Thank you for visiting. This article is the second installment in a series explaining the original texts of Judaism.
Last time (Article 1), I looked at the whole picture of Judaism’s Bible, “the Tanakh.” This time, I look in detail at its most sacred core, “the Torah (the Five Books of Moses),” and the most important keyword running through Judaism’s faith, “the covenant.”
For an overview map of Judaism’s original texts as a whole, please see this summary article.
The Idea of “Covenant” Running Through Judaism
The greatest key to understanding Judaism is the idea of “covenant (in Hebrew, brit).”
The God of Judaism has, at each turning point of history, made with humanity, and especially with the people of Israel, the promise (covenant): “I will be your God. You shall be my people.” The Torah can be read as the story of the accumulation of these covenants.
The Origins of Religion: Why We Needed a ‘God’View on Amazon →
A Complete History of Philosophy and ReligionView on Amazon →
Genesis — the Creation and the Abrahamic Covenant
The Torah’s first book, “Genesis,” begins with the creation of heaven and earth. God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh — this statement becomes the basis of the Sabbath (Shabbat) we see later. The first half, continuing with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Noah’s great flood, is the story of humanity as a whole.
The story moves greatly from the appearance of “Abraham.” God promises Abraham, “I will make you a great nation, and give this land (Canaan) to your descendants.” This is the “Abrahamic covenant,” the starting point of the Jewish people. What was set as its sign was “circumcision.” Abraham’s faith was inherited by Isaac and Jacob (renamed Israel), and Jacob’s 12 sons became the ancestors of the later “12 tribes of Israel.”
Note that this Abraham is a figure revered in common as the “father of faith” in Christianity and Islam too. Here lies the reason all three religions are called “Abrahamic religions.”
The Exodus and the Sinai Covenant — Moses and the Law
At the end of Genesis, Jacob’s clan moves to live in Egypt, but over the years they are reduced to the status of slaves. What begins here is the grand story of liberation in the second book, “Exodus.”
The prophet “Moses,” called by God, subdued the king of Egypt (Pharaoh) with ten plagues and led the enslaved people of Israel out. The “miracle of the Reed Sea (the Red Sea),” splitting the sea in two and letting the people cross, is all too famous.
And the story reaches its peak. The people who escaped gathered at the foot of “Mount Sinai,” and Moses received the Law from God atop the mountain. This is the “Sinai covenant,” at the center of which is the famous “Ten Commandments.”
- You shall have no gods besides Me. 2. You shall not make an idol. 3. You shall not take God’s name in vain. 4. Keep the Sabbath. 5. Honor your father and mother. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery. 8. You shall not steal. 9. You shall not bear false witness. 10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s things.
By the vast Law including these Ten Commandments, Israel was shown the path to live as “God’s people.” The remaining Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy record the fine rules of ritual and daily life, the 40-year journey in the wilderness, and Moses’ final sermon.
The Idea of the Chosen People — the True Meaning of “the Chosen”
Unavoidable in speaking of Judaism is the “idea of the chosen people.” Jews think of themselves as a “people chosen by God,” but this is often misunderstood.
This is not a claim of privilege that “we are superior to other peoples.” Rather, it means the taking on of responsibility — “having taken on the heavy mission of keeping the Law and showing God’s teaching to the world.” “Chosen” is closer to “given a duty” than to “favored.”
Here is a great difference from Christianity and Islam. Whereas Christianity and Islam are “world religions” open to all regardless of people, Judaism basically keeps strongly the character of “the religion of the Jewish people.” Precisely for this reason, it hardly does active proselytizing (soliciting conversion).
The 613 Commandments (Mitzvot)
The Law given in the Sinai covenant is not the Ten Commandments alone. In Jewish tradition, the Torah is held to contain 613 commandments (mitzvot) in total, called the “Taryag Mitzvot.”
| Category | Count | Content |
|---|---|---|
| ”You shall do” (positive commandments) | 248 | Commands to be done — keep the Sabbath, honor your parents, and so on |
| ”You shall not do” (negative commandments) | 365 | Prohibition of idolatry, prohibition of certain foods, and so on |
The total is 613. It is told symbolically that “248 corresponds to the number of parts of the human body, and 365 to the number of days in a year.” The one who systematically counted up this number 613 was the 12th-century great scholar “Maimonides,” in his “Book of Commandments (Sefer ha-Mitzvot).”
What I want to note is that Judaism’s faith values “performing the Law correctly (practice)” more than “believing correct doctrine.” While this is a character similar to Islam (which values the law of Sharia), it is strikingly contrasted with Christianity, which preached that “one is saved not by the works of the Law, but by faith in Jesus.” In fact, this very question of “the Law or faith” was the decisive branching point at which Christianity separated from Judaism.
The Position of Moses — the Greatest and Special Prophet
Moses, the protagonist of the Torah, is held in Judaism to be the “greatest prophet.” He is the only prophet who spoke with God “face to face,” and it is held that none surpassing him will ever appear again.
Here too, comparing the three religions reveals interesting differences. In Judaism, Moses remains the greatest prophet, but in Christianity, while making Moses a great forerunner, Jesus is made a being of a separate class, the “Son of God, the savior.” Meanwhile, Islam, revering both Moses (Musa) and Jesus (Isa) as prophets, positions Muhammad as “the final prophet.” The difference in evaluation of the same figures clearly expresses each religion’s individuality.
Who Wrote the Torah — Tradition and Scholarship
On the making of the Torah, the traditional faith and modern scholarship part greatly in view.
In Jewish tradition, it has been held that the whole Torah was given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai. So absolute is its sacredness that there is even a view that the very end of Deuteronomy, which marks Moses’ death, was by God’s dictation.
On the other hand, biblical scholarship from the 18th–19th centuries on, analyzing the text precisely, came to think that the Torah is not a single work written at one go by one hand, but something in which multiple sources of different eras were edited and joined over long years. This is called the “documentary hypothesis,” holding that several sources can be distinguished from differences in the name of God (Yahweh or Elohim), style, and concern. For example, that two creation stories are placed in succession at the opening of Genesis is held to be a clue to this.
From the standpoint of faith, “the word of God”; from the standpoint of scholarship, “a document with a history of editing.” That the same Torah shows an entirely different face depending on the angle of view is one of the depths of this original text.
To Learn More
Here are some related books. Reading them alongside this series lets you savor this world even more deeply.
An Illustrated Introduction to the World’s 5 Great MythologiesView on Amazon →
World Mythology for Beginners (illustrated)View on Amazon →
Conclusion
In this article, I explained in detail Judaism’s core, the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), and the idea of the covenant. How was it?
The Torah was the story of the “covenant” between God and the people, continuing from the creation to the Abrahamic covenant, the Exodus, and the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai. And the very core of Judaism’s faith lies in practicing the 613 commandments as the chosen people.
This stance, valuing “doing rightly” over “believing rightly,” also became the foreshadowing for Christianity later separating under the banner of “salvation by faith.”
In the next Article 3, I will explain the other original text alongside this Written Torah, the compendium of the Oral Torah, “the Talmud.”
I hope you’ll read the next article too.
📚 Series: The Original Texts of Judaism (3/6)
