The Pentateuch is a book that ties people together. Much of the world can trace the foundation of their moral fabric it. According to the essays in Joseph Blenkinsopp's book Treasures of the Old and New: Essays in the Theology of the Pentateuch, the five books are an embodiment of the collective memory of the tribes of Israel. It was originally assembled to give solid form to the Jew's cultural identity and shared past as they returned from the Babylonian exile. The tribes chose to humbly accept it as the authority by which they lived. The cultural success they experienced led to the Pentateuch becoming a moral blueprint for running a just society.
In his first essay, "Memory, Tradition, and the Construction of the Past in Ancient Israel", Blenkinsopp explains that the Pentateuch was assembled during the Babylonian exile that started after the destruction of the first temple in 586 BCE. The Jews had a collective history before that, but it was transmitted orally or scattered among other writings (Blenkinsopp, 4). The purpose of setting down the traditions, stories, and rules of living into the Pentateuch was to give the people a unifying cultural and political identity. "It fell to the traditional Jewish leaders - and to the charismatic prophets who spoke for God- to preserve the religion and identity of the Jews in Exile" (Wylen, 19).
"It is a truism that in antiquity religion cannot be separated from politics" (175). Thus we should not be surprised that the Jews took their political identity from a religious document. Worship of God as described in the Torah and the establishment of traditions to honor it became the binding force for the Israelites. Even the territory of the original twelve tribes which the Jews claimed is recorded in the Bible as a gift from God.
The interesting thing about the Pentateuch, however, is that it was only assembled once. After it was committed to writing it could be referre...