When was torah assembled

Archaeology tells us that the Kingdom of Israel was the greater regional power, while Judah was a backwater vassal kingdom. Following Israel's subjection, many of the Israelite elite moved to the Judean capital - Jerusalem.

These Israelite refugees brought their sacred texts with them: the Elohist texts, which are probably the oldest in the Torah. These texts were probably written by court scribes in Semairah, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel, or by priests in one of the kingdom's important cultic sites such as Shilo. The Elohist source focuses on locations in the Kingdom of Israel and on the Israelite heroes Moses and Jacob, whom the Israelites saw as their ancestors.

It is not known whether the ancient Judeans also thought Moses and Jacob were their forefathers, but after the "Israelization" of Judah, they probably "adopted" their patriarchy too.

With this influx of culture coming in from the Kingdom of Israel, the Judean priestly cast had to come up with their own narrative about Judah with its own mythical leaders and traditions. This is where the Yahwist source comes from, though at least some may have been written by Judean scribes before the destruction of the kingdom of Israel.

Whatever the case, it was shortly after this destruction that the two texts, the Yahwist and the Elohist, were merged by scribes into a single book. The next portion of the Torah to be written is Deuteronomy, and this time we have a lot more information on its author. We even know his name: Shaphan though some think the author was the prophet Jeremiah. This scribe may have single-handedly changed the entire course of history by leading the king to profoundly change Jewish worship.

While the Yahwist-Elohic scripts take no issue with polytheism and people worshiping God or even several gods in temples and other cultic sites throughout the land, the ideology of Deuteronomy is clearly one God, one temple.

Its composition evidently coincides with the unification of the Judaic cult and exclusion of other gods, which happened during the reign of King Josiah starting in BCE. The account, possibly written by Shaphan himself, goes as follows: "And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. Scholars generally agree that this "book of the law" was an early version of Deuteronomy.

Shaphan claimed that the book had been found in the Temple while the priests were cleaning up the storeroom. Josiah's reforms centralized the Jewish cult in Jerusalem and banned its practice anywhere else. It created a powerful oligarchy of temple priests, which took over and became the cultural elite of Judah from then on. It is these Judean temple priests and their descendents who are the Priestly Source.

Theirs is not only by far the largest portion of the bible but was the last added — which doesn't mean the texts were added to the "end". For example, the first account of creation that opens the bible was written by these priests. Possibly the priests felt uncomfortable erasing ancient texts that came before theirs. They may have feared a force would punish them for editing of early text. While the Israelite priests saw themselves as descendants of the great Moses, the temple priests believed they descended from Zadok, the first High Priest to serve in King Solomon's Temple.

Put otherwise, the temple priests — the "priestly writer" — are suspected of adding Aaron to the story of Moses in order to legitimize their standing in society. Anyway, it was they who wrote all those laws in Leviticus. It was they who wrote most of the Bible. The earliest parts of this priestly writing were carried out in the final decades of the Kingdom of Judah, but most would be written during the exile in Babylonia, after Judah's destruction in BCE. These temple priests led the Jews in their exile and continued to write in Babylon.

Some even believe that Judaism as we know it today was forged in the crucible of the Babylonian exile. Ezra is called a scribe, a writer of books, and likely wrote at least some parts of the Priestly Source.

He is also a good candidate for the Redactor, who edited the whole library preserved during the exile into a single book, though some further edits and changes evidently took place later as well.

Nehemiah, also a Jewish leader and contemporary of Ezra, 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: "And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month.

There are some parallels between this story of the people learning about sukkot "booths" and the discovery of Deuteronomy, discussed above.

In the first case they learned that they should celebrate Passover for the first time; now in the case of Nehemiah and Ezra, they are told to celebrate Sukkot. Whether or not these holidays existed before the writings of Ezra and Deuteronomy is unknown.

Over the years the Bible continued to change, albeit slightly. Several versions were in circulation before the text was canonized in what we call the Masoretic Text. There are some places in the Torah where certain letters are larger or smaller than standard, or where the text is written in a different type of column. Each deviation from the norm carries a special meaning.

The two outer columns symbolize the sea parted on either side, with the middle column representing the children of Israel marching on dry ground. Visually, this sets the section apart from the surrounding columns. Such changes were instituted by the Masoretes — scribes of the 7th-9th centuries who standardized the biblical text — to highlight the importance of certain passages.

All of the writing and layout must be done exactly to specification in order for the scroll to be kosher. Writing a Torah scroll is a holy task. In preparation, the scribe immerses in a mikvah ritual bath. Before beginning a new scroll, he recites a formula declaring his intent to write the scroll for a holy purpose.

He then crosses it out with a number of strokes in order to fulfill the commandment of blotting out the name of Amalek, a biblical enemy of the Jewish people Deuteronomy The scribe cannot write a Torah scroll from memory, and must refer to a written book called a tikkun correction guide. Memorization is permitted for the writing of other ritual items. Whenever he writes the name of God, the scribe focuses on the task by declaring out loud his intention to honor God by writing the holy name.

One other ritual item written by a scribe is the megillah Book of Esther , which is read on Purim. However, in addition to ritual items, scribes also write legal documents such as a get bill of divorce or ketubah marriage contract.

The writing of all these items requires strict adherence to traditionally established form. The only place where the scribe has artistic license is in doing calligraphy for and decorating the ketubah. In this instance, creativity fulfills the precept of hiddur mitzvah , enhancing the joyous commandment by beautifying the item associated with fulfilling it. The Talmud Gittin 45b states that scrolls written by certain groups of people, such as women or minors, cannot be used.

The traditional understanding of this passage is that only those obligated to bind the teachings on their hand — that is, to wear tefillin — may write a Torah. In other words, being a sofer is restricted to adult Jewish males. Later commentators relate the obligation to study Torah with the writing of one. This raises the question: since women are not traditionally obligated to study, does this fully prohibit them from writing a Torah, or merely exempt them from it?

Today, there is recognition that women do study Torah and so there are those who argue that this permits women to write a Torah scroll. In addition, supporters of this position argue that numerous commentators in the past never put women on the list of those prohibited from fulfilling this sacred task. The majority of scribes today are Orthodox men, though there are a few female and liberal scribes. It is only in the past few years that a traditionalist woman, Aviel Barclay, has become a scribe, and has been commissioned to write a Torah scroll.

This is not without controversy as indicated perhaps by the fact that her teacher chooses to remain anonymous. Modern scribes also learn through individual apprenticeship and receive certification through a professional organization.

Interestingly, this is mirrored today in a nascent informal movement of traditionalist women learning this sacred craft secretly and teaching it to each other. This widening of the circle of scribes indicates its central importance for modern Judaism.

Pronounced: SO-fair ai as in hair , Origin: Hebrew, a scribe, one who transcribes religious works, especially the Torah. Comprised of the Mishnah and the Gemara, it contains the opinions of thousands of rabbis from different periods in Jewish history.