In Judaism, the divine revelations to Israel; specifically, the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
By tradition their authorship has been ascribed to Moses, but biblical scholarship has shown that they were written and compiled at a much later date, probably in the 9th–5th century &BC;, though drawing on much older traditions. The Scroll of the Torah (Sefer Torah) is kept in the Synagogue Ark. The term Torah (but not Pentateuch) is often applied to the whole Hebrew Scripture (i.e., the later books of the Old Testament), or, even more generally, to that and other Jewish sacred literature and oral tradition.
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