The Torah, containing the five books of Moses dedicated to the
basic laws of Judaism, was written around 1,000 BCE. It was
followed by the other books (Prophets and Writings) and form the
Old Testament. The Greeks, referring to all seven books (the
Septuagint), called the entire work ta biblia (books). This
collection of books is dedicated to the theme of creation,
failure, judgment, exodus, exile, and restoration, and
introduced prescriptions for conduct, diet, justice, and
religious rites. The themes were presented against the broad
background in which laws pertinent to work, property, morals,
learning, relations between the sexes, individuals, tribes, and
other practical knowledge (e.g., symptoms of diseases, avoidance
of contamination) were introduced in normative form, though in
poetic language.
The pragmatic framework explains the physics of the
prescriptions: What to do or not do in order to become useful in
the given context, or at least not to be harmful. It also
explains the metaphysics: why prescriptions should be followed,
short of stating that failure to do so affects the functioning
of the entire community. What was kept in writing from the
broader oral elaborations that constituted the covenant
(testament) for practical experience was the result of pragmatic
considerations. Writing was done in consonantal Hebrew, a
writing system then still at its beginning, on parchment scrolls,
and thus subject to the limitations of the medium: How much text
could be written on such scrolls in a size that facilitated
reading and portability.
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