Pentateuch

The Pentateuch (from the Greek pentateuchos, five-volumed) designates the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In Hebrew tradition these books are collectively called the Torah (instruction or law) and are regarded as the foundational revelation of God to Israel through Moses. The division into five books reflects the format of ancient scrolls rather than any internal thematic break, and the five books form a continuous narrative from creation through Moses's death on the plains of Moab.

The Pentateuch establishes the narrative and theological foundations of all subsequent Scripture: the creation and fall, the covenant with Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the Sinai covenant and law, and the forty-year wilderness journey. Moses is the dominant human figure and the instrument of divine revelation throughout. The New Testament repeatedly appeals to the Pentateuch as authoritative Scripture, and Jesus's affirmation that Moses wrote of me (John 5:46) anchors a Christological reading of the five books that runs throughout the New Testament epistles and the Gospels.