The Torah: The Five Books of Moses

The Torah is Judaism's most important text. It contains the first five books of the Hebrew Bible-the Tanakh-which are also the first five books of the Christian Bible. The Tanakh is essentially the same as what Christians call the Old Testament, with slight differences in the order and structure of the included books.

The Torah begins with the creation of the world and ends with the death of Moses. The first full draft of the Torah is believed to have been completed in the 6th or 7th century B.C., and has been revised numerous times over subsequent centuries. Jewish tradition teaches that the Torah is the revelation of God, given to Moses, and written down by Moses. It is the document that contains all the rules by which the Jewish people structure their spiritual lives.

The word torah means "to teach," and it can mean different things in different contexts. In its most common usage, the Torah refers to the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. But the word torah is also sometimes used to refer to the entire Hebrew Bible-the Tanakh, or Written Torah-and sometimes even the entire body of Jewish law and teachings.

Traditionally, each synagogue has a copy of the Torah written on a scroll that is wound around two wooden poles. This is known as a Sefer Torah and it is handwritten by a sofer (scribe) who must copy the text perfectly. In modern printed form, as in this volume, the Torah is usually called a Chumash, which comes from the Hebrew word for the number five.

This book, The Torah: The Five Books of Moses, is excerpted from a larger work in progress, The Holy Bible: King James Readers' Version. As you will see, it is formatted like an epic poem-which it is-and feels like you are reading the King James Bible-which you are-but more smoothly, and with more immediate understanding. It also contains details and names missing from the King James Version that turn up in other versions of the Bible. Needless to say, I hope it increases your enjoyment and comprehension of this keystone document, whose influence on Western civilization and culture is without equal. No education is complete without reading it. Twice.