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Name applied to the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The contents of the Torah as a whole are discussed, from the point of view of modern Biblical criticism, under Pentateuch, where a table gives the various sources; while its importance as a center of crystallization for the Hebrew canon is treated under Bible Canon. The present article, therefore, is limited to the history of the Pentateuch in post-Biblical Judaism.

The Torah receives its title from its contents, the name itself connoting "doctrine." The Hellenistic Jews, however, translated it by νόμος = "law" (e.g., LXX., prologue to Ecclus. [Sirach], Philo, Josephus, and the New Testament), whence came the term "law-book"; this gave rise to the erroneous impression that the Jewish religion is purely nomistic, so that it is still frequently designated as the religion of law. In reality, however, the Torah contains teachings as well as laws, even the latter being given in ethical form and contained in historical narratives of an ethical character.