What is the Torah?
Torah, "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law" has a range of meanings.
Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the origin of Jewish peoplehood: their call into being by God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God, which involves following a way of life embodied in a set of moral and religious obligations and civil laws. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the five books "Torah that is written" and the Oral Torah "Torah that is spoken". The Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash. According to rabbinic tradition, all of the teachings found in the Torah, both written and oral, were given by God through the prophet Moses, some at Mount Sinai and others at the Tabernacle, and all the teachings were written down by Moses, which resulted in the Torah that exists today. The majority of Biblical scholars believe the written books were a product of the Babylonian captivity (c. 600 BCE), based on earlier written and oral traditions, which could only have arisen from separate communities within ancient Israel, and that it was completed by the period of Achaemenid rule (c. 400 BCE).
Frequently Asked Questions (1)
| Torah
1.According to Apostle Paul, why did God give Jews the Torah?
Paul viewed the Torah as a temporary guide, claiming it was given to the Jews until they could be saved through faith in Jesus Christ.
2.When was the Torah written?
Mainstream biblical scholarship tracks the composition of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) through a gradual process starting from traditional Mosaic oral codes to written records compiled during the mid-to-late 1st millennium BCE. While early fragments exist in ancient archaeological discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the authoritative text was systematically finalized and preserved by Jewish scribes over centuries of scriptural copy transmissions.
3.Does the Quran tell Jews and Christians to refer to their Scriptures (Torah and Bible)?
Yes, the Quran references previous scriptures in passages like Surah Al-Ma'idah (5:47), which tells the followers of the Gospel to judge by what God has revealed in it. From an academic perspective, this reflects the historical context of 7th-century Medina, where Jews and Christians were recognized as "People of the Book" who possessed divine laws. While Islamic theology holds that modern biblical texts have suffered from textual corruption (tahrif), the Quran historically appeals to the core monotheistic truths remaining in those scriptures to validate Muhammad's message.