Jewish Torah: Authority and Significance

The Torah

The term “Torah” separates the Pentateuch from the other two sections of the Hebrew Bible. It means “teaching”, “doctrine”, or “instruction” and is often used to refer to all the body of laws. The term in a wider sense is also applied to scriptures as a whole and biblical legislation in contrast to rabbinical enactments.

The Torah is the most important and authoritative book in the Jewish faith. It received this recognition from Numbers 8:1, “And the Lord spoke unto Moses” and also from Deuteronomy 31:9, “And Moses wrote this law”; (see also Exodus 20:1, 32:16; Leviticus 1:1, 4:1; Numbers 1:1, 2:1, etc.) Given its divine origin and Mosaic authorship, the Torah has been held in great esteem throughout Jewish history. The Rabbinical tradition declared it to exist even before its revelation to Moses. To the Rabbis the Torah existed even before the world was created. It is regarded as one of the six or seven things that were created before the creation of anything in the world and it even preceded the throne of God’s glory. The “Torah which God had kept by him in heaven for nine hundred and seventy-four generations was a hidden treasure.” God consulted the Torah regarding the creation of the world as an architect consulted a blueprint.

Preexistent Word of God

It is evident from these quotations that Rabbinic Judaism had a strong belief in the Torah being the preexistent “Word of God” given to Moses in a mode of direct revelation. They also had no doubt whatsoever about the physical Mosaic authorship of the Torah, “And who wrote them? Moses wrote his own book (The Torah) and the sections concerning Balaam and Job.”6 Otto Eissfeldt summarizes the point in the following words: "Moses was from an early date regarded as the compiler, or more correctly as the mediator, of the laws of the Pentateuch which issued from God himself. The name used in the New Testament clearly with reference to the whole Pentateuch  – the Book of Moses – is certainly to be understood as meaning that Moses was the compiler of the Pentateuch. Explicit references to this conception may be found in Philo ..., in Josephus, and in the Talmud (bab. Baba Batra 14b), where it is said that Moses wrote the five books named after him. Philo and Josephus explicitly attribute to Moses also the conclusion which relates his death (Deut. xxxiv, 5–12), whereas the Talmud regards this as having been written by Joshua. The Jewish tradition concerning the compilation of the Pentateuch was taken over by the Christian church."

In addition to this, the rabbinic sources contended that God’s whole revelation was not comprised in the written Torah but also in the Oral Torah, the Talmud, which Moses received side by side with the Written Torah on Mount Sinai and which was orally carried and conveyed through subsequent generations.

The medieval Jewish scholars maintained the same position vis-à-vis the divine provenance of the Torah and the resulting authoritative and binding nature of the Bible in general and the Dual Torah in particular. There is a popular saying concerning Moses Maimonides that “from Moses to Moses there was none like Moses”.8 This medieval philosopher and Rabbi argued in his introduction to the “Mishneh Torah” (“Repetition of the Torah”) that:

All the precepts that Moses received on Sinai were given together with their interpretation, as it is said, “And I will give to you the table of stone and the law, and the commandment” (Exodus 24:12). “The Law” refers to the Written Law: “the commandments” to its interpretation... This commandment refers to that which is called the Oral Law. The whole of the Law was written by Moses, our Teacher, before his death in his own hand.”

In his letter to Joseph Ibn Gabir, he declared that “the Torah in its totality has been given to us by the Lord through Moses.” This greatest of the Jewish scholars of the Middle Ages formulated “Thirteen Principles” which a Jew must believe to be a Jew. The Eighth Fundamental Principle is comprised of the following words: “[T]hat the Torah came from God. We are to believe that the whole Torah was given to us through Moses, our Teacher, entirely from God. When we call the Torah “God’s Word” we speak metaphorically. We do not know exactly how it reached us, but only that it came to us through Moses who acted like a secretary taking dictation. He wrote down the events of the time and the commandments, for which reason he is called “Lawgiver.”

To Maimonides, the entire Hebrew Bible was the inerrant Word of God. He argues: “There is no distinction between a verse of Scripture like “The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim” (Genesis 10:6), or “His Wife’s name was Mehatable and his concubine was Timna” (Genesis 36:39, 36:12) and one like “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2) or “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4). All came from God, and all are the Torah of God, perfect, pure, holy, and true. Anyone who says Moses wrote some passages on his own is regarded by our sages as an atheist or the worst kind of heretic because he tries to distinguish essence from accident in the Torah. Such a heretic claims that some historical passages or stories are trivial inventions of Moses and not Divine Revelation.”

These words are crystal clear and forceful enough to speak for themselves. Jews of the Middle Ages held a strong belief in the divine origin and Mosaic authorship of the entire Torah, as well as belief in its infallibility, immutability, and eternity. Sa’ad ibn Mansur ibn Kammuna, a 13th-century Jewish philosopher, wrote a famous treatise that argued that the law would neither be abolished nor changed nor substituted for something other than itself. This belief in the Torah’s infallibility, supernatural origin, and permanent credibility was so deeply held in the hearts of medieval Jewish scholars that they closed all doors to and denied all the possibilities of progressive revelation. They held with Maimonides that “it will neither be abrogated nor superseded, neither supplemented nor abridged. Never shall it be supplanted by another divine revelation containing positive and negative duties.” They also maintained, as Maimonides observed, that “To the Torah, Oral and Written, nothing must be added nor any thing taken from it.” And this view continued to be maintained by Jews till the beginning of our era. Even in today’s world of scientific naturalism and cosmic pessimism, this is what a reformed Jew has to say about the significance of the Torah: “The teachings of the Torah are the most sacred legacy and inspiration of the Jewish people. They are so fundamental that they are recited in public reading every week of every year. The five books are divided into segments or portions, one of which is to be read on each successive Sabbath. Usually, the first words of each portion are chosen as the title, so that every week of the Jewish year can be identified by its Torah portion....since no object in Jewish life is more precious than a Torah.”

He further informs us that “A Torah can never be deliberately destroyed. If it becomes too brittle or too fragile to use, it is buried in the earth just like a deceased person.”

Though voices against such a literal view of the Torah have included Christian scholars like Clementine Homilies, St. Jerome, and Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. c. 428) and some Jewish scholars like Isaac ibn Yashush, Rashi, David Kimhi, and Abraham ibn Ezra (d. 1167) in the twelfth century, continuing with Carlstadt, Andreas Masius (1574) in the sixteenth, and Isaac de la Payrere (1655), and Richard Simon, Thomas Hobbes and then Spinoza in the seventeenth century, it was only in the age of reason in the eighteenth century that the stage was set for the loss of biblical authority as inspired Scripture.

Finally, it was in the nineteenth and early twentieth century that biblical scholars like Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) were able to analyze, oppose, and finally shatter the idea of the divine and supernatural origin of the Torah and Mosaic authorship of it. At present, claims R. E. Friedman, “there is hardly a biblical scholar in the world actively working on the problem who would claim that the Five Books of Moses were written by Moses – or by any one person.”

See details in my book "Concept of God and Judeo-Christian and Islamic Traditions", chapter 2