At the end of this study of some selected passages from the Law, we are now in a position to try to assess the importance of the Torah for the Bible as a whole. We should first understand the word 'torah' in its several uses. Originally the word meant 'teaching' or 'doctrine'. It is applied collectively as a title to the whole body of the laws in the Pentateuchal books, but it is also the title given to the five books of the Pentateuch, called 'The Five books of Moses' by the Jews and the first part of the Old Testament to be accepted by the Jews as holy scripture.

An overall view of the whole body of laws in the Pentateuchal books shows that there is considerable repetition; for example, the Decalogue is given twice, and various other laws are repeated although there may be differences of emphasis. Scholars have analysed the laws and put them into different groupings or codes, such as the Code of the Covenant in Exodus 20:22-22:33, the Code of Holiness in Leviticus 17-26. The Priestly Code in Leviticus 1-16, and Deuteronomy, the latter Code having a distinctive sermon style. We referred in chapter 4 to the different views of conservative and liberal scholars about the authorship of the Pentateuch. Conservative scholars maintain that basically the five books were composed and written by Moses from about 1250 B.C. It is allowed that there may have been minor modifications of the text in the course of time, but the Pentateuch is held to have been written by Moses substantially as we have it.

Liberal scholars vary in their views, from a position which does not accept that Moses actually wrote down any of the Torah and which considers that all the written codes or groupings of the body of Law come from various much later times in Israel's history, to the view that there is a core of Law dating back to Moses but different strata, additions and adaptations were added to this core over the following centuries. These views are supported by reference not only to varying styles of writing in the Torah, but to varying life-styles-nomadic shepherd life, peasant life, settled agricultural life, city life-which could reflect different periods in Israel's history. It is also pointed out that there is considerable variation in the cultic laws referring to worship and sacrifice. Some laws indicate a desert situation with simplicity of worship emphasized. Other laws indicate a situation such as could have been found much later in Jerusalem.

But these differing views about the authorship of the Pentateuch should not prevent us seeing that its importance for the Bible as a whole sis tremendous. The Judaism from which Christianity sprang based its faith and life on the Torah. In the centuries before Jesus Christ was born, the strict monotheism of Judaism was firmly established in a world that continued to be polytheistic. This firm belief in one God was bound to a strict morality and way of life which was aimed at pleasing the God who had revealed himself to the ancestors of the Jews. We cannot understand the prophets of the Old Testament without understanding the basic teaching of the Pentateuch which sets out the understanding of God's character, of man's character, and their relationship to each other. Man's desperate need for salvation and restoration to fellowship with God is made clear, but his total inability to do this by his own efforts is also made clear. The loving and forgiving God approaches man, teaches him about his own nature, binds man to himself in a holy covenant relationship and instructs him in holy living. The choice of an insignificant people to receive this revelation emphasizes God's Lord-ship over all that he has created; he chooses his servants according to his plan for mankind, not according to their human merits. These great ideas which are found in the Pentateuch point ultimately to the New Testament.