Question: When was the Torah written? By whom?

Answer: The Torah was shown in its entirety to Moses at Sinai, who wrote it precisely as shown. G-d himself penned the “Ten Statements” on the two Tablets. All this occurred 3,323 years ago.

Regards,
Eliahu Levenson

Question: On what evidence do you calculate 3321 years?

Answer: Since you asked, what is written below is from other work I have committed to writing on the subject:

The following are the calculations up until the Flood, using the information found in Genesis, Chapter 5:

1) Born Hebrew Year 1 – Adam

2) Born Year 130 – Shais (Seth)

3) Born Year 235 – Enosh

4) Born Year 325 – Kaynon (Kenan)

5) Born Year 395 – Mahalalail (Mahalalel)

6) Born Year 460 – Yared (Jered)

7) Born Year 622 – Chanoach (Enoch)

Born Year 687 – Mesushalach (Methuselah)

9) Born Year 874 – Lamech

10) Born Year 1,056 Noach (Noah)

To continue our time-line, we turn to Genesis 7:11 – “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life…the windows of the Heavens were opened.”

Noah was born in 1,056. Exactly 600 years later the Heavens opened and flooded the Earth for 40 days and 40 nights.

1,056 + 600 = 1,656, the year of the Flood. Using our present day Gregorian calendar, subtracting 1,656 from the current Hebrew year, 5,769, we have the result that the flood waters began falling 4,113 years ago. That’s not so very long a time. In God’s way of viewing time, the entire history of Man will seemingly move from beginning to end in the blink of an eye.

Note that God’s Hebrew Scriptures tell us that Methuselah lived 969 years. Born year 687 and adding 969, we get 1,656 as Methuselah last year, the year of the Flood. Lamech died five years prior to the Flood.

We step back to begin part two of this Godly time-line.

Noach was born in year 1,056.

Genesis 7:6 says, “Noach was six hundred years old when the Mabul was upon the earth.”

Again, we therefore determine the Flood to have occurred in 1,656.

Genesis 7:13-16 – “...in the 601st year…in the second month, the 27th day of the month, the earth was completely dry. God spoke to Noach, saying, leave the Teiva (Ark).”

The year is 1,657, and God will now give His Noachide Covenant to all humankind, through Noach and his sons, and all their generations forever. As of this writing in the current Hebrew year 5,769, we subtract to realize that God made His Noachide Covenant 4,112 years ago, not so very long ago at all.

Genesis 9:8-9 – And God said to Noach and his sons with him, saying, ‘And as for Me, BEHOLD! I establish My Covenant with you and your offspring after you…”

Genesis 9:12 – “...for generations FOREVER!”

Genesis 9:29 – “And all the days of Noach were 950 years; and he died.”

From the birth of Noach in 1,056, this brings us to year 2,006.

The following are the calculations from Genesis, Chapter 11, where God provides the information needed to calculation the second ten generations, from Noach to Avraham.

Notice that Noach is counted as both the last of the first ten generations and the first of the second ten generations. This would be in accordance of his being the first of the new post-Flood world.

1) Born Hebrew Year 1,056 – Noach (Noah)
Disembarks from Teiva in year 1,657

Note: To continue our count with Shem, we must go back to Genesis 5:32, which reads, “Noach was 500 years old, he fathered Shem, Cham (Ham), and Yafes.”

There is a slight modification in the counting here that is brought down by Jewish tradition. We are taught that this is not the actual order of the three children, and that Shem was born after 502 years, rather than 500.

2) Born Year 1,558 (1,056 + 502) – Shem

3) Born Year 1,658 – Arepachshad

4) Born Year 1,693 – Shalach (Shalah)

5) Born Year 1,723 – Eiver (Eber)

6) Born Year 1,757 – Peleg

7) Born Year 1,787 – Reu

Born Year 1,819 – Serug

9) Born Year 1,849 – Nachor (Nahor)

10) Born Year 1,948 – Avraham

From the Torah directly we have been able to calculate with great accuracy the timeline dates of the first ten generations, the giving of God’s Noachide Covenant, and the dates of the second ten generations. In the next installment we will calculate the timeline to the giving of God’s Jewish Covenant. To understand God’s Noachide Covenant properly requires some understanding of the coming into being of God’s Jewish Covenant as well.

We have looked at the first ten generations, from Adam to Noach, and the second ten generations from Noach to Avraham. We now follow our timeline from the birth of Avraham to the giving of the Torah at Sinai, a period that covers exactly 500 years.

Avraham was born in the Hebrew year 1,948.

Genesis 17:1 – “When Avram (Avraham) was 99 years old, God appeared (in some spiritual way) before Avram…

Genesis 18:14 – “...I (God) will return to you next year at this time and Sara will have a son…”

Avraham was 100 when his son Yitzchak (Isaac) was born, making the Hebrew year 2,048.

Genesis 25:26 – “...Yitzchak was 60 years old when she (Rivka) bore…”

Yitzchak was 60 years old when Yaacov (Jacob) was born, making the Hebrew year 2,108.

Genesis 47:9 – “The days of the years (my age)...have been 130 years…

Yaacov’s son Yosef (Joseph) was sold into slavery and ends up Viceroy of Egypt. After a series of events, Yosef sends for his father. Yaacov arrives in Egypt with his entire family. This is the beginning point for the building of the Jewish Nation in Egypt. Yaacov is 130 at this time, making the Hebrew year 2,238.

We know by Jewish tradition that the Jewish Nation remained in Egypt for 210 years, when “the great hand of God” (this is a euphemism, not a physical hand) removed the Jews from the slavery of the cauldron that was Egypt.

The year was 2,238 + 210 = 2,448.

2,448 is the year God gave the Torah to the Jewish Nation at Sinai. The Torah is the Covenantal agreement between God and the Jewish Nation, just as God made a covenantal agreement with all of humankind through Noach and his progeny in the Hebrew year 1,657, only 791 years prior.

A second means of arriving at the year 2,448 for the giving of the Torah is as follows:

Genesis 15:13 – “And He said to Avram, ‘...your offspring shall be strangers in a land not their own – and they will serve them, and they will be oppressed by them – four hundred years.”

The Jewish sages tell us that the count on this four hundred years begins with the birth of Avraham’s son Yitzchak, the Hebrew year already given to us as 2,048. 2,048 + 400 = 2,448. That is only 3,323 years ago. Seems like just yesterday.

Regards, Eliahu Levenson