The meaning of Torah and its authorship.
Posted 2008-02-17
Torah is often taken to mean “law” as the book contains the laws that Moses relayed to him by God. But from the reading I have been doing it seems pretty clear to me that torah means teaching or instruction in this particular instance. The meaning of law is not strictly incorrect as the two translations both hold true however, the format of the Torah with its narrative style could be argued as a work designed to teach rather than preach to its readers. The Torah does indeed include laws but it is much more than a series of dogmatic instructions. It outlines the relationship between God and his world whilst simultaneously offering guidelines on being the best person you can be.
There is some dispute within Judaism about the authorship of the Torah. The orthodox view is that Moses wrote the pentateuch on Mount Sinai via direct instruction form God. This process is believed to have lasted 40 days and 40 nights. At this time he also received the Oral Torah or Mishnah which was an oral guide to the written Torah. This has been passed down through generation of Rabbi’s and is said to be the authoratative interpretation of the Torah.
The Torah contains narrative of times before Moses existence and indeed the death of Moses himself. Moses is said to have written this with his tears.
The modern Jewish interpretation questions this and argues that the Torah had multiple authors over time. They argue that in Genesis 12.6 the Torah states “The Canaanites were then in the land”. The word then suggest that at the time the passage was authored the Canaanites were no longer in the land. Which would imply this portion of the Torah was written after the time of Moses because during his time, the Canaanites were in the land. They also argue that there are 4 distinct writing styles, vocabularies and different words for God used throughout the text; coupled with multiple versions of different stories that further reinforce their views and that these 4 authors had their work amalgamated together to create the Torah as we know it today.
I will let the Rabbi’s discuss this one for now. At this point, I want to absorb the Torah as a holistic work and form my own opinions here. Out of interest what is the orthodox view of the Torahs authorship and if you don’t agree does that mean your are not orthodox? Feel free to comment below and let me know. 
April 25th, 2008 at
Having read further on other websites the Orthodox view seems to be that the whole Torah was dictated to Moses on mount Sinai:
“…What we have seen is that throughout history our prophets and wise men have written books on their lives, thoughts, and the events of their times. These books were studied and helped for our national identity. Indeed, it is certain that G-d guided the hands of our prophets to write what He wanted so that these books could be easily incorporated into the Torah. However, and this is crucial, the actual Torah was dictated word for word by G-d to Moshe. The other books have been more-or-less lost over time but remain in the form of midrashim….”