The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (The Schocken Bible, Volume 1)

This edition presents the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known in Jewish tradition as the Torah and in Greek as the Pentateuch. It opens with the creation of the world and the early generations of humankind, then traces the lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the covenant between God and their descendants. The story moves to Egypt, where the Israelites are enslaved, and follows Moses as he leads them out toward the land promised to them, ending at its threshold. Along the way the books contain the Ten Commandments and a large body of religious, ritual and civil law. Readers have long treated them as a foundation for ethics and legal thought, and as a sustained meditation on the relationship between people and God, on community, and on living a just life.