The Tanakh—Hebrew Bible—Old Testament

Introduction to the Torah

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

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

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

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

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

Genesis

Introduction and Overview

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

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

Often referred to as the "Call of Abraham," the narrative that begins chapter 12 initiates a new era that will engage—and hopefully alleviate—the problems of the past through Abraham and certain of his descendants. However, this change in emphasis also brings about problems of its own, not least in how those who are not of Abraham's special lineage relate to God and those God favors. These narratives thus highlight the complex relationships between the chosen and those who stand outside the Abrahamic covenant.

The stories of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, and Joseph and his brothers dominate the Ancestral Narratives. The book eventually ends with Israel, now a small people, living in Egypt.

Controversies and Debates

A number of important scholarly debates grew out of and focus upon the book of Genesis. Some of these have been touched upon in our discussion of the historical-critical approach above, so here we briefly look at one issue that seems to receive abundant popular attention: Are the materials found in Genesis 1–11 historical, and if they are not, how are they best understood?

In reality, what some call the "creation and evolution" debate generates little scholarly interest outside of a small subset of those thinkers taking a very traditional or at times a fundamentalist approach to the text. The issues here are not as complex as some would have it, at least if one takes the genre of this literature seriously. Most scholars regard much of Genesis 1–11 to be mythic in nature. As we discussed earlier, in religious studies the term myth describes a type of story that communicates deep truths about the nature of human existence or about the human understanding of the divine (even if such stories are open to question historically). Inasmuch as these mythic texts from Genesis are primarily concerned with exploring what it means to be human, why life and work are difficult, why humans die, and so on, scholars generally view the popular tendency to focus on "creation science" or "evolution and the Bible" as a fundamental misreading of this type of material. It would be akin to trying to ask scientific and historical questions about the story of "Little Red Riding Hood" or asking literary questions about the list of ingredients on a cereal box.

Other closely related ancient Near Eastern texts provide further support for understanding these materials as mythic. Thus the two creation narratives as well as the garden of Eden and flood stories in Genesis share much in common with other ancient Near Eastern origin stories (for example, the Enuma Elish, the Epic of Atrahasis, and the Gilgamesh Epic). Yet, the Hebrew Bible generally portrays humans in a more dignified and exalted role. The God in whose image they are made is portrayed as remarkable in faithfulness and loving-kindness. In the Enuma Elish, for example, an ancient Mesopotamian creation epic, humans are created from the blood of the rebel deity Kingu to alleviate the workload of the lower gods. In contrast, Genesis 1 depicts the first ancestors of human beings, both male and female, as created in God's own image and given dominion over the world.

Creation: Genesis 1–2

Genesis begins with two distinct creation stories. The first account (Genesis 1:1-2:4a), which is more theocentric (or God-centered) in orientation, depicts Israel's God as a transcendent creator who stands apart from the created order. These characteristics, along with its poetic language and almost hymnlike structure, have led most modern scholars to attribute it to the P, or Priestly source. Unlike later Jewish and Christian readings of this story that assume creation out of nothing, here God neither creates the waters nor the dry land. Rather, God puts each in its proper place.

The subsequent creation story found in Genesis 2:4b-2:25 is notable for its earthy language and anthropocentric (or human-centered) viewpoint. God is here portrayed not only as much less transcendent but even as not entirely omniscient in that God at times engages in experimentation. Scholars attribute this seemingly more fallible image of God to the J source. In this account, the creation of animals appears to result from a trial-and-error attempt to find a suitable partner for the first human being. Discovering that none of the animals would serve as a helper to Adam, God removes a piece of Adam and builds a woman whom the earth creature recognizes as his partner. Here the Torah, in a brief aside, provides the reader with an etiological, or causal, explanation of the attraction to the opposite sex and the central role of the nuclear family.

Corruption: Genesis 3–11

For centuries, Christians have read Genesis 3 as the story of the "fall of man" (or "fall of humanity") in which God punishes all humans on account of Adam and Eve's disobedience by taking away the immortality he had initially bestowed upon them. This interpretation contributed to a doctrine of original sin, held by many Christians, the idea that all humans are sinful at birth as a result of the first humans' actions. However, there is little evidence to suggest that Genesis 3 marks a complete change in the human-divine relationship. Furthermore, it is not clear that Genesis 3 describes a loss of human immortality, but rather the loss of the potential to obtain it. We would suggest, along with others, that Genesis 3–11 contains many interconnected stories that describe a "falling out" between God and humans through the deepening corruption of human beings.

Genesis 4 furthers the Torah's probing of human corruption by narrating the first murder, a fratricide inspired by jealousy over God's preference for Abel and his sacrifice over Cain and his. This short episode is the first of a host of stories in Genesis in which God's favor toward a specific person sets off the jealousy of those not chosen (a theme we return to below). After this incident the chapter goes on to describe a number of technological innovations, which it places between Cain's murder of Abel and Lamech's vengeful taunt. The growing ability of humans to manipulate the natural world is presented as a mixed blessing in that this evolving technical mastery is tainted by a lack of human moral development.

When one examines the flood narrative, one once again discovers the juxtaposition of differing theologies. One strand of the narrative (P) views the flood as God's righteous judgment on a wicked humanity as seen in Genesis 6:11. In contrast, the other version of the story (J) shows a more reluctant and ambivalent deity. This deity initially exhibits regret at having created humankind and at the end of the flood regrets having destroyed the world by the flood. Although the larger story can lend itself to the idea of an unmerciful God who destroys all at will, one can also read the text as suggesting that an evil and corrupt world exists only due to God's continuing mercy toward humanity, despite its continued corruption and rebellion (compare Genesis 6:5-7 with 8:21).

This story concludes with the Bible's first covenant in which God promises all humanity and all animals that he will never again flood the world. From this, and the accompanying commandments given by God to Noah and his family, traditional Judaism derives what it calls the Noahide laws, a short list of basic commandments such as not murdering, not stealing, and not committing adultery that apply to all humans, since in the biblical view everyone is a descendant of Noah. Despite God's attempt to set the human-divine relationship on a new footing here, the subsequent stories of Noah's sons and the Tower of Babel indicate that God is still failing to obtain the response for which he had hoped.

God and Abraham: Genesis 12–25

As already mentioned, in some ways Genesis 1–11 represents not only human failure but also God's failed attempt to create a proper set of relationships between humans, nature, and himself. In the wake of these failures, God moves from a plan in which he demands equal obedience from all humans to a two-tiered plan in which most people are held to a minimal religio-moral standard (the few basic Noahide laws) while one man's family is given a special place in the divine economy requiring that they maintain a higher religio-moral standard (the full teachings of the Torah). As Genesis 12:3 makes clear, God's special favor toward Abraham, as well as Israel, Abraham's descendants, is closely bound up with God's larger plan to bring blessing to the whole world, as God assures Abraham:

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

There is a great deal of debate regarding whether the conclusion of Genesis 12:3 should be translated as, "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" or as, "In you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves." Will Abraham and his later descendants, the Israelites, mediate God's blessings to the other nations of the world through their actions? Or will the nations bless themselves through Abraham in some way, perhaps by blessing him or by saying, "May you be blessed like God blessed Abraham"? How one translates this ambiguous verse can significantly affect one's understanding of Israel's purpose and mission in the world (see "Genesis in Christianity" below).

The call of Abraham also includes God's gift of land to Abraham and his descendants (identified as the land of Canaan), a theme that plays a central role in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as within postbiblical Jewish thought. This initial mention of land in Genesis 12:7 becomes a promise that reverberates throughout Genesis and indeed the Bible. The Bible understands the land of Israel as a holy place where God is especially present and thus as the one place where the people of Israel can fully realize their potential to live as God's chosen people.

Genesis includes two main covenants, one between God and Noah, discussed above, and one between God and Abraham, found in Genesis 15 and 17. A covenant is a way to formalize an agreement between two parties, and it sometimes involves a ritual element or a type of sacrifice. There are two broad categories of divine-human covenants in the Hebrew Bible: conditional (or treaty) covenants in which the bulk of the burden falls on the humans involved, and unconditional covenants (or covenants of grant) in which most of the obligations fall upon God. Both God's covenant with Noah and his one with Abraham are unconditional in that the obligations fall primarily, if not exclusively, upon the Deity. In the case of the Abrahamic covenant, God promises to give Abraham numerous descendants as well as the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession.