Tawrah is frequently referred to in the Quran. It is well to have clear ideas as
to what it exactly means. Vaguely we may say that it was the Jewish Scripture.
It is mentioned with honour as having been, in its purity, a true revelation
translate it by the words “The Old Testament” is obviously wrong.
“Old Testament” is a Christian term, applied to a body of old Jewish records.
The Protestants and the Roman Catholics are not agreed precisely as to the
number of records to be included in the canon of the “Old Testament.” They use
the term in contradistinction to the “New Testament,” whose composition we shall
discuss in Appendix III.
Nor is it correct to translate Tawrah as the
“Pentateuch,” a Greek term meaning the “Five Books.”
are the first five books of the Old Testament, known as
contain a semi-historical and legendary narrative of the history of the world
from the Creation to the time of the arrival of the Jews in the Promised Land.
There are in them some beautiful idylls but there are also stories of insects,
fraud, cruelty, and treachery, not always disapproved. A great part of the
Mosaic Law is embodied in this narrative.
books are traditionally ascribed to Moses, but it is certain that they were not
written by Moses or in an age either contemporary with Moses or within an
appreciable distance of time from Moses. They were in their present from
probably compiled some time after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian
Captivity. The decree of Cyrus permitting such return was in 536 B.C. some books
now included in the Old Testament, such as Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were
admittedly written after the return from the captivity. Malachi being as late as
4q20-397 B.C. the compilers of the Pentateuch of course used some ancient
material: some of the material is actually named. Egyptian and Chaldeans terms
are relics of local colour and contemporary documents.
there are some ludicrous slips, which show that the compilers did not always
understand their material, Modern criticism distinguishes two district sources
among the documents of different dates used by the editors. For the sake of
brevity and convince they may be called
there are later miscellaneous interpolations. They sometimes overlap and
sometimes contradict each others.
Logically speaking, the Book of Joshua, which describe the entry into the
Promised Land, should be bracketed with the Pentateuch, and many writers speak
of the six books together as the Hexateuch (Greek term for Six Books).
Apocrypha contain certain Books which are not admitted as Canonical in the
English Bible. But the early Christians received them as part of the Jewish
Scriptures, and the Council of Trent (A.C. 1545-1563) seems to have recognized
the greater part of them as Canonical. The statement in 2 Esdras (about the
first century A.C.) that the law was burnt and Ezra (say, about 458-457 B.C.)
was inspired to rewrite it., is probably true as to the historical fact that the
law was lost, and that what we have now is no earlier than the time of Ezra, and
some of it a good deal later.
So far we have spoken of the
Christian view of the Old Testament.
What is the Jewish view?
The Jews divide
their Scripture into three parts:
the Law (Torah),
the Prophets (Nebiim), and
This division was probably current in the time of Jesus. In
Luke 24:44 Jesus refers to the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms. In other places
Matt. 7:12) Jesus refers to the Law and the Prophets to summing up the
In the Old Testament Book
II Chronicles 34:30, the
reference to the Book of the Covenant must be to the Torah or the original Law.
This is interesting, as the Quran frequently refers the Covenant with reference
to the Jews. The modern Christian terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” are
substitutes for the older terms “Old Covenant” and “New Covenant.”
The Samaritans, who claim to be the real Children of Israel and disavow the Jews as
schismatic from their Law of Moses, only recognize the Pentateuch, of which
they have their own version slightly different from that in the Old Testament.
view of the school of Higher Criticism is radically destructive. According to
Renan it is doubtful whether Moses was not a myth. Two versions of Sacred
History existed , different in language, style, and spirit, and they were
combined together into a narrative in the reign of Hezekiah (B.C. 727-697). This
forms the greater part of the Pentateuch as it exists today, excluding the
greater part of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
In the reign of Josiah about 622
B.C., certain priests and scribes (with Jeremiah the Prophet) promulgated a new
code, pretending that they had found it in the Temple (II Kings, xxii, 8). This
Law (Torah or Tawrah) was the basis of Judaism, the new religion then founded in
This was further completed by the sacerdotal and Levitical Torah,
compiled under the inspiration of Ezekiel, say, about 575 B.C., and contained
mainly in the Book of Leviticus, with scattered fragments in Exodus, Numbers,
and Joshua. We are entitled to accept the general results of a scientific
examination of documents, probabilities and dates, even though we reject the
promise which we believe to be false, viz., that Allah does not send inspired
Books through inspired Prophets.
We believe that Moses existed; that he was an
inspired man of God; that he gave a message which was afterwards distorted or
lost; that attempts were made by Israel at various times to reconstruct that
message; and that the Tawrah as we have it is (in view of the statement in 2 Esdras) no earlier than the middle of the fifth century B.C.
primitive Torah must have been in old Hebrew, but there is no Hebrew manuscripts
of the Old Testament which can be dated with certainty earlier than 916 A.C.
Hebrew ceased to be spoken language with the Jews during or after the Captivity,
and by the time we come to the period of Jesus, most cultivated Hebrews used the
Greek language, and others used Aramaic (including Syriac and Chaldee). Latin,
or local dialects. There were also Arabic versions.
For historical purposes the
most important versions were the Greek version, known as the Septuagint, and the
Latin version, known as the Vulgate. The Septuagint was supposed to have been
prepared by 70 or 72 Jews (Latin, septuaginta = seventy) working independently
and at different times, the earliest portion dating from about 284 B.C. this
version was used by the Jews of Alexandria and the Hellenized Jew who were
spread over all parts of the Roman Empire.
The Vulgate was a Latin translation
made by the celebrated Father of the Christian Church, St. Jerome, from Hebrew,
early in the fifth century A.C. superseding the older Latin versions. Neither
the Seeptuagint not the Vulgate have an absolutely fixed or certain text. The
present standard text of the Vulgate as accepted by the Roman Catholic Church
was issued by Pope Clement VIII (A.C. 1592-1605).
will be seen therefore that there is no standard text of the Old Testament in
its Hebrew form. The versions differ from each other frequently in minor
particulars and sometimes in important particulars. The Pentateuch itself is
only a small portion of the Old Testament. It is narrative form, and includes
the laws and regulations associated with the name of Moses, but probably
compiled and edited from older sources by Ezra (or Esdras Arabic, ‘Uzair) in the
5th century B.C. as Renan remarks in the preface to his History of
the people of Israel, the “definite constitution of Judaism” may be dated only
from the time of Ezra.
The very early Christians were divided into two parties.
was a Judaizing party, which wished to remain in adherence to the Jewish laws
and customs while recognizing the mission of Jesus.
other, led by Paul, broke away fromJewish customs and traditions.
Ultimately Pauline Christianity won. But both parties
recognized the Old Testament in its present form (in one or another of its
varying versions) as Scripture.
It was the merit of Islam that it pointed out
that as scripture it was of no value, although it recognized Moses as an
inspired messenger and his original Law as having validity in his period until
it was superseded. In its criticism of the Jewish position it said in effect:
“You have lost your original Law; even what you have now as its substitute,
you do not honestly follow; is it not better, now that an inspired Teacher is
living among you, that you should follow him rather than quibble over uncertain
the Jews in the Prophet’s time (and since) went a great deal by the Talmud, or a
body of oral exposition, reduced to writing in different Schools of doctors and
learned men. “Talmud” in Hebrew is connected with the Arabic root in Tilmidh,
“disciple” or “student.” The Tulmudists took the divergent texts of the Old
Testament and in interpreting them by a mass of traditional commentary and
legendary lore, evolved a standard body of teaching.
The Talmudists are of
special interest to us, as, in the sixth century A.C., just before the preaching
of Islam, they evolved the Massorah, which may be regarded as the body of
authoritative Jewish Hadith, to which references are to be found in passages
addressed to the Jews in the Quran.
first part of the Talmud is called the Mishna -a collection of traditions and
decisions prepared by the Rabbi Judah about 150 A.C. He summed up the results of
a great mass of previous rabbinical writings. The Mishna is the “Second Law”. Cf.
the Arabic Thani = second. “It bound heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, and
laid them on men’s shoulders”;
were many Targums or paraphrases of the Law among the Jews. “Tagum” is
concerned in root with the Arabic Tarjama, “he translated.” There were many
Targums, mostly in Aramaic, and they constituted the teaching of the Law to the
masses of the Jewish people.
correct translation of the Tawrah is therefore" The Law.” In its original form it
was promulgated by Moses, and is recognized in Islam as having been an inspired
Book. But it was lost before Islam was preached. What passed as “The Law” with
the Jews in the Prophet’s time was the mass of traditional writing which I have
tried to review in this Appendix.
Encyclopedia Britannica, “Bible”;
Helps to the Study of the Bible,
Oxford University Press;
A.F.Kirkpatrick, Divine Library of the Old Testament;
C.EE. Hammond, Outline of Texual Criticism;
E. Renan, History of Israel;
G.F. Moore, Literature of the Old Testament, and
the bibliography therein (Home University Library);
Sir Frederic Kenyon, The Story of the Bible, 1936.