Pentateuch

Pentateuch (Gk., penta, ‘five’, + teuchos, ‘book’). The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also known as Torah (for Hebrew names see each book): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Pentateuch contains the history of the Jewish people from the creation of the world until the death of Moses. Traditionally it was believed to be a single document revealed by God to Moses and written down by him. According to the ‘documentary hypothesis’, it is composed of four major sources: J (Jahwistic) which uses in Genesis the tetragrammaton as the divine name; E (Elohistic) which refers to God as Elohim until Exodus; P, the Priestly source; and D, the Deuteronomic. J and E, which have been combined by a later editor are thought to have been written during the period of the united kingdom (i.e. 10th cent. BCE), while Deuteronomy was produced in the 7th cent., and the Priestly source is dated to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. However, the precision of these claims has more recently come under attack. Greater emphasis is placed on kinship and sanctuary traditions which have been more deliberately and creatively drawn together. The entire Pentateuch is divided into fifty-four sections (Sedarot) and one section is read each week in the synagogue, concluding on Shemini Atzeret. The text is written on a Scroll which is dressed and kept in the Synagogue Ark. The Pentateuch, as the written law of the Jewish people and the ultimate source of the oral Law, is often known as the Torah, and thus the Scroll as the Torah Scroll.