Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Humash" (or "Xuma$) is derived form Xame$, "five" - the five books.
Actually, a little strangely, each book is called "a humash", such as
"Humash Bereshit" - Genesis, and all five together are "the Humash" (the
capitals, of course, don't exist in Hebrew).
"Torah" literally means "instruction" or "teaching" (as a noun), often
tranlated "the Law". So literally, Yohanan is correct - "the Torah of Moses"
is the teachings of Moses that are contained within the books of the
Pentateuch. But in common usage, the books themselves are called "the
Torah", and tradition holds that they were written word for word by Moses
(there's a discussion in the Talmud about the last few verses in
Deuteronomy, that describe Moses' death and buirial - did Moses write them
prophetically or were they added by Joshua?). And then, by extention,
"Torah" can also refer to the totality of Jewish religious literature and
thought.

This is somewhat similar to the way that the word "Gospel/Euvangelos" is
used in Christianity. "The Gospel" is the "Good News" of Jesus' coming -
which is the message contained in the first four books of the NT. But then
each book is also called "The Gospel according to...", and collectively as
"The Gospels". But "Evangelical" does not just mean "of the Gospel", but
refers to all sorts of things "Christian", and "Gospel music" is not just
the NT put to music.

Yigal Levin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shoshanna Walker" <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
To: "Yohanan bin-Dawidh" <yohanan.bin.dawidh AT gmail.com>; "b-Hebrew" 
<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 2:53 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] A different generation of biblical scholarship


> "Torah" is the word for the entire Teaching, all of everything
> written down, and oral.
>
> Shoshanna
>
>
>
>
> Really.  I should think that "Torah" is the Jewish word for the 
> Pentateuch.
>
>
> Lloyd Barré
>
>
>
> --- On Sat, 2/7/09, Yohanan bin-Dawidh <yohanan.bin.dawidh AT gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>
> From: Yohanan bin-Dawidh <yohanan.bin.dawidh AT gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] A different generation of biblical scholarship
> To: l_barre AT yahoo.com
> Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 5:10 AM
>
>
>
> Lloyd;
>
> You wrote, "What is the Humash?"
>
> This is the Hebrew word for what you refer to as the Pentateuch.
>
> Yohanan bin-Dawidh
>
>
>
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