Chapter One - Intro and Prologue to the Torah Flashcards
What is Tanak?
The Hebrew names for these subcollections are Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim. Taking the first letter of each of these three words and inserting the vowel a, the Jewish community gave its Bible the name Tanak.
What is difference between OT and Hebrew Bible?
The Jewish Bible, also called the Hebrew Bible, contains the same books as the Old Testament of the Protestant Christian Bible, but they organize the books in significantly different ways.
Hebrew Bible is commonly used to refer to the Old Testament even outside Jewish circles, especially because of its nonsectarian character, whereas the term Old Testament is undeniably Christian.
What is canon?
An authoritative or authorized collection of materials.
What is LXX/Septuagint/Apocrypha?
The additional materials—some complete books, others just appendixes—are known as the Apocrypha.
They are accepted as part of Holy Scripture by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The Greek canon, which includes the Apocrypha, is called the Septuagint (often abbreviated by Roman numerals LXX, referring to the seventy-plus Jewish elders who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek).
Difference between dynamic equivalence and more literal interpretation
The original text or translate biblical notions and metaphors into modern ones using the translation practice known as dynamic equivalence.
Literal interpretation is the original text.
Ancestral covenant
Through Abraham, recorded in Genesis 17, is more restricted, being tribal in scope. In this covenant, God assures the ancestral family that it will become a nation under his care and protection.
Anthropomorphism
deity as having human characteristics
Covenant
A binding relationship between God and the earth.
Deuteronomic source
The book that Hilkiah found in the temple and presented to Josiah in 622 BCE.
Documentary hypothesis
Attempts to rationally explain how the various materials came together.
Elohim
God
Elohist source
Written after the Yahwist source and was composed in the northern kingdom of Israel in the 800s or early 700s BCE by a priest. The Elohist source gets its name from its use of the Hebrew word elohim to refer to the deity.
Five Books of Moses
The Torah corpus can also be referred to as the Five Books of Moses because the traditional view held that in addition to being the central figure in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, he was also responsible for writing the Torah books.
Historicity
Uncertainties regarding biblical chronology and the question of the very existence of the early figures of biblical history. Readers may want to know if the events described in the Torah—and elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible for that matter—are fictional or true.
Pentateuch
This is a term derived from the Greek word for ‘‘five scroll jars,’’ which then came to designate the five scrolls themselves.
Priestly document
Last of the four great Pentateuchal documents.
Source analysis
source criticism
Tetrateuch
The first was constituted by JEP and consists of Genesis through Numbers. Scholars call this the Tetrateuch (on analogy with the term Pentateuch)—a set of four books.
Torah
Oral instruction and teaching of various kinds, often delivered by priests and other community leaders.
Yahweh (YHWH)
The Lord
Yahwist
narrative dated to the 900s or 800s BCE,
Yahwist narrative
It got this name because it uses the divine name YHWH to refer to God. Its story line formed the backbone of the Torah narrative with the other sources building upon it. The Yahwist narrative is sometimes considered an epic because with broad historical scope it tells the story of how humankind developed and how one branch became the people of God.
Torah / Books of Moses / Books of the Law / Pentateuch
Torah - The term Torah has a variety of meanings and possible connotations. It can refer to the T part of the Tanak. But it can also have a much broader meaning. In early biblical tradition, torah primarily designated oral instruction and teaching of various kinds, often delivered by priests and other community leaders. According to Schniedewind (2004), oral torah came to be written down relatively late in biblical history, and from then on it became Torah with a capital T, designating a corpus of documents.
Books of Moses - The Torah corpus can also be referred to as the Five Books of Moses because the traditional view, examined later in this prologue, held that in addition to being the central figure in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, he was also responsible for writing the Torah books.
Pentateuch - the set of books that includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, many modern readers tend to call it the Pentateuch. This is a term derived from the Greek word for ‘‘five scroll jars,’’ which then came to designate the five scrolls themselves.
Documentary Hypothesis (DH)
This theory posits the existence of a collection of written documents that preceded the Torah as we now have it and served as the basis for it. These documents are hypothetical in the sense that they are reconstructions done by biblical scholars, and they do not physically exist today. Scholars developed this theory as a way to account for the many inconsistencies and irregularities they observe in the Torah.
Tetragrammaton (YHWH)
The sacred name of God in the Hebrew Bible; also known as the tetragrammaton. Because Hebrew was written without vowels in ancient times, the four consonants YHWH contain no clue to their original pronunciation; they are generally rendered YHWH in contemporary scholarship. In traditional Judaism, the name is not pronounced, but Adonay (‘‘Lord’’) or something similar is substituted
J
Yahwist Source Abbreviation: J Date BCE: 900s Location: Judah Divine Designation: YHWH
E
Elohist Source Abbreviation: E Date BCE: 800s - 700s Location: Israel Divine Designation: Elohim, El, YHWH beginning with Moses
D
Deuteronomic Source Abbreviation: D Date BCE: 600s Location: Judah Divine Designation: YHWH
P
Priestly Source Abbreviation: P Date BCE: 500-400s Location: Judah or Exile Divine Designation: Elohim (primeval story) El Shaddai (ancestral story) YHWH (Israel)
Importance of covenant as a concept in the OT
In addition, the Priestly writer employed a series of covenants to add theological structure to Israel’s relationship with God and a macrostructure organization to history.
Tetrateuch (1st four books)
Consists of Genesis through Numbers. Scholars call this the Tetrateuch (on analogy with the term Pentateuch)—a set of four books. The Tetrateuch covered the early history of the nation from creation to conquest.
Deuteronomistic History
Deuteronomy through Kings. The Deuteronomistic history told the story of the rise and fall of Israel, from conquest to exile. Each collection has its own integrity and perspective.
The hypothesis that there are four main traditions or sources in the Torah is known as the:
Documentary Hypothesis
The Torah contains how many books?
Five
The Hebrew Bible contains how many main parts?
Three
Which books are in the Terateuch?
Four (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers)
Most scholars today (do/do not) accept Mosaic authorship of the Torah?
DO NOT
Elohim is translated as:
God
The Torah, according to the Bandstra, was formed roughly when?
C) 400 BCE
In biblical studies, “J” stands for which narrative source?
Yahwist
Bandstra says that describing the deity as having human characteristics is known as:
anthropomorphism
Of the four main traditions contained in the Torah, which do scholars believe is the oldest source?
Yahwist (J)
What is another commonly used word to refer to the books of the Torah?
Pentateuch
