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ABOUT THE TORAHoffered by The Bible Project
The Torah, also called the Pentateuch or the 5 books of Moses, is the name given to the first five books of the Bible. While in many ways the Torah represents a beautiful story of God's creation and the beginning of His plan to save mankind, the story these books tell isn't always a bright one as far as humanity and the choices they make are concerned.
In the first book of the Torah, Genesis, we see God create a good and perfect world. Included in His creation was mankind, which was to act as God's representatives on earth. Mankind, however, had other ideas and chose to define what was good and evil for themselves. After this decision, things get bad for mankind – so bad that God has to eventually destroy them all with the flood and start over. This represents the beginning of God's mission to rescue and restore His world.
To begin this mission, God raises up Abraham and promises him that through his descendants all of the nations of the world would come to know God's blessing. It turns out, though, that Abraham and his descendants were a pretty dysfunctional family. However, in spite of their mishaps, God still continues to use them for His plan.
This brings us to the second book of the Torah, Exodus. Here, the Israelites are enslaved to the Egyptians, and the first half of the book focuses on how God raises up Moses to deliver His people from the Egyptians. God saves His people from the Egyptians, but now they are a nation without a home, wandering in the desert and unsure why God saved them in the first place. From this point forward, we see God begin to try and restore His presence among His People. He comes down on Mount Sinai, gives Moses the Ten Commandments, and gives instructions on how the Israelites should build a temple – a place where God will be able to live among them.
When Moses tries to enter the temple, though, he is unable to go into God's presence. This is where the book of Exodus ends, leaving us with the problem of how an impure and sinful people are going to be able to coexist with a pure and perfect God.
This problem is what the book of Leviticus sets out to solve. In Leviticus, God gives His people the instructions they need to purify themselves so that it is safe for them to be so close to the all-powerful goodness, or holiness, of God. To us, these instructions can seem a little strange. All of them, however, have a purpose; to keep the Israelites in a state where they are able to commune with their God.
Now that God has given His people a way by which they can live with Him, it's time for Him to deliver them to the land He promised them. This is the story we see unfold in the book of Numbers. What should be a two-week trip to the Promised Land, though, turns into a forty-year trek thanks to the Israelites' lack of trust in God. Yet in spite of their rebellion, God continues to deliver on His promise to provide for them.
In the final book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, Moses gives a final speech to the people of Israel before they enter the Promised Land. Here, in this final speech, Moses pleads with the people to be different than those who came before them. He promises them that if they listen to God, love God, and love one another, they will receive all of the blessings that God has promised.
Moses dies at the end of Deuteronomy, but the speech he gives in this book serves as an exclamation point for the Torah and sets the scene for how the nation of Israel will go on to carry out God's ultimate plan – the salvation of all mankind.
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