Contents | Index
The Jews and Torah
There was no nation in all of antiquity who had been so immersed in their
national writings as the Jews were in their law. Not even the Greeks in the zenith
of the Periclean Age could come close. Some may have possessed a larger amount
of text with vast literature, but the Jews were in love with their book and
they were a people of that book. For the Jew, it was not merely a representation
of a prized culture, but it was Torah… and Torah was, to him, the voice of
almighty God. Its instruction was to be obeyed without question, and followed to the
very letter. The moral law impacted every thought, the civil law influenced
every judicial system within Judaism, and the ceremonial law affected every
lifestyle from the home to the Temple.
Also see The Text of the Old Testament