Religious Fact of the Day

Being that I am studying religion and want to teach, I thought it might be fun to have a religious fact of the day around here. Religious knowledge is seriously lacking in this country, so maybe some people can learn something and maybe it could spark some interesting discussions.

Note: I am not someone who believes the Bible is literally true and inerrant. That means you aren't going to see any facts like "God created the world in six, twenty-four hour days." That also doesn't mean that every fact is going to be completely indisputable. Even amongst secular researchers there is a wide variety of opinions on various topics.

If you want to discuss it further, please do so in the comments section or send me an email. Please, though, if you want to dispute a fact, offer up some evidence or a source for your counter-argument. And, no, "the Holy Spirit told me" is not evidence. Not unless you tell the Holy Spirit to come tell me the same thing.

Anyway, without further ado...

The Torah also known as the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) was compiled from oral stories and brief written accounts in the period after the destruction of Solomon's Temple by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. It was basically complete in the form we know today by 400 BCE.