The Pentateuch, or Torah, is the charter document of Israel's covenant faith, the foundation of Scripture and the key to understanding the biblical story. The themes that are first struck in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy resonate throughout the Bible. To understand the message of the Pentateuch is essential to interpreting what follows.No serious student of the Bible can shortcut a mastery of these "five books of Moses." Yet many introductions to the Pentateuch are uninviting and tend to obscure the vast mural of the Pentateuch with the scaffolding of scholarship.Gordon Wenham has devoted much of his scholarly career to understanding the Pentateuch, and in this volume he reliably guides students through the corridors of the text, pointing out its features and explaining its difficulties.