The Torah, or the Mosaic Pentateuch, is included in a collection of the three most popular Jewish holy books - the Tanach. This is a kind of "Hebrew Bible", which is sometimes also called the Moses Books.
Instructions
Step 1
The Tanakh, which includes, along with the Torah, two more sacred scriptures - Neviim and Ktuvim, was published in the Middle Ages. Then the Christian censorship forced to release only one volume of each edition. The Torah is for Jews a sacred code of laws that are prescribed to be followed. In this sacred book itself, some commandments or laws are called Torah. Sometimes all Jewish laws and their totality are also called Torah.
Step 2
The Jews believe that Moses was the author of the Torah, and he wrote down all the commandments and laws from the words of the Most High. True, there are different opinions regarding the period of its writing: some believe that the writing of the Torah took place forty days while Moses was on Mount Sinai, on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, others - that for forty years, while the Jewish people wandered in the desert, and that there was completed this book on the eve of the death of Moses.
Step 3
The text of the Torah is difficult to understand and study even for the majority of Jews, therefore there are many commentaries on its individual provisions. These comments were published at various times for the understanding of the rest of the people. Individual commentators describe and interpret literally every sentence of the Torah.
Step 4
It is believed that, in addition to the Torah in writing, oral information was also given to Moses, revealing the deeper meaning of the sayings contained in the Written Torah. They tried to preserve this Oral Torah and passed them on to successive generations in the same oral form, until in the 2nd century it was written in the form of the Talmud. Today's versions of the Torah also include many commentaries by sages from the Middle Ages to the 17th century.
Step 5
It is not for nothing that the Torah is called that, because it consists of five books or sections. These are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It is logical that they carry different meanings. Genesis tells how the world and the Jewish people were created.
Step 6
The book of Exodus is separated from other parts of the Torah by a prologue and an epilogue, and it tells about how the Jewish people under the leadership of Moses left Egypt, as well as about the gift of the Torah to Moses in the form of the Tablets of the Covenant, or a stone slab with the ten commandments. The Book of Leviticus deals with the legislation of the priests and the temple service.
Step 7
The Book of Numbers tells how the Jews wandered in the desert after the exodus from Egypt. And Deuteronomy, according to its name, repeats all the previously recorded laws and the contents of the books. Deuteronomy is Moses' dying speech.
