Thank you for sending in your questions and comments. I'm very happy to see so many people care about my articles. Many of the questions I receive repeat, and the answers are important for understanding future articles. Here are the questions...
Is there a difference between the Torah and the Bible?
The word Torah usually refers to the Five Books of Moses. Tanach is the word used to refer to the Torah and all the writings and prophets. There are a few differences between the Torah and the Christian Bible.
First, the Christian bible is based on a translation of the Torah to Greek. This happened about 2,000 years ago. This translation has many mistakes and can not be considered accurate. Over time, Christian publishers have tried to fix some of the mistakes that resulted over time, but it will never be as accurate as the Hebrew original, which is what I refer to when quoting the Torah.
This isn't the gentile publisher's fault! Hebrew is a deep and holy language. We believe that every single word, every letter, is important - Remember, the Torah is the word of G-d! For example, in Exodus 32:1, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan translates in The Living Torah, "They gathered around Aaron and said to him, 'Make us a god to lead us'... " The Hebrew word used is "al", meaning "on top of", implying that if Aaron would have refused, they would have killed him. This is how we know that Aaron agreed to help them build the Golden Calf against his will.
Now, if you just read the English translation, you would think they just came to him and asked. But in Hebrew, we see that they were literally "on top of" him. If the Torah wanted to just tell us they gathered around him it would have used the word "saviv", which means "around". If Rabbi Kaplan had translated the word "al" literally, the English wouldn't have made sense.
Keep in mind: Rabbi Kaplan translation is considered the most accurate English translation available today, and he translated from the Hebrew. Also, this is just one example - every sentence of the Torah can be read deeply. Plus, most gentile bibles are not translated from the Hebrew, but from some preexisting translation. This leads to further errors and misunderstandings.
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