What is Torah?

Today we're start a journey that millions of Hebrews and Christians have taken over the last 3000 years. We are going to study the Torah, which is the first and oldest section of the original Hebrew Bible. Torah is a a word that few Christians have ever heard of (although more and more have today, and I'm glad to see it), but most don't have any idea what it actually is. The Torah is the Hebrew name for the first 5 books of our Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. We’re going to start with Genesis 1:1, and go right on through Deuteronomy 34. We’re going to do something a little different, though. We’re going to add back in the Jewishness that has been removed over the last 1900 years. Why would we do that? Because it is within the Hebrew/Jewish culture and language that the Torah was created, and its ONLY within that context that we gain proper understanding of what God is telling us. In fact, the entire Bible, OT and NT, was written by Hebrews, Hebrews who were entirely immersed in Hebrew culture. It was Moses, a Hebrew, who received the Torah from God, on Mt. Sinai, around 1400 BC. Though we typically think of Moses receiving only the 2 stone tablets of the 10 commandments from God while leading the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt, in fact the 10 commandments were just a tiny piece of all that Moses received in those several trips up and down that mountain. Moses actually received most of what is now the first 5 books of what we call the OT. Torah is not a word you're gonna find in your modern English bibles. And, it’s a tragedy that that is the case. In general, where in the ancient texts the word Torah appeared, today you’ll find the word “Law”; this is a sad and somewhat intentional mistranslation, and this first happened when the scriptures were translated to Greek, and was fostered by the desire of the early Church to distance itself from the Jewish people. Torah does not mean “law”; in an overly simplistic sense, it means “teaching”