Image from amazon.com
[First posted July 1, 2012; part of the series on the book that changed our direction from Christianity to the pathway we have taken as explained in this whole website. The first of our MUST READ/MUST OWN resources, Restoring Abrahamic Faith by Dr. James D. Tabor; this is from Chapter Two discussion of THE WAY . . . We feature this book to encourage our visitors to include it in your library; please order your copy from http://genesis2000.org–—Admin1. ]
————–
The Hebrew word itself means “instruction” or “teaching,” but the term is usually used in a more specific way, to mean the “TORAH,” or Teaching, of YHVH Himself, given to Moses at Sinai and written in the Book of the TORAH (See Deuteronomy 4:8; 31:9; Nehemiah 8:8). So, the term “TORAH” can be used broadly to refer to the totality of Divine Teaching or Revelation YHVH has revealed to humankind, but it is preeminently the Teaching revealed in the books of Moses and the Prophets, and even more specifically, the Teachings of the so-called Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy).
Footnote: The Hebrew Scriptures (called the Tanakh) incorrectly labeled the Old Testament by Christians, are divided into three parts: TORAH, Prophets, and Psalms (or Writings). The TORAH is made up of the first five books, Genesis through Deuteronomy. The contents, or number of books of the Hebrew Scriptures are identical to the Protestant Christian “Old Testament,” however, the order and arrangement of the books is different. The New Testament writers reflect knowledge of the original Hebrew order, and regularly speak of the “TORAH” as the Five Books of Moses (see Luke 24:44-45; Acts 13:15; 15:21; Matthew 5:17; 7:12; Luke 2:23-24,39).
What is reflected and revealed in these books is considered in the Hebrew tradition to be fundamental, basic, and never to be superseded.
Unfortunately, this is not the way our Western Christian culture has been taught to think of TORAH. A thoroughly anti-Judaic, antinomian Christian theology that developed in the 2nd century C.E., based initially on the writings of Paul, has fueled a largely negative connotation.
Footnote: Although Paul says that the TORAH is “good, holy, and just,” and that he “delights in the TORAH,” echoing the very words of Psalm 119 (Romans 7:12,22), in Galatians 3 he clearly says it lasted only from Moses to Jesus, and has now been abrogated, even for Jews. The attempts of John Gager and others (The Origins of Antisemitism [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985]: 193-264) to prove that Paul did not remove the TORAH for Jews, in the end, are simply not convincing. See Alan Segal, Paul the Convert (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), and most recently Barrie Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian (New York: St. Martins Press, 2008).
The history and development of early Christianity over the next four centuries expanded and solidified this approach. Christians came to see themselves as a separate people, while the Jews and all of their observances were seen as obsolete and even detestable. The emperor Constantine’s legislation at the first great Christian Council at Nicaea (325 C.E.) concluded at one point: “Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way.”
Footnote: Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3:18. Such pronouncements by leading Christians became more pronounced and vile as time went on. The Jews were regularly charged with murdering Christ and were called serpents, servants of Satan, and so forth.
Millions of Christians have been conditioned to disparage the so-called “Old Testament Law,” as if it were something to be despised as inferior and void of deep spiritual meaning. In contrast, David, throughout the Psalms, exalts the TORAH. He clearly has something quite specific in mind. As King of Israel he was required to write for himself a copy of this TORAH and to read it, and meditate on it, all the days of his life (Deuteronomy 17:18-19).
According to the Hebrew Bible, the TORAH is universally and perpetually valid.
Jeremiah’s teaching about the “New Covenant” says nothing whatsoever about replacing or abrogating the TORAH. On the contrary, in the Messianic Age the TORAH is put into the very hearts of a restored people of Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:24-32). Ultimately, the TORAH is for all humankind. Isaiah declares that it is the “TORAH” which will go forth from Zion to all the nations, defining that WAY of justice and righteousness (Isaiah 2:3).
Surely it is one of the great ironies of history that Jesus the Nazarene, as a Jew who knew both TORAH and Prophets, declared, It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke (qotz) of a letter of the TORAH to be voided. He further warned that any who seek to do away with even the least of the comandments will be held accountable, while those who teach and do them will be great (Luke 16:17; cf. Matt 5:17-19).
The TORAH is the perpetual standard of mishpat and zedaqah. It is only by going to what is called the TESTIMONY . . . and to the TORAH in full, as amplified by the Prophets, that one can come to truly understand the WAY of YHVH in all of its concrete and practical implications. Human standards of moral behavior vary cross-culturally over many historical periods, but the essential principles of the TORAH are applicable to every time and place.
The TORAH is much more than a set of ethical prescriptions, or a list of “rules and regulations.” In fact, the material that could technically be labeled “legal” is minimal compared to the extensive narratives, stories, and biographical accounts of its majojr personalities. And it is within the narrative flow that the understanding of God, His Name and His very character that I have just discussed, begins to emerge, in interplay with its main very human characters.
TheTorah opens with an account of a peaceful Edenic world in which God, humans, and animals live together in harmony (Genesis 1-3). This peaceful and intimate ideal becomes the foundation for the ways in which the Prophets then picture the future “peaceable kingdom” where the wolf, lion, and lamb live together and they do not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of YHVH as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:6-9).
There is a sense in which the rest of Scripture is merely an amplification and reinforcement of this foundational revelation. The TORAH is not “background” to a “New Testament,” rather it is the foundational bedrock revelation of the fundamentals of the BIBLICAL FAITH.
Next: #3 To TORAH and TESTIMONY