PATIENT
The Torah (Pentateuch)
COVERS
Creation to the death of Moses
FORM
Narrative, law, poetry
COMPILED
c. 6th–5th century BCE
CHIEF COMPLAINT
Where did everything come from, who are we to each other and to God, and what do we owe?
HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS
The five books of Moses are the founding document of Judaism and the root text for Christianity and Islam. Genesis moves from the universal (creation, the flood, Babel) to the particular (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph). Exodus is the liberation from Egypt and the covenant at Sinai. Leviticus is the book of holiness: sacrifice, purity and ethics. Numbers is the wilderness. Deuteronomy is Moses retelling the story and renewing the law before he dies. Written over centuries and compiled in its current form around the 6th–5th century BCE.
REVIEW OF SYSTEMS
COVENANT
A binding relationship, sealed with Abraham three times and renewed at Sinai. The promise comes first; the law follows.
HOLINESS
Leviticus: be holy because I am holy. Impurity is a category of ritual state, not a moral failing, and the laws apply to everyone equally.
LIBERATION
The Exodus is the central event: slavery, the plagues, the sea, and a people who are later told to remember what it was like.
ATONEMENT
Yom Kippur: sins are carried away, not just forgiven on paper. The template for atonement across the whole biblical tradition.
JUSTICE
The poor, the stranger and the daughters of Zelophehad all appear in the law. 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother.'
PHYSICAL EXAM — STYLE & STRUCTURE
- —Torah means 'instruction', not just 'law'. It holds narrative, law, genealogy, poetry and speeches.
- —Two creation accounts sit side by side in Genesis 1 and 2, one cosmic and structured, one intimate and relational.
- —Joseph is a novella: a long, tightly built story inside the book of Genesis.
- —Leviticus reads strangely to modern ears. The key is that purity concerns contact with the forces of death, and holiness is a boundary between ordinary and sacred.
- —Deuteronomy ends with Moses commissioning Joshua, blessing the tribes, and his death: 'no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses.'
ASSESSMENT & PLAN
Start with Genesis 1–3, the Exodus story (Exodus 1–15), Exodus 20, Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 6 and 30. Skim the Tabernacle blueprint and sacrifice sections on a first pass and come back. It is a non-denominational reference guide. The full guide recommends Robert Alter (W. W. Norton) as the closest English rendering of the Hebrew's literary quality.