Summary of the Torah with Liberal Commentary

Robert H. Schram

Description

The Documentary Hypothesis posits that there are four major sources of the Torah (J, E, P, and D) canonized in about 400 BCE. The historic and archeological evidence supports the fact that many very similar Torah stories and laws predated it by many centuries.
With the number of punishments being over three times the number of rewards, the authors make it very clear that our vengeful God does not hesitate to punish anyone who does not obey his commands including the Israelites. Furthermore, the punishments are considerably more horrible than the rewards are wonderful. God punishes all humanity by killing everyone with a flood except Noah and his family and as a reward He promises never to do it again. Many times, God has threatened to wipe the people out and has killed many tens of thousands in punishment but has never let them perish (reward).
In contradiction God commands people to live a maximum of 120 years that is contradicted on many occasions. Soon after flooding the earth killing all except Noah and his family God forbids people to kill other people. Repetitions occur once, twice, or many times. The repetitions are in all Five Books: Pharoah’s hardened heart and what God did for the Israelites in Egypt is repeated thirty-nine times. The Teachings (i.e., the Torah) are for all time (repeated forty-eight times). The wonders God performed is repeated thirteen times and his promises occur sixty times. Making an oath, a pledge, or a vow is repeated seventy-one times, twenty-three times and nineteen times respectively.
Many of the commandments are redundant varying language to say the same thing usually with a negative and a positive commandment. Many are repeated in more than one Book.
Deception and lying are human traits utilized by both humans and God. God deceives Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to test his faithfulness and at the last moment gives him a ram entangled in a thicket to sacrifice instead of his son. Rebekah who favored her son Jacob over Esau deceived her husband Isaac who favored Esau into blessing Jacob disguised as Esau. Laban deceived Jacob and received fourteen years of his labor so he could marry his two daughters, Leah, and Rachel. Rachel deceives both her husband Jacob and her father Laban by secretly taking Laban’s idols. Simeon and Levi deceive the men of Shechem with a peace pact they do not uphold. Jacob’s sons deceive their father regarding the fate of their brother Joseph, who they sold to a passing caravan headed toward Egypt. When Er died, his father Judah did not give his wife Tamar one of Er’s brothers so she could bear a child. Tamar deceived Judah into lying with her so she could conceive a child. The Teaching by God is a gift to the Israelites for all time however, it was used as a witness against the people for all their infidelities: Gather to me all the elders of your tribes and your officials, that I may speak all these words to them and that I may call heaven and earth to witness against them (D31:28).
Does creating humankind in the likeness of God mean our physical bodies are like our Creators or human characteristics, traits, senses, and personalities are like our Creator, or both? God having human traits and characteristics is clear throughout the Five Books. God’s human traits throughout the five books include: Forgiveness; do for me and I will do for you (tit for tat); remembering; anger and wrath; changing one’s mind; showing one’s power and glory; impassioned; compassionate; making errors; sense of smell and hearing; disowning others; testing others; defiance; showing displeasure and vexation; making promises; abandonment of others; forecasting; vengeance.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Judaism
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669870111
• Langue: English

Extrait

SUMMARY OF THE TORAH WITH LIBERAL COMMENTARY







ROBERT H. SCHRAM



Copyright © 2023 by Robert H. Schram.

ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-7012-8
eBook
978-1-6698-7011-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 03/14/2023





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Contents
Introduction

Book of Genesis
Book of Exodus
Book of Leviticus
Book of Numbers
Book of Deuteronomy

Summary and Conclusions
References



Introduction
The Documentary Hypothesis as explained by Gunther Plaut’s General Introduction to The Torah…A Modern Commentary xxii thru xxiv concluded the following:
The Torah is written in different literary styles with discrepancies in certain accounts and figures. The Documentary Hypothesis says there are four major sources of the book (J, E, P, and D). The combination of these four sources resulted in the creation of a single book, the Torah and was considered a sacred text canonized about 400 BCE. J is the author who used the divine name YHWH and probably lived in the Southern Kingdom sometime after the death of King Solomon (931 BCE); he was responsible for most of Genesis. E uses the divine name Elohim and authored the binding of Isaac (Gen 22) and other Genesis passages as well as much of Exodus and Numbers; he most likely was a northern contemporary of J. D is the author of Deuteronomy claimed to be the book discovered by King Josiah in 621 BCE. P is the author of the first chapter of Genesis, the book of Leviticus and other sections interested in genealogies and priesthood. P is considered the latest part of the Torah composed during or after the Babylonian exile (597-516 BCE). Some theorized that P was the framework into which J/E and D were fitted in the fifth century BCE while others theorize it was the earliest not the latest book to be incorporated. There appeared translations over the centuries in Aramaic (Targum), Greek (Septuagint), Latin (Vulgate), Syriac (Peshitta), and today in just about every written language.
The Documentary Hypothesis posits that:
1. The language varies;
2. Varying ideology;
3. Narrative contradictions
4. The text is strangely repetitive for no obvious reason.
The belief that God wrote (i.e., dictated the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai) the Torah raises the question why an omnipotent, omniscient God would vary the language and ideology with narrative contradictions and text repetitiveness. In Genesis God is called Elohim . Starting in Genesis 2:4, a second and different account of creation begins - in which God is called Yahweh . The two accounts vary in ideology. Elohim was transcendent - creating the world by his will alone, without human interaction. Yahweh is immanent, almost human: He talks with Adam and performs surgery on him to get Eve from his rib.
Contradictory stories: Elohim creates the animals on Thursday and then creates man and woman on Friday - together. Yahweh creates man, then the animals, and then Eve from his rib as a partner.
The repetition and contradictions start with Genesis. Noah’s Ark story is two interwoven accounts with God’s name switching back and forth (Elohim and Yahweh) in passage to passage. Noah loads the animals onto the Ark twice: Thus they that entered comprised male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him. (Genesis 7:9); and then again just a few passages later And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. (Genesis 7:15)
Even more strikingly, perhaps, we are told twice that the flood covered the earth: The waters swelled and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark drifted upon the waters. (7:18) followed by When the waters had swelled much more upon the earth, all the highest mountains everywhere under the sky were covered. (7:19)
The four writers are: The Yahwist, the Elohist, priests, and the Deuteronomist. A Redactor merged the first four books and his ideology in Deuteronomy is clearly one God, one temple coinciding with unification of the Judaic cult during the reign of King Josiah starting 622 BCE.
Shaphan the scribe said he found the book in the Temple and showed the king, saying: The high priest Hilkiah has given me a scroll; and Shaphan read it to the king. When the king heard the words of the scroll of the Teaching, he rent his clothes. (2 Kings 22:10-11) Josiah ordered sweeping religious reforms: centralized the Jewish cult in Jerusalem banning its practice anywhere else; created a powerful oligarchy of temple priests who took over and became the cultural elite of Judah. The priestly writings were carried out in the final decades of Judah before 586 BCE, but most would be written during the Babylonian exile.
Persian Cyrus the Great returned the Jews to Jerusalem in 538 BCE with Ezra, a decedent of the temple priests to function as the leader of the return. Ezra the scribe wrote at least some parts of the Priestly sections and is a good candidate for the redactor. Nehemiah, Ezra’s contemporary seems to imply that at least some of the book of the law of Moses read to the people by Ezra on Rosh Hashanah upon the return from Babylonia was new. Several versions were in circulation before canonized as the Masoretic Text. From the Second Temple, 6 th century BCE – 1 st century CE, much of the Torah existed as written today.
All the Torah quotes are from the translations in Sefaria online ( https://www.sefaria.org/ ). Each of the five books will be summarized by Parsha followed by ‘Documentary Hypothesis’ commentary after each portion with similar stories from other ancient cultures and nations.
Torah Portions
The weekly parashah is the portion of the Torah read each week. This weekly division ensures that the entire Torah is read by the end of the year. Each parashah is named after the first meaningful word in the portion. https://www.sefaria.org/topics/torah-portions



Genesis In the Beginning ( Bereshit ) G1:1-6:8

Genesis begins with Creation: heaven and earth; darkness and light; day and night; evening and morning; expanse above the water (seas) called sky; dry land called earth; vegetation with seed bearing plants and fruit trees; lights in the sky called stars; sea creatures and birds; beasts and creeping things on the earth; humans in our image (G1:26) to rule over all other creatures. On the seventh day God ceased his work and declared the seventh day as holy. God planted a garden in Eden and placed the first human (Adam) there to till and tend it. In the middle of the garden was the tree of life and a tree of knowledge of good and bad . A river waters the garden and divides into four branches: Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, Euphrates. Adam is forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad or he will die. God instructed Adam to name all the beasts and birds with no fitting counterparts for a human to be found. God created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs to be bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. The shrewd serpent told Eve that although God warned not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad or face death, he told her she would not die if she ate from the tree but would have her eyes opened and be like divine beings. Eve ate from the tree and gave some to Adam. Their eyes were opened, and they perceived their nakedness which they covered with loincloths.
The snake (i.e., all snake species) was punished by forever crawling on its belly eating dirt all the days of its life. Eve (i.e., all women) was punished by hard labor in pregnancies with her husband ruling over her in matters of sexual relations. Adam (i.e., all men) was punished by hard labor to obtain food from the ground. God made garments of skins for both Adam and Eve. God banished humankind from the garden and guarded the tree of life with a cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword so no one could eat from it and live forever. Soon brothers Cain, the tiller of the soil and Abel, the keeper of sheep were born; Cain offered God some fruit of the soil and Abel offered God the choicest firstlings of his flock. God paid heed to Abel but not to Cain who became distressed. Cain killed Abel and when God asked him where Abel was, he replied: I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper? (G4:9) God cursed Abel and punished him by preventing anything he plants to flourish and making him a ceaseless wanderer of the earth. God marked Cain lest anyone who met him should kill him even though God would exact sevenfold vengeance on anyone who kills him. Cain left the presence of God and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain and his wife birthed Enoch who begot Irad who begot Mehujael who begot Methusael who begot Lamech who begot Jabal who became the ancestor of those who dwell in tents and amidst herds…his brother Jubal became the ancestor of all who play the lyre and the pipe. Tubal-cain was also birthed and forged all implements of copper and iron. Lamech told his wives that he had killed two men who had wounded and bruised him so if Cain would be avenged seven-fold Lamech would be avenged seventy-seven-fold.
Adam and Eve bore another son Seth who begot Enosh and at th