ago (even Jews who reject Biblical theology are defining their position in response to Biblical theology). But this does not mean that those texts are transparent; although some believe that a literal reading of those texts results in a clear understanding of what Biblical Hebrews believed, they are likely wrong. A literal reading of the Bible does not produce a consistent picture, as in some cases God is quoted directly; in some cases not.

There is a Midrashic tradition that the Torah is eternal, and thus existed long before Sinai, long before Abraham, inded, long before the creation of the universe. In this tradition, the Torah is not the record of an encounter between Hebrews and God, it is a gift God gave to the Children of Israel. To me, this suggests literal dictation.

Today many non-Orthodox Jews take one of two other views: that there was an encounter with God at Sinai that directly inspired the authors of the Torah, or that the Torah and the rest of the Bible is the expression of the Children of Israel's love for God, but is "inspired" only in a very vague way.

In all of trhese examples, and the Christian example, I see a more important underlying issue (one that may be tangential here, and more appropriate to the article on differences between Jews and Christisans -- but it is also my own personal observation and may not help improve the articles). All theistic religions must grapple with the paradox of a God that is simultaneously immament and transcendant. I think one consequence of this paradox is a conviction that God can reveal "Himself" to people, but not clearly. I think different religions express this paradox, and the kind of revalation that it engenders, through different kinds of metaphors. On the most general level, for Jews the gulf between God and people is mediated through Torah (words), and for Christians, through Jesus (a life and death). But more specifically, what has always struck me about the difference between our different Scriptures is that in the Hebrew Bible, God talks -- and in the NT God is pretty silent. I know this is not an academic text, but this also struck me iin the popular movie Dogma -- at the end, God appears, but her voice is a destructive shreik humans cannot berar to hear. As a Jew, this just seemed wrong toi me, as I grew up with the idea that people can indead hear God's voice, which in fact is "still and small," but that people could never see God; even Moses got only a glimpse of God's tush (as it were). I do not think the real isue is whether the Torah was mechanically dictated or not; I think the issue is how different religions have different metaphors to express the ways in which God is both immanent and transcendant, and for Jews, the imanence is through our ability to hear his voice, and the transcendance is through our inability to see the speaker. Slrubenstein

Sorry, RK, most Orthodox Jews do believe that the Torah is one long quote from God. Danny

actually orthodox jews belive that God dictated the torah to moses, who wrote it all down--69.114.174.131 20:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I guess my point above is that although most people use the notion of direct verbal revalation to give the Torah authority, I am more intrigued by what it says about the nature of God. By the way, I have to say, I don't understand the idea "verbal inspiration." Language is language, whether written or spoken. If I spoke the preceding sentence to you would I have been more inspiring than had it been written down? Slrubenstein

The question seems pointed in my general direction, so I'll answer. I think that the phrase doesn't express how "inspiring" the words are, but how "inspired". An equivalent and more poetic phrase is, "God-breathed words". By the Spirit of God, what a prophet says (or writes) is more full of truth than even the prophet is able to understand, because the movement of thoughts and the choice of words does not ultimately originate from the prophet, but from God. Mkmcconn

Sory, I still do not get it; it now seems to me that you are eliding two distinctions: between the sender and receiver, and between two types of media (written and spoken). When you wrote "verbal inspiration" I assumed you meant "God spoke (verbally) which inspired those who hears His words." I still do not se how it matters whether Moses wrote down what God said, or simply repeated, verbally, what God said: the real question has nothing to do with verbal vs. written, it has to do with whether God spoke to Moses or whether there was some more vague "inspirational" event. Maybe I misunderstood you when you first posed the question. I trust that between what I wrote and what RK wrote, though, you have your answer: Virtually all Orthodox Jews believe that God spoke to Moses and other prophets.

My own view is that even if many Jews today find it hard to believe in that, and have turned to a model of "inspiration," what is important is that our people privilege the metaphor of speech for understanding our relationship with God; our God is a "talking god." I think the crucial point here is that the people Israel have an unmediated relationship with God. People do not ned an intermediary, whether Jesus, a priest, or a prophet, to speak "for" God, although sometimes God does speak to some people and not others. I know this is a vbast oversimplification of both Biblical poetry and theology -- I simplify only in order to make what many Jews perceive to be a stark contrast between themselves and Christians. Slrubenstein

What you and RK have written answered my question. Thank you. I hope you consider putting some of that material into the entry. I don't understand your contrast, above; and, I don't believe that we are using the same meaning of "inspiration". But, maybe this in itself points out the difficulty of trying to sum up the views of Judaism and Christianity on this issue, side-by-side. Mkmcconn

Danny writes "Sorry, RK, most Orthodox Jews do believe that the Torah is one long quote from God."

That wasn't me! I agree that the great majority of Orthodox Jews hold this way. In fact, see what I said (above) about how many Orthodox Jews inappropriately rewrite Maimonides to make him out to be Orthodox, because they just can't imagine that a great rabbi would ever have a point of view that was different from their own. I tried to make clear that it is only the non-Orthodox Jews who don't hold this way. RK

[edit] The Torah in in Judaism

In Judaism, the Torah in its strictest sense is the collection of five books said to have been given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.

It would be another surprise to me to learn that Judaism has ever had the idea that the entire Pentateuch was written by Moses on Mt. Sinai -- Deuteronomy 5:22 "These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me." (ESV) "These words" were those written on the tablets, "and he added no more". I was unaware that Judaism taught that more than the words of the stone tablets were written on Mt. Sinai.

Practically all of rabbinic Judaism has always held, from well before 200 CE up until recently, that 'all of the Torah was verbally dictated by God to Moses. (The exception would be rationalists like Maimonides, who held that th method of revelation was intellectual and not verbal; however they also held that Moses wrote all of the Torah, and wrote it in such a way that it perfectly represented the will of God. RK

I understand from answers to my previous question, that some denominations of Judaism might have taught that every word of the five books was dictated to Moses - in contrast to the traditional Christian view that every word of Moses was given through him by the Holy Spirit, not limited to the record of audible words spoken by God.

Not just some; All denominations of Judaism, before the enlightenment, held this way. Could you explain what you mean by this "every word of Moses was given through him by the Holy Spirit, not limited to the record of audible words spoken by God." I am not precisely sure what this means. RK

Here, another difference between the traditions is suggested - because Christians have never believed that the entire Pentateuch was written on Mt. Sinai, although they have believed that the whole Torah is from heaven. The Christian understanding had always been that the Pentateuch was given through Moses at non-specific times after the events recorded, during the lifetime of Moses and shortly after his death through anonymous scribes, and it was only the stone tablets that were written on Mt. Sinai (not by Moses, but by God himself). Is this an accurate description of the difference? Mkmcconn

I'm not sure. Jews don't necessarilly hold that all of the Torah was given at Mount Sinai. Many agree with the view that the Pentateuch was given through Moses at non-specific times after the events recorded, and during the lifetime of Moses. The rabbis held that this revelation was verbal, and recorded precisely, but not necessarilly all at once. As for a small number of later additions by anonymous scribes being in the Pentateuch, that too is an accepted viewpoint within traditional rabbinic Judaism. RK

SLR writes: When you wrote "verbal inspiration" I assumed you meant "God spoke (verbally) which inspired those who hears His words." I still do not see how it matters whether Moses wrote down what God said, or simply repeated, verbally, what God said:

Aren't both the same thing? In both cases God verablly gives a message to Moses, which Moses writes down word-for-word, and passes this direct quote from God down to the Israelites. The fact that it is audible, or through some other precise and accurate mode of revelation, is of little relevance. What is relevant, in this traditional view, is that our record of God's will is accurate and word-for-word. RK

SLR writes : the real question has nothing to do with verbal vs. written, it has to do with whether God spoke to Moses or whether there was some more vague "inspirational" event.

Agreed. People interested in this topic should look at the article on revelation to see other non-verbal ways in which God is said to have communicated His will to Moses and to other prophets. RK

Please grant me tolerance for the following explanation, which probably belongs under Talk:revelation more than here, and is from a particular, overtly Christian understanding. Christians appear to make a difference which Jews do not necessarily make, between "dictation" and the usual manner by which the word of God is enscripturated. Those who hold to the latter would agree that there are dictated words, which Moses was instructed to write (Exod 17:14; 24:4; 34:1, 27, 28; Deut 31:9, 19, 22, 24; 32:1, for examples). But, if you were to color these dictated "words of God" in red (as some publishers do to the "words of Jesus" in the Christian scriptures), there would be large blocks of black print running for pages. The black print also is the word of God, in the traditional view, although not dictated. Conservative protestants call this "verbal plenary inspiration". It does have a fully compatible counterpart in Catholic teaching.

Verbal means, even the very words are of God, and not just the thought behind them. Plenary means, all of the Scripture is the word of God, not just "the words in red" - every stroke of the pen is true (every "jot and tittle" as Jesus said). Inspiration refers to the spirit of God as the direct influence in guaranteeing the truth of every Scripture. Inspiration of the scriptures is often likened in Christian thinking, to the "inspiration" of Adam: God's breath is in Adam's nostrils, making him a living soul -- God's breath is in the prophet, so that what he speaks and writes is a living word. The phrase refers to 2 Peter 1:20,21 "knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.". But, it doesn't only apply to prophecies, following 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,". As a result, "God says", "the Spirit of God says", "the Word of God says", "the Scripture says", or "it is written" are all exactly equivalent, regardless of which sentence is being quoted of anything "Moses says" or "the Law says". — Mkmcconn

Hi, Mkmccon. I'm going to come in here with my $0.02. I think part of the problem is that you are trying to interpret Orthodox Jewish theologucal concepts by finding a parallel Christian concept, which may not necessarily be possible. I think the underlying basis of you query does not apply to a Jewish (and by this I mean a contemporary Orthodox Jewish, though other groups will certainly agree with some of this) perspective. In a nutshell, the Jewish perspective is not that the words are the message but that they are indicators of a far greater message that extends beyond them. For instance, the "jot and tittle" you speak of is actually a poor translation of the original term, which was kotzo shel yod, quite literally, the serif of the Hebrew letter yod (which happens to be the smallest letter), which the rabbis said can teach countless scores of lessons. This is regardless of whether that yod appears in the phrase "I am the Lord thy God," or whether it appears in that oft repeated, rather tedious "And God spoke unto Moses saying." In a similar vein, Rabbi Akiva, who died in 135 A.D., is said to have learned a new law from every et in the Torah--the word et is meaningless and is simply used to mark the direct accusative subject of a sentence. In other words, the Orthodox view is that "And God spoke unto Moses saying..." is no less important than the actual statement--in fact, if we were really to delve into the statement, we might find that the preamble is even more significant. This might provide some bbetter insight into the idea that the Torah is believed to have been dictated bverbatim by God, including all the introductions and preambles, and even including the final death of Moses himself. 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. For Orthodox Jews, the Torah is that rush of letters and sounds that can mean so many different things. As for prophecy, the Jewish view of that is very complicated and has nothing to do with an ability to foresee the future. What distinguishes the prophecy of Moses from other prophets is that, according to Jewish tradition, he was the only one who spoke directly to God as a person speaks to a friend. Danny

[edit] Terms used

Who uses the terms Tetrateuch and Hexateuch? Ezra Wax 05:04, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Edits war

EDIT WAR Rickyrab 19:55, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Removed from the article:

Recent research (AD 2003+) has revealed, that the Torah has been built upon (or later aligned onto) a 16-year period of astronomical cycles. See Torah Cosmos for details.

Please see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, particularly the part about original research. -- The Anome 19:52, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sihan, I have protected this page because you continually add your information without discussing it on this page. I have also left a message on your talk page. Please address ongoing concerns about original research and NPOV before posting here again. Thank you. RadicalBender 20:04, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sihan: According to the rules of this site no content hast to be discussed before it can be added. Hence, removing my content until "discussion" is not fair. Leave it there except someone proves it to be nonsense, what indeed never can happen. The "nonsense" claims and deletions are just religious motivated vandalism.

You are perfectly free to add it; and others are perfectly free to delete it, or restore it. However, when there is a repeated set of reversions and counter-reversions, as in this case, we then move to discussing the merits of the material prior to further editing. Please read Welcome, newcomer for a guide to the whole Wiki-process, and in particular how the community can help you work with other contributors. -- The Anome 20:18, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You are correct. Content does not have to be discussed before it can be added. But if you add the content and someone reverts the content and you add it back and it gets reverted again and so on, a good strategy might be to use the talk page to ask why and discuss others' concerns. Content is not reverted without purpose. And, please, don't say it's religious-motivated because it's not. I have no motivation whatsoever in regard to your religion or what you believe. Frankly, I don't care. What I do care about is that your articles are not tempered with a Neutral Point of View and that they are considered what is known as Original Research. Please read up on that information and ask about others' concerns here before we move forward. Thank you. RadicalBender 20:19, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Once more, they are NOT "orginal" and they are indeed neutral and based on evidence. Who can claim he understands everything what is presented in Wikipedia may he judge what is crap? There is no reason to support religious vandalism because any investition of power into a senseless discussion is wrong. As I see it, Wikipedia, when it places polls over what is evident and waht is not, is far from being serious at all, so I rather leave than supporting a blindfolded act.Sihan 21:09, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

OK, now we can begin to resolve things. You claim that your article describes concepts that are not original to you. Can you please give cites to other, independent, sources that share these views? -- The Anome 20:38, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Further, as a lesson in psychology you shall know, that by REMOVING a content and protecting the article rather than LEAVING it within the protection, you suggest that revert-wars are successful. Here is how democracy works: when people feel my content is wrong, they may not start an effective war to get rid of them (as you support them to do). THEY who want something to be lastingly reverted, need to discuss first. Not me. Hence you act unfair.

Not original, but i ideed am the reseracher. I am the one who has published them before elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with that. You may see

http://otaku.onlinehome.de/torah.html or http://otaku.onlinehome.de/tken.html .

Science has never needed at least two (or however you claim it must be) researchers for the same thing. Such would be scizophrenic.Sihan 21:09, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with you publishing this on your own website. However it does not seem to fit in with our editorial policy for Wikipedia. Have you tried the Internet-Encyclopedia or the Meta-Wikipedia?

what do you mean "does not SEEM to fit in" because of some semi-religious "we know everything" hubbubb. Thanx for the encylopedia info and howto sign info but are you sure you are not just tossign the responsibility away? Sihan 21:09, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotection

I'm about to unprotect this page (because I hate leaving things protected), but I don't want to see anything more about Torah Cosmos on this page until the concerns have been worked out here. If I see it again, it's going straight back to protection. Capisce? RadicalBender 21:34, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Polish translation

Sacha Pecaric has started a translation of the Torah to Polish - Can anyone explain why this sentence should stay in the article? There are thousands (literally!) translations of the Torah, and I fail to see why Mr Pecaric's work should deserve special mention. JFW | T@lk 15:25, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Two weeks later, no response. Good luck, mr Pecaric. JFW | T@lk 20:06, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific vs. Orthodox

Jdwolff, I removed your paragraph for the following reasons:

There should be symmetry here: if you add a paragraph to the scientific view that the orhodox view differs, you should reciprocally add a paragraph to the Jewish view that the scientific views differ.
Stylewise, I think here none is better than both.
It seems you relate only to the documentary hypothesis. In this case it should probably be discussed on its page.

Gadykozma 19:22, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Gadykozma, I would have preferred if you hadn't reverted this edit. There has been no "resistance" from the scientists to the Orthodox view, but there have been many Orthodox scholars who have fought the scientific approach. Also, they fought more than just the documentary hypothesis: they fought the suggestion that the Torah was not given by God (see Jewish principles of faith, where this is stated quite explicitly). Examples of traditionalist detractors of the scientific view are Rabbis M.L. Malbim and D.Z. Hoffmann. I will reinstate my edit, and await a slightly more even-handed approach from you. JFW | T@lk 22:21, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

JFW, I honestly don't understand your claim that 'there has been no "resistance" from scientists'. What would you call the DH? Or for that matter, cosmology, evolution and archeology? So again I ask: if the section about "scientific views" states that Rabbis disagree, shouldn't the section about "orthodox views" states that scientists disagree, just for symmetry's sake?

My favorite solution is still to simply remove this text but I won't do it just yet. The ball is in your field now. Gadykozma 01:10, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Let's await the others to comment. JFW | T@lk 11:17, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Let's give it 5 days. Gadykozma 12:06, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Unsurprisngly, nobody stepped up, so I erased this text again. I have a suggestion, though, how about adding to the "orthodox views" something like this:

Some orthodox rabbis have explicitly tried to respond to scientific arguments which contradict this view (see below). Among those one may count .... Their main arguments were...

Again, if you want to add this or something like it, please do it in the orthodox views section. That's where it belongs. Gadykozma 01:44, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Under protest. I still feel that reactions to critical theory belong with the theory, not with the people from whom they originated. JFW | T@lk 16:48, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Jdwolff, I've added a comment to that paragraph — is this any better? Gadykozma 17:27, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific Consensus

Does "There is scientific consensus that the Torah was written by a person." mean anything, given that the premise of [most] scientific investigation allows for no alternative? I move for striking this sentence or noting its basic limitation. Anyone object to "The premise of scientific investigation into the Torah's authorship is that it was written by a person."? MOE37x3 12:43, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I disagree. This is simply not true. Take a basic course in the philosophy of science. It will do you good. Gadykozma 13:08, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please clarify: Are you saying that scientific investigations into the Torah's authorship do pursue the question of whether it was written by a person or not?MOE37x3 15:50, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What is The Bible Code if not exactly that? Gadykozma 16:26, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Bible Code is to Divine Authorship as the spare wheel is to a car. Divine authorship is an axiom of Orthodox Judaism, with or without the Bible Code movement, and by treating the Torah as a document written by a human being, scientists are perceived to act in a heretical fashion.

More importantly, The Bible Code is to scientific investigation as... Oh, I'm no clever enough to come up with a good analogy, but I hope you don't think that that book described a scientific investigation.MOE37x3 16:54, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think MOE37x3's version is really not bad. A scientist only approaches the Torah in this fashion if he/she believes that it is human-authored. Scientists totally bypass the question whether there is such a thing as Divine authorship - they see this question as an oxymoron. JFW | T@lk 16:48, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was not relating to the book, I was relating to the paper (see Bible code). And yes, this is a scientific paper. It may be all wrong. The authors may have had extraneous motives. They may not be experts in statistics. But they still used the scientific method. So yes, science is always ready to check all its premises.

There is nothing inherently unscientific about the assumption of divine authorship — it's just that the evidence against it is overwhelming... Gadykozma 17:31, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gady, you disappoint me. How on earth do you prove scientifically that the Torah was not written by God? JFW | T@lk 19:56, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, what (studies that look for) evidence against are you referring to? I concede that there has been an attempt to demonstrate scientific evidence of Divine Authorship of the Torah, but I have yet to see reference to a body of scientific literature that directly addresses the question of divinity/personhood of authorship and comes to a consensus on it. There does exist a large body of literature that starts with the assumption that one or more people wrote it and then tries to determine characteristics of those people, but that doesn't ask or answer whether it was written by a person in the first place.MOE37x3 21:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, slip of the tongue. I meant that the lack of evidence to the contrary despite so many attempts to prove otherwise (even Descartes tried this!) is overwhelming. Now let's go back to the article. I agree that the first paragraph will not come as a surprise to many. As far as I am concerned, you may remove it completely. All I ask is that you do not replace it with MOE's text which is just plain wrong. Gadykozma 23:36, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Do you consider the stuff in Bible Codes to be "many attempts to prove otherwise [within the world of scientific discourse]"? Did Descartes attempt to prove the authorship of the Torah or simply the existence of a Deity? I don't think the consensus that the Bible Codes findings are inconclusive and flawed of method constitutes consensus that the Torah was written by a person. It barely even approaches the latter.MOE37x3 23:49, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, I think we can reach a consensus to delete the paragraph. The real meat of the section follows it, anyway.MOE37x3 00:29, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not really related to the article but: A) No, the Bible codes stuff is one attempt. There were others. B) I think Descartes went on from the proof of the existence of Deity to prove stuff like that, but I might be wrong C) I definitely agree with you on the last point. As JFW noted, there is no way to prove that God does not exist or that he didn't write the Torah. Gadykozma 01:00, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Box

Gady, you can really leave the article series box in place. It links all the books. Boxes very often contain redundant stuff. JFW | T@lk 08:48, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But JFW, look at the text! It has precisely the same links in the main text and in the box! Doesn't this strike you as strange? Gadykozma 11:21, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Christian View of the Torah"

Can someone explain to me why the christian view is even included in this article? This content is extremely inflammatory IMHO. I ask rhetorically if we should include the views of Satanists in the christian bible wiki? It doesn't make any difference what christians believe about the Torah, their opinion is irrelevant to this article about the Torah.

The popular wisdom says the christian bible has somehow superceded the Torah, therefore we should allow this viewpoint to stay in the wiki.. that may be the opinion of some, but not mine. This inclusion of the christian perspective only serves only to cast doubt on the veracity of torah (and subtly tries to raise suspicion about the faith of Jews as well.)

[edit] Transliteration

Actually I am glad to see someone on English Wikipedia revising transliteration of Hebrew. I hope the article romanization of Hebrew interests you.

I would say that (for example) the existing link to Deuteronomy is sufficient without a separate link to the transliteration "vayikra", which is a synonym.

Comparing "bereishit" with "berashit", the transliteration "bereishit" roughly agrees with prominent traditions of Hebrew pronunciation: the "ei" combination represents the vowel tsere in an open syllable. In comparison, Google counts fewer instances of the spelling "berashit". Does the letter A represent the long a as in "take" there? I'm not sure that readers can figure that out. --Hoziron 03:33, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Some of the transliterations used on this page do not have Wikipedia pages or redirects, specifically בראשית, which is why I made the change. My thought process was different than your Google approach, but still as valid: if it didn't exist on Wikipedia, and the alternative did, then that's what should appear. I'm not wedded to either spelling.

<opinion>Personally, I think transliteration is a crutch, and should only be used to teach letters, and not words. This goes for all languages.</opinion>

— <TALKJNDRLINETALK> 01:47, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, OK. I wanted to stick with linking to Genesis because it identifies the same concept, it's English (no form of בראשית is in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary Ninth Edition), and it's easier than dealing with varying ideas about transliteration. I realize that it could be considered an anachronism in a discussion of Torah. I'll just add a couple of words to make it absolutely clear which names are appropriate to the Hebrew text (no worries about what's appropriate to Judaism -- Septuagint names such as Genesis are A-OK). See if you like it that way. I'll add a redirect from Bereishit to Genesis for good measure. Also, I notice now that the Genesis page doesn't mention the Hebrew-language origin of the text, and the Hebrew Bible = Tanakh page features an image of an Aramaic translation (Targum). Odd. --Hoziron 17:37, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading edits by 167.6.245.98

There's an anon. who has made some edits in the 'Islamic view of the Torah' section which are very misleading. Can I urge everyone who knows about such issues to make sure that we don't confuse Tawrat with Torah - they are not the same from an Islamic viewpoint, one is not just a translation (transliteration) of the other, neither is one just another way of spelling the other. ---Mpatel (talk) 16:13, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Would it be OK to say that the Islamic view is expressed by the concept "Tawrat" and leave a fuller discussion to that article? And perhaps that discussion should attribute views to a particular text, tradition, scholar, or cleric. A naive observer (such as I am!) wouldn't expect a billion Muslim believers to all form the same opinion independently. --Hoziron 17:37, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Islamically, the belief is that Moses was given revelations by God (later collated in book form) called the Tawrat. Also, the present day Torah is regarded as a corrupted version of the Tawrat (= original revelation given to Moses). On this issue, people who call themselves muslims share this belief exclusively - it really is a core belief of Islam (the Quranic reference to this issue is enough to convince any muslim believer) - believe me! Hope this clears up any misconceptions. ---Mpatel (talk) 17:59, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I was the anon, I hadn't logged in yet. (Please excuse my newbeeness.) Please see disccussion on Talk:Tawrat --JBJ830726 18:12, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Isn't this page title POV? The Torah is specifically the Jewish term for the first five books of the Bible. "Pentateuch" would seem to be to be the generic term. Obviously, the Pentateuch is more important to Judaism than it is to Christianity. But still, there's a lot more Christians in the world, and Pentateuch isn't a term which is specifically Christian in any way. I don't see how the common name rule comes into play here - both Torah and Pentateuch are common names. john k 18:50, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

"Torah" does not merely indicate a text. It also indicates a substantial context. I think the article "Christ" is a very similar case. It seems like a good article to have. As you can read in the article, the word "Christ" is a translation of the Hebrew word "messiah", sharing the literal meaning "anointed one" and connotation "a messenger who ushers in the end of history". Up to that point, Judaism shares the concept. However, Judaism does not have "the Christ" (allowing Messianic Judaism as either an exception or a distraction). Rather similarly, Christianity does not have "the Torah". As far as Britannica and Encarta (and I) are concerned, Torah refers to the Jewish understanding of holy scripture. That understanding owes much to rabbinical literature, known as the "Oral Torah". Rabbinical literature is exactly the Pharisee tradition that Christianity has often used as a defining contrast. --Hoziron 03:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I can understand the purpose of having a lengthy article to deal with the role of the Torah in Judaism. This article should be at Torah. But it seems to me that it's problematic to deal with generic information about the Pentateuch in the same article. The sections on translations and on the secular view, at the very least, are not really about the Torah (as a Jewish phenomenon) at all - they are about the Pentateuch, as a group of Biblical books. Having a section on the Christian view of the Jewish law seems appropriate. But the section we have seems to be partially that, and partially a section on the Christian view of the Pentateuch. Perhaps the answer is to split into two articles. One, Pentateuch, would be about the five books themselves. It could discuss the scholarly and traditional views of their origins, their structure and contents, textual history, translations, and so forth. The other, Torah, would deal with the stuff you talk about - the position of the Torah in Jewish tradition, and perhaps, to an extent, the attitude of Christianity towards the Jewish idea of Torah. Each article would have to briefly touch on the subject matter of the other, but it seems to me that it could be separated without extraordinary difficulty. Does this seem like a sensible approach? BTW, it is to be noted that we have separate articles on messiah and christ. john k 06:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, I agree that "Pentateuch", meaning the objective or interfaith aspects of the Five Books of Moses, should have its own article. Let's feel free to create that. Just go to Pentateuch and click on the link "Redirected from Pentateuch". In fact the objective aspects of the entire Tanakh (that is, "Torah" in one of its wider senses) already have a separate article at Hebrew Bible. --Hoziron 18:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I see no problem with splitting off Pentateuch and leaving Torah for the "Jewish" definition. JFW | T@lk 07:13, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I have begun a Pentateuch page and removed the redirect. I think this is important because the Torah article does not start with a mention of the Pentateuch being part of the Christian Bible as well, which is important to include off the bat, but doesn't quite seem to fit the Torah article, for reasons stated above. Please add freely to it. 18:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Christian View of the Torah

It is asked below: "Can someone explain to me why the christian view is even included in this article?" The simple answer is that most people who view the books of the Torah as Scripture are Christians rather than orthodox Jews. Furthermore, more readers of this article are more likely either to be Christians or secularists than orthodox Jews. To include the Christian viewpoint is not inflamatory as such, but educational. Whether the Christian view is right or wrong is not the point. To exclude it the way Izak does is what is inflamatory. The analogy with Satanists is not germaine since there are hardly any of them. Christians, on the other and, are in fact major players in the history of the interpretation of the Torah. But if there were a large number of Satanist readers of the Torah who have made a significant impact on how the Torah is to be read, then they would rightly deserve be included too. This is meant to be an objective work, not a sectarian one, so limiting the article on Torah to just the orthodox Jewish viewpoint is not in keeping with this work's purpose.

Does the Christian viewpoint refer specifically to the Torah or also to the remaining works of the Old Testament? Does Christian theology actually make a distinction between the two? JFW | T@lk 18:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Early Christianity has its roots in Judaism so naturally there is some overlap. Jesus was a Jew and Paul studied under Rabbi Gamaliel who is also mentioned in the Talmud. Jesus said he did not come to abolish "the law or the prophets" (Matthew 5:17), a reference to the first two divisions of the Hebrew Bible as a way of indicating the whole but also making a distinction. The New Testament often refers to "the law" or to the "law of Moses." It follows the Septuagint in translating TORAH as Greek NOMOS (not an altogether happy renderining), though there is no question that it refers to the same thing as Hebrew TORAH. NOMOS occurs some 158 times in the New Testament, mostly in reference to the law of Moses. The N.T. also refers to "the law, the prophets, and the Psalms" (Luke 24:44) in the sense of TORAH, NEVI'IM and KETUBIM. Thus it assumes in the early days the same division of the Bible as found in the Hebrew Bible and it therefore makes a distinction between the TORAH and the other books. There are quotations of many of the laws in the New Testament. It is fair to say that for Judaism TORAH plays a far more central role for religion than it does for Christianity which sees the application of the law as having been complicated by the new covenant. Moreover Christianity sees its roots more in the promises found in the prophets than in the law. But the TORAH (like the rest of the Hebrew Bible) is considered Scripture by Christians and is a part of their "canon" that provides a norm for their religous practices and beliefs. DrJ1m

And yet contemporary mainstream Christians do not, as far as I know, make a distinction between the authority of the Torah and the rest of the Tanakh, but rather between the "Old Testament" and the "New." The word "Torah" isn't even in common use among most Christians. Including the Christian point of view simply seems intrusive.Benami 00:45, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

True Torah is not a commont term among Christians laypeople. Why should a Hebrew term be? Neither is NOMOS which is the common rendering of TORAH in the Greek New Testament. But the English term "law" is a common term used by Christians and that that is what TORAH and NOMOS popularly translate as. However TORAH is commonly used by Christian Bible scholars who have studied Hebrew. Moreover the role of the law (that is, the Torah) is an important New Testament theme. That Christians do not make a large distinction between the authority of the Torah and that of the rest of the Tanakh whereas Orthodox Judaism does is in fact a point worth mentioning in an article on TORAH as a way of contrasting the two religions. I do not see why that should be a reason for excluding anything Christian in this article. I thus see exculsion of all but the Orthodox Jewish point of view as too limiting. And yet the links to other points of view at the end of the article placates me somewhat. DrJ1m

I think the information on this section is best moved to the Pentateuch article which I started. I put a sentence toward the beginning stating that the term Pentateuch is also used by Christians. That seems to be where the reference to Christianity belongs. The Christian view of the five books themselves, though, seems best placed in an article on the Pentateuch.Giffmex 19:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew naming conventions

Urgent: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew) to add your opinions about this important matter. Thank you. IZAK 17:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Torah does not mean law

Rebbi Adin Steinsaltz explains why. 203.214.153.235 17:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ashkenazi Torah Scroll image

In the section "Torah as the core of Judaism" there's a picture of someone directly touching the scroll, which is not appropriate scroll edicate. It's like an article about America having a picture of someone standing on an American flag. I suggest replacing the piture with one of Moses or Mt. Sinai or something since that's largely what the section is about.

[edit] FALSE TRANSLATIONS

Did you ever read The Bible Unauthorized ? in the preface it explains that all translations are false ones therefore all criticism and praise of the bible can not be directed to the true bible (the torah)--Brl 02:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On Merging

A "merge" template was added here, but hasn't received any discussion yet.

It doesn't seem like a good idea to me. They indeed refer to the same books, but "Torah" has a much wider range of meaning, and an entirely separate history of usage from "Pentateuch". "Pentateuch" is connected with a range of related terms that have nothing to do with "Torah". I think each should have its own distinctive article. But if not, then "Pentateuch" should redirect here, with a short section that explains the term. Dovi 07:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If anything, Pentateuch and Humash should be merged. --Eliyak T·C 20:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't support a merger either. Beit Or 21:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Same Here, A Merge is not nessary

I agree that this article should not be merged. That makes 4 against and 0 in favor. I'm going to be italic be bold and remove it. Someone put it back if you really want it there. -- Eykanal 18:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Make that 5:0 against Johnbod 03:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paragraph deleted from "Structure"

I took the following paragraph out of the "Structure" section:

The Torah is written by Hebrews and not Jews! Hebrews have nothing to do with Judaism or being Jewish. It is against the law for a Jew to speak Ancient Hebrew in Jerusalem! The Tora was translated from Ancient Hebrew to Greek to Latin and then to English! This is not intended to paint a bad picture of Jews but only to stop the lies being told and to let the truth of God shine through. http://members.tripod.com/jrmoore1958/moors.html

I moved it here since factually and stylistically it really is more fitting as a discussion item.Jerchower 12:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old Testament...

How can it be that no where in this article does it mention specifically the Old Testament? Kingturtle 03:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Because there is no "Old Testament" in Judaism? Kari Hazzard (T | C) 05:00, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No attacks on rabbinic literature

I was planning on adding a new paragraph to this article when I noted the following paragraph. Note the text in italics, which I have since removed:

Other classical rabbinic sources (from liberal thought in Judaism that are not recongized by traditional Jews) hold that the Torah was revealed to Moses over many years, and finished only at his death....

That parenthetical quote is false, and seems to be an attack on Orthodox Jews who study rabbinic literature, instead of confining themselves to belief in some ultra-Orthodox yeshiva textbook. There is a trend in which ultra-Orthodox Jews condemn Jews who are aware of philosophical differences as "liberal", "reform" or "non-Orthodox", all of which are very bad things to say in the Orthodox community.

Abraham ibn Ezra and Joseph Bonfils state this belief about non-Mosaic quotes, as well as the Talmud and the Midrash. For all of them to be condemned as "liberal" is quite astonishing. Mark3 22:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need an article on Torah commentaries

We should have an article that briefly discusses Torah commentaries. Mark3 19:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Torah commentaries for liturgical use in synagogues

These are Torah commentaries that are set up not only for reading and study, but also for liturgical useage. The Torah passages are separated by parashiyot, and they have hafatarah readings for eeach parashah.

Hertz Chumash (Traditional, was/is used by all movements)
Mesorah Stone Edition of the Torah (Orthodox synagogues)
Plaut Torah (Reform & Reconstructionist)
Etz Chayim: A Torah Commentary (Conservative)

[edit] Torah commentaries for study

Torah (and Tanakh) commentaries, in Hebrew only AFAIK, from Mossad Harav Kook, Israel. I have never read these, but I understand that these are the only Modern Orthodox Tanakh commentaries. They even include some modern day archaeology.
Soncino Chumash, Soncino Press (Traditional, was/is used by all movements)
Richard Elliot Friedman's Torah commentary (used in study groups in many non-Orthodox synagogues. Is it used by any Orthodox groups?)
JPS Torah commentary series
The Artscroll Tanakh series on the Torah
The Anchor Bible series, by Doubleday. (That is non-Jewish, non-denominational, but occasionally used by non-Orthodox.

[edit] Need section on composition?

The article has nothing about the composition of the Torah - who wrote it, when, where, what their purpose/s were. Do others feel this needs to be included?PiCo 01:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC) Bold text

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