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hristians like to see their translation of the Torah and the rest of their selected Jewish writings as the word of Jesus. Jesus aside, in Judaism there is only one revelation .. the Torah. Whatever you think of the rest of the old Jewish writings collected as the story of our judges, kings, and prophets, it is not scripture,
The Christians consider their selection of Jewish writings as authorized by the Roman Emperor Constantine, as the word of god. This, plus some very far out efforts at translation or Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek, lead to assertions about Jesus as a deity,, assertions that have more blood on them any other religion I know of! Of course, the sanctification of the Messiah went along with Constantine’s claim that he .. and all future Roman emperors, were chosen by Jesus.
Another result is that we Jews have taken up many Christian ideas as if they were ours. Some of these .. the idea of a loving god are good but not Jewish. Others, the idea of sin and redemption are abhorrent.
To make this worse. we Jews tend to act as if history stopped in 70 AD and did not restart until 48. Centuries of Jewish thinking and writing are lost either to the dogma of the orthodox community or to illiteracy on the part of the rest of us.
Of course the Torah is from the elite or upper classes of a monarchy, perhaps looking back at the good old days, and was actually put together by Babylonian scholars. There is of course the unwritten part of Judaism. Very important back in the day, and what was said n the poor part of town did not match what was said in the palace. Pretty typical, but this unwritten is to this day important to Judaism as that is what makes Judaism what it is. The story of Cain and Able has a different flavor to Jews and Christians and what one is supposed to take away is different as well.
The Christian bible and the Torah are protected n ways other ancient writings are not. All the parts of the Illiad and Odyssey are open to study and comment with no one having to worry about claims of blasphemy.
The Torah actually has not been added to some hundred years before the Roman destruction of the Temple. Christians have not added to the bible or New Testament since a meeting of scholars in the time of Constantine. Yes the Mormons have another book.
Of course E=MC2 is far more truthful though there are whole books written on this simple and elegant scientific equation and helpful than much of the Torah or Bible.
Is this accurate from this webpage https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-torah/ ?
or Jews, the concept of “ ” is much broader than the books themselves, the delimited concept of the Torah. “Torah” can refer to all of traditional Jewish learning, but “the Torah” usually refers to the Torah she’bi’ktav, the written Torah, also known as the
(the five volumes or Pentateuch, sometimes referred to as the Five Books of Moses).
The Torah and the Bible
The Torah, Prophets (Nevi’im) and the Writings (Ketuvim) collectively make up The Hebrew Bible (what Christians refer to as the Old Testament). The Bible is often referred to by the Hebrew acronym TaNaKh (usually spelled Tanakh, or
). Numerous editions and translations of the Bible and the Chumash (the text of the Torah) can be purchased online. However, you can also read (and search) the entire Bible (along with many other major Jewish texts) in Hebrew and English translation free of charge on Sefaria.
The Weekly Torah Portion
Readings from the Torah, which are divided into 54 weekly Torah portions (each one is called a parasha, or
), are the centerpiece of the Sabbath morning service.
Glad to see you here. I am not sure what is “correct” but I can give you my best take of what Jews mean.
1. Torah is a big word. closer to Dharma in Buddhism then to Bible in the Christian sense. So Torah also means law and law refers to facts. Sonce ONLY the five books are described as directly from the Deity, then nothing in other Jewish texts is supposed to be different from what is in Torah.
This contrasts with Christianity where “Bible” is the set of books, more or less as authorized by Nicea. So words stated by a prophet in Kings are just that words. They are not taken as revelation unlike the sayings of Paul or the Hihn od Revelations. But our history, that is books like judges, Kings and Prophets are scripture but notmthe word of God. To make this worse, there is no history of how these books were chosen other than by a committee of scholars appointed under the scholars allowed to do their work under Persian rule. OK?
Happy to see you here!